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Men, the title of my sermon this morning is Infatuation. Infatuation, now when I was growing up in church, I grew up as an independent fundamental Baptist and this was a constant theme that was sounded in the preaching when I was growing up, that you're not in love, you're infatuated or don't confuse love with infatuation. This was something that I heard over and over again. But what did they mean by that when these preachers of yesteryear would sound that note? Well if you look up infatuate in the dictionary, it means to inspire or possess with a foolish or unreasoning passion as of love. So notice that it's passion of love but it's foolish or unreasoning, like it doesn't make sense from a logical standpoint. Number two, to affect with folly, to make foolish or fatuous because there actually is an English word, fatuous, which means foolish, dumb, silly, simple, stupid, whatever. And then I looked up infatuation and one of the definitions was foolish or all absorbing passion or an instance of this. And notice the all absorbing nature of infatuation. So this is when people get fixated and they're just so in love with someone but there are a lot of reasons why logically it doesn't make sense or maybe people are telling them why it's wrong or why they shouldn't feel that way. And so this would often come up in context of a young lady or a young man who's interested in an unsaved mate and they want to date an unsaved person but, but I love him, you know, and they're just so into that one person. And I feel like also our society, whether it be movies, TV, the music on the radio basically creates this kind of myth that basically you just follow your heart and you just go with feelings and, you know, there's just that one person out there and it's just, you know, you got to find that one person that, that's your destiny, you know, your other, you know, your soulmate that you were separated from in a previous existence and you're walking around half a person, you know, looking for that other half to match up with so that you can be whole again. Find that person to complete you, okay? And the problem is that, you know, these fictional things will sometimes blind people to the fact that, you know, God has some things to say in his word about love and about marriage and about the choices that we should make and we need to follow what the Bible says and what wise people are telling us. And that's what these pastors were trying to get across. Now I found three examples in the Bible of infatuation that all ended in disaster, okay? And while I'm going through these three examples, I want you to think about the definition of this word because this word infatuation is not a Bible word, right? This is just an English word that we use in our modern vernacular, but as we look at these stories in the word of God, you're going to see how this word is a good way to describe what's going on in these situations. And again, the definition is this foolish or unreasoning passion, this all absorbing passion that makes an idiot out of one, okay? Now go through to 2 Samuel chapter 13, we're going to start there, but obviously we just read the story of Samson and Delilah. That's probably the best example of infatuation in the Bible, but we want to save that one for last. So let's back up to 2 Samuel chapter 13 and start reading in verse number one. In 2 Samuel chapter 13, the Bible reads in verse number one, it came to pass after this, that Absalom, the son of David, had a fair sister, and fair is just referring the fact that she's beautiful. So he has this beautiful sister whose name was Tamar, and Amnon, the son of David, loved her. So Amnon's in love with Absalom's fair sister. And Amnon was so vexed that he fell sick for his sister, Tamar, for she was a virgin and Amnon thought it hard for him to do anything to her. So I mean, this guy is obsessed, he's getting literally physically ill because he's so in love with Tamar. Verse three, but Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shemaiah, David's brother, and Jonadab was a very subtle man. And he said to him, why art thou, being the king's son, lean from day to day? Would thou not tell me? And Amnon said unto him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. And of course his evil friend, Jonadab, who's subtle, not in a good way but in a bad way, sort of like the serpent was subtle in the Garden of Eden when he deceived Eve. And so he comes up with this plan of how he's going to get her alone and take advantage of her behind closed doors and so forth. And so he carries out that plan, for sake of time, we're going to jump down to verse 12. And he carries out the plan and he assaults her. And in verse 12, she answered him, nay, my brother, do not force me for no such thing ought to be done in Israel. Do not bow this folly. She's like, look, don't do this. This is stupid. Like what are you doing? You idiot. But he's blinded. He can't see the folly of what he's doing because he's infatuated, right? And I wither shall I cause my shame to go. As for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel. Notice again, fatuous means foolish. This is going to make an idiot out of you. This passion that you're not controlling, this love, it's not real. You know, you're making a fool of yourself. Now therefore I pray thee speak unto the king for he will not withhold me from thee. Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice but being stronger than she forced her and lay with her. But look at verse 15 because a lot of people when I preach about this, because I've talked about this multiple times in my sermons and a lot of people would say, well, well, you just don't get it. Pastor Anderson, you just don't get it because you've just never experienced a love. You know, Hey, I've been in love. I'm in love. I'm married. I have been married for the last 22 years I think and yeah, 22 that's right. Okay. It's, it's time goes fast when you're old. It's just like, you know, Hey, I've been married for 22 years. I've got 12 children. I've seen some things. I'm a pastor. I've done some things. I've seen things. I've talked to people. I know about how the world works. Teenagers of this world do. You know, the teenagers, they're always telling me how the world works, but I actually know how the world works. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm a mature person up here and, and, and the thing about this is that if this infatuation, this mono mania, this fixation on one person, if that's what true love is, then I'd like for you to explain to me the next verse here. Okay. Because the next verse says in 15 then Amnon hated her exceedingly so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. Now again, this is what these preachers of my youth were trying to get across. You can have butterflies in your stomach. You can be sick to your stomach. You can be obsessed. You can just be in love and think there is no one else in this world. It's got to be this one person. Does that make it real according to the Bible? No. So it's not that I don't understand how love works. It's that I do understand how love works and that it's the one who is infatuated who doesn't understand how love works. The fact that there are other fish in the sea, okay? Here's the thing. There are people that are available to you and there are people that are off limits to you as a young person of who you should date, who you should marry, and just because you have these very strong feelings doesn't mean anything because these feelings can be an illusion. You could be wrong about your feelings. Just the case of Amnon, he's definitely wrong. And so it says Amnon hated her exceedingly. So isn't it interesting that this so-called true love here isn't so true after all because it lasts for just a few minutes and then it's over? And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone. And she said unto him, there is no cause. Verse 16, this evil in sending me away is greater than the other that thou didst unto me. But he would not hearken unto her. And he called his servant that ministered unto him and said, put now this woman out for me and bolt the door after her. And I've got to tell you, and we don't have time to go through all the whole story, but man, every time I read that story, I get mad. And in fact, out of all the Bible stories, this is one of the top three that makes me the most angry. Like you know, you're kind of just glad when Amnon dies, you know what I mean? At least I am when I read the story because it's just, you know, obviously Absalom becomes a horrible villain and becomes a horrible, sick, evil person. But you can, at this point in the story, you can see where Absalom is coming from because man, this story really gets me mad of how he treats Tamar and how he abuses her and then just throws her out and it's just, it's really sickening, isn't it? And so it's a very bad example, but it's a good example of infatuation where someone says that they're just so in love and somebody's trying to talk sense into them and they're not listening. Okay. Now go to the second example, 1 Kings chapter two, and this is another really interesting story. I guess Sunday mornings have been a little bit David themed over the last a few weeks because last week I preached about Michal, David's wife. But in 1 Kings, again, I'm going to have to bring you up to speed in the story for sake of time, the second example, but in 1 Kings chapter one, David is at the point of death. He's on his death bed and he's very sick and the Bible says he can't get warm. Like nothing that he does can get warm. And I don't know if you've ever been sick where you're under all the blankets and you're just kind of like, and you just can't get warm. So basically, obviously these kings of Israel are practicing polygamy, which is wrong, but it's something that they did at that time. And so they said, well, you know, let's go seek for you some fair young virgin, you know, and she'll warm you up. You know, this is kind of, this is not a biologically sound logic, but you know, this is what they're thinking. So they go out and they find some, uh, fair young woman named Abishag and she's brought in to, to keep the king warm, but he does not end up actually having a relationship with her. He does not lie with her. He doesn't have a relationship with her. She's basically, they're serving him and taking care of him, but, uh, you know, that's not really what's on David's mind right now. You know, he's, he's dying. Okay. And so anyway, he dies and there's this whole story in chapter one where Adonijah tries to take over the kingdom for himself, even though it's supposed to be Solomon who's the next king. So he leads a faction to try to rebel and take control of the kingdom instead of Solomon and his rebellion is defeated and everybody ends up following Solomon. Solomon becomes king. And then in first Kings chapter two verse 13, we're going to pick up the story where Adonijah, the guy who had tried to be king and try to thwart Solomon, he comes to Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon with a strange request says in verse 13 Adonijah, the son of Hagith came to Bathsheba, the son of Solomon, or sorry, the mother of Solomon. And she said, comest thou peaceably? And he said peaceably because remember this guy had been an enemy a minute ago. He said, moreover, I have someone to say unto thee. And she said, say on. And he said, thou knowest that the kingdom was mine and that all Israel set their faces on me that I should reign. Howbeit the kingdom is turned about and has become my brothers for it was his from the Lord. Now, right away, that's a bizarre thing to say like, you know, it was mine. You know, the kingdom was mine. You know that, right? No, it wasn't, idiot. Okay. But he, you know, basically he's so prideful and arrogant that he thinks like, well, the only reason that I'm not king is because God said no. Well, first of all, that's a pretty good reason. If God says no, that's a great reason that you shouldn't be king. So you shouldn't be like, wow, I was practically mine. But it's this arrogant, prideful attitude like only God could defeat me. It's not that Solomon or David outsmarted me or outwitted me or outmaneuvered me. It's because I'm, you know, everybody wanted me, but you know, God said no. And since I'm second only to God, you know, he thinks he's the close high or whatever. And basically, you know, that's why this happened. So he's got a weird attitude, but then he asks this one petition and she says, say on verse 17 and he said, speak, I pray thee unto Solomon the king for he will not say thee nay. Are you sure about that? That he gave me Abishag the Shanimite to wife. Okay. Now, there are one of two things going on here and the Bible, when it tells us these stories in the Old Testament, it often leaves things ambiguous to where we don't really know what's going on in people's minds, right? So either one of two things are going on here. Either number one, he wants to get with Abishag who wasn't really his father's concubine or wife or anything, but she was kind of brought in for that purpose even though it didn't happen. It didn't end up happening. She was brought in for that purpose. Is he trying to maybe start jockeying for position or trying to set himself up to become the next king, like to somehow, you know, I don't know, displace Solomon or be the king after Solomon? Like is this some kind of a weird political move that he's trying to do? Or does he just think that Abishag is super beautiful and he just wants to get with her because they sought out the most beautiful woman they could find and he's just like, So let's go with the second theory. Let's say that he just really likes Abishag. Let's say he's just stupid and doesn't understand how this is going to look and he's just really obsessed with Abishag. Then this would be a great second example of infatuation, wouldn't it? Where a guy just gets so fixated on her beauty because she's obviously extremely beautiful, he gets so fixated on that that he can't see reason, he can't see how this is going to look, and guess what's going to happen? It's going to get him killed in a few verses because as soon as Solomon hears about this, he says, God do so to me and more also if I don't kill that sucker today. And that's a slight paraphrase, but he says like, I'm going to kill that guy. He's you know, what? Oh, you're asking for him that he could have Abishag to wife? Why don't you just ask him the kingdom also? Saying he's my older brother, why don't you just ask for him to be the next king too? Kill him. So basically Adonijah signs his own death warrant even though Solomon was going to let him live. Solomon pardoned him and forgave him and let him live, but when he asked this it's like that's it buddy, you're toast. So therefore, if we go with that second point of view that basically Adonijah doesn't really know what he's doing and that he's just being foolish, then this is a perfect case of infatuation where he's just, he's got to have that one woman. Now stop and think about the two situations we've looked at so far. Looked at Amnon and we've looked at Adonijah. Now they're both David's sons, right? They're both David's sons. What do they have in common? I mean, they're both probably in a position where they can pretty much have whatever woman that they want practically. Because these guys are in the royal family, they're super rich, they're super famous, they've got a really cool dad, they can pretty much have whatever woman they want. So if these guys had a couple of brain cells to rub together, they'd go find some other fair young maiden. Why be fixated on Tamar? Why be fixated on Abishag? Oh, true love, wrong. It's true stupidity, okay? And these guys should have found someone else. And by the way, this isn't one of my main three examples, but you could even talk about David and say that he's infatuated with Bathsheba because David's already got access to beautiful women and yet what does he do? He wants the one that he can't have where he goes up on the roof and he sees her bathing and he obviously becomes obsessed to where he's willing to sacrifice everything, to where he's willing to ruin everything, to destroy his life and destroy the lives of the people around him by committing adultery with Bathsheba and having Uriah killed. Why? Oh, because it's true love. Looking out the window at some other dude's wife taking a shower is not true love, okay? It's infatuation. You're making an idiot of yourself. You're making a fool of yourself with uncontrolled passions. Again, these two guys could have had other women. It's not like these guys just, you know, can't find a girlfriend or something. I mean they're the king's sons for crying out loud and yet they both end up dead. They both end up destroyed because of this foolish decision. And by the way, just a side note. It's also interesting to wonder what's going on in Bathsheba's head because you don't really know. Again, the narrator of the Bible doesn't tell us what's going on in people's minds in the story because she agrees to do this. When he says, you know, go get me, uh, go ask Solomon if he'll give me Abishag to be my wife. She says, okay, I'll ask. Now again, one of two possibilities. Is she just naively thinking like, okay, yeah, I mean that sounds fair. You like her. Hey, it's a consolation prize. You lost the kingdom, but you can have the fair maiden, whatever. Why not? Let's throw you a bone. Or is she thinking like, yeah, I'll pass this request on so that you can die cause I want you dead because you're my enemy. You know, you don't really know. Do you? The Bible doesn't really tell us. So a lot of these stories are a little bit ambiguous about the motives of the characters. But anyway, I think that that's another good example of infatuation. David and Bathsheba is one that we could bring up, Abishag and Adonijah, Amnon and Tamar. You can see this kind of runs in the family getting fixated on the wrong person. Now if you would go to Judges chapter 14, Judges chapter 14, Judges chapter number 14. Now I'm going to read for you from Judges chapter 14, although I do not believe that Judges chapter 14 is an example of infatuation. I do believe that Judges chapter 16 is a great example of infatuation. Judges 14 isn't, but I'm going to still show you this story in Judges chapter 14 because of what Samson's parents say to him that is so good and it kind of helps set us up for chapter 16. So look at what the Bible says in Judges chapter 14 verse 1, and Samson went down to Timnath and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines and he came up and told his father and his mother and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines, now therefore get her for me to wife. So the Philistines are the enemies of Israel, but they're also ruling over Israel. They're in power over Israel. They're like a foreign dominant power. Israel's like a tributary to the Philistines at this time. And it says in verse three, then his father and his mother said unto him, is there never, I just love what his parents say because it's because they're right. Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren or among all my people that thou go is to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? What do they say? Look, we're surrounded by women here, buddy. Open your eyes. Quit being obsessed with this one that you can't have. Now you say, well, I thought you said this is not an example of infatuation. Well his parents think it is though it's from their perspective because they don't know what's really going on as the next verse is going to tell us. Samson said unto his father, so Samson doesn't listen to his parents in verse three. He said unto his father, get her for me for she pleases me well. Here's why I say that Samson's not really infatuated even though his parents think he is. Verse four, but his father and mother knew not that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against the Philistines for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel. Now again, don't misunderstand verse four because some people have misunderstood this verse to think that somehow this is the right thing for Samson to do. It's not the right thing for Samson to do. To marry a heathen is not right, number one. And number two, to disobey his parents is not right. But why does it say, well this is of the Lord? What the Bible actually says in verse four is that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion to start stuff with the Philistines. So God has put in Samson's heart the desire to start a fight with the Philistines, to pick a fight with the Philistines, and here's the thing. How Samson goes about it is the wrong way. And in fact Samson is going to continually go about things the wrong way over the next few chapters, isn't he? He's not exactly a beacon of morality and godliness and spirituality. He's going to do a lot of wrong things, but his motivation is coming from God and his purpose in actually wanting to marry this woman of the Philistines is simply in order to start stuff with the Philistines. He wants to get, he's basically going behind enemy lines, he's infiltrating, he wants to pick a quarrel, he wants to pick a fight, he wants to go down there and kill Philistines, and that's what he's going to end up doing. He's going to go down there and kill a bunch of Philistines, that's what he wants to do. He's trying to liberate his people from the oppression of the Philistines. But how he's going about it is wrong and his parents are right. When his parents say to him, hey, what about all these Israelite girls? They're right. And he says, no, I want to marry this heathen girl. He's wrong. And he's going to do wrong again in chapter 16 when he goes to Harlot. Okay? Samson, and again, I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent, but this fits in with the greater theme of the book of Judges in general, which is a downward spiral of the nation of Israel and it's explaining why they need to eventually have a king, why the system of the judges ultimately fails. And so as you go down the story, it's like things keep getting worse and worse and worse until the last judge, you're kind of like, is this guy the good guy? You know, because he's this anti-hero by the time you get to Samson where it's like the quality of the judges is going down as you go through the book of Judges. And then finally you get to the most morally questionable of all judges, which is Samson. Okay. You know, you started out with Othniel, the son of Kenaz as a solid guy. And then you kind of just keep downgrading in a sense. And so let's jump to verse or chapter 16 with that in mind. So we see this thing with chapter 16 where his parents are giving him good advice and he doesn't listen. And yes, he does ultimately accomplish the mission of defeating the Philistines, but it costs him his own life and his own reputation and it costs him a lot of pain and suffering along the way. He would have done things in a more righteous manner. Obviously he could have still accomplished God's will without going through all the misery and destruction that he went through in the process. So look at chapter 16 verse four, and this I would say is a great example of infatuation. Verse four, it came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. And the Lords of the Philistines came up unto her and said unto her, entice him and his great strength lieth and by what means we may prevail against him that we may bind him to afflict him and we will give thee every one of us 1100 pieces of silver. And Delilah said to Samson, tell me I pray thee wherein thy great strength lieth and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. Now this is kind of a big red flag when your girlfriend asks you this. So you know, how might, let's just, we're just speaking totally theoretically here. How could I destroy you and get you killed if I wanted to? I'm not going to, I just want to know. Now any idiot would see that this woman is bad news and that she's conniving against him, that she's a wicked person, that she's in league with the enemy or whatever. Like Stevie Wonder could see what's going on here. And this is what's funny is that Samson ultimately gets his eyes put out, but he's already blind. You know, and that's just a physical manifestation of the fact that he was already blind. When it came to his mentality, he can't see what's going on because I don't know about you, but even just as a small child reading this story, I'm like, come on Samson, really? You know, and then, and then she keeps trying things to test it. It's like, are you, do you see what's going on here, buddy? And he just doesn't get it right. And then look at verse 16 and it came to pass when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him so that his soul was vexed unto death. Here's an idea. Get away from this woman. If she's vexing you to the point where you don't even care if you live or die anymore, get out of there. Get away from her. She's evil. She's trying to destroy you. Like, what are you doing? But again, infatuation is this blinding passion, this obsession, this monomania where you can't see what's going on. Like you can't see what's obvious to everyone else. And because you're just so fixated or blinded and that's what we see going on in the story. Now another example we could bring out that's just a secular example and it's a fictional example so it doesn't carry any weight because it's not from the Bible, but I always like to bring up the story of Romeo and Juliet, a couple of teenagers who are infatuated. And guess what? For those who've actually read the play, which is very few people, at the very beginning, he's into a different woman. Oh, Rosalyn. Romeo is totally into Rosalyn and he's obsessed with Rosalyn and then all of a sudden he sees Juliet and he's like, oh, never mind, forget Rosalyn, it's Juliet now. And so the point is that it's not that, oh, it's true love. This guy is capable of switching from Rosalyn to Juliet. Maybe he just needs to keep on switching until he finds someone that's not going to get them both killed. Okay, spoiler alert, Romeo and Juliet both end up dead, alright? So sorry to ruin it for you if you didn't know that that's how it ends, but it's a couple of teenagers, a couple of star-crossed lovers, a couple of teenagers who are infatuated with one another and they both end up dead. Happy story, huh? Wonderful love story. But yet our world loves this kind of stuff, which I'm not saying it's a bad story because it's a great cautionary tale, but if you're reading it as, oh, I just want this in my life, I want this kind of love in my life, it's like, well, okay, let's get you a couple of body bags and we can get this kind of love in your life. Why would you want this in your life? It's like, hello, is anybody home? It's a tragedy. It's about what not to do. Don't try this at home, kids. So what's the moral of the story, okay? The moral of the story is, number one, listen to your parents, Samson. Listen to your parents. Proverbs 13, verse one, a wise son heareth his father's instruction, but a scorner heareth not rebuke. Proverbs 15, five, a fool despises his father's instruction. Sorry I changed that th to an s, Patrick Boyle. But he that regardeth reproof is prudent. Proverbs 23, 22, hearken unto thy father that begat thee and despise not thy mother when she's old. So you know, the Bible is telling you, hey, listen to your parents, listen to mom and dad, listen to their advice, okay? They know more than you, teenagers. But not only that, by the way, let me say this, the father has a right to veto a marriage that he doesn't approve of. That is biblical. Exodus chapter 22, verse 16, if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refused to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins. So there's a situation where a father might just utterly refuse to give the daughter to the suitor. Not only that, but we could just go throughout the Bible and see over and over again this idea of giving in marriage, right? Marrying and giving in marriage. What does that mean? It's the father giving his daughter in marriage. And by the way, that's why when we have a wedding, we say who gives this woman away? I do. Why do we ask the father who gives this woman away? He says, I do because he's giving her away. He says I do because he do. Okay? And so, you know, all throughout the Bible we have this idea of like, for example, Deuteronomy 7, verse 3 says, neither shalt thou make marriages with them, thy daughter shalt thou not give unto his son. You know, talking about like the Philistines or something. Thy daughter shalt thou not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. So you see this idea over and over again. Deuteronomy 22, 16, the damsel's father shall say unto theirs, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife and he hateth her. Matthew 24, 38, they were marrying and giving in marriage. Mark 12, 25, marry, you know, they don't marry, they're not given in marriage. So you just have this term over and over again. Luke 20, verse 34, Jesus said, the children of this world marry and are given in marriage and on and on. 1 Corinthians 7, 38, so then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well, he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better. And so there is this concept of, you know, the father of the bride giving in marriage. And so not only, number one, should we listen to the advice of our parents, but also the father does have the power to veto, you know, a spouse that he doesn't like. And I will say this, you know, obviously this shouldn't be a power that's abused. You know, for example, it's sort of, let me give you an illustration of an abuse of the veto. It'd be sort of like this. If I asked my wife like, hey honey, where would you like to go out to eat? And she says, why don't you decide? Sound familiar? And I'm like, okay, how about this place? Nope. How about this place? Nope. How about this place? No. How about this place? No. How about this place? Why don't you just tell me where you want to go? And we can say it's not, no, no, no, I want you to pay. Okay. Okay. How about this place? How about this place? How about this place? How about this place? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh, I figured it out. Finally. Where do you want to go? See, that's the wrong kind of veto. When you're vetoing 90% of the options, that's a wrong kind of veto. The veto should be reserved for a situation where you want to use the veto because if you're vetoing everything, then at that point you're just trying to pick who your kid marries at that point. You're trying to pick exactly. But let me ask you this. Did Samson's parents seem like they were trying to pick exactly who Samson married? Or didn't they just say like, look at all these women. Look at all these people. Like, why don't you just pick one? They're not saying like, well, you know, we've wanted you always to marry, you know, Shlomo's daughter over here, you know. And we, you know, they didn't have a certain person in mind. They're not just vetoing all of these legitimate candidates. They have a reason to veto, you know. They don't want them to marry one of the daughters of the Philistines, you know. And that's a legitimate reason to veto. And there could be other legitimate reasons to veto. And you know, here's the thing. I don't want to pick my children's spouses for them. Although sometimes I feel like if we picked our children's spouses, we'd probably, sometimes maybe we would do a better job than they would. But you know, who knows. But the thing is, like, I don't want to make that decision. I don't want that responsibility. You know, I'd rather that they make their own bed and lie in it, you know. And that they pick the person that they want to be with. And I don't believe in arranged marriages. I believe that people should be given the freedom to choose who they want to marry. But at the end of the day, though, at the end of the day, you should listen to people's advice, number one. And number two, your dad has veto power, you know. And again, not that he would abuse that veto power. Because think about it. If the president is just vetoing every legislation until it's exact, then he's kind of, at that point, he's being kind of a dictator at that point. He's just vetoing everything. You know, is that what Biden has done? I don't follow, I don't even follow it, but okay, I'll take your word for it. I don't know. Is Biden even, is he even still functioning? Is he even still awake? Whoever's controlling Biden, whoever's, his handler is vetoing stuff. So alright, so let's move on. So not only should you listen to your parents, but also, by the way, you should just listen to other people. Because listen to what the Bible says in Proverbs 11 verse 14, where no counsel is the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. Proverbs 12, 15, the way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise. Without counsel, purposes are disappointed, but in the multitude of counselors they're established. Proverbs 19, 20, hear counsel and receive instruction that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end. Proverbs 20 verse 18, every purpose is established by counsel and with good advice make war. Not saying that marriage is war, I'm just saying. Listen to counsel in general, in your life. Listen to advice, listen to other people. Listen to what people are saying, because sometimes you can get too emotional, you're too close to the situation, sometimes you need to step back and listen to what other people are saying. Hear what your parents are saying, hear what other people are saying, no, I'm not going to let anything get in the way of true love. You need to just take a step back and listen to the Word of God, listen to counsel, listen to your parents, listen to what people are saying to you that are giving you advice. You know, look, I'm the head of my household and I'm the pastor of the church, but you know, I'm still constantly asking people like, what do you think about this or what, you know, what should I do in this situation? What do you think about, I'll call my pastor friends and say, hey, you know, I'm working on a sermon and I want to run this doctrine by you, what do you, what do you think about this? Like, you know, do you think I'm right about this or what are your thoughts on this passage? It's not like, well, nobody's going to tell me, you know, I want to hear from other people and get counsel from people and get advice from people, especially people who are older than me or wiser than me or people who've gone through situations that I'm going through. You know, it's just good to be someone who listens and you're not necessarily always going to go with what people counsel. Sometimes you'll get a bunch of counsel and it's the wrong counsel and you say, hey, I know what's right, I'm going to do what's right because I know what's right. But you should at least entertain what other people are saying. You should at least take it seriously. You should at least listen and often, often the best course is going to be to follow the advice that you're hearing. Okay. Because when there's a multitude of counselors, there's safety. It's typically, it's more dangerous, it's more risky when you're going against everyone's advice to do something. Now there could be certain rare situations where everybody's giving you the wrong advice and you know for sure you're right and you go against the advice, but you're definitely taking a gamble when you do that. It's a lot safer when you listen to what smart people are telling you. You know, um, it should be very rare that you would just say, well, everybody's wrong and I'm right. Cause that's, that's pretty rare that that would, and I'm not saying it never happens, but it's pretty rare, isn't it? And so the Bible says for by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war and in multitude of counselors there is safety. And let me say this, let me, in conclusion, let me say this. Literally the original sin in the Bible is what? Wanting the one thing that you can't have when there's plenty of other good options available and yet you're fixated on the one thing that you shouldn't have. That's literally the original sin. I mean that's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden. Of all the trees of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat. And this is basically what parents are telling you when they warn you and say, hey, don't marry this person or don't date this person or don't date an unsaved person or don't date X, Y, and Z kind of person. They're basically saying, you know, hey, there's other options. What about all the daughters of our people? You know, why do you got to go to the Philistines to find a wife? That's basically what they're saying. Pretty much what God said in the Garden of Eden saying, look, there are right options and wrong options. And you know what? You say, well, you know, it's, it's all about true love and there's just no one else and whatever, you know, but can you show me that in the Bible? Because I know that it's on your, you know, romantic song playlist or something, you know, or maybe it's in your DVD case or something, but I can't find that in my Bible. And by the way, another example I would point to is the story of the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers chapter 36, because in Numbers chapter 36, you know, there's this issue of inheritance. Like they don't want the inheritance to pass from tribe to tribe. This guy Zelophehad, he only has daughters, he doesn't have any sons. And so they're like, well, what's going to happen to this guy's stuff after he dies? He only has daughters. So God basically says that the daughters can inherit property, you know, which is kind of, you know, something that they weren't really maybe used to hearing in the ancient world properties owned by men. But he said, no, in this situation where the guy's got only daughters, the daughters are going to inherit the property. But then they say, well, wait a minute, here's the problem with that. The problem with that is what if they marry a dude from another tribe, then the property is going to pass over to a different tribe. Then the map of Israel is going to start looking like the map of Israel in 2023, where it looks like Swiss cheese, because the map of Israel right now looks like Swiss cheese between Israel and Palestine. And it's not just Gaza and West Bank. I mean, it is literal Swiss cheese, all the holes in it. If you actually look at Israeli occupied settlements versus Palestine occupied, it makes Swiss cheese look solid. Okay, it's more like a sponge or something of just. So they're like, we don't want the map to start getting weird where we got a little, you know, a little bit of Reuben, Gad, everything's all mixed in, you know, we want to keep the land to that tribe, like this is this tribe's land, this is that land. So then they come up with a solution and say, okay, well, how about this? If the daughters of Zilafat are going to inherit this property, they can marry whoever they want, but they have to marry someone from their same tribe. If they go outside the tribe, if they want to marry outside the tribe, they can't inherit the property, because then the property would be going to a different tribe. So basically, the bottom line is, most of the time, the property is going to go to the sons. But in the situation where he only has daughters, and they're inheriting the property, then they have to marry a dude from their own tribe. If they're all sisters, they have to marry a dude from their own tribe. And then they can inherit the property and then that dude, their husband gets the property and they live, well, you know, what if they're just hopelessly in love with some guy from another tribe? Hey, they need to just find a guy from their tribe, because there's a bunch of eligible Israelite dudes in their tribe and they need to marry one of them. Oh, how could you be so heartless? But what does the Bible say? What does the Bible say? It's the word of God. So all that says is this idea of infatuation is just that, it's infatuation. It's making you silly, it's making you make bad decisions. It's not the biblical definition of love, okay? And look, don't get me wrong, I am all for you feeling lovey-dovey about the person that you marry. I am all for you having butterflies in your stomach, and I don't think that you should marry someone that you're not attracted to. I don't think you should marry someone that you're not excited about. I don't think you should marry someone that you don't enjoy being around and that you don't feel, not just on paper, well, this person checks all the boxes, you know, you should marry someone who doesn't just check all the boxes, but that you actually have feelings for as well. There has to be chemistry and feelings and emotion there. But what you don't want to do is let chemistry, feelings, and emotion take over your brain to the point where you're obsessed with one person and you can't see other options and you can't see that no, you don't have to do this because, you know, your parents are saying no or because the Word of God is saying no or whatever the reasons why it's a bad idea. You know, you need to open your mind and understand that there are other fish in the sea. And if that makes me sound unloving to you, it's because you have the wrong idea of love, okay? If someone is off limits to you, because, you know, let's say we go with your soulmate view that you got from Hollywood and the music industry. Let's say we go with your soulmate view. What happens when your soulmate marries another guy but she's still your soulmate? You know what that's called? Adultery. That's called coveting your neighbor's wife. Like oh, she married and how many fictional works could we point to about some woman, she marries another dude but the guy is still in love with her and let's name some, shall we? The Little Mermaid's like that? Are you for real? Okay, can somebody verify that because I don't know the plot of The Little Mermaid. Okay, I'm getting some negative, okay, it was good, good try though. It's not The Little Mermaid. Okay, and again, here's a book that I've never read and I've never was able to make it through the whole movie, Gone with the Wind kind of be like that? Help me out. Is somebody coveting another man's wife in Gone with the Wind? Somebody help me out. The Notebook. Okay, there's another one, okay. Is Titanic like that? I don't know. I'm not familiar. This isn't my genre. I'm not, you know, I mean I know about the Titanic that it sank and everything but I know the conspiracy theories about the Titanic. We can talk about that. Not up on the plot of the film. There's one on the tip, Wuthering Heights, anyone, anyone, anyone, Wuthering Heights? It'd be like that, okay, alright. So you know, I mean we're just naming a few. You could probably think of more but you know what, you know what it is? It's a big hot steaming pile of dung is what it is. You want to know what it is? It's wickedness is what it is. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. Yeah, but you don't understand. We were in love and she didn't wait for me and she married this other guy and he's not right for, he's not a true love. I'm a true love. I'm a soulmate. No, you're wicked and you're coveting your neighbor's wife. It's adultery. It's wrong. Guess what? When your true love marries another dude, she needs to stop being your true love right now. Right now! And that goes for Rhett Butler and Leonardo DiCaprio and the guy in the rain in the meme and Heathcliff, Heathcliff and everybody else. I don't care who you are, it's garbage. But that's the kind of junk that programs people to where they think this way, like oh, you know, find someone else. When your true love marries another dude, find someone else. Ah, there's no one else. Yes, there is. There's eight billion people in the world. Half of them are the opposite gender. Okay, now first we're going to exclude all the ones that are already married. Let's exclude all the ones that are not saved or the wrong age or something, but the bottom line is there are lots of fish in the sea. Don't become infatuated. Don't become a MGTOW that says, oh, there's just no women out there. Or whatever the female equivalent of a MGTOW is, there's no good men out there or whatever. Whatever that is, a FGTOW or something, I don't know. Don't be a FGTOW or a MGTOW, alright? I don't know if that's a word, but it should be, because it's out there. And so, listen to your parents, listen to other people, listen to what the Bible's saying, and don't confuse love with infatuation. You know that preaching I heard growing up, those guys were right when they said, hey young people, sometimes what you confuse for true love is really just infatuation. So don't make a fool of yourself by following passions to the point of blindness or you might end up getting physically blinded or even killed. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and for these warnings that we see in your word. Lord, help us to always make the Bible our final authority, Lord. Help no one to have adulterous desires or covet their neighbor's wife or to have this doctrine of this missing other half doctrine that's not biblical, Lord. Help us rather to choose to bestow our love on someone that would be honoring and glorifying to you. That relationship would honor and glorify you and would also be right according to the word of God, Lord, and help no one to fall prey to this sickness of infatuation, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Amen. 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