(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'll do it. You can do a G open. Hey, brother. Hey, brother. Hey, brother. I don't have words. Is it right before the chorus or in the chorus? I don't have words. I don't have words. I don't have words. I don't have words. Yeah. When I first moved here and I first saw Leah, I kept asking, I was like, welcome to church. I'm steadfast in this church. Bad habit. Same letters. Yeah. Good evening. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could find your seats and grab a song book. Let's turn in our hymnals to song 424, O Come All Ye Faithful. 424, O Come All Ye Faithful. Song 424, O Come All Ye Faithful. And triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him, born the King of angels. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. Sing choirs of angels, sing in exultation. Oh, sing all ye bright hosts of heaven above. Glory to God, all glory in the highest. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. Yea, Lord, we greet Thee. Born this happy morning, Jesus to Thee be of glory given. Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. Great singing. Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this church. Thank you for all that you do for us. And thank you for this time of year where we get to celebrate and recognize the awesome gift that you gave us and your son, Jesus Christ. Pray that you would just bless this service and help us to worship you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. For our second song, we'll go to song 421, the first Noel. 421, the first Noel. 421, the first Noel. The first Noel, the angel did say, was too certain for shepherds in fields where they lay, in fields where they lay keeping their sheep. On a cold winter's night there was so deep. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. And by the light of that same star, three wise men came from country far to seek for a King was their intent and to follow the star wherever it went. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. This star tonight to the northwest, for Bethlehem it took its rest, and there it did both stop and stay right over the place where Jesus lay. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. Then entered in those wise men three, four reverently upon their knee, and offered there in his presence their golden, myrrh and frankincense. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. Good singing. Good evening. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, you can slip up your hand real quick, nice and high, and one of our ushers can come by and get you a bulletin. We are on John chapter one as our new Bible memory passage. We're in verse two, and it's a really easy one there for you, kiddos, so hopefully you can collect that ice cream treat after the service. And then on the inside we have our service and soul winning times. We also have our church stats. I'm going to get a count for any soul winning for the last few days real quick. Anything from Monday by chance? And for Monday, what about Tuesday, yesterday? For Tuesday, what about tonight? Anything for today? All right, zero for today. On the right we have a list of our expecting ladies. And one thing, since I'm not going to be here to make announcements on Sunday, I just wanted to make the announcement now, just so a lot of people will be aware. But we do have a little Christmas tree out here, and by Sunday morning there's going to be some hearts, some basically secret Santa hearts on them, and they're going to have a name of one of our expecting ladies. And basically if you want to participate, you can, but you can just take one of them and get them a gift, and then just put the heart with their name back on the gift and just drop it back off at the tree. So it will be completely anonymous. You don't have to. If you want to, you can just grab one, get them a gift, and then leave it there, and then our ushers or myself or something, when we notice them we'll just go grab them and deliver them. Or if you notice your name on it, you can just pick it on up. So that's just something we're going to do. So looking for that on Sunday, we'll also have that announcement on Sunday. But if you'd like to participate, you're more than welcome to. Down below we also have our prayer list. We'll go ahead and talk about that real quick. We have the Negara family continue to pray for their family's health. Ms. Lucy's mother's tumors continue to pray for her and cancer. Brother Cameron Hall, his leg, just continue to pray for that. Brother Matthew Stuckey and Pastor Kevin Sepulveda, their two church plants, continue to pray for them, that they would have favor. Ms. Stephanie Weathers is asking for additional prayer for her pregnancy. Brother Ever Garcia, his mother's health, he's been asking for that. A couple other ones. Ms. Grace Lynn Urbanik, the Urbanik's daughter, she's been sick for the last few days, so we continue to pray for her. Also, Ms. Grace Scott, she's having a lot of pain, and so we just continue to pray for her, and that she would just be relieved of that pain. And then also, the Zermanos have some really bad neighbors, okay? And so if you just pray that their living situation would improve in some way, however God thinks is best, all right? And so if you really want to know, you can ask them, and they'll give you some specific words to that, all right? But let's just go ahead and say a quick word of prayer for all of our family that was mentioned here. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for our church. Thank you so much for all the ladies that are expecting in our church. I pray that you would just continue to bless them and their pregnancies, bless their new children, that you would help them to grow and develop and to be delivered timely, and that they would come out safely. I pray that you would also just bless all the rest of our church family that's struggling with various health concerns and issues, that you'd give them favor, you'd give them recovery, that you'd ease their pain, that you'd just be with them. I pray that you would also help the other churches and our friends that are in the world that are having difficulty preaching the gospel or meeting or being oppressed, that you would just give them relief that you'd strengthen them, that you'd be with them, that you'd give them comfort, give them peace. I pray that you would also just help the rest of our church family with their various concerns and needs, that you would just destroy our enemies, and that you would just give us relief and give us peace, and that you would just strengthen us to endure whatever temptations and trials you deem our best. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. On the back we have the note about our makeup church yearbook pictures. And so November 20, I'm sorry, I'm like reading this the way I want it to say it. I haven't put it in the bulletin. We do have the church makeup day, and I just want to double check the exact date, but it's going to be in a couple weeks. December 19th, okay, so December 19th is going to be the makeup day. And you say, is there going to be a makeup makeup day? The answer is no. But let me say this. There's a lot of you in here that I'm looking at that have not signed up or gotten your picture. That is not okay, because then I'll just bring a camera up here with me and just start taking your picture from here, and whatever surprise picture you get, you know, that's what we're going to get. So if you haven't signed up, you need to sign up, all right? We know who you are, and we'll send you an email. We'll come knock on your door, and we'll take a picture of you in your pajamas, okay? So you better sign up and do it right, okay? Everybody knows who you are, all right? Also, the baby shower, December 18th, for Ms. Megan Wood. It's going to be from 12.30 to 2.30 p.m. If you would like to bring a gift, you can. She's registered at Bye Bye Baby. Also, if you'd like to bring a dish, you can. It is nursing's only preferred. And then also, we have down below our Matta Morris Brownsville Sole Winning Marathon. I emailed out the itinerary for this trip. So if you are thinking, like, I should have gotten an email, you should have. So if you didn't for some reason, check your email or talk to me or something. But everybody that signed up, I think I already had their email, and I emailed everybody the itinerary. But I do need you to respond to the email. Otherwise, I assume that you're not going. So you have to tell me that you have to confirm to me via email that you are going, that you've acknowledged receipt of that email, because I ask a few different questions in there, especially those that are riding in the church van. I know we had several sign up, and we're going to have room for you. We just want to make sure that we don't leave you, you know, if you're running late or something, or we're anticipating your presence, okay? So it looks like we're going to have a good group. And I sent out, again, the invite of all the information. If you don't come to our church, but you've just been listening online and you're interested, just email us. We've had a couple people email us. And so we have people down there that are going to meet us. We have a couple people, or at least one person that's traveling from another church in the states that wants to come down with us. And we have a lot of people from here that are coming to this. So I think we're going to have a good group going over there. And so just continue to pray for us. It's going to be a lot of fun. The church van is going to leave Wednesday at 8 a.m. So it takes eight hours, approximately, just drive time alone to get down there, probably about nine hours for, you know, a one-hour lunch break or something. So they're going to leave around 8 a.m. or 8 p.m. I'm sorry, 8 a.m., yes, Wednesday morning. And then that way, most of the driving is during the day. It should be pretty easy. We'll go soul winning all day Thursday, all day Friday. And then we'll do soul winning in the morning for a little bit. The church van is going to drive back at 1. So they're going to leave at 1. They should arrive back here around 10 p.m. So if you're wanting to do the church transportation, that's kind of what that looks like. Pretty much leaving Wednesday 8 a.m., getting back Saturday at 10 p.m. And then, again, if you're traveling with us, you know, we'll take care of your food and your lodging, everything like that. If you are taking care of your own travel, just at least let us know if you need a place to stay. So that way we make sure we got you a room. We should be able to get you a room or wherever you need to stay. So that's pretty much it. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. It's going to be a great trip. So if you can, please do let me know. If you say, well, I really want to go, but I totally missed the deadline, there may be grace. But you do have to communicate, okay? It's not one of those things where you just believe it's going to work out. You have to ask me. You have to call on, okay? So you have not because you ask not, all right? That's a Bible verse. December 14th, Christmas caroling. You're all going to show up. And you already sang really great this evening, so just do that. December 17th, the ladies' Christmas party from 6 to 9 p.m. It's going to be a catered dinner. It is nurselings only. So that means you guys need to step up to the plate and watch the kiddos. And it's pretty close to bedtime. Just throw them in bed, give them some peanuts or whatever, all right? Watch Charlie Brown's Christmas or something, you know? I don't know. Just figure it out. You can keep them alive for three hours, right? Your wife has confidence in you. The 22nd, the candlelight service and cookie bake-off. And then December 31st, we have the New Year's Eve party. So a lot of fun events, a lot of cool stuff going to happen. This month's definitely a little hectic, but continue to also hand out the Merry Christmas cards. One thing is it doesn't have videos on it, so I still hand out both our invitation and the Christmas card. But it's nice to just say, hey, we're giving out Christmas cards. And people typically like that or they enjoy that. So that's pretty much all I have for announcements at this time. Let's go ahead and go to our third song, 100 Day by Day. Song number 100, Day by Day. Song 100, Day by Day. Song 100, Day by Day. Song 100, Day by Day. Song 100, Day by Day. Song 100, Day by Day. Song 100, Day by Day. Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 36. Genesis chapter 36. We're going to read the whole chapter starting in verse 1. Genesis chapter 36. The Bible reads, Now these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom. Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan, Ada the daughter of Elan the Hittite, and Aholabamah the daughter of Enah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite, and Bashamath, Ishmael's daughter, sister of Nebajoth, and Ada bare to Esau, Eliphaz, and Bashamath bare Ruel, and Aholabamah bare Jeash and Jaelim and Korah. These are the sons of Esau, which were born unto him in the land of Canaan. And Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters and all the persons of his house and his cattle and all his beasts and all his substance which he had got in the land of Canaan and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob. For the riches were more than they might dwell together, and the land wherein they were strangers could not bear them because of their cattle. Thus dwelt Esau and Mount Seir. Esau is Edom. And these are the generations of Esau, the father of the Edomites and Mount Seir. These are the names of Esau's sons. Eliphaz, the son of Ada, the wife of Esau. Ruel, the son of Bashamath, the wife of Esau. And the sons of Eliphaz were Timon, Omar, Zepho, Gaitom, and Kenaz. And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz, Esau's son, and she bare to Eliphaz Amalek. These were the sons of Ada, Esau's wife. And these are the sons of Ruel, Nahath, and Zerah, Shammah, and Mizah. These were the sons of Bashamath, Esau's wife. And these were the sons of Aholabamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon, Esau's wife. And she bare to Esau, Jayesh, and Jalem, and Korah. These were dukes of the sons of Esau, the sons of Eliphaz, the first born son of Esau, Duke Timon, Duke Omar, Duke Zepho, Duke Kenaz, Duke Korah, Duke Gaitom, and Duke Amalek. These are the dukes that came to Eliphaz in the land of Edom. These were the sons of Ada. And these are the sons of Ruel, Esau's son, Duke Nahath, Duke Zerah, Duke Shammah, Duke Mizah. These are the dukes that came of Ruel in the land of Edom. These are the sons of Bashamath, Esau's wife. And these are the sons of Aholabamah, Esau's wife, Duke Jayesh, Duke Jalem, Duke Korah. These were the dukes that came of Aholabamah, the daughter of Anah, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Esau, who was Edom. And these are their dukes. These are the sons of Seir, the Horite, who inhabited the land, Lotan and Shobol, and Zibeon and Anah, and Daishan and Ezer and Daishan. These are the dukes of the Horites, the children of Seir in the land of Edom. And the children of Lotan were Hori and Hemam, and Lutin's sister was Timnah. And the children of Shobol were these, Alvin and Manahath and Ebal and Shapho and Onam. And these are the children of Zibeon, both Aja and Anah. This was that Anah that found the mules in the wilderness as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father. And the children of Anah were these, Daishan and Aholabamah, the daughter of Anah. And these are the children of Daishan, Hamdan and Eshban, and Ithrin and Kiran. And the children of Ezer are these, Bilhan and Zayavin and Achan. The children of Daishan are these, Uz and Aaron. These are the dukes that came of the Horites, Duke Lotan, Duke Shobol, Duke Zibeon, Duke Anah, Duke Daishan, Duke Ezer, Duke Daishan. These are the dukes that came of Hori among their dukes in the land of Seir. And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before they reigned any king over the children of Israel. And Beelah, the son of Beor, reigned in Edom, and the name of this city was Dinhabah. And Beelah died, and Jobab, the son of Zerah of Bozrah, reigned in his stead. And Jobab died, and Husham of the land of Temeni, reigned in his stead. And Husham died, and Hadad, the son of Bedad, who smote Midiad in the field of Moab, reigned in his stead. And the name of this city was Avith. And Hadad died, and Samlah of Mazrika reigned in his stead. And Samlah died, and Saul of Reoboth by the river reigned in his stead. And Saul died, and Baal-hanin, the son of Akbor, reigned in his stead. And Baal-hanin, the son of Akbor, died, and Hadar reigned in his stead. And the name of this city was Peu, or excuse me, Peu. And his wife's name was Mehedabel, the daughter of Matred, the daughter of Mezahab. And these are the names of the dukes that came of Esau, according to their families after their places, by their names. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for Genesis chapter 36. I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit and help him to explain this chapter to us so that we can understand it better. And also help us, Lord, to pay attention to the sermon tonight so that we can learn more about your word. And we thank you for this church and pray that you protect it. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. So we're here in Genesis chapter 36, and it's obviously a great chapter to find names for your children. And so, no, I'm just kidding. But actually that's an important point because this is a really interesting break in kind of our storyline. We've been going through the book of Genesis. And if you remember in chapter 35, just right before it ended. Let's refresh our memory for just a second, okay? Look back at chapter 35 and look at kind of the ending portion, verse 23. It says, the sons of Leah, Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, Levi, and Judah, and Isaacar, and Zebulun, the sons of Rachel, Joseph, and Benjamin, and the sons of Billa, Rachel's handmaid, Dan, and Naphtali. And then it goes down the list. But we kind of have a list of the children of Israel, which we have the 12 tribes basically of Israel. And then it goes into a longer portion about Esau, his wives, their children, and how many of them are dukes. But what's interesting about this chapter, and it's something to be of great noteworthiness, is the fact that all of the children of Esau is pretty much found in this chapter and nowhere else. Now think about that. Why would God include a chapter of just so many people that you pretty much read about one time? It's to make a really clear point. It's to say that none of these people matter. Think about it. I mean, what does it matter what name is listed here? I mean, what if the names were like Enso, Esau, and another son, Charlie Sheen? Nobody cares. Jim Carrey, nobody cares. You know, it doesn't matter what the name is. And now at the time, I'm sure people knew they were, they were dukes, right? But it ends up being meaningless. It ends up having no value because Esau is not having children the way that God had intended him. Whereas when we think of Jacob, Jacob got his wives from where his parents wanted him to, of the children of Israel. Whereas Esau is getting his children from women of the land, from the Canaanites and these other women. Let's read a few verses here. It says in verse 1, Now these are the generations of Esau who is Edom, so it's synonymous, Esau and Edom in the Bible. And actually Esau and Edom are mentioned hundreds of times. If you combine both of them in the Bible, tons of times they're mentioned throughout the Scripture. And most every time it's talking about the group of people, talking about the lineage of Esau. It says in verse 2, Now again, what the Bible often is going to help you understand is the permanency of those who serve God and the vanity of those who don't. The permanency of those who serve God are found throughout the Scriptures and we read about them and we look up to them and they are fathers. Whereas those who did not serve God are completely wiped out, decimated, no longer exist. No one is, I mean, no one's met a Hivite. No one's met a Hittite. Nobody's met these people, nobody knows who any of them are, it doesn't matter. If it wasn't for the Word of God itself, we would have no idea that they existed. Nothing. And I believe that God is giving us these names to say they were real people that people knew at that time, that were of importance at that time, yet they have ultimately no purpose, they don't really serve any function. And you say, why is that? Well, because it's not coming from a God-blessed marriage. This is not a marriage that God had intended for Esau or for Jacob is to marry the daughters of the Canaanites. And when you make marriages with the wrong women, when you're making marriages with the wrong spouse, when you're not following God's commandments, oftentimes the fruit of that relationship is going to be vanity. Now, another thing you have to make note of, and this is very common throughout the Bible, this is not the only place, is this is not even every single person that is of the lineage of Esau. It's just giving you some of the noteworthy people. This is in all cases. There's plenty of times in the Bible where you'll have lineages, genealogies, and different things, and it's never always giving you the full picture. It's only giving you the picture that matters. It's only giving you the picture that's important. Let me prove this. Keep your finger and go to Genesis 26 for a moment. Go to Genesis 26. Let's find out when Esau actually first married someone in the Bible. It says in Genesis 26, look at verse 34. Now, if you go back to Genesis 36, you know you'll never find Judith. So it's very likely that he probably had even sons with her or could have had other children that are just not even mentioned here with other women, otherwise, because they're just not even important. That relationship. Maybe she was barren. I don't know. I can't prove that. But notice that there's possibility of other children, other relationships, otherwise that aren't even mentioned in Genesis 36. So sometimes when people are reading a genealogy, they'll think this is like a perfect picture of their family tree or it's like the only children that they ever had. But the Bible doesn't do that. And also, many times when the Bible says the son of, it's not even a direct son. It's simply a descendant. Because if so and so is your great, great, great, great, great grandfather in the Bible, you're the son of them. Just like the Bible say that Jesus Christ is the son of David. Is he really one generation separated from David? No. He's many. He's 14. But even though he's 14 generations, the Bible uses the language son, son of. So when reading the lineages and reading these type of things in the Bible, you can't think of it in a very specific manner. There's a lot of ways it could be interpreted or understood. So I just want you to have that in your mind when you study the Bible, when you're looking at genealogies, that this is not always giving you a complete picture. It's only giving you the information that's really important or that's of great noteworthy value. So if you went to Genesis 34 now, go to Genesis chapter 34 for a moment. Now, it mentioned a couple people. It mentioned Anah, the daughter of Zibeon, the Hivite. Now, look at Genesis 32. I'm sorry, Genesis 32 verse 2. So we've already mentioned Hivites in the word of God. And notice the Hivites were not God's people. They weren't circumcised. They're just random people. They wanted to make marriages with the children of Israel. But notice the children of Israel rejected the Hivites. Now, the way they did that is not necessarily the best. Obviously, they killed them all. I'm not saying that was right. The Bible makes it clear they should not have killed all of them. But you know what? They shouldn't have made marriages with them. They definitely should have avoided them and had nothing to do with them. Whereas Esau is doing the exact opposite. He is making the marriages with the Hivites. He is trying to be with them. Also, he's with Ishmael's daughter. So we have Hittite, Hivite, Ishmael's daughter. None of these women are godly women. They're not the picture of what the Bible describes as a godly woman. They're coming from the Canaanites. Now, go back to Genesis 9 for a moment because we're studying Genesis. What are the Canaanites like? Where does this word Canaanite come from? Well, look at Genesis 9 and look at verse 22. And Ham, the father of Canaan. So, Canaan is a direct descendant of Ham. Ham is one of the three sons of Noah. That's where the lineage of the Canaanites is coming from. It's going all the way back to the Ark, essentially. Okay? It's where the Canaanite lineage is. Now, of the Canaanites, there's many different Canaanites, okay? But what are the Canaanite family like? Well, it says, And Ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces went backward. And they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah woke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the name of the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. Now, as you read that Bible story, and obviously they would have had the word of God. They would have at least had these stories. They would have known who Noah was. They would have had recollection of these stories. Why, after reading this story, would you say, You know what would be a good place to find some wives? Canaan. Doesn't that just fly in the face of Scripture? I mean, think about it. We don't know how much Scripture they had, per se, at that time, or what Bible they had. But let's just assume they only had the few parts that we've already read so far. That's not a lot. And the little bit of information you have is that Canaan is super wicked, that's cursed with God, and it's a perverted family. It's a perverted family. And here's the thing. You should warn your children not to let your children marry into a perverted family, or a weird family. You know, like, here's a weird perverted family. How about the Kardashians? Right? I mean, you should just recognize this is a family you don't want to get daughters from. I mean, when the dude is turning into a woman, when the dad's turning into two moms all of a sudden or something, you know, you say, like, I don't want to have a daughter from that family. You know? I don't want to, you know, be a part of a family where the only reason they have notoriety is because they did a disgusting, dirty, perverted acts. And let me tell you a reason why the Kardashians are popular because of Kim Kardashian doing disgusting, perverted acts. That's where she got her popularity. She's only popular for being a pervert. She's only popular for being a fornicator. She's only popular for being a literal whore. Why would I then say, you know what? That sounds like a good family to find somebody to mate with. That sounds like a good family to find a housewife, someone that will take care of my children. You know, praise the Lord that my mom warned me and said, you know what, Jonathan? You can't just look at a woman alone. You need to also evaluate her family and determine if she has a good family. And I'm just telling you what my mom said. My mom said that you shouldn't marry into a bad family, and I agree with that advice for the most part. Now, I'm saying obviously there could be an exception. Obviously, there could be a child that had a really weird family. They've kind of rejected them, and they shouldn't just be condemned with their whole family. But you really need to take that into consideration. And for me, if a person has a really close relationship with their family and the family is a bad family, that's a bad sign. That's a really big red flag, and you need to be careful, because oftentimes when you're looking at a mother, the future mother-in-law, you're looking at your wife 30 years from now. I'm just telling you. And virtually every way, okay? I mean, that's what she's going to look like. That's how she's going to talk. That's how she's going to act. So, when you're looking at your mother-in-law and you're thinking like, ah! Then you might want to be careful. Now, look, obviously every person is unique. Every person is a little bit different. But I'm telling you the apple often doesn't fall far from the tree. And when the mother, future mother-in-law, is a drug-addicted crack whore, you need to say like, wow, maybe I should stay away from that one. And look, it's out there. You know, you go to high school, you go to college, you go to public school, you know, there's going to be a lot of people that you might be interested in, but then you realize their parents are literal criminals, are literal drug addicts, are literal, you know, prostitutes, or they're doing all manner of evil and wickedness, Satanists, atheists, sodomites, or whatever kind of weird junk's going on. You know, it's better to just say, you know what? I'm just going to move on to another person. Don't get emotionally attached to the wrong woman whenever you already realize there's a lot of deal breakers on the table. And you know what? Family is a big deal when it comes to choosing your spouse. You know, you can fix some things in a relationship, but the Bible says train up a child in the way he should go, and when he's old, he will not depart from it. Here's the thing. That is true for the good and the bad. Meaning a lot of the stuff that they've been taught are going to be very difficult to change, fix, modify, you know. So if they've been raised a particular way that's very ungodly or very wicked, it's oftentimes going to be very difficult to change that person, okay? That's why it's important, especially that you would never marry someone that's not saved. Go to 2 Corinthians chapter 6, go to 2 Corinthians chapter number 6. Esau, you know, brought a lot of grief unto his parents because he married these ungodly women, these Canaanitish women. Esau, or I'm sorry, Ishmael's daughters, which again were from wicked marriages as well, you know. Isaac married right, Ishmael married wrong. Esau married wrong twice removed because he's not only moving the Canaanites, he's doing the Canaanites from Ishmael's wrong. So it's just like a compounding issue where we just keep having, you know, bad marriages, bad families, and ultimately it really just turns out where it's all vanity. You know, Esau's not remembered as just some great person. I don't even know if I've met an Esau, maybe. Not a very common name, is it? Not something that everybody likes to name their children, but I've met a lot of Jacobs. Isn't that interesting? You know, I haven't met a lot of, you know, Mehedabels, or, you know, Bahu's, you know. Maybe they're in a foreign country or something where they don't know what the Bible says. But in America, you don't hear these names. 2 Corinthians chapter number 6, look what it says in verse 14. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? What conquer of Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Now, what I want to point to, and I know this is a real popular verse. We look at it a lot. But think about what it's saying in verse 16. What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? And what's a very common denominator in these ungodly marriages is idols. Idols in false religion is always being brought up in connection to these scenarios and these situations. Now, this is very important because when it comes to raising your family, when it comes to raising your children, let me tell you who does the primary job of that. It's your wife. So you don't want your wife to teach your children a completely different religion than dad. And this happens. Go to I Kings chapter 21. I Kings chapter 21. And you know what's a very common theme in the Bible? Is that women have a big influence on their husbands in false religion specifically. In fact, I would say, you know, it's really sad, but in America, I believe that the majority of Christians are going to the church that the wife wants to go to. It's the wife that's picking. It's the wife that's dragging her husband to the church of her choice in America. And it's a very feministic, very anti-biblical view of scripture today. We need men to drag their wife to the church of their choice. This is what the Bible teaches. But let me tell you what. If you don't have a strong man, if you're not forcing your family to go where you want, she'll drag you where she wants. Okay? Now, this is a common theme. Look at I Kings chapter 21 and look at verse 25. There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up, and he did very abominably in following, what's this word? Idols and following idols. Why did Ahab follow idols? His wife. Isn't that what the Bible's saying? Even think about Jacob. Jacob has this problem. Didn't Jacob? It's not like this is a one-person problem. This is an every-person problem because even Rachel took the idols from her father. But here's the difference between Jacob and Esau. Jacob took all the idols and buried them in the ground. Esau, we don't have any recording of that, do we? You don't see Esau really leading his family. He's just marrying these other women and having children with these other women. And this is a very grievous problem under the children of God is where they let their wives drag them into false religion. Think about Solomon. Solomon's a great guy in the Bible, but because he just multiplied wives unto himself, they took away his heart from the Lord, and then he ended up, you know, complying at least to his wives' demands, which they were worshipping false gods, even gods like Molech, and offering their children in sacrifice and fire unto Molech. I mean, just horrible wicked sins, horrible evils, horrible atrocities, and they're being drug down by their wife. That makes me think of a person. How about Adam? Who was Adam drug down by? Eve. And so, again, it's important that you marry a godly woman or you find a woman that's, you know, at least raised, you know, somewhat Christian or raised in a godly home or raised so you don't want to serve the Lord or, you know, is going to be submissive or something, you know, because a lot of times if you marry the other woman, she's going to drag you into horrible sin. Go to Revelation, chapter number two. Go to Revelation, chapter number two. And we often, you know, read in the Scriptures where it talks about they're the weaker vessel, but here's the thing. Just because they might be physically weaker doesn't mean they can't lead a man by the nose. I see it all the time. We all see it all the time. I mean, who's really in charge, Hillary or Bill? Hillary. I mean, you know who wears the pants in that relationship. I mean, and the reality is even the strongest of men can be taken captive by a woman. How about Samson? Isn't he a really strong guy? Literally, the Bible describes him pretty much being the strongest guy ever, whether that's literal, you know, or, you know, in the Bible. I mean, Samson's always a big strong guy, okay? But at the end of the day, Samson was brought down by a woman. No man could take him down, none of the Philistines. I mean, you could get thousands, heaps upon heaps, but just one little old woman and she takes him down, just like a ton of bricks. Why? Because women have a different effect on men, okay, than a man does, all right, for all of you straight guys out there. Now, look at Revelation chapter number 2. Look over to the Bible, it says, verse 20, notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that woman, Jezebel, which called herself a prophetess to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto what? Idols. That's not a coincidence. It's not a coincidence that it's constantly bringing up, what, women bringing their men into false religion, into idols. I mean, we got it with Rachel. We got it with Jezebel. We got it with another Jezebel. I mean, you just got it just over and over. You got it with Solomon. You got it with just women after women after women are constantly dragging their spouse into false religion, into worship of idols, into all these different things that are wicked. And, you know, this is a Christian church here. This isn't even like the Old Testament. This is New Testament. This is about as close as we can get to modern history. You know, right now, the closest removed is Revelation 2 and 3. I mean, that's the last parts of history that we're the closest to from the Word of God. And this church was struggling with women leading them into idolatry. And it says in verse 21, That's the saddest verse, I think, in this chapter. And this is why I bring this up. I'm kind of giving you a little bit of full circle at this point. It mentions a woman teaching false doctrine, a woman leading into false religion, and who suffers? Her, the men that follow her, but also her children. And the reality is, when it comes to who you marry, men, the person that's going to spend the majority of the time with your children is your wife. And so when you get a bad woman, you're basically setting up your children for failure because she's the one vesting all the time, effort, and energy into those children. And I'll tell you one thing. One of the primary reasons why I really liked my wife, and why I really wanted to marry her, was because I knew she was good with children. I knew that she would be an excellent mother. And that's one of the things that always drove me towards her. And that's one of the reasons that drove me away from many women that I thought about. And when I would think about a girl that I was wanting to date, especially in high school, if I thought she wouldn't be a good mom or she wouldn't be a good wife or whatever, then I just was like, I was not interested in dating her anymore because there's no point. No point in being with a woman that you don't feel like would be a good mother to your children. It's such an important, valuable role that you can't really affect. You've just got to marry a good, godly woman. And when it comes to Esau and Jacob's situations, you've got to think about it this way. They're going to exaggerate this problem even worse because they have multiple wives. So if you have multiple wives and multiple children, how much time is one guy going to give to his children? Isn't it going to be really low? So now you're basically making it where they're going to be with the wives even more. I mean more influence from the wife, more time with the wife, meaning that the children are going to be like mom. There's an old saying, and it's a very true saying, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. The next generation is going to have a huge impact because of its mom way more than its father in many cases. Because the women literally are spending the majority of the time with the children. I mean it's not even close. If we were going to say like, Pastor Shelley, let's put a number on it, what percentage of the time do your children spend with you versus your wife? I mean it's probably like 80, 20? I don't know. When they're a newborn it's like 99, 1%. It's like crazy the amount of difference of the influence. Now look, I'm not trying to undermine the importance of a father. We need godly men, children need their father, they need that time with dad, and dad's an important role, an important figure. But at the end of the day when it comes to the ins and outs of life, when it comes to the things that are going to be taught to your children on a regular and daily basis, it's the women that have such a big impact on your children's future and they're going to make a huge impact in the world. And we often see men in the Bible as a direct result of their mother's influence as opposed to their father. They might have a good father but they had a bad mother, they turn out bad. Or they have a bad father but they had a good mother, they turn out good. Example, like Timothy. Timothy's dad's a Greek, we don't even know much about him or where he's at. But his mom's a Jewess, she believes, and we see from the faith of Eunice the lowest to him, great guy. Man of God. And let me say, every man of God was raised by his mother. You know, I mean, in the sense that every single man of God had a mom. That's how you got into this world. And some women will think like, oh, my job's not as bad, I don't get to be the preacher. You get to teach the preacher. You get to raise the pastors of the world. You get to teach the preachers of this world. You get to be the ones that love on the preachers of this world. You know, you have a direct impact on the leaders of the future. And so it's important that we have women in this country that dedicate their lives to raising a godly generation. That dedicate their lives to raising godly young men and godly young women that are going to take on this world. You know, why do we have a bad generation? Because we had bad parenting. You know, obviously the mothers did not invest in the children. And when we look at history, when did we have a really bad generation? After a whole bunch of women went into the workforce. After we had a whole bunch of women get on birth control and start being promiscuous and having just the free love and having all the feminism. And we see a giant change in Christianity. We see an explosion of non-denominational churches. A seeker sensitive church, churches that don't want to offend anybody. Churches that are just so welcoming, allowing anything and everything in there. And look, you and I know when you go to church, not like ours, it's actually more women than men. You go to these churches, you'll find more women than men. You look at the youth groups and you look at the high school age, it's more young girls than it is young men in those youth groups. Universal. And our church is like the exact opposite. But I'm just saying like most every other church, I mean it's just filled with women today and it's just because men have just not married the right women. They're not guiding their house. They're not taking them to the church. They're not teaching them to be a woman, to take that important role on. Why it's important to women that you marry. Esau decides to just marry the wrong woman. And let me tell you something, marriage is for life. The one decision to get married is going to impact the rest of your life. No matter what you do. It's such an important decision. Go to Job chapter 39, go to Job chapter 39. And you know, one of the reasons why children are just so bad today and we see so many problems and we see these issues and kids not amounting to anything is because their parents, specifically their moms, just didn't care about their kids. And here's the biggest way you can tell if they care not is time. You know? Spending time with your children. And the Bible paints a picture of a woman that doesn't want to spend time with her children, doesn't care about her children, isn't protecting her children. And it describes it to an animal, describes it as an ostrich. Look at Job 39 verse 13, the Bible says, Gave us now the goodly wings on the peacocks, or wings and feathers under the ostrich, which leaveth their eggs in the earth and warmeth them in dust, and forget it that the foot may crush them, that the wild beast may break them. She has hardened against her young ones as though they were not hers. Her labor is in vain without fear because God had deprived her of wisdom, neither had he imparted her understanding. By the time she lifted up herself on high, she scorned up the horse and his rider. According to the Bible, there's an animal that resembles women on this earth today. It's called an ostrich. And an ostrich mom is one who does not care about her children, who leaves her children in the care of others, and doesn't even care if the children get destroyed, consumed, it doesn't really matter to her. She just looks at children as a burden. I'll tell you something, there's a lot of women today that look at children as a burden. I even, you know, accidentally saw, social media sucks now because it's just ads and just videos you don't want to watch. Something just like popped up and it's this woman complaining because her husband was deployed in like some kind of place for military, I don't know. Somewhere in the Middle East or something, he was on deployment for a long time. And he came back for like a week and then left. And she got pregnant in that week. And she was complaining that she got pregnant. That was the whole point of the video. Just complaining that she was pregnant. She was like, the worst thing that could have happened is for him to come back on deployment and then we get pregnant. And I'm thinking like, what in the world is wrong with women in this world today that think that being pregnant is somehow horrible? That think that being pregnant is a horrible thing? That children are only a burden. Now, let me be frank, they are a burden. Okay. I'm not saying that children are not a burden. I'm not saying that pregnancy isn't hard. I'm not saying that pregnancy isn't difficult. What I am saying is that it's not only a burden. That it's not only bad. That it's actually a great blessing according to the word of God. And children are a blessing. And that children are a miracle of God. And they're a gift from God. And so we shouldn't look at children as being this burden that we just want to get rid of as soon as possible. And throughout history, American history, women have been seeking to get rid of their children younger and younger and younger and younger. Well, when they finally get to be six or seven, we can put them in school. That's not young enough. Pre-kindergarten. Well, that's not young enough. Nursery. Well, now they need to be able to take my infant. But how are they going to take my infant? Formula. Now you can literally have it. There are literally women that will give birth and they'll be gone from their newborn like two weeks later and be back at work. Three weeks later, back at work. And I mean, I've worked with a lot of women because they're in every workplace. I've worked in a lot of places where women got pregnant. And I remember they would come to work. I mean, they're not only like postpartum, but they're not with their baby. And they would cry and they would just be like an emotional train wreck. And it's like, look, it's hard to be around your wife two weeks after birth. But I don't want to be around someone else's wife after two weeks of birth and have to like, you know, do meetings with, business meetings with them. They're just, they're all over the place. And I remember them sitting there like, they'd be crying and they'd be like, sorry, I just need to stop feeling so bad about being away from my baby. And I'm thinking like, no, you should continue feeling bad about not being with your baby and go back with your baby. You know what they're doing? They're doing ostrich training. They're learning how to not care about their children. Leave them with someone else. If it gets devoured, it gets devoured. And they basically just get their heart hardened to the point where it's just meaningless to them. Go to Titus chapter number two. You know, what does this is public school. Public school teaches moms to be ostriches. Because most moms, the worst day for them is the first day they drop them off for kindergarten or pre-K or whatever it is. And the mom's crying, the kid's crying. It's like the kid's excited because he's got a backpack and he's going and then he finally realizes like mom's leaving. And, you know, the teacher has to like hold the kid back and try to console. I remember kindergarten, I mean, vaguely. But I mean, I remember being there and just tons of kids just standing at the gate or the door crying and sobbing on the first few days of kindergarten because they just hated being away from their mom. And a lot of moms would just stand outside and they're like peeking through the window every once in a while, you know. And I'm thinking like, what are you doing? It doesn't actually make any sense when you just think about it from only the Bible. Like if you think about it in the world, you're like, oh, it's just normal. Just need to get over it. But think about it. It's a five-year-old. Why does a five-year-old need to learn like independent, you know, lifestyle choices at five? Like that's really young. It's kind of insane. Yeah, obviously, eventually we want to kick the young men out of the house a little bit. We want to help them learn how to be independent. They have to grow up and become a man at some point. You know what? They don't have to learn at five. Who decided that? Why five? You know, obviously, the world would be cringing at everything I'm saying. But let's just reason for a second. Why at five years old would you strip a kid from its parents? Why that age? Who decided that? I'm telling you, they just kept getting it younger and younger and younger and younger. And it's to the point of ridiculous now where they're literally taking babies, newborn babies, from their mother. And the mother just doesn't care. And you know what? They end up raising just vain kids because their kids just become fodder for the public fool system. They just become a bunch of mohedebels and whatever that nobody cares about. And they realize that nobody cared about them. And nothing really mattered. You know, and unfortunately, public school kids are going the way of the devil. In fact, the longer they've been in public school, if you bring a public school kid into our church, you know what they act like? They have a chip on their shoulder. They're too cool for our church. They're too cool for the things that we believe. You know, they would mock and ridicule most of the things that we believe, wouldn't they? They would mock and ridicule women looking like women. They would mock and ridicule the idea of a woman having a life goal of becoming a mother. As opposed to going to college. As opposed to being this career woman. As opposed to being the vice president of the United States. I call her the vilest prostitute. That's what she really is. You know, what a goal to have. Be the vilest prostitute, right? I have to hold Biden up while he, you know, defecates in his pants. What a great position to be in. And look, she's just a puppet anyways. Why would you want a job like that? You know, I want, you know, I don't want to just be a pastor. Like, I don't want someone to just like hand me my sermon and I just walk up and I'm just like, hey guys, can someone wipe me already? You know, I like that I have to write the sermon and I have to read the Bible. And like there's something of value to my job. That I'm not just a figurehead reading off the teleprompter, you know. Just tell me where to go. Tell me where to stand. Whose hand do I shake? What baby do I kiss next? You know, what kid do I sniff now? I mean, like, it doesn't, that's meaningless. You know, and the public school kids, I'm telling you, you bring one of them into this church. They're all going to have a chip on their shoulder. They're going to be too cool for church, too cool for the word of God. They're going to mock and ridicule the commandments of God. You have to like slowly wean them off of stupidity. You have to slowly wean them off of evolution. You have to slowly wean them off of liberalism. You have to slowly wean them off of feminism. You have to slowly wean them off of being an effeminate, queer little sissy. You have to slowly wean them off all the video games and all the junk food and all the just effeminate, queer, gross filth of this world. You have to wean them off of the satanic doctrines of the world, of all the filth and the smut today. You know, and you say, well, you know, my kids go there. Well, look, I'm not here to just pick on people. I'm just trying to tell you that it's a problem. It's a real issue. You know, and if a kid goes to public school and they survive and they come out great, the exception proves the rule. Let me tell you something. The majority of these kids are just complete idiots and fools because no one loved them enough to teach them wisdom. They're just victims of the public fool system and really they're victims of their mom. They're victims of their mother. I had you turn to Titus chapter number 2. Let's see what the Bible actually says, okay? You're like, oh, you're just preaching what you want to preach. I'm just trying to preach you what the Word of God says. Titus chapter 2, look at verse 3. The aged women likewise that they be in behavior has become a holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children. Can't we have women teaching other women to love their children? And you say, well, how do I teach other women how to love their children? By you loving your children. That's how you do it. You show them what real love looks like, real sacrifice looks like, real desire looks like. And love is a sacrifice. Love is choosing to love someone when they don't deserve it. Love is choosing to be someone's burden carrier. And like children are burdens that you have to carry, literally. They're heavy sometimes. James at two, he's become an interesting one. He just wants to be held all the time. I don't know. Do you know what? I don't want to turn him away because he's my two-year-old. I don't want him to not be able to be comforted by mom or not be comforted by dad. It's a shame. These kids that go to don't care, they just cry and cry and cry and no one can hold them because it's like one worker for eight babies. Let me tell you something. You can't hold eight. You kind of hold two, maybe three. You can't hold eight. They're not getting all the love and the affection and the attention that they need. And we need women to teach other women how to love their children. How about this? To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home. Well, I want to be this self-made woman. What does the Bible say? A keeper at home. Now look, obviously if a woman doesn't have anything to keep at home, there could be exceptions to this. I understand that. Genuinely speaking, ideally speaking, women should be keepers at home. They should be the ones setting the example, being in the home with the children. The proverbs 31 woman, she still leaves the home. It's not like saying you have to literally have a lock and chain and you can't walk out the door. She obviously goes and gets groceries. She obviously is selling her merchandise. So she obviously does work. She buys stuff. She finds things. But all of her job functions are about the home. They're about the house. They're about the kids. They're about the family. And they're putting the family first and everything else second. They're not putting their business first. They're not putting their career first. They're not putting all these other things first. Everything else is on the back burner and would always be sacrificed on the altar. Their children are number one. Their husband's number one. God is number one. Those things are what's important. They're a keeper at home, meaning they don't have to go out. You know, it's like sometimes I feel like there's this attitude where women just, they get upset about being home or something. It's like, well, I just have to get out every day or I have to be busy or I have to go have friends and do all this. And it's like you don't have to, you know, especially if you have a lot of kids. Good luck having a really great social life and raising like five or six kids or eight kids or ten kids. I mean, your social life is your children. I mean, that's just the reality, you know. And it's not any different than if you had a day job. Look at it as a day job, right? I mean, if you're working, you know, at Sonic or whatever, you go girl at Sonic, you know, it's not like you have a lot of time for friends when you're at Sonic either or friends at the public. I mean, what if you're at the public school system? You don't have a lot of time for friends. You're just raising 150 kids that you don't even know, strangers, randos, you know. And it's so bizarre to me how women will literally get a teaching degree and go to public school and teach everyone's kids but their own. How does that make any logical sense? I taught everybody's kids but I didn't teach mine. I let everybody else teach my kids. That just, it's so counterintuitive. It really makes no sense whatsoever. You know, we need women to teach their own children. Go to Proverbs 14, go to Proverbs chapter 14. I know I'm spending a little bit of time on this but we got to think about the context of Genesis 36 and what it's kind of leading us to and teaching us, you know, who you marry is really important, guys. And providing for your wife so she can stay home with the kids is really important. And that your wife can, you know, raise a godly family and is going to invest in children. You know, it's hard to turn a whore into a housewife. There I said it. And most guys, they want to marry a whore because of how she looks or something but then after they get married, they realize everything's downhill from there. And let me tell you something about looks. She doesn't look the way she looked when she was 18 ever again because then she's 19 and then she's 20 and then she's 21. And guess what? You don't look the same either. And it's so stupid to chase them. That's why the Hollywood celebrities, they replace their wife with a new model every 5, 10 years, you know. Tom Cruise, his wife turns 33, she's gone. I mean, that's the expiration date for a wife for him. You look it up. It's like Nicole Kidman, 33, gone. Katie, what was her name? Katie something. Katie Holmes, 33, gone. You know, bring in a new sucker, right? Bring in another Jewish girl. They're all Jews in Hollywood so it's, you know, pretty easy I guess. But look, you put the kids in the public flow system, you don't let mom and dad raise them, you don't let the mom teach them and you know what? They end up getting deceived by this world. They think that all the technology and the music and the movies, that's what they're wowed by. That's the only thing that excites them anymore. They come to church, they say like, I have to sit here for an hour and hear the word of God being preached. Where's the screens? Can I play video games while he's preaching? I mean, isn't it not insane that when you go to a restaurant nowadays, kids literally have to play video games while waiting to get their appetizer. And I'm not talking like toddlers. I'm talking like 8-year-olds. I'm talking like 10-year-olds. 10-year-olds don't even have an attention span enough to just sit quietly at the table and wait for their food or have intelligent conversation with their parents. But you know why they can't, you know, conversate with their parents? Because the only thing they're interested in is TikTok videos. And people like farting on each other and like eating weird and gross stuff and tripping and falling down and eating in their boogers and whatever. They just think it's so funny. And they're like, did you see this cat, you know, falling and what? It's like stupid. It's just nonsense. It's just vanity. And these kids don't even learn how to grow up. They just chase vanity and vanity. And then when they finally become 18, 19, 20, now they watch PewDiePie. They really grew up, didn't they? Now they just watch, you know, more moronic stuff. Jackass or something, right? The TV show where people are literally injuring themselves on purpose and they think it's cool. They think it's cool when they injure themselves at 18, 19, and 20 on purpose, not realizing that their whole life they're going to have to live with that injury. Like I used to watch some of those movies. They're so stupid. Guys are shooting themselves with like riot guns, like in the stomach. Steve-O was one of the characters. He got a tattoo of himself on his back. He's going to have that for his whole life. Kids are so stupid. They're so foolish. Life to them is like a video game. And you know what's so bad about video games? It's whenever you do something really stupid in a video game, you just get to start over like that. You go and you die. Oh, new life. You go and make a big mistake, new life. You go steal a car and get caught by the cops, start over, reset. And they don't realize that life has permanent, long-lasting consequences to all of your actions. They just think respawn. Oh, just respawn. And they don't realize that respawn is not a real life thing. There is no respawn. There is no just get a second chance. No. You're stuck with that forever. And unfortunately, every person that's gone to public school knows this. When you're in public school, when you're in high school, your entire world is high school. Like you have this warped viewpoint of reality. You think that everything in high school is reality. Like you think like who's popular matters. And like the only thing that matters is like football and like the cheerleaders and being cool and skipping class. And just everything about high school is just like your whole world and everything matters so much and being popular and having friends. And then as soon as you graduate, you realize it's all over. And none of it mattered. And pretty much all the people that were cool are complete and total losers that have probably even ruined their entire life. Because they're already addicted to drugs. They already have bastard children. They already have the STD that's going to haunt them for the rest of their life. They already learned absolutely nothing. And they have no prospects for college or a career or a job or anything. And now they have to live their entire life being damaged by the stupid decisions they made when they were 16, 17, 18. Why? Because their mom didn't care. Because their mom didn't raise them. You know, we need to raise children to follow God's commandments and abstain from sin. You know, it'd be great when they turn 18 that they learned how to abstain from sin. They learned how to work hard. They learned that it's important to be intelligent. And they learned to make wise life choices. Like being a virgin. You want your kid to be a virgin? Don't sit in a public school. You don't want to know those percentages. Marrying the right person. Because a lot of kids get married young. And I'm not against you marrying young. But here's the thing. You're with that person forever. And if you're not with that person forever, they're your ex forever. But no matter what you put in the category, it's forever. That's my ex forever. That's my wife forever. Not like, well, it's cool at 18. You know, and a lot of the people that you would marry at 18 that seem really cool. That football jock is not so cool at 19. When he flunked out of college, he wasn't as good at football in college. Because in high school, you know, everybody's, you know, people are a lot better than you think they are. Then they go to college and you realize he's just white and 5'10". And, you know, he can only throw it 35 yards. And, you know, he runs like a 4'8". Like, I mean, not anything great. And he flunked out of college. And he's dumb as rocks. And he's addicted to alcohol. And I married this idiot. That's why a lot of women wake up and they realize, like, oh, but he was so popular in high school. Who cares now? No one. How much does that matter now? None. Zero. And they get this inflated ego from being in high school that they usually can't even drop. They have to constantly try to live up and they have to chase that next high. It's just this weird social culture that doesn't even exist. It's a fake reality. You know, they talk about this thing, the metaverse, right? That's like high school. It's an alternate reality. It does not exist. And it creates these weird hypothetical situations that only exist in a little bit of high school. And then you have to exit it and none of it mattered. It's a weird social experiment that we're doing to our children, my friend. And I'm totally against it. I don't know if you can tell. But it doesn't teach you how to get a good paying job. It doesn't teach you how to have real knowledge, critical thinking. How to make wise investments to save money. The importance of having children, raising godly children. And the compounding consequences of your actions when you're not married to the right person. Now go to 1 Kings chapter 3. I want to go to one more place, okay? Esau is suffering from the bad decisions of his life day after day. And having just, I mean, who cares about any of these kids? You know, there's women in the Bible that don't care about kids at all. We'll prove this again. 1 Kings chapter 3, look at verse 23. Then said the king, the one saith, this is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead. And the other saith, nay, but thy son is the dead and my son is living. So there's two harlots. They approach Solomon and they say, one of our children's dead, the other's alive. And they're both claiming the right to the child, okay? They must all be white or something, so you can't tell, all right? You can't tell or they're all tanned. They're all the same color, right? There's not an obvious physical delineation. Can't tell which one's which. Both are claiming the child. Solomon, the wisest man on the earth, what does he say? And the king said, bring me a sword, and they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, divide the living child in two and give half to the one and half to the other. That's a really interesting thing. Don't you think that, because we know, we've read the story. You've got to think about it. Some guy went and got a sword and is thinking like, what in the world? It's like, the child's not going to survive this. Do you think he argued he was like right down the middle or like the bottom and the top? Like, what are we doing here? I don't see it working. Angle, you know, like a, what are you doing? Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king. Her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, oh my Lord, give her the living child. And in no wise lay it. Now, that tells me that it was serious. It wasn't like he was joking. He must have been dead serious. He's like, give me a sword, and I'm going to cut it in half. And they bring in the sword. I mean, it's looking real. It's feeling real. I mean, this isn't a charade, you know, to her. And she's, she's so horrified at her child dying. She's willing to give it to someone else. Now here, this is way different than dropping them off at public school. This is a last, this is the last ditch ever. You can see a great care for her child. What does the other woman say? But the other said, let it be neither mine nor thine, but divided. Now think about what she just said. I don't even want it. Not yours or mine. I don't want anybody to have it then. Just kill the kid. What kind of a psychopathic person literally just wants a child to be destroyed because she lost hers? What a psychopathic rage. Just kill it. Why don't you just wind it up and be done away with it? Then the king answered and said, give her the living child and in no wise slay it. She is the mother thereof. And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged. And they feared the king for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him through judgment. So everybody thought he was going to do it. But didn't this immediately show what was in their hearts? Didn't it immediately show who the mother was? And then he can rightfully restore the child unto the true mother, unto the one. And think about it this way. Think about it from Solomon's perspective. He can't know who the real mother is no matter what. But even if, let's say it was actually the opposite. What if the real mother had said divide it and the woman who said it wasn't her child said no don't kill it. Wouldn't you still want to give it to that woman anyways? It's a win-win for Solomon. At least based on what they said. But he obviously also knows that it's the real mother. Because only the real mother would have such a care. And you know what the Bible teaches and reality teaches? That no one loves your children like you. No one. No one loves your children. It's impossible to match that emotion. It's impossible to match those internal feelings and yearnings you have for your children. Now if you, obviously you could adopt a child or something. You could have those same feelings. You could take on a child. God takes us on and we're his adopted children and he loves us the same. You know what, when it's your child, when it's your possession, there's nothing like that. When it's someone else's kid, you just don't really, whatever. You know and for Esau, maybe he didn't, I mean I don't know what his thoughts were for his children. But when you have children with women that you didn't really care for that much or aren't even that great. A lot of times it will affect your feelings towards those children. Go back and let's kind of wrap this up. I know I spent a lot of time on that. But you know you can't put too much emphasis on the mother of your children. That's an important thing. You know and we need men to teach their women the Bible and take them to a good church so that their wives, the mother of their children, can teach their children the Bible. You know, my wife teaches, outside of preaching, you know obviously I preach. I'm just saying outside of me being in the role of a pastor, my wife teaches my children the Bible more than I do. And I read them a Bible chapter every night. But she has more opportunity, more availability. She teaches them all kinds of songs and all kinds of, I mean she's the one helping them learn Bible verses and all kinds of stuff on a regular basis. And so my wife needs to know the Word of God. She needs to be intelligent and study the Bible and read the Bible for my children's sake. Because it says in verse 7, For their riches are more than that they might dwell together in the land wherein they were strangers could not bear them because of their cattle. Thus dwelt Esau and Mount Seir. Esau is Edom. These are the generations of Esau, the father of the Edomites and Mount Seir. These are the names of Esau's sons. Eliaphas, the son of Adda, wife of Esau. Raoul, the son of Bashamath, the wife of Esau. And the sons of Eliaphas were Teman, Omar, Zetho, and Gattim and Kenaz. Now, for sake of time I'm not going to go to these places. I had a couple of places we were going to turn, but Teman is known for wisdom in the Bible. And it often talks about him in Obadiah. It says, And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed to the end that every one of Mount Esau may be cut off by slaughter. But he said he was going to destroy the wise men out of Edom. The Temans often associated with people that are very smart, but ultimately it comes to naught because God destroys all of them. Jeremiah 49 even emphasizes the same thing. That Teman was a place where they were very wise, but came to naught. You know, the Stephen Hawkings of the world. The Richard Dawkins of the world, right? Isn't there a lot of really intelligent people? Beautiful people that have a high IQ, maybe scientists, physicists, people that have accomplished great things. But if they're not saved, if they don't serve God, it's all meaningless and pointless anyways, and they're just going to be destroyed. You marry a woman for looks, your children might be beautiful, but beauty is vain. A woman that feared the Lord shall be praised, as the Bible says. I'd rather my wife pass on godly heritage than good looks. Fortunately for me, I got both. Verse 12. And Temna was concubined to life as Esau's son, and she beared to life as Amalek. These were the sons of Ada, Esau's wife. Now that Amalek is a different Amalek than we read throughout the scripture. Some of these names do cross a few times where they're a different person, but most everybody in this chapter, this is your only mention. I mean, this is it, pretty much. Or they're just mentioned in a list one other time. It says in verse 13, and these are the sons of Reuel, Nahath, and Zerah, Shema, and Mizah. These were the sons of Bashamath, Esau's wife. And these are the sons of Holybaima, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon, Esau's wife. And she beared Esau, Jayesh, and Jalem, and Korah. These are the dukes of the sons of Esau, the sons of Eliaphas, the firstborn son of Esau, Duke Timon, Duke Omar, Duke Zepho, Duke Kines, Duke Korah, Duke Gattam, and Duke Amalek. These are the dukes that came of Eliaphas in the land of Edom. These are the sons of Ada, and these are the sons of Reuel, Esau's son. Duke Nahath, Duke Zerah, Duke Shema, Duke Mizah. These are the dukes that came of Reuel in the land of Edom. These are the sons of Bashamath, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Holybaima, Esau's wife. Duke Jayesh, Duke Jalem, Duke Korah. And these were the dukes that came of Aholabaima, the daughter of Anah, Esau's wife. And it just makes me think, it's like, Euler, Euler. It's just a listening. I mean, it's just a roll call of a whole bunch of people that lived their lives and were even the most important person at the time. But they don't matter. It's like when you read this and you say, like, why is this in the Bible? It doesn't matter. It's because it doesn't matter that it's in the Bible. And think about it. Do you really want, I mean, what if I just read a list of all the names of the people that went to steadfast Baptist church or I read the list of all of your children and everybody just says, who's any of those people? Don't let this escape you. Which chapter of the Bible do you want to be? Do you want to be Genesis 36? Where it's just like, here's another guy that doesn't matter at all. Here's another guy nobody cares about. Here's another name that no one will ever name their children after. You know, Fanon. I mean, you know, there's some names that just get tarnished. You know, it's going to be hard to want to name someone Tyler now or something, you know. I mean, they just get names that start getting weird and gross. They're just like, who wants to name their kid Judas, you know? Like, you're just not going to want to name them that anymore. Verse 19, these are the sons of Esau who is Edom. These are their dukes. These are the sons of Seir, the Horite, who inhabit the land of Lotan and Shobol and Zibeon and Anah and Dyshon and Ezer and Dishon. Who cares about Dishon and Dishon? These are the dukes of the Horites, the children of Seir in the land of Edom. The children of Lotan were Hori and Hemam. Lotan's sister was Timnah. The children of Shobol were these, Alvin and Menahath, Nebol, Chiefo and Onam. These are the children of Zibeon, both Aja and Anah. This was that Anah that found the mules in the wilderness as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father. Now, such a weird verse. But think of it this way, okay? Let's think of a couple things of this verse. And this is really the only place I want to kind of pause. There's a whole bunch more names. We'll read them just for a second, just so you can realize how pointless they are. But they are describing a person that everybody knows who it is. And think about why they know who he is. Anah that found the mules in the wilderness. Wow. You know? I mean, it's that one guy that, you know, found some mules. It's like, is that really what you really want people to say about you? Look, here was the great Anah, the guy that found the mules. You're just like, what does that mean? It's like, that's what it means. It's like, that's the coolest thing he did in his life? Like, that was the best that he did? It's like, yeah. Like, that was the greatest accomplishment. That is the reason. Not only is that the greatest accomplishment, this is like the greatest accomplishment of all of these people. Because he's the one that gets a special mention. It's like idiocracy. When it's like, this guy can spell. Let's put him in charge. You know, it's like, that's the guy that found the mules. Whoa, bro. I couldn't find the mules. Man, let's put him in charge, bro. Look, go to places like Oklahoma City and that's what it's like. Like, whoa, bro. Hey, that's the guy that got the mules, man. Because everybody's such an idiot. That's what ungodly people are like. They have no point to their life. You know, think about the men of the Bible. Oh, he slew a lion-like man. He slew 800 at one time. He killed Goliath. He had a thousand wives. You know, I found some mules one time, bro. It's like, what? But, you know, you and I both know there are people in this world that if we were to say like, what's your greatest accomplishment? They wouldn't even have that. It's like, what have you done in your life? Well, you know, I killed like three people and caught a dude one time. Wow, cool. You know, one time I, you know, did some drugs. It's like, there's nothing cool about it. You know, their life is just complete utter foolishness and nonsense. It has no meaning. It has no purpose. I mean, when I read this, I'm just thinking like, this is what I think. Who cares? And it's like, that's why God put this stuff in here. It's like, I found the mules. Here's another meeting. Go to Psalms 32, okay? That's one thing, all right? Now, what is a mule, all right? A mule is different than an ass or a donkey in the Bible, okay? An ass or a donkey is the same animal. A mule is a very specific animal. It's a male donkey and it's a female horse breed and they produce a mule, okay? If you have a male horse and a female donkey, it's a henny, okay? They're very rare. Hennys are very rare because it's very hard to get the male horse and it's physics or chemistry and all that, okay? They bite and wait and all the stuff, okay? But the other one happens often, I guess. Male donkeys, they like the female horses or something, okay? And so you'll get mules. Now, a mule has more chromosomes than an ass. It has 63 chromosomes, whereas an ass has 62. And they typically end up becoming infertile. Mules are like an infertile beast. Now, throughout the scripture, mules are mentioned several different times. They're just a beast of burden. They're often a similar animal to a donkey in use. They use them as pack mules. Basically, people ride on them. They use them to carry different materials and stuff like that. It's not really a positive or negative animal. It's just an animal. It is an animal of benefit, of use. They use them. They're, you know, employed. And throughout history, they've been used, donkeys and mules and stuff have been used in farming, transport, industry, sport, military campaigns and much more. They're not associated with necessarily only good characters or only bad characters because Absalom is killed when riding on a mule. Solomon rides on David's mule, okay? That's kind of the inverse of people. But one thing in the Bible, look at Psalms 32 verse 8. I will instruct thee. I will teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. Verse 9, be not as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle as they come near unto thee. One thing about a mule though is it's a dumb animal that can't discern what to do or how to go. It has to be led. Now, what I think about this is I think that the mules in this can picture. This is just my parable, okay? I'm using this verse extrapolating from it. The mules picture lost people. Now, when we think of a lost person being found, we're all kind of pure people but we think of Jesus Christ finding them, don't we? You know, to seek and to save that which was lost, right? For I was found of them that sought me not. We think of verses like that. You know what? There's a different person that can find lost people and it's not a good one. Look at Proverbs chapter 7. Go to Proverbs chapter number 7. Now, who finds the mules in our story? Was it a good person? It's Anna. Anna's not anybody special. Anna's not the man of God. Anna's not someone going out and rescuing people. In fact, he wasn't even looking for them. He's just doing his own thing and just, hey, here's some mules. And look, as an animal, we're not. Let's just say we're the animal, right? Who do you want to ride on you? Do you want Absalom or Solomon? Like, I want to be Solomon's pet, right? I don't want to be, you know, Balaam's pet. He beats me, you know, for no reason, right? I wouldn't want to be a righteous person's pet. I want to be a righteous person's servant, you know? And I believe that animals would feel the same way as evidenced by even them talking in the Bible. Yes, they talk in the Bible. The donkeys talk. Not just in Shrek, right? Cooler. It's cooler than Shrek. And I wouldn't want to be Shrek's pet or friend or anything. He's weird, okay? I want to be a friend of someone righteous. But you know what? These lost people, they get taken in by the wrong person and they become a pointless animal helping people perform a pointless goal. Pointless use. Vanity abandons. Proverbs chapter 7. Here's a person that finds someone, wasn't looking. Look at verse 7. And I'm held among the simple ones that discern among the youth, a young man void of understanding, passing through the street near her corner. And he went the way to her house. In the twilight in the evening, in the black and dark night, and behold there met him a woman with the entitleer of an harlot. In subtle of heart, she is loud and stubborn, her feet abide not in her house. Now is she without, now in the streets, and lithe and wait at every corner. So she kissed him, or so she caught him and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, I have peace offerings with me this day, have I prayed, paid my vows. Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face. Notice this phrase, and I have found thee. Now, think about the story. She's just standing at the corner. And the Bible makes it clear he came to her corner. Right? But then she says, I found you. Kind of like Anna, who's just doing his thing and then all of a sudden just finds some mules. Now, what is he going to do with the mules? Who knows? Use them, abuse them, kill them, whatever. What does she do? Well, look at verse 21. With her much fair speech, she caused him to yield. With the flattering of her lips, she forced him. He goeth after her straightway, notice this, as an ox goeth to the slaughter. Just like a dumb beast out in the wilderness where some fool finds it, quote, unquote, just happens to wander his way, and then the fool says, oh yeah, come here. And just off with its head. And just this disgusting woman, this wicked woman, just standing there just waiting for guys, just saying, come here. And just slays him. Just slays guy after guy after guy after guy, the hoarse woman, just killing them. Look, you want to be careful who you're found of, who finds you. Be careful of the woman that finds you. Be careful of Anna that finds you. You know, Dinah went out to see the daughters of the land and she confound her. Someone else found her. You know, there's another person like the devil as a roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour. Notice the fact that he's seeking. He's going to find people. The devil finds people that weren't looking for him and what does he do to them? He destroys them. They just get taken in the slaughter. You know, the Bible talks in Matthew 12, go back and we'll finish. Matthew 12 talks about an unclean spirit going about and seeking some place of refuge, some place of rest, and then it just finds some random dude and just goes in there, just slaughters him, brings other wicked, you know, spirits with themself and the matter, the state of that man is worse than before. You know, the unsaved are being found not just of Christians, you know they're also being found of? Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, Satanists, just wicked evil, disgusting whores and whoremongers and that's why we have to go find them and rescue them. Because other people will find them and other people will destroy their lives and take them to hell with them and make their life a life of vanity, of foolishness, of nonsense. We have to go and rescue them from all the Anas out there. And so they're not just, well, they're just found of Anah. Verse 25, the Bible says, and the children of Anah were these. I guess they like to rhyme. You know, that's what I always find in the Bible. And the children of Ezer are these. And the children of Dyshan are these. Well, we didn't like him because he's not an Aran. It's like everybody's like an An and then it's like us. Like what's your name in this one? Us? These are the dukes that came of the Horites. Duke Lotan, Duke Shobol, Duke Zibeon, Duke Anah, Duke Dyshan, Duke Ezer, Duke Dyshan. These are the dukes that came of Ori among their dukes in the land of Seir. And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom. Before there reigned any king or the children of Israel. And Beelah the son of Beor reigned in Edom and the name of the city was Deneba. And Beelah died and Jobab the son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his stead. And Jobab died and Husham of the land of Temeni reigned in his stead. And Husham died and Hadad the son of Bedad who smote Midian in the field of Moab reigned in his stead. And the name of his city was Avith and Hadad died. That was a cool life. Hey, he killed somebody? Dead. He died too. And Samlah of Mesrechah reigned in his stead. And Samlah died and Saul of Rehoboth by the river reigned in his stead. And Saul died. And Belhainen the son of Akbor reigned in his stead. And Belhainen the son of Akbor died. And Adar reigned in his stead. This next guy, next guy, next guy, nobody cares. And the name of the city was Pahu. And his wife's name was Mehedabel. The daughter of Matred. The daughter of Mezohab. These are the dukes that came of Esau according to their families, according to their places, by their names. Duke Temnah, Duke Alva, Duke Jethath, Duke Aholi-Bama, Duke Elah, Duke Pianan, Duke Hinnaz, Duke Timin, Duke Mibzar, Duke Magdal, Duke Iram. These would be the dukes of Edom according to their habitations in the land of their possession. He is Esau, the father of the Edomites. Read that chapter and you think, wow, that was so boring and so pointless. You know what? You should look at the mirror when you read that chapter and say, well, who am I? I haven't even found any mules. You know? Don't be like Genesis 36. Be any other chapter of the Bible virtually. There's a couple, you know, don't be Genesis 19, okay? But, 36 isn't a great chapter either. It's just pointless and so many people are going to be, like this is the majority of the world. Just Genesis 36. He lived and then died and then he lived and then he died and then he lived and then he died and then he lived and then he died. Just vanity of vanity, just fodder, just meaningless, just nobody cares, nobody will remember. 99% of people that have ever lived, you and I have no idea who they are. You couldn't even tell me your great-great-great-great-grandpa. And you certainly couldn't tell anybody else's great-grandpa. You don't know anybody. You know these people. You know what? And we're known of God. Why don't you live a life that has actually some purpose and meaning and think, you know what? What's the difference between Esau and Jacob? Here's a big difference, they're wives. And then notice their children have a huge difference. Oh yes, the children of Israel. I wonder if we're going to read about them again in the Bible. I wonder if we're going to read about Judah again. Or Joseph. Or Levi. I wonder if we're going to read about them. Are we going to read about Anna? He's gone. Anna's done. All these other people, it just means nothing. How are you going to live your life? Who are you going to marry? All these things matter. And we need to take a chapter like this and take it soberly and realize that, you know, the decisions you make are going to have everlasting impact. Lifelong consequences. Let us take these chapters seriously and soberly and take our lives seriously and soberly. Not be an Anna. Alright, let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for this chapter. Thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to have an everlasting impact through the gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray that we wouldn't take our lives as just a fun joke or this is a silly endeavor or as a selfish ambition. But rather we would live a life of sacrifice. That we would invest in the children that you bless us with. That we would invest in the spouse that you've given us. That we would invest our lives in the word of God. That we would be fruitful and multiply not just physically but spiritually as well. And that we would realize the importance of serving you. And that for all of eternity the things that we do in this life are going to matter. Just like high school is over as soon as you graduate, this life is over as soon as you die. And I think so many people are so concerned with high school popularity called this world. Rather than the everlasting impact of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I pray that we'd have an internal view of our lives rather than a worldly view. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. For our final song this evening we go to song 39, How Beautiful Heaven Must Be. Song number 39, How Beautiful Heaven Must Be. Song number 39, How Beautiful Heaven Must Be. We read of a place that's called heaven. It's made for the pure and the free. These truths in God's word He hath given. How beautiful heaven must be. How beautiful heaven must be. Sweet home of the happy and free. Fair heaven abreast for the weary. How beautiful heaven must be. In heaven no drooping or pining. No wishing for elsewhere to be. God's light is forever there shining. How beautiful heaven must be. How beautiful heaven must be. Sweet home of the happy and free. Fair heaven abreast for the weary. How beautiful heaven must be. Pure waters of life there are flowing. And all who will drink may be free. Rare jewels of splendor are glowing. How beautiful heaven must be. How beautiful heaven must be. Sweet home of the happy and free. Fair heaven abreast for the weary. How beautiful heaven must be. The angels so sweetly are singing. Up there by the beautiful sea. Sweet chords with their gold hearts are ringing. How beautiful heaven must be. How beautiful heaven must be. How beautiful heaven must be. Sweet home of the happy and free. Fair heaven abreast for the weary. How beautiful heaven must be. Good singing. You are dismissed.