Romans chapter seven, starting at verse one. Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then, if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Thus far the reading of God's holy word. Let us pray that the Lord will bless us in the consideration of these matters. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your holy word. We pray that you would pour out the spirit that inspired these words upon our hearts, that we may receive the things freely given to us, that we may know and understand them and apply them in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. For the last several weeks, we've been considering the law of the husband, the law of marriage, taking as a springboard this passage in Romans 7, but looking particularly at the scriptures of the Old Testament. My plan is to finish up the patriarchs next week, and then get into the law of Moses, and then the prophets, and then the apostles, and hopefully do a high-level overview of the teaching of scripture about the law of marriage. Please open your Bibles to Genesis 16 as we continue looking at the patriarchs and marriage. The prototypical marriage of the Bible is that of Abraham or Abram and his wife Sarai or Sarah. Genesis 16, we'll read the whole chapter there starting at verse 1. Page 15 of your pew Bibles. Verse one. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bear him no children. And she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarai said unto Abram, my wrong be upon thee. I have given my maid into thy bosom. And when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between me and thee. But Abram said unto Sarai, behold, thy maid is in thy hand. Do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. Look down there, the prophecy in verse 12 concerning the child that she would bring forth. And he will be a wild man, his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. Here we have a very sad history concerning our father Abram, later Abraham. Notice verse 1. She has, Sarai does, a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. Remember we looked at this sojourn down into Egypt? God said, this is the land I promised to your descendants. Abram said, not enough green grass, I'm going down into Egypt. In his sojourn in Egypt, he picks up Hagar, who becomes the bondmaid through whom the Ishmaelites will come. Also Lot, when he sees Sodom and Gomorrah, will see something like what he saw in Egypt, the fields as you go to Zoan. He will remember the sojourn down to the Greenlands and say, ah, Sodom is beautiful and lush and green, and he will go there. So here, Hagar is left over from the Egyptian sojourn. Verse two, notice Sarai has a problem. God has been promised in chapter, or Abram has been promised by God in chapter 15, I will cause you to have a seed. He will come forth from thine own bowels. Abram complains there. You've given me no seed. You say you'll be my shield and exceeding great reward, but I don't have any children. Is Eleazar going to inherit the slave born in my house? And God says, no, you will have a child from your own bowels. And that is almost, I think about 13 years before this, that all these events occur. There's many years lapsed between these times. In any case, what we see here is Sarai has a good plan. She has a plan by which the promise of God will be fulfilled. Not through herself, because after all she's old, she can't bear children anymore. but rather through some kind of scheme, some device. So she starts with this, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. Well, let me ask you a question. If the Lord restrained you from bearing, could the Lord cause you to bear? Well, yes, he could, because he opens and he closes the womb, he's closed, he can open, right? But does she say that? No. God stopped me, God's restrained me, God's hindered me, therefore I have an idea. She sees herself in the light, you might say, of a victim. God has done this to me, therefore we can do these things. Go in unto my maid, she says, it may be that I may obtain children by her. Now, remember how God made man. Remember that it was two who became one flesh. And who is it that instituted the multiplication of wives? It was the wicked, the ungodly, those estranged from the life of God, those violent and evil descendants of Cain who were prideful and wicked and evil. Those people instituted this practice. And notice her tone of voice. Go in unto my maid. You see that? What is that? That's the imperative mood, as we call it. You do what I say. Remember, she's speaking to her husband. Go in unto my maid. I have a plan. I am a victim. And you're going to do what I say. Got that, Abram? Now, this is outside of the law of marriage to have this addition to the marital coupling, the two made one. Human wisdom devised another way, and therefore it is fleshly, it is sensual, it is demonic, and it gendereth to what? Freedom, bondage. Man's wisdom leads to bondage. Notice verse two goes on to say, Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. This also is contrary to the law of marriage, is it not? Who is to hearken to whom? Now this word, hearken, Shema, Shema Yisrael, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Submit yourselves to these words. Listen carefully to them. What did Abram do to his wife's words? He hearkened, Shema. He obeyed. He submitted to his wife. In fact, the Geneva Bible translates this, obeyed. He obeyed the voice of Sarai. This is as a head that listens to its body. Rather than commanding and ruling over the body, many people are ruled by their bodies, not by their thoughts, but by their urges, as if they were animals. This is what's happened with this marriage. Things are going chaotic and upside down, and therefore you can mark it down, problems are coming. problems with the patriarchs, problems with polygamy, problems with the offspring of these unnatural couplings and joining together. There will be fallout. There will be results. They will reap what they sow. I note then this doctrine The woman with a husband is called hupandras. You remember this from Romans 7 verse 2. Hupa, under, and andras is the man or the husband. The woman there in Romans 7, 2 is called hupandras. She is under a husband. Here, notice, is that how this works in this scenario? It is contrary to the order of nature, the law of marriage in scripture, for men to obey their wives. Now again, men will not say, by the way, I obey my wife. There are not too many of those who will admit this, but they will in fact obey their wives. They just won't call it that. Let's say I'm deferring to my wife. Oh, I'm such a nice guy. Congratulations, me. No, you're obeying your wife. You're hearkening to her voice as Abram did to Sarai's voice. This is contrary. She is to be hupandras. Here she's issuing orders to her husband. Another doctrine. Husbands, you do no honor to your wife, but merely consult your own sloth to save yourself trouble if you obey her. If you submit yourself to your wife's words and hearken to her as Abram hearkened to his wife, you put the crown upon her head. You say, you are in charge here. I will do what you say. God says to honor her as what? As your ruler? as the weaker vessel. She's not meant to bear the strain of ruling over the household. It is not God's design for her. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. God made you the stronger vessel to bear the crown. You put it on her head as Abram does here, and what are you doing? Honoring her as the weaker vessel? No, you're pushing things on her she should not have. This serves as a rebuke to the effeminate, to the egalitarian, to what is sometimes called the complementarian ideas concerning marriage. Now there are complementarians who call themselves that, who are biblically sound, but there are many who are not. The majority, I would say, are not. And what they mean is, oh, well, there's this complimentary relationship where one fits where the other lacks. Is that true? Yes. But that implies nothing about subordination, does it? They won't say it's a subordinate relationship of a superior and an inferior, no, though we compliment each other. Oh, really? Well, one shirt might complement a pair of pants. Does that mean the shirt has to obey the pants or vice versa? No, because complementing doesn't say anything about subordination, which is why they like the term. Because the communists hate patriarchy. They want to smash it. So they don't want to use that word. Oh, that's bad. All the abuses out there of patriarchy. Oh, well, what about the abuses of feminism like ripping your babies to shreds in the womb? You think maybe that's an abuse of feminism that you might want to avoid sounding like a feminist? No, no, no, no. I want to avoid sounding like those guys over there who believe the Bible. This is egalitarianism. men being required to defer to their wives in virtually everything. Just do what she says, man, happy wife, happy life, right? She throws a fit, just do what she says. Happy wife, happy life, like she's a little baby. This is ungodly. And this is what's happening here. Abram submits to his wife. He obeys her. He hearkens to her voice. When she issues a command, he complies with it. Husbands, you must learn to command your wives. Think this through. If God says, wives, submit to your husbands, and you never require your wife to submit to you, are you helping her to grow in obedience to God? No. You're actually letting her go wild and pretending as if God never told her that. But I can assure you that's the first thing God gets to in Ephesians 5. The first thing He gets to is that wives are to submit to their own husbands. So if you require no submission of your wife, you are no friend to her holiness. You are an enemy to her holiness. She is to submit to you. And this means to follow orders. That's the word, hupotasso in Greek. Hupa is under and tasso is an order issued by a superior expected to be obeyed. In fact, it's used of military commanders, that their soldiers are to submit to them. It's used of us, we're to submit ourselves to God, our superior. It's used of citizens to their magistrates, let them submit to the higher powers. And it's used of wives toward their husbands, they're to submit to them. They're to come under the orders. If you issue no order, and rather the wife issues orders as here, go in unto my maid, and then he hearkens and submits to her, you have the inverse of what God has designed. So you must learn to give orders, not to walk gingerly on eggshells, on pins and needles, afraid that she might oppose your orders, lacking confidence to issue them. If you offer no orders to your wife, again, you deprive her of her duty to God. That's not loving her. Wives, you must learn to defer to your husbands. You must refrain from commanding. Now, hear this out. You may not say the words, go do this, but you sure can imply it. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Solomon says, a wife who is contentious is like a continual dripping. Okay, just leave me alone. We'll do what you want. Manipulating, using words. Oh, I'll just withdraw. I'm not talking to you today. Well, why aren't you talking to me? Well, I just, I don't want to do that. Well. Should you submit to your husband or not? Is it an unlawful, sinful order? Then you must not submit. But if it's within the bounds of the authority God has ceded to your husband, you must learn to submit. You must not seek to sway his will by indirect commands, withdrawing, silence, facial expressions. I will not submit to you. Just try to make me. Wives, if you don't know if you do this, ask your husband, do I ever try to sway you not to do what you say? Ask him, he might tell you things you'd find of interest. And all of us, whether husbands, wives, children, singles, friends, whatever, think about this for a moment. How long had Abram striven to do God's will? How often had Sarai obeyed her husband? She had, she's a good example in many ways. But notice here, after all these years of going through temptations, they fall. So all of us must watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation. Two stalwarts of the faith, Abram and Sarai, and they fall to temptation. Calvin notes on this passage. Through so many years, Abram had bravely contended like an invincible combatant and had surmounted so many obstacles, now yielding in a single moment to temptation. Therefore, although we may have stood long and firmly in the faith, we must daily pray that God would not lead us into temptation. This is why that petition is in the Lord's Prayer. Every single day, we need to ask God, please, Lord, lead us not into temptation. But I've been doing this so long. I got this Christian life down. I'm not worried about that temptation. That's when you fall. Lead us not into temptation. Though they had a godly and solid marriage for year after year, they fell to temptation in this point. Now, verse three. and Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt 10 years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. What happens after that song? Anybody know? The father of the bride walks the girl down the aisle and what does he do? He gives that girl to that man, showing one thing. I am an authority over this girl. I transfer my authority to you who are subordinated to me, the father of the bride. Who is, pray tell, the father of the bride here at this wedding? Sarai. Now, not only is she commanding her husband what he's supposed to do, she is now the authority over this whole thing. She gives this girl in marriage to her own husband. One sin leads to another. Who is active here? Who gives this woman to be married to this man? I do, she says. She's in charge. This is ironic. He calls her, the Holy Spirit calls her Sarai Abrams what? Wife, supposed to be in subordination to him, telling him what to do, being the active one who gives in marriage. This is a perversion of the roles of husband and wife. She gave Hagar to her husband, Abram, to be his wife. Now this word wife is used here improperly as the word prophet, you remember in Deuteronomy 13. He thinks he's a prophet, he's a false prophet. She's supposed to be a wife, but she's not. Just as in Romans 7, 3, it refers to her marrying another man. It's not really marriage. Okay, it's illegitimate, in other words, she's an adulteress. So here, this is not quite what you'd call a marriage, is it? This is not quite what you'd call adultery either, is it? It's something in between that man devised a system of marriage that is either marriage, no, it's not that, or is it adultery? No, it's not that, what is it? Well, it's man-made. In fact, if you think about Galatians 4, and the notion of justification by works and by faith, is it really justification by works? Well, not quite. Is it really justification by faith? Well, not quite. It is man's wisdom. And that's the parallel to Judaizing and what happens here. Man's fleshly wisdom, the false gospel, go together. It's a corrupt addition to God's institution, seeking shelter somewhere between adultery and marriage. We have these fair pretexts. I'll adopt the children of the marriage, she says. After all, she's my slave. I give her to ye. You see this? It's the corruption of man's carnal mind. And what happens in this scenario? Does it end well for Sarai? Is she happy with the results of this marriage and they all lived happily ever after? No. Her mistress, verse four, was despised in her eyes. This is an ironic judgment, and God often does this in his providence. He judges us ironically. Abram was despised by Sarai, wasn't he? She thought down upon little boy Abram, who was supposed to follow orders, right? Now what happens to her slave? Does her slave follow her orders now? No, in fact, she despises, that means to look down your nose at this person who's under you to despise her, her mistress. This word can be translated as a queen or lady or mistress of slaves. Again, it's ironic language. Thinking down on your superior, what? That doesn't make any sense. God was despised by Abram in the way he responded to Sarai. Sarai, the queen or mistress of Hagar, is despised by her foreign slave. I note then this doctrine. The Westminster Annotations. This punishment declareth what they gain who attempt anything against the word of God. Evil counsel proveth worst to those that give it. What do you mean? How can it prove bad to me if I'm just giving other people bad counsel? Well, note right here. What does God do? Does he honor the counsel of Sarai? Not at all. He curses it. He turns it back into her teeth. He turns it into her own despising by her slave. Her evil counsel was worst to herself. She brought this upon herself by despising her husband. She despises herself. Let us then not devise purposes that oppose God's word. And let us be extremely cautious in the counsel we give to others. If you seek for counsel, seek one who is wise and godly. Do not give counsel unless it is wise and godly or you will damage your own self. Another exhortation, let us not despise those in authority over us. Let us not dishonor those who are over us, lest we bring dishonor upon ourselves. You can see this sometimes with children and their mother. And you can see sometimes, I've seen marriages where the wife does not respect her husband, and guess who doesn't respect their mom? The children. Because they see, you don't respect dad, why should we respect you? It's almost instinctive. You're not following orders, why should we follow orders? You, Sarah, are bossing your husband around, I despise you. I've got a baby in my womb, ha ha, you never got one. I'm favored by God, you're not, she says. She despises her mistress, and Sarah deserves it. To be quite honest with you, it is an ironic judgment of God, but still, Hagar is sinning. She should not despise her mistress. She should not look down upon those who are above her. Though they are imperfect, though they are sinning, though they do foolish things, though she gave evil counsel, she should not be despised as her mistress. Sarai was seeking for good things. She thought she would be a blessing to her husband and to her family, and that they would finally have an heir by the means of her own devising. Were not all these good intentions? Yes, they are. And this is why we have this proverb that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. All the nice things people want to do, God does not approve of them. God condemns them. They lead you down to perdition, but you think you're helping out? Yeah, we do. That's why we can't trust our wisdom, why we trust in the Lord. She brings disaster upon her family while seeking ostensibly to do good to it. Verse five. And Sarah, I said unto Abram, hold on a second. She's not done talking. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sarah, I said unto Abram, my wrong be upon thee. What? Some people try to excuse this and say, oh, because we're husband and wife, when I suffer disgrace, you suffer disgrace. That's not what she's saying. You'll see here. She's gonna ask God to judge between Abram and herself, who's right and who's wrong. You're wrong, Abram. My wrong be upon thee. I'm despised because of what you did. I gave my maid into thy bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. That's the wrong that's done to her, by the way. The Lord judged between me and thee. Them's fighting words. God, condemn me or condemn you in this situation. Who's at fault? My wrong be upon thee, Abram. You're at fault. This is your fault. Do you see how our sins snowballs? If you leave one sin unmortified, it'll bring three more and make excuses for them. I'm not going to put that sin off. Oh, really? I got more for you to do. That's what the devil does. That's what your flesh does. That's what the world does. You don't want to mortify and put to death this sin. I've got more and more and more in store for you. First, she doesn't trust in the power of God. God's withholding me from bearing. He can't do that. I'm as good as done. There's no way I'm gonna have kids. God has other plans, of course. But she thinks in her fleshly wisdom, then she starts bossing her husband around. You go do this thing. Go in unto my maid. I'll get children through her. Abram obeys. Then she takes the authoritative position in the marriage, hands off the woman to her little guy, Abram, who's now under her authority, supposedly, and now she wants to blame him. It's your fault. You did this to me. She, who is the instigator, the despiser of her husband, wants to pretend that she's the victim. You see that? My wrong upon thee, you did this. Who came up with the idea, Sarai? You did. Who gave the maid into your husband's bosom? You did. Who said, I wanna have children, I want her to conceive and I'll adopt that child? You did. Whose fault is this? Abrams. Okay. All right. Loony, let us beware of the victim mentality. Oh, I'm a good person. So if I'm doing bad things, whose fault is that? Somebody else. Devil made me do it. You made me do it. Raised by the wrong parents. Went to the wrong school. Wrong socioeconomic status. My color's the wrong skin. I am a victim. No, you're a sinner, and so am I. And when we do wrong, we need to acknowledge it. If she really wants the Lord to judge between her and her husband, she might start with, will you please forgive me for telling you what to do? That's a good place to start. Will you please forgive me for ordering you around? Will you please forgive me, Lord, for distrusting your power to open up my womb? No. That can't happen. It's got to be somebody else's fault. I'm a victim. Often we share in the blame that we ascribe to others. This is often the case, it's not always the case. We are legitimately wronged by others at times, don't get me wrong on that. Yes, we are victimized at times, but the mentality of victimization is, I don't need to repent because I'm not a sinner. And if I sin, it's not my fault, it's somebody else's. That's what Sarai is doing. Let us then examine our ways. Parents, have we sinned against our children? And then we play the victim for the sins that we committed against them. This happens all the time. A parent is overly permissive with their child. The child is rebellious and disobedient as a result. And then the parent acts like they're the victim in this scenario. Well, shouldn't you have disciplined your child like God said? No, it's their problem. Well, you didn't discipline them. Now they're responsible for their sins. Don't get me wrong, children are not victims either. They're still responsible to obey and respect their parents, even if their parents don't discipline them properly. It's 100% responsibility on both sides. But have we contributed to the actual corruption of our children? Yes, we can do that. And when we do it, we can't say, oh, they're such an awful child. I'm a victim of all the wrongs they do. No. We may have contributed. Husbands and wives can do the same thing. You do wrong to your wife, and then you blame her for her responding to the wrong that you've done, and you don't confess your sin, you blame her for it. Well, she's like a garden. If you expect to grow anything good, you've got to cultivate the garden. You've got to instruct her. You've got to show her by your example. You've got to pray for and with her. And if you neglect all those means and you have a garden filled with weeds, what did you expect? Should she still be a cultivated garden on her own? Yes, but you have contributed to it and you must acknowledge it and not see yourself as a victim. Verse six. But Abram said unto Sarai, behold, thy maid is in thy hand, due to her is it pleaseth thee. That's pretty restrained, isn't it? Just imagine if somebody who did all these wrongs to you, you're in authority over them, they're bossing you around, now all these problems come because of their pushy, obnoxious ways, and they blame you for it, what would you say? I probably wouldn't respond this way. This is very temperate. This is very soft compared to what he could actually say to her at this moment. A soft answer turneth away wrath. Now it didn't completely remove her wrath from her maidservant, we'll see, but it did not escalate the conflict between husband and wife. Abram possibly understood that he had contributed to the problem by submitting to her order. That's possible. Maybe he blamed himself in some ways. But whether that's the case or not, he did not escalate the verbal battle. That's the point. That's what we can take from that. That's what we can apply. When you're in a verbal battle with someone, and they're actually in the wrong, and they're accusing you falsely, how do you respond? What is the godly way to respond? Abram's an example. Don't throw fuel on the fire, don't pour the gas on the flame, because then the fire gets bigger. If you wanna put the fire out, you do something to cover the flame, you don't provide more fuel to the flame. These words provide cover to the flame, rather than gas or oil. Husbands, let us imitate the noble example of Abram. Let us turn others away from strife rather than stirring up wrath and contention. And though others may fail in this very thing, though others may provoke us to anger, provoke us to strife, let us seek rather, as Jesus our Lord says, to be peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Let us seek to end strife, not escalate strife. Another exhortation. Abram also recognizes the rights of his wife over her own slave, now a quasi-wife to him. Thy maid is in thy hand, do to her as it pleaseth thee, he says. What is he recognizing? You are the mistress, you have the rights of a mistress over your slave. If you are pleased to do something about this with her, do it. He doesn't shame her for her faults, which she could. He doesn't deny that she's still the mistress over her slave, although she gave her slave to Abram. You see that? She gave up the rights as a mistress when she did that. But Abram still respects her rights. He still concedes that she has some authority. Husbands, we must protect the government of our wives. They have lawful and legitimate authority over their children. When your wife acts under your orders, do not undermine her orders. Do not countermand or speak against her authority over her lawful inferiors. I've seen this many a time. Wife is acting on the disciplinary measures her husband has instituted, issues an order to the children, and dad steps in and undoes the order. That's not good. She's acting under your authority. You now have children confused about what actually am I supposed to do? Mom tells me to do this thing that I know dad wants me to do or not to do this thing dad doesn't want me to do. Now dad's telling me I can do it? What? That doesn't make any sense. It leads to chaos and confusion. Here notice, Abram does not undermine his wife's lawful authority over her slave. He recognizes that she's your slave. Whatever you want to do, do it. He protects her authority over her slave. Now, parents can get into public disagreements. They can countermand each other. This is especially grievous when wives do it to their husbands. But it's even grievous when a husband does it to his wife. Unless she's doing something wrong, contrary to your orders, you may not disagree with her in front of your children and rebuke her for doing what you said. Find out what's going on. Is this what I said should be done? Are these my rules she's following? If so, don't you dare countermand her before her subordinates. That leads to rebellion. All right, now verse 12. Notice the results, the problems that come out of this kind of arrangement. referring to Ishmael and he will be a wild man his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren here is the result of this bastardized form of marriage lawlessness This word, when it says he is a wild man, it's actually a very nice way of translating, a very harsh way of speaking. Literally, it says he will be an ass of a man, or an ass man, literally, is what it says in Hebrew. This guy is going to be ungovernable. That's what an ass is. You cannot govern it, you can't tell it what to do. It doesn't think, it doesn't reason, it uses violence. That's what this boy's gonna be like. He will be the ass man. He will be the ungovernable one. He will be filled with violence and stubbornness, wildness, fierceness, unreasoning, brutish, and violent. Now think back with me to our first example of polygamy. What sort of man was he? Good, peaceful sort of person. He killed a guy. You get back there far enough, and you got a guy who says, this young man hurt me. I killed him because he wounded me. I took vengeance. And if anybody comes after me, it's not seven times vengeance. It's 70 times seven. Gonna crush you. That's his attitude toward life. That's your first polygamist. Now look here. What happens when Abram indulges in this half marriage, half adultery deal called concubinage? What sort of thing does that beget? Wildness, lawlessness, violence, brutishness, and everyone is going to have to have defensive armory against this guy. That's what it means. His hand shall be against everyone. He's gonna try to spoil and plunder. He's gonna try to take your stuff. Everyone's hand's gonna be against him. Why? Because if you just sit there, he's gonna steal your junk. You gotta have arms ready to fight this guy, or he'll take it all. Every man's hand against him. This is not the peaceable fruit of righteousness. This is like begetting like, and thus our doctrine. Like begets like. One thing of the flesh begets another thing of the flesh. Just as that which is of the Spirit begets that which is of the Spirit, as we'll see in Galatians 5 and 6, that which is of the flesh begets flesh. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. One momentary slip by Abram and by Sarai and it's all trouble from then on. And we'll see this actually, I'll allude to this in the other patriarchs. What happens when Jacob gets multiple wives? Does his life get really peaceful and serene? Lots of kids and chirping birds and wonderful, no. He gets people killing each other. He gets people going out and destroying whole villages. He gets trouble after trouble till his stench arises. And he's afraid everybody's gonna fall upon him and kill him. And he has no way of defending himself. That's what happens. Then you have Joseph. That's a whole other story, isn't it? Why do they hate Joseph? Well, he's not from the same mom, is he? He's from the highly favored mom. You're Mr. Special Guy with your long coat. Oh, dreamer of dreams, we're gonna kill you. Does that sound like peace and harmony and love? No, like begets like. Violating the order of God built into the created order of one man and one woman joined together as one flesh does not end well. Let us then in exhortation, let us look well to our goings, especially those moments of temptation that overtake us after years of victory. I thought I was done with this trial, Lord. God has something for you. We may pay dearly, as Abram's children would find out. Ishmael's descendants would be the wild asses, the brutes, the rogues, and the savage, cruel beasts that would ransack all the countries. And everybody hated them, but you couldn't get rid of them. Just because of this one foolish decision. Everyone would have to raise arms to oppose the violence of these descendants of our father, Abram, nonetheless. So let us watch unto prayer. Let us hide the word of God in our hearts that we not sin against him, lest we reap the whirlwind by a moment's weakness. And thus far, the explanation of the law of marriage, patriarchs, polygamy, and problems from Genesis 16.