Now in II Samuel chapter eleven we have the familiar story about David committing adultery with Bathsheba. This is a very major sin that he commits here. It's really a sad story about just what a righteous man Uriah was, what an honorable man he was, and how much he loved David and wanted to be the best that he could for David. Here David commits this horrible sin of committing adultery with his wife while he's out fighting for David. If we look at where this all started in verse number one, it says, "It came to pass after the year was expired at the time when kings go forth to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel. They destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. David tarried still at Jerusalem." Obviously nothing in the Bible is accidental or just incidental. That tells us that he did not go to battle for a reason. That's when kings would normally go. Instead of he himself going as the king he just sends Joab. He tarries behind at Jerusalem.
Then it says in verse two, "It came to pass in an evening tide that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king's house. From the roof he saw a woman washing herself. The woman was very beautiful to look upon. David sent and inquired after the woman. One said, 'Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.' David sent messengers and took her." He sees her. He lusts after her in his heart. He covets her. He ends up committing this awful sin. What in the world is he doing arising from off his bed at evening tide? I mean how often do you go to bed at night and then get back up out of bed and start walking around? Probably not very often right? I mean if you're a hardworking man when you go to bed at the end of the day, it feels good to go to bed. You're not getting up.
Sometimes my wife will try to tell me, "Go get up, and do this and that." It's pretty hard to get me out of bed after I'm asleep. If there's ever an intruder, she's going to blow them away. It's not going to be me. She's going to be the one. She probably won't even bother. She'll wake me up to deal with the body. It'll be akin to taking out the trash. Honestly it's pretty hard to get me out of bed once I go to bed because I'm done. I'm asleep. I'm tired. Just the fact that all these little details are in this story God's giving us these details so that we can learn something. If one of the greatest men in the Bible, David, could commit one of the most awful sins in the Bible, this is a story that we should definitely pay attention to.
When you see a very godly man committing a horrible, wicked sin, you have to look at this and say, "How did this happen? Where is this coming from?" We see that it's coming from him not doing what he's supposed to be doing. He's idle. He's sitting around. Just the fact that he goes to bed and then gets back up out of the bed shows that he's not tired, which shows that he's not working, which shows that he's idle. What was his job? As the king the whole purpose of being king was to go out and fight battles. If you remember when the children of Israel even chose a king in the first place, they said, "We want a king like all the other nations", but they specifically said, "to fight our battles for us, to go out and to come in before us." What is the purpose of a king anyway? Well, in Bible days it was to be the commander and chief of the armed forces. It was to go out and fight the battle. It wasn't just to have a guy that we can put on a throne and feed grapes and fan him with a big palm branch. The whole point is that he's going to be a military leader.
David is failing to do his job. He's not doing any work. He's sitting around just enjoying being king. He's in the lap of luxury. We're talking about a guy that it's not like he wasn't married. In fact, he had multiple wives, and yet he's just bored. He's idle. He's sitting around. Next thing you know he gets up out of bed at night. He's just looking around. He sees this woman. He knows she's married, and yet he committed adultery with her anyway. You see, idleness and not doing the things that we're supposed to be doing is often what leads us into sin, and staying busy doing the right things and godly things can keep us out of sin. Go to Ezekiel chapter sixteen.
While you're turning to Ezekiel chapter sixteen, let me read you another scripture about adultery in Jeremiah chapter five. You're turning to Ezekiel sixteen. In Jeremiah 5:7 it says, "How shall I pardon thee for this? Thy children have forsaken me and sworn by them that are no Gods. When I had fed them to the full, then they committed adultery." Listen to that statement. "When I had fed them to the full, then they committed adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses. They were as fed horses in the morning. Every neighed after his neighbor's wife." God is saying there that sometimes when people get full and they're comfortable and relaxed, they have a tendency to get into sin. He said, "They were fed to the full. They could relax. They were like fed horses." Wild horses they have go to out and do something and make something happen every day. Horses that are not in the wild they live a pretty leisurely life when they're not being ridden or made to work. He's saying, "They're like fed horses. They neighed every man after his neighbor's wife. They committed adultery. They assembled by troops in the harlots' houses."
Look at Ezekiel 16:49 it says, "Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom." Of course Sodom is pretty much the most wicked city that ever existed in the Bible. It says, "The sin of thy sister Sodom was pride, fullness of bread", doesn't that remind you of what he said in Jeremiah when he said, "I fed them to the full then they committed adultery"? "Fullness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. They were haughty and committed abomination before me. Therefore, I took them away as I saw it good." Now, some people will abuse this passage and say, "Well, according to this passage Sodom wasn't destroyed because of homosexuality. It had nothing to do with that. It was just because they didn't have hospitality toward strangers." I've seen people point to this scripture to say that Sodom was not destroyed because of homosexuality. What they're missing is that in verse number fifty it says what? "They were haughty", and did what, "Committed abomination", so it's not that God is listing an alternate reason why Sodom was destroyed. He's still mentioning the fact that they were destroyed for committing abomination.
We know that abomination was men with men, vile, disgusting, filthy sodomy homosexuality. That's what it is by the way. It's disgusting. It's vile. It's filthy. It's reprobate. God has poured out his wrath on it again and again throughout history. In America today we have become softened and desensitized to it. It's an abomination. We should use words like vile and filthy to describe it not words like gay and alternate lifestyle and these other terms that our society uses. Here we don't see an alternate reason why he destroyed Sodom rather we see what led to them committing abomination. Where did it start? It started with pride.
When we look at Romans chapter one, you don't have to turn there, and he gives the downward spiral that leads a society into sodomy, it starts out by saying, "When they knew God, they glorified him not as God neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations. Their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." When we get that image in Romans one, we see pride. If somebody's professing themselves to be wise, wouldn't you say that's a proud person if they're saying, "Hey, I'm wise"? When they're not thankful to God, that's pride. Humility thanks God for everything we have. Humility says, "Everything that we have, every good gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning." Look pride says, "I know everything. I don't need God for anything. I'm not thankful to God." It says they became vain. What is a person who's vain? Usually it's someone who thinks that their physical appearance ...
If we think of a woman as being a very vain person, she probably looks in the mirror a lot and thinks that she's pretty wonderful. All of the different language there in Romans one is all pointing toward pride and being puffed up about yourself. If you look at Ezekiel 16:49 here it says, "Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride." Do you think it's any coincidence today that the buzz word of homos is "gay pride" and that the big sodomite parade in Phoenix is called Phoenix Pride? You think that's a coincidence? This is what the Bible teaches. Is it any coincidence that the homosexuals use as their banner the rainbow, which is the symbol that God used after he destroyed the entire Earth because of wickedness and sin, and yet, they parade that as a banner when it's really a symbol of the fact that God's not going to destroy the Earth with another flood? Sorry, he's going to destroy it with fire. You got to be careful with God's promises. God's like, "I'm never going to destroy the Earth with water again. Next time I'm just going to burn it." He didn't say he was never going to destroy it again. He just said he wasn't going to do it with water. He just didn't want you to get nervous every time it starts raining and think, "This is it. It's over."
The Bible says there that it was pride. Look at this, "Fullness of bread." You say, "Well, what in the worlds wrong with fullness of bread? Having an abundance of food sounds pretty good." What happens when you have a fullness of bread is that leads to an abundance of idleness. When you're idle, you tend to get into trouble. You tend to get into sin like David did. When he was idle, he wasn't working, didn't have anything to do, he got into sin. Now we live in a day where we do have fullness of bread. We do have a lot of spare time. Now, you might feel like you're pretty busy, but honestly throughout history most people have been busier than we are. Most people have had to work a lot more hours because they didn't have the technology and the conveniences that we have. They had to work really hard. They stayed really busy. There weren't a lot of people who just had an abundance of bread, an abundance of idle time. The majority of people had to work pretty hard throughout the day. They didn't have a lot of extra time.
Now, it's okay to have extra time. Look what it says right after, "The abundance of idleness." It says, "Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." What the Bible is telling us there is that if we do have a lot of time and if we do have an abundance bread, then what we should do is we should use our time and our resources to help other people to serve God, to serve the poor, and not just say, "Well, I'm rich. I'm wealthy. I'm just going to sit back and relax and do nothing." That's going to lead us into sin. God's saying they had fullness of bread. They had a lot of idle time. They could've used that to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Instead they just neighed after one another's wife, committed adultery. Then of course eventually Sodom even went into the perversion of men with men and so forth. Obviously they didn't start that way. No city starts that way.
San Francisco, California didn't start that way. It was started by a bunch of hardworking men. It used to be a normal place. I'm sure that at some point Sodom was a normal place started by hardworking men and women and families and so forth before it descended into the debauchery that it ended up in. Have you ever heard this saying, "An idle mind is the devil's workshop"? My mom used to tell me that all the time when I was a little kid. If you would go to Proverbs chapter twenty. When I was a child, my mom would constantly say, "What are you doing? An idle mind is the devil's workshop", just to make sure I wasn't just sitting around doing nothing because she knew that if I'm sitting around doing nothing, I'm going to be more likely to get into trouble.
Look what the Bible says in Proverbs twenty verse eleven because this is a concept that can be applied to children too. Idleness leads us into sin. Staying busy with the right type of things keeps us out of trouble. Idleness led David into sin. Idleness led the Jews into sin in Jeremiah five. Idleness led Sodom into sin. It says in Proverbs twenty verse eleven, "Even a child is known by his doings whether his work be pure and whether it be right." Now, when we see that scripture we might not really think of work as being something that children do, but yet we should make our children work. The Bible here teaches that children should be working. It says, "Even a child is known by his doings whether his work be pure and whether it be right." People look at the work that a child does and it tells us something about that child. One of the best ways to keep your children out of trouble is to give them plenty of work to do.
Now, a lot of people have criticized having a large family. They'll criticize people who have a lot of kids. I don't really consider us as having a whole lot of kids. I feel like we have an average number of kids. We have seven children with one on the way. Throughout history that's been pretty normal. In cultures and societies where birth control is not practiced, the average woman has about nine children. If you look at history or if you just look at places in the world today where birth control is not practiced, the average is nine. That means there're a lot of people having more than that to make up for the people who have less than that, and it averages to nine. A lot of people will criticize people who have seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven children.
One of the criticisms that they'll use is they'll say, "Well, it's not fair to the older kids because they have to work so hard to help take care of the younger kids." Because let me tell you something when you have a big family, you put those older kids to work. You have to. There's just so much laundry. There are just so many dishes to do. There's so much cleaning to do. You don't really realize it until you have a big family just what goes into it, just how it is having a household of ten people. You recruit the older children to help out. That makes it a lot easier. You have the children doing dishes. You have the children doing laundry, cooking meals etc. A lot of people will say, "It's so sad. It's so horrible. It's just a sweatshop. These kids are growing up like Cinderella scrubbing the floor on their hands and knees", or something like that, but honestly that is one of the benefits of having a big family.
It's a benefit because the harder they work the better off they're going to be when they grow up. They're going to be better people. They're going to be better at their job. They're learning how to work hard. It's keeping them out of trouble. I didn't grow up in a big family. That's why my mom had to keep telling me that an, "Idle mind was the devil's workshop", because when I was growing up, I had a lot of idle free time. I had a younger sister that was a little less than two years younger than me. We grew up together. By the time I was eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve there weren't a bunch of little kids to deal with. Our house stayed really clean. It's the little kids that are trashing the place, that need the diapers changed, that need all the work. When you have a big family, it's actually good that there's a lot more work to do. It keeps everybody busier and keeps them out of trouble.
This is a tip on child rearing. You need to make your children work whether your family is big or small. If you want your children to stay out of trouble, keep them busy working. Sometimes it could be as simple as go outside and pull weeds. Here's a wet rag go wipe down all the baseboards in the house, just whatever it is. You say, "Well, sometimes it's easier to do things myself than to check up on their work." You need to just have them do the work for the sake of working so that they can learn how to work and to keep them busy and keep them out of trouble. Also giving them school work ... now some people they use home schooling as a cover for just not schooling. "Our children are home schooled." This is known as un-schooling. I don't know if you ever heard that term "un-schooled"? A lot of people will say they're home schooling, but they don't really do the home schooling. They don't really teach the children. They don't really work with them. Then the kids just run a muck. They don't learn anything. Give your kids school work, hold them to a high standard.
My son Solomon he's just finishing up with Algebra II. He's twelve. You say, "Man, that's great." No. We're just trying to give him work to do to keep him busy, hold him to a high standard, help him achieve excellence in his school work, and keep him busy, keep him out of trouble. Sometimes the hardest parts about home schooling is when the children are having a break from school because then they get into more trouble because they're not busy. We have to find other things to keep them occupied to keep them busy. This goes with children. Their work needs to be pure and right. Doing work will keep them out of trouble as well.
If you just let your children run lose and run wild and don't give them any activities to do, nothing to keep them busy, they're going to be more likely to get into trouble and to bad things. The Bible said in Proverbs 29:15, you don't have to turn there, but it says, "The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." It's not just children. Go to II Thessalonians chapter three. Children need to stay busy in order to stay out of trouble, but also we as men need to do a lot of work and stay busy in order to keep ourselves out of trouble. This was David's problem. He wasn't working hard enough, and he got into trouble because he couldn't sleep at night. The Bible says, "The sleep of a laboring man is sweet whether he eat little or whether he eat much, but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep."
I want you to notice the word "commanded" in these verses. II Thessalonians 3:10, "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you that if any would not work neither should he eat. For we hear that there is some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies." Notice when people are not working at all they become what? Busybodies. "Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work and eat their own bread." Now flip back a few pages to First Thessalonians chapter four. Now here's what's funny. The word "busybody" if you look at the first four letters of it "busy", doesn't it seem like the opposite of not working? "Working not at all ... busybody", you're like, "What in the world?" Here's the thing we as men are going to be busy doing something.
I've known people who don't have a job and sometimes coordinating with them is harder than people that do have a job. They're so busy. They have so much going on. You're like, "What in the world. I work a full-time job. You're so easy to coordinate with." You think you'd be easy to coordinate with because you don't have a job. They're busy with this, busy with that. Look we're going to be busy with something because we're human. As men we need to stay active in doing something and busy. I've been miserable for a lot of this week because I was sick for a lot of the week, and because I was sick, I had to spend a lot of time just laying in bed. As a man that just makes me miserable to just lay in bed because I feel like I need to get up and do something, get something done, accomplish something. It's just how we are. In order to keep from getting busy about the wrong things, we need to keep ourselves busy working hard and doing the right things.
See these guys who are not working at all in II Thessalonians three they became busybodies. A busybody is what the Bible calls, "A busybody about other men's matters." You start getting involved in other people's issues and meddling with things that don't belong to them. It says in First Thessalonians 4:11 that, "You study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you." Look the Bible commands us to work with our hands. The Bible says in verse twelve, "That you may walk honestly toward them that are without and that you may have lack of nothing." You don't have to turn there but Ephesians 4:28 says, "Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor working with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needeth."
The most miserable people I've ever known are people that don't have a job, men that don't have a job. They don't have a good self-esteem because of the fact that we as men derive value in ourselves from the work that we do. Even God looked at the work that he had done and said that it was very good. We as men like to do work and build something and make something and then stand back and say it's very good. We actually get our identity as men from the work that we do. If I asked a man, "Tell me about yourself? Tell me who you are? Tell me what you do?", he's going to probably first describe himself by his job. "Tell me about yourself?" "I'm a pastor." "I'm an electrician." "I'm a plumber." "I'm a computer programmer." "I'm a landscaper." That's where we get a lot of our identify as men the work that we do. It's a lot of what defines us. Men who don't have a job they're unhappy, they can be unstable, and they can often get into trouble.
That's why if you're a man and you don't have a job, the best thing that you could do for your life is to get a steady job. For me that's the first step of Christian growth. Now, obviously a lot of men already have jobs. When I see a guy who's growing in the Lord, maybe he's newly saved, maybe he's just new to church, and it's like what can this guy do in order to help him grow in the Lord the most, the first thing that I would say is, "Do you have a job?", because that is one of the best things for you in your life as a man. It'll help you be stable and to get up every morning and go and do something productive with your time.
I was just talking to somebody recently and they said, "My son he's getting into all this trouble. He keeps going back to these bad friends. He's committing sin. He's doing all this stuff." I said, "Well, does he have a job?" "No." I said, "That's what he needs. He needs to get a job. He's an adult." I said, "He needs to get a job. That's the best thing that he could do is to get a full-time job, work a lot of hours, and that'll give him a sense of responsibility. It'll give him a sense of purpose." I mean I've known so many people where getting a job was the best thing that ever happened to them and just working hard. It doesn't even matter what the job was as long as it's preferably something where they work with their hands. It'll tire them out if nothing else. They can go to sleep at night instead of going out and wondering the streets at night and getting into drinking and drugs and fornication and adultery.
Look having a job it might sound basic, but it is an important step in Christian growth as a man. Getting a job and working hard at your job, succeeding at your job is important to us as men to stay busy. Now many only work a forty hour a week job, which is great. That's pretty much the standard today in the United States, forty hours a week. Honestly that leaves a lot of free time. If you work forty hours, you've got a lot of free time. There are people who work two jobs and people who work really long hours at their job. Typically in American today forty hours is pretty standard. You need to find something to do with your time outside of those forty hours. You need to find something to stay busy and stay occupied and keep you out of trouble because honestly that leaves you with a lot of free time. You need to find something productive to do.
By the way start by coming to church three times a week that'll take up some time, then put in some hours out soul winning, put in some hours reading your Bible, study something, learn something, build something. If you've already gone to church three times a week, you've already read your Bible, you've already prayed, and you've already gone soul winning and you still have more free time to kill, you need to find some productive hobby or some study or some work. You need to find something that is godly and wholesome to spend your time doing because if you just have a lot of free time, you know what you're going to end up doing? Things that have sinful. At best you're going to just plop down in front of the TV with your spare time and just sit down and watch. That's not going to do anything good for you. That's not going to help you. At worst you could even do worst than that.
I don't condone sitting down in front of the TV and filling your mind with trash, but not only that you can just go out and just start wondering around and just go out partying and go out here and to the bars just whatever just because you're bored, just because you're restless, just because you're anxious. You need to find something as a man to stay busy, work hard, get a full-time job, take the overtime, find something productive to do outside your job. Here's one way to stay busy also have children. Getting married and having children will take up a lot of your time. Because a lot of you are listening to my sermon right now saying, "What in the world is he talking about? Who has all this extra time? I can't find enough time." Obviously some people that are under the sound of my voice right now are too busy. They are working two jobs. They are struggling with a lot of kids and job and everything, but you know what there a lot of people who I'm talking to where I'm hitting the nail on the head right now that they need to stay busy because there are singles, there are people who are maybe just a young married ... they're working forty hours and they do have a lot of time. They need to stay out of sin by staying busy doing the right things.
One of those ways to stay busy is of course to get married and have children. If you would flip over to First Timothy chapter five, let's focus on the ladies now. We talked about the men. Just in my own life the best thing that ever happened to me was the fact that I got married when I was nineteen because of the fact that really made me have to get a little busier. Because when I got married at age nineteen, I had to work fifty hours a week at my job in order to support myself and my wife. That right there kept me busy fifty hours a week. Then obviously when you're newly married you're building that relationship, my wife kept me busy, and then I had church. I had soul winning. I was reading my Bible four times per year. I had things to keep me really busy. Then children came and I just stayed busy.
Even before I got married, the way that I stayed out of trouble was by staying busy. Because when I graduated from high school, I was seventeen and a half. I started going to community college. I was working full time, taking a full load at community college. Then when summertime came, I worked a full-time job over here, and then I worked another twenty something hours over here. I was working sixty something hours a week when I was eighteen just when I was single. I traveled to Germany and did soul winning and missionary work over in Germany. I was learning how to speak German. I was just trying to stay busy. Honestly I stayed busy at a very dangerous time in my life because I think that the most dangerous time in a young person's life is from the time that they turn eighteen to the time that they get married. If that's you, then you're in the danger zone. From the time that you turn eighteen to the time that you get married is a dangerous period in your life because of the fact that you have a lot of time. You can find yourself bored, lonely, just nothing to do. It's really easy to get into trouble during that time, very dangerous.
You need to find a way to stay busy with godly, righteous activities. Ideally you need to get married if that's you. If you're in that zone, I highly recommend ... Well, let's see what the Bible says. It says in First Timothy five verse thirteen this is speaking of young women, younger widows. Let's back up to verse eleven to get the context. It says, "The younger widows refuse", younger than sixty is what he's saying, "for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they will marry having damnation because they have cast off their first faith and withal they learn to be idle wondering about from house to house, and not only idle but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully for some are already turned aside after Satan." Now, this is warning that young widows ...
These are women who are married. Basically their husband dies and now they don't have a husband to care for. They don't have children to care for, and so the Bible says they learn to be idle. Therefore, they go from house to house. They become idle. They become tattlers. They become busybodies. They start speaking things which they ought not. To keep them from turning aside after Satan, to keep them from going off into all this wicked sin, the Bible says that they should marry, bear children, and guide the house. Why? Because by staying busy doing that, that's going to keep them out of trouble. Whereas, if they're just single on their own, then they could easily get into trouble. Now the Bible also teaches if you go back to the Old Testament Mosaic law the Bible talks about women whose husband dies and they actually go back to living with their parents after their husband dies. I was just reading that, in fact, I think yesterday or the day before. I was reading Leviticus. It was talking about if the priest's daughter if her husband dies and she would go back and live at his house and eat his meat and so forth ...
Because honestly again just as it's a dangerous time for men when they're over eighteen but they're not married, it's even more dangerous for the ladies. I see so many girls that grow up in Christian homes. They turn eighteen. They leave the house. They do whatever. They get into all kinds of trouble. They don't have the leadership a father. They don't have the leadership of a husband. They turn aside after Satan. They go into all of the sin that the world has to offer. Then today you'll see ladies will finally wake up once they get married. They'll have a child out of wedlock, and then that'll wake them up. They'll eventually get married and then it's like now I want to serve God. It seems like almost no young ladies that are eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-two are serving God today if they're not at home. When they're not at home, when they're not with their family and in church, just single girls that are eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one today by in large it just seems that they just go to the devil. That seems to be the norm when they don't stay with their family.
When they move out and they get their roommates, it's almost like just bye, bye. You can just almost take it to the bank. Why? Because they're not designed to live that lifestyle. God designed them to go from living with their parents to the husband and having that leadership there. Now, don't misunderstand this passage. Some people have tried to use this passage to say that you could lose your salvation. In fact, the word "damnation" more often than not in the Bible is not talking about going to Hell, more often than not. The word "damnation" is synonymous with our word "condemnation". It doesn't mean that you're dammed to Hell when it says the word "damnation" most of the time you'll find it. A lot of people will misunderstand because it is a difficult passage to understand. It says in verse eleven, "The younger widows refuse for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they will marry." A lot of people will look at that and say, "Why? What's wrong with them getting married? Why would it be waxing wanton against Christ to get married, and then a few breaths later he's telling them to get married?" A lot of people they're confused by this passage.
Let me just try to explain it to you and help you understand. It says that, "When they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they will marry. Having damnation because they have cast off their first faith and with all they learn to be idle." They're not condemned or dammed because they got married but because they cast off their first faith. The reason why is that it's saying that basically the younger widows if they are remaining in widowhood just remaining single, just young single girls living on their own and somebody else is paying their bills and they're not living with their parents because remember these are widows that are being cared for by the church but they're young, he's saying this should not happen because of the fact that if they're just young women living on their own and their needs are paid for, it's saying eventually they're going to get married anyway after they've already screwed up their life. After they've already waxed wanton against Christ, after they've already turned aside after Satan, after they get into all kinds of trouble, they're going to get married anyway. What he's saying is they need to just get married in the first place not get married after they go out and live a wicked life and become sinful, fornicating, wicked whores then they get married. He's saying they need to just get married as the first course.
We see that this pattern is played out over and over again where Christian girls ... It's an old story folks. Christian girls go out, fornicate, play the whore eventually they get married, and then all of a sudden they want to live for God now. All of a sudden it's like, "I just want to live for God. I just want to serve God now", but they already have this baggage. They've already hurt themselves and a lot of other people in the process. That's what this is talking about. This proves my point again in First Timothy five here that doing the right thing and staying busy with the right things will keep you out of trouble. Now the same teaching is found in First Timothy chapter two. Flip back just a few pages. First Timothy chapter two is a passage that ties in with First Timothy five. You have to understand them both together to get the understanding.
Look at First Timothy 2:14 it says, "Adam was not deceived. The woman being deceived was in the transgression." What's transgression mean? Sin. "Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and charity in holiness with sobriety." Now again this is a passage that's being misunderstood to being applied to personal salvation. A lot of times the word "salvation" just like the word "damnation" is not always talking about going to Hell. The word "salvation" is not always talking about going to Heaven. This is where people get confused. If you want to get your salvation doctrine, look for verses that say eternal life, everlasting life, being saved and having everlasting life, eternal life, not perish and so forth. There are plenty of verses that tell you how to have eternal life, how to be saved, how to avoid Hell.
When the Bible says salvation, there are other things that we can be saved from. For example, if someone's drowning, we could save them. We're not talking about them going to Heaven. If you look at the context here, it says, "The woman being deceived was in the transgression notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing." It's not saying, "Ladies, in order to be saved you must give birth", as far as going to Heaven. "She shall be saved in childbearing", is referring to she's going to be saved from the deception, being saved from the sin that she would fall into otherwise because Adam was not deceived. "The woman being deceived was in the transgression notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."
Basically what is going to save a woman from messing up her life? What is going to save a woman from turning aside after Satan? What's going to save a woman from the deception of the devil? The Bible's teaching you the devil is out to deceive women. When he talked about the fact that they waxed wanton against Christ, he said they're turning aside after Satan. Satan beguiled Eve. Satan tricked Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan today wants to trick young ladies. How is she going to be delivered from that or rescued from that or saved from that? Through childbearing, through marrying, bearing children, and guiding the house. Do you see how First Timothy two and First Timothy five are both teaching the same thing that a woman will be saved from going into sin and following Satan by getting married, having children, and what was the last thing? Guiding the house. That's the answer to keep women out of trouble today.
Now go back if you would to Proverbs thirty-one. I'm sure that there are some people out there that would say, "Well, the Bible says, 'Saved in childbearing.' You must bear children in order to be saved, in order to make it into Heaven." We have to remember that we have to take the whole Bible and believe the whole Bible. If we have hundreds of verses telling us what it takes to be saved, just believing in Christ, and we have hundreds of verses teaching us that we cannot lose our salvation, that it's eternal life, he'll never leave us or forsake us, we can never be plucked out of his hand, that has to be our starting point of what we know. Then when we look at an unclear passage, we have to interpret it based on what we already know elsewhere. Because remember the book of First Timothy is being written to a guy who knows a lot of doctrine. It's being written from one preacher to another.
The Bible tells us that there are things in the epistles of Paul that are hard to be understood. That's what the Bible says. You can sit there and say, "Well, this is my opinion. I think this books hard. I think that books easy. I think that books hard." The Bible itself tells us in II Peter three that, "In the epistles of Paul are things that are hard to be understood that people will twist." That's what the Bible says that the, "Unstable and unlearned will rest them or twist them." Things in the epistles of Paul will be twisted. The book of John claims to be the book to tell us how to be saved. How we might have eternal life. It's really clear. I think John is the easiest book to understand in the Bible in many ways. The gospel of John is pretty easy. It's written to be easy on purpose.
Whereas, probably the hardest book in the New Testament would be the book of Hebrews. Just the language, the way it's written it's hard to be understood. It's funny a lot of people will blame that on the King James. They'll say, "The King James is hard to be understood." If you read it in the original Greek, it's hard. The books that are hard in English are hard in Greek. The books that are easy in English, are easy in Greek. Anybody who's learning Greek they'll always tell them start with the book of John. The Greek in John is easier. They'll tell you that the epistles of Paul are the hardest in Greek. Here's the thing. Let me ask you this. This is a side note. It's unrelated to the sermon. Let me ask you this if something's hard in the original Greek, should we make it real easy in English? Wouldn't we be changing it? Think about it. If it's hard grammatically and difficult to understand in Greek if we're going to give an accurate translation in English, it's probably still going to be tough because it's just a hard passage.
The example verses I don't know about you but when I've gone to the Christian bookstore, they'll show you these guides on picking a version. Whenever they want to show you these guides of, "Yes, pick the version that's right for you", they always pick a verse that's really hard in the King James. That's the sample that they give you so that you look at it and you're like, "Man, I don't even know what that means." Then you're like, "Give me the easy version." It's always from the epistles of Paul every time. I've noticed it's always something from First Corinthians, something from Hebrews. They find one of these grammatical tongue twisters of the epistles of Paul.
There are some scriptures in the epistles of Paul that leave me scratching my head. Some of the grammar is just really hard to follow. It's just advanced. The Bible can have some difficult passages. I think Romans five is a perfect example. There's about a five verse section in Romans five that I think is the most complicated grammatically in the whole Bible. Every time I'm reading it it hurts my head to even read it sometimes. Should we dumb that down if that's how it is in the original? No. A lot of times people attack the King James for being hard to understand maybe it's just the Bible is hard to understand sometimes. Thank God most of the Bible is pretty easy to understand. It's a mixer, isn't it?
Aren't there some things in the Bible that are easy and some that are hard? That's because it's here for a lifetime of learning. If it were all easy, we'd be sick of it, "We learned everything. We got it all. I understood it all the first time." No. As we grow we understand more and more. There's something for everyone. There's easy parts for the beginner and difficult parts for those that are more advanced. In Proverbs thirty-one I'm not going to go through the whole chapter for sake of time. It really just talks about a lot of hard work that women do. It talks about the making of clothing and cooking food and all the strenuous and physical work that this woman does that's a virtuous woman. I just want to point out one verse in verse twenty-seven it says, "She looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness."
Now today we have a lot of convenience and especially ladies have a lot of conveniences that they didn't used to have. For example, you have a washing machine and a dryer. Is that what it's called? I don't even know. The thing that does the clothes ... washing machine. Yes, the dishwasher is the thing that does dishes. They have the washing machine and the dryer. You can tell I'm the homemaker at our house. Anyway they have the washing machine and the dryer. Ladies, you used to be the washing machine and the dryer. Throughout history the washboard that's hard work scrubbing the clothes on the washboard. Then when they got really advanced they made that little machine with those wheels where they crank it, the ringer they crank it through the ringer. Even then you're working hard, right, just having to cook from scratch everything and you got to do all this cleaning and sewing. Making clothes used to be a really big deal. Now you just buy clothes. They're so cheap. They're all made by machines.
You see how today both men and women could fall into a trap of idleness pretty easily today because we have so many conveniences. I'm not against technology. I'm not saying let's go be Amish. Let's just go back to a simpler life. Let's churn our own butter to stay out of trouble. If you want to go back and get more primitive in some ways, more power to you, but I personally think that it's okay for us to just benefit from technology. There's nothing in the Bible that teaches that we should not benefit from technology. We just need to be careful though to stay busy because now there's all this time. A lot of women could have a lot of time to just watch soap operas and just do a lot of dumb things, read a lot of romance novels and just not really get anything important done because they just have so many conveniences.
One of the ways is to have a lot of children at least that'll keep ... Even with the conveniences you'll still be busy if you have a lot of children. It keeps you out of trouble. You don't want to eat the bread of idleness. You want to look well to the ways of your household. By the way eating the bread of idleness also it's interesting too sometimes when people are idle and bored they eat more food, right? Because if you think about it when you're staying really busy and working hard, don't you sometimes miss meals? You're just so busy. You don't even have time. You don't even think about lunch. You skip, "Man, I haven't eaten. I just realized my stomachs growling. I haven't eaten all day." When you're idle, it's just Crunch and Munch. It's just sweat pants, TV, soap opera, ice cream, Crunch and Munch. Your husband comes home at the end of the day, and you're just laying there on the couch all vegged out. It's like, "Honey, what's for dinner?" She's like, "Take me out to dinner", or, "It's in the freezer. It's a Hungry Man." "Salisbury steak again. Good night. At least give me a better Hungry Man." Honestly stay busy ladies, stay busy men.
How do you commit adultery when you're busy? Think about it. Just for somebody to carry on that type of relationship they'd have to have the time to go to ... Think about it. Who in the world after they worked their job, after they serve the Lord, and after they keep their wife happy has time to go have something going on with another woman? What in the world? It's idleness. It comes from not being busy enough to even think of such a crazy thing. You think that woman who are taking care of all their little kids and trying to cook three meals a day and keep everybody clothed and fed and diapered are out thinking about an adulterous affair? No, they're not because of the fact that they're busy. It keeps you out of trouble. It keeps you from even getting a million miles from these things. We need to stay busy. If you don't have a lot of little kids to take care of, you need to find something else to do that's a good wholesome activity to stay busy. Even David exited adultery because he just got so idle, he just got so bored, and he just went into sin.
The last thing I want to give you is from Romans thirteen verse fourteen it says, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof." What's the Bible saying there? Don't even put yourself in a position where you're able to fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Don't even put yourself in a position where you have the opportunity to fulfill the lusts of the flesh. "Make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof." We need to keep ourselves away from sin by staying busy doing the right things. Look even the world will tell you we need after school programs for these kids just to keep them out of trouble. They'll set up all kinds of sports programs and library programs because they're like, "We got to keep these kids busy because if we don't have anything going on for them, that's when they're going to do the graffiti. They're going to go out, and they're going to vandalize. They're going to go out and do drugs. They're going to be in gangs. They're going to fornicate." People need something to do with their lives. We need to plan to occupy our lives and stay busy.
If you're a young single man, you really need to pay attention to this sermon more than anybody because it could be so easy for you to fall into sin, to back slide. If you're a young single girl ... Yes, there aren't any young single girls in our church. I'm looking around. I don't see any young ... Correct me if I'm wrong, are there any eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one year old girls here tonight that are single? I wonder why. You know why? You know why they're not? Because they're all turned aside after Satan and there's very few. I'm not saying all of them. The exception proves the rule. I'm saying the majority have turned aside after Satan. Sometimes there are young single girls that come through. You guys better talk to them when they're here. Listen I'm telling you that has not been a major demographic of our church, has it? Not at all.
Now, there are plenty of women who love our church, plenty of women who listen to my preaching, but you know what most of them they're a little older than that because they've wised up or they're married or they're a little bit older. Why? Because that age group I'm telling you is a dangerous age group. You know what we've had teenage girls in our church and where are they now? How many times have we seen in churches that we grew up in ... I'm thinking of my youth group. In the youth group half the girls when they turned eighteen were gone because they're not being kept at home with their parents that's why. They go out and pretty soon they're out of church. They're doing their own thing. I'm telling you. That's a dangerous age group.
I would warn the young single girls, but they're not here to hear the sermon. Then it's not going to help. I'm going to warn the single guys that are here. You're in a dangerous time in your life. I'm going to warn my children and my boys and girls that one day are going to grow up and get to an age where they need to take heed onto this. Stay busy, get married, have kids, get a job these are the keys to living the Christian life. I know it sounds simple, but going to work full time, getting married, and having kids are the keys of the kingdom my friend. That is the most important steps that you could be taking to living a godly Christian life.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Lord, please help us to stay busy with the right things. Lord, and help us to spend our time productively working hard, having a job. When we're not at our job, help us to find something else important to work on whether it be soul winning, whether it be church, whether it be prayer, Bible readings, other studies, other projects that are wholesome, Lord. Help us never to fall into this trap that David did where he's just wondering around, getting up in the middle of the night, bored nothing to do. Help even the children of our church. Help their parents to give them work to do and make them work hard and stay busy. Help us not to become idle. Lord, those that are maybe already busy and too busy and they're thinking, "Good night this sermon I don't even understand it", Lord, help them to just be thankful that they are so busy because at least it's keeping them out of trouble. In Jesus name we pray amen.
