TOPIC: EVIL DIVIDENDS OF POLYGAMY
TEXT: GENESIS 30:1-13.
🔑KEY VERSE: "And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die" (GENESIS 30:1).
Polygamy breeds envy, jealousy, resentfulness, covetousness, ill will, spleen and bitter hatred. Little wonder then that God, in His infinite wisdom, ordained one man, one wife for humanity. That the two young ladies, Leah and Rachel, were sisters did not prevent them from experiencing the unpalatable consequences of polygamy.
In today's text, Rachel, green with envy, developed a suicidal tendency. However, Jacob reproved his wife for the graceless statement she made. Rachel failed to know that it is only God that can make barren women mothers of children.
From her desperation to have children, she gave Bilhah, her handmaid as wife to Jacob so that she could adopt the children. The error of envy in this decision of hers was that Leah's children should normally be closer to her than the children of Bilhah, a slave lady. Rachel further demonstrated her envy by christening the two children of her handmaid names that connoted rivalry and strife. Leah in her rivalry persuaded her husband to marry Zilpah, her own handmaid.
This shows a clear demonstration of the evil, mischief and psychological anguish in polygamy. Jacob might be justified because in his era, there was no Bible to read nor pastor to preach on the danger of polygamy. Do believers of today have an excuse to go into polygamy? No. There is no problem in a christian marriage that God, in His unlimited power, cannot solve. With faith in God, problems such as barreness, sickness, poverty, misunderstanding and so on, can be fixed and are therefore no excuses for disobeying His word. Believers are to ensure that they hold on to the word of God and preach against polygamy.
✍THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Polygamy breeds envy, hatred, bitterness, hypertension and death.
COVER TO COVER: MATTHEW 19. MARK 10.
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