So this is gonna be a fun video. Well, while I was in Utah giving a talk recently, a gal came up to me and she said, I heard you're recruiting floral wives and uh she wasn't offering, but she was curious about a rumor she had heard. And so once again, I'll have to address this. Um But before I do, I'm
going to use a little teaching tactic where you use this jiu-jitsu move to take something potentially very stupid that people are interested in and use it to teach things that are actually important. So I encourage you to stick around for the answer to this exciting tidbit. But for now we're gonna start
on why things like this really matter. OK? It turns out that the acquisition of truth is no easy thing. The natural man is a lot of things. One thing that the natural man is, is uh stupid. And so it turns out that we have all of these biases and other barriers to learning greater truth. It's much easier
to persuade someone to do evil than it is to persuade them to do good. First off, they have a very strong disposition. To evil because of the natural man. But it's also easier to use the natural inclinations for a person to persuade them to evil. You can convince someone to do more evil. Even if they're
very simple, even if they're very emotionally motivated, it, if you want to persuade someone to do greater good, it's very difficult. If they're simple, usually they need to be intelligent. It is very difficult if they're emotionally oriented because it takes rational persuasion to persuade someone to
do good. And the, the more constrained you are by the person's lack of capabilities, the harder it is to form a persuasive argument to convince them to see more truth and to do better things and to feel better. It's much easier to contrive these memes or quotes or rumors or ideas to swat away good than
it is to swat away evil to correct evil is a really difficult thing. Simple people can be dissuaded from good just by using an emotive argument, a dog whistle. Uh even a, a single word, simple people can be manipulated just by a word. And these sorts of things are pervasive in our society today where
you can shut down a person's willingness to consider an alternative point of view with a simple word or an a baseless accusation or any sort of logical fallacy and they'll fall for it. But if you want to dissuade them from evil, persuade them to better thoughts, better feelings, better actions it takes
immense intelligence in the teacher to navigate through these layers of human bias and and other faults. It also takes great honesty from the learner and let's be honest, most people aren't right. So one of the forms this takes is in like I said, baseless accusations or rumors or negligently oversimplified
ideas. These are all forms of being of making a man an offender for a word, which is a phrase from Isaiah 29. If you refuse to hear a message because of some fault that you perceive in the messenger, that's a form of making a man an offender for, for a word. And so let's read the passage, the surrounding
passage here, even though it's a couple of verses, it's worth it starting in verse 14. Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder. Well, that sounds good, doesn't it? Why for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish? And the understanding
of their prudent men shall be hid. It's not real wisdom. People who are seen as wise today are actually they're, they're either fools or they're very evil people who are using their intelligence to manipulate the simple to get more of whatever it is that they want, even though they don't deserve it.
And, and the people we see as having great understanding or being prudent, which means acting wise with respect to the future. These people will be revealed as fools because what they have will be shown to be for what it is and what it lacks will be evident. Verse 15 woe unto them that seek deep to hide
their counsel from the Lord and the works are in the dark and they say who seeth us and who knoweth us. You know something that almost everyone who makes a man an offender for a word has in common is that they're being very dishonest about their motives. They're seeking to hide the faults that they know
they have because the person that they're shutting down makes them feel guilty about themselves. That's their real motive and they will grasp at anything they can to make that guilt go away. And it doesn't matter who they have to hurt to do it or how innocent they are or how much damage they do to people
who would benefit from the message if they didn't artificially sully the character of the messenger, this is what's gonna happen to them. Verse 16, surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay for shall the work say of him that made it? He made me not or shall the
thing framed, say of him that framed it. He had no understanding it is yet. Is it not yet a very little while. And Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest and in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book in the eyes of the blind shall
see out of obscurity and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord and the poor among men shall rejoice in the holy one of Israel for the terrible one is brought to naught and the scorner is consumed and all that watch for iniquity are cut off that make a man an offender for
a word and lay a snare for him that reprove in the gate and turn aside the just thing just for a thing of not without going into the weeds here. Um, and spending a long time explaining all these verses. The ideas are that people will begin to see value in things that they currently disregard and people
that they currently disregard that the things that they saw valuable and the people, they saw valuable, these, uh, wise men and the prudent men as they hold them now will be revealed as worthless or worse. And that those who develop the ability to seek and recognize truth and what has value that their
joy will increase in the Lord. They'll learn more about the Lord. They'll, they'll learn more about how to get greater joy in life and the opposition to that will be shut down, cut off, et cetera. Don't be one of these people that quote watch for iniquity. Don't be a scorner. You should look up that
word. Don't make a man an offender for the word. Don't lay a snare for him that reprove it in the gate. You see the wise men of old, they would stand in the city gate and they were a combination of, you know, sometimes you have to get a notary or you have to go before a judge to certify something that
was the role of these people. People get married in front of them or transact business of buying and selling land, anything that needed legal certification. But they'd also offer advice and people would come to them and say, here's my problem. What should I do or what do you think about this or I have
this issue with this other person in the city. Can you help us resolve this? And that was uh the people that reproved in the gate? Ok. They're criticized that offered improvement and the the folks that lay snares for them or try to trap them or try, try to assassinate their character, they are going
to be taken care of by the Lord and not in a good way. Ok. So don't be one of these people. This is a tactic that was used against Jesus. And we read this description in Isaiah 53 which applies to him for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground, he hath no form
nor comeliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not and just zooming into one little phrase of this that
you might not have thought about before we hid as it were our faces from him. The Hebrew word face means more than the English word face and it includes your purpose. So as a person becomes more like Jesus, this description of Jesus will more closely fit that person as well. And there are people who
carry so much light that people try to hide their faces from them, that people will absolutely not see uh form nor comeliness. They won't see anything attractive about those folks. They will think that they're the least uh equipped to be messengers of righteousness because the truth is not appealing
to the natural man. Neither are the messengers of truth. And the more light a person has, the less pleasant, they will seem to others, the less worthy they will seem. And this doesn't imply that unworthy seeming people are messengers of light, but it does imply that messengers of light will be seen as
unworthy by wicked people. So this is just one of many fulfillment of what Jesus said while there is a mote in, in your eye. I'm sorry. While there is a beam in your eye. Don't try to remove the motes from others. It's a little splinter while or he said, he who is without sin, let him cast the first
stone. And he also said, you can't see the Kingdom of God until you're born again while you live in wilful sin. You cannot righteously judge another person. Period. Here's a principle. You can use a message to identify a messenger as good, but you can't use the messenger to identify a message as bad
in Matthew 12. The Lord said, and whosoever speaketh a word against the son of man, it shall be forgiven him, but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world, neither in the world to come, either make the tree good and his fruit good or else make the
tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt for the tree is known by his fruit. If the fruit's good, you have to contend with the fruit. And it's more likely that the tree is good if the fruit is good. But if you look at the tree and you say, well, I don't like this tree and you completely ignore the fruit. You're
totally missing the point and that's not righteous judgment. That's what they did to Jesus. And he said, hey, whosoever speaketh the word against the son of man, it'll be forgiven, but you can't speak against the Holy Ghost and get forgiveness. What does that mean? People are really confused by it. If
your conscience convicts you, you have to deal with that. It doesn't matter who said what to cause you to feel that way or who said the thing that caused you to feel that way. You need to deal with the thing. Does that make sense? So someone says, hey, uh hey, priests and noah, you're wicked. You're
not actually keeping the commandments. You have no business being priests. You can get mad at the person who said it. But you need to deal with the fact that what they said is true. If it's not, you're not gonna get angry. You see how that works? You're just gonna say, well, this dude's an idiot. You
know, it's not true, but you're not gonna get angry at him and try to kill him. You're not gonna make things up to try to get rid of him. The next principle is live up to what you believe is right before condemning others who already do. There are people who live with a clean conscience. You should not
try to criticize those people until you do the same and then we can learn from one another. But like I said, while you're living in willful sin, you're not gonna judge righteous judgment. Matthew seven. And I already paraphrase this. Why beholds thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye but considers
not the beam that is in thine own eye or how wilt thou say to thy brother let me pull out the mote out of thine eye and behold a beam is in thine own eye. Thou hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Here's
how you handle this appropriately. If you hear something about a person that seems off first, you should ask if it's any of your business. In most cases, it's not, in most cases, it doesn't matter at all. You can evaluate the fruit without investigating the tree. The first step is to worry about the
fruit because ideas aren't owned by anyone. You can pick and choose what is valuable to you and you can live it. And this is beautiful because it doesn't matter where it comes from, you can run with it. Martin Luther King Junior has some amazing ideas on race, on Christian forgiveness, on nonviolent
protests. He also happened to be a serial adulterer. He cheated on his wife like crazy. Guess what? You can take all the good things he taught even though he was an adulterer, a lot of his teachings are really useful and true and good. But if you look at him and say you were racist and you said, well
, he's a black man. I don't want to hear what he has to say. Well, you'd miss out on all the great things he taught. And if you look at him as an adulterer. And you said, well, I, I can't, I can't hear anything he taught because you know, he cheated on his wife. You see the limitation there. Now let's
go even further. If you took something he taught, like men should be judged by the content of the character, not the color of their skin, which I think is a wonderful idea. And you said, well, a serial adulterer taught that. Therefore, if I see that idea ever, I will write it off as false. Guess what
? You just cut yourself off from better. People are going to have different beliefs to you. Ok. Now we just went, ran through an example of someone who did in fact have some serious moral limitations. But what happens when you come up against someone who doesn't someone like Jesus who going back to Isaiah
53 has no form nor comeliness. And when you see him, there's no beauty that you should desire him. He's despised and rejected of men. If you were alive, when Jesus was, you probably would not see him as a good person. This is something that all Christians need to wrap their heads around. The people in
jesus' day did not recognize him as a good person. Better people are going to have different beliefs to you and that's not sufficient reason to dismiss them out of hand. Jesus had different beliefs than the people around him just so happened that his were better different, doesn't imply better, but you
have to be different to be better. Do you understand when, when you read the scriptures, you probably see the righteous people quote unquote in there as the same as you believing the same things you do. It's just they actually do the things that you disobey. That's the limit of how most people think
of what it means to be righteous, but to be righteous means to be like God and God is as far away from you as the heavens are from the earth. He said so in Isaiah, and so that distance doesn't just consist in keeping the commandments that you believe, but don't do. It also includes keeping different
commandments better beliefs. And so if you want to come to him, it doesn't just consist of be uh obeying the things that you now obey. Uh I'm sorry, obeying the things that you now believe. It also includes being taught better things than you now believe. And so it's insufficient and downright stupid
to evaluate the truthfulness of a messenger based on how similar his or her beliefs are to your own. You are, you are absolutely looking for someone who believes different things than you do. So how are you gonna know if they're true or false messenger by their fruits? Well, what do you mean? Aren't
you saying two different things here? No, the things that you believe and don't do, that's your token and sign to recognize true messengers. The things that you want, but you don't have the questions you have that you can't answer the problems you have that you can't solve the sins you have that you
can't repent of. Look for people who have what you don't have for who have what's better according to what you see as better and bank on the fact that there will be things about those people that show that they have beliefs that differ from yours. The fact that they have what you want and don't have
is the evidence that suggests that at least some of those other beliefs may in fact be better than your own. Do you get that? Now? It's not a rubber stamp. We don't go to Martin Luther King Junior and say, you know, this guy's views on Nonviolence are so good that I should be an adulterer too. That's
not the way it works. Ok. But it lends credence to the rest and gives you reason to look into it. But at a bare minimum, it prevents you from dismissing them out of hand for some contrived fault like Jesus, oh, he doesn't wash his hands before he eats. I don't have to listen to anything he says, oh,
he got booted out of the synagogue. I don't have to listen to anything he says, oh, he talks to women. He's not married to. We don't do that in our culture. Of course, the only reason he would ever do that is because he's trying to hook up with a girl. Do you see the problem? That was the woman at the
, well, in case you're not too familiar with the New Testament, that's the problem. Oh, he says bad things about our church leaders. So we don't have to hear anything else he has to say in general. It's really stupid to live your life in ways that would cause you to have rejected Jesus if you were alive
at the same time, right? That shouldn't need to be said. But for some reason it does. Ok? So ask yourself if it's any of your business. Ok. But then the second really obvious thing to do is to ask the person before starting or spreading rumors. Hey, I heard, is there any truth to this? Now, why did I
put, ask yourself if it's any of your business first? Because so many people are just looking for an excuse to not hear something because they feel guilty. Wouldn't it be great if we could just shoot down this messenger? So we don't have to feel guilty anymore. And a whole lot of people are asking things
that are none of their business. But if you can pass those tests, the reasonable thing to do is to ask somebody and they're like, oh man, not this again, right? Sure. Let me explain it. That's the honest thing to do. Now, if you've told rumors, if you started them or spread them and these are obviously
two different levels of evil. You should repent and part of that repentance. It's not just going to the person and apologizing which you should do even if you're spreading the rumors in secret, like not, not publicly. So the person might not even know that you're doing it. You should absolutely go to
the person because you've caused them harm and you should say you're sorry, but you know what, that's not good enough. You have to go around to all the people you spread the lie to and try your best to convince them to believe otherwise, to admit to them that you lied or you were at least a little gossip
person and that you are wrong and that you're sorry and please don't spread these things to other people. No. So the duty is to be as public in your apology as you were in your recusal and you have to do that if you want the Lord to forgive you, ok, the person you offended. If they're righteous, they're
gonna have forgiven you even before they hear from you. But God won't forgive you until you make amends as far as you can. Now, in the past, I have been far too quick to comfort those who have come to me apologizing for having started or spread rumors about me. Uh, like I said, I had already forgiven
them even before I heard from them, but I've been too fast to help comfort them and say, don't worry about it. Don't ever bring it up again with me. We're good. Just act like it never happened. And here's why I regret doing that because these people don't do a dang thing to try to fix the problem beyond
themselves. And they're still holding on to these really nasty undercurrents of character that caused them to s to create or spread the rumor in the first place. They still don't understand that most of these things that they get caught up in are none of their business and they still probably wouldn't
ask a person. They don't understand the depth of their, uh, their sin in doing this. It's a big deal. And so, uh, for the however many people who end up seeing this, I want to make known that I'm taking off the white gloves here and I will no longer be so soft about people who do these horrible things
. I'd like to give a voice to the people who lack the courage or the, the stature to fight for themselves and people who do these sorts of things, do them to multiple people. Not just me, I'm telling you right now from here on out, every time I catch wind of people spreading rumors, I will absolutely
publicly call you out. And the reason that that should encourage you to do it less often is that I have fully repented of my sins and I'm completely open about what I believe. And do you, on the other hand, probably are not, you probably have a lot more to be ashamed of than I do. I have fully already
, uh convicted my past self and that person's died and, and been raised again through the forgiveness of Jesus. And I have no problem whatsoever. You know, people call themselves recovering alcoholics and I really don't like that, but I have no problem calling myself a recovering doofus. I will call
my past self out uh in public without any hesitation. I do that in private every single day as I continue to change for the better, every chance I get. But I don't think that you've made that commitment in your life yet, if you're telling rumors, uh to, to not feel guilty about the things you're being
called out for. And so I highly encourage you to not do this anymore. And I confidently predict that if you do it, you will regret it. I'm really sick of these people running around doing one thing in public and another thing in private and uh I will do my part to make that stop. So, so be warned, ok
, now you might just be saying Rob just answer the freaking question. So if you've made it this far, I haven't ever and don't and won't have a plural wife, but probably not for the reasons that you'd guess if you heard me say it. The first reason is that's illegal. And I can't imagine a situation where
some sort of weird contrived, I don't know, going to another county to get a marriage license or calling something a marriage which is illegal. It turns out as far as I understand before it's actually been state sanctioned. I can't imagine a situation where that would be worth the cost. I happen to know
that God doesn't care about state approved marriage. He doesn't care if you have a marriage license or not. And personally, I'm not sure if I were single right now, which I'm not, I'm married, I'm not sure that even if I were single that I'd ever mess with state approved marriage ever again, the deck
is stacked against men in ways that just encourage women to embrace female nature. And, uh, that's not something that I can see a point to however. Um, so, so if I were to approach this in any way, it, I there's no term for this that I know of, but this person would be some kind of long term committed
girlfriend. Uh I, it's like I said, it's even illegal to call someone like that a wife. Uh, you could still get charged with bigamy. But see your, see, your local lawyer for advice on that. I'm not an attorney. Um, so, so you might ask, well, do you have such a person, a long term committed girlfriend
that you treat as if you were, she were your wife? In addition to your legal and lawful wedded wife. Um I don't, I don't have someone like that, but I will be totally upfront as I have been for like a decade. Uh AAA as soon as I learn the things that cause me to have the position I hold on this, I have
always been public about this. Uh which makes it even dumber that people wanna tell rumors about stuff like this. It's, I, there's nothing about this. Uh, my perspective on this. It's been anything but public, but I do not have a moral problem with having such a person. It's just that I can't imagine
anyone who would be worth the trouble. So there you go. And I'll give you reasons for that in case you don't believe me. But even if I did, even if I did, you still wouldn't have any reasons to dismiss out of hand. The things I teach the greatest argument for that I already made using the example of
Jesus. But let me give you another one, the reason you would want to dismiss a person out of hand who is living this way is because of your assumptions about their motives and how they're doing it. And the thing is, and here's another general principle for you. When you oversimplify a situation, you
will likely see it wrong, you'll see it incorrectly. OK? The people who think about this, whether they are doing it because they want to get into it or because they don't, for them, it's all about what you get, but marriage is supposed to be about what you give. And for these people, these men or people
who are judging men, they really think that it's all about this illusion of some man who, who wants more or different sex. Sex is not sufficient value, uh value is sufficient to justify the cost for a man in a relationship. The only people who believe that are still deeply ignorant of reality and it
goes far beyond anything specific to what we're talking about, life is full of suffering. And as you become more aware of the depths of this, you realize that the things that most people see is sufficient to justify the suffering are actually woefully insufficient. Part of why I do what I do in dedicating
myself to ministry is in order to justify the suffering I know about. So this sort of base distraction level um pursuit of pleasure in life is woefully woefully insufficient. Finally, people envision this is a man pursuing a woman. And so a lot of this comes out of that assumption that it's and this
is how most people pursue monogamous relationships. At least until recently when all the guys went soy and the women went communist slash feminist um where the guy would pursue a woman, right? So there's this imagined situation where a guy is, you know, trying to mesmerize some woman or something into
doing what she doesn't want to do well for me, none of these things apply. Ok. I live a life where I give everyone I know far more than they could ever give me. I have no illusions about what sex is worth and a woman would have to persuade me. Not the other way around. I've got what I want in life. What
I don't want only God can give and I'm fully consecrated to that. I have purpose coming out my ears and no person can contribute in a significant way to that. I live at a different level for that to be true. Now, this idea of a woman persuading the man that actually should be the case in every case when
you're talking about a high quality man. And it doesn't matter what kind of relationship, if it's romantic or friendship or anything else, just sort of social, we should pursue what has great value, what has great value does not pursue what does not. And if you've watched any of my videos, you will admit
that this is a very consistent position even if you disagree with it. So, but what, what did it take? What would it take for a woman to be worth the trouble? OK. It's a long list. People, if you've watched the videos, you've just gotten the smallest part. I mean, I could write a book on what it would
take. There'd be no point, but I could do it. That's how much there would be but you know, she'd have to be aware of, uh not just aware but well versed in the things that I've written the videos, I've made the ideas I've presented, understand them and live them right there. You take out basically everyone
. Ok. But on top of that, anyone who knows me knows that being around me is standing in a stream of fire. You have to be able to withstand constant face ripping criticism and it only ever goes away as you rise up to that level. So and it's not just to, to be able to tolerate that, you'd actually have
to see it as valuable and who would ever do that. You'd have to understand and value what makes a high quality woman because hopefully you're aiming for that and you'd have to understand and value it makes a high quality man because otherwise you absolutely wouldn't be able be willing to do what it would
take to get one you'd have to. And this is another thing that's very different than people's expectation. It's not about tricking someone into something they don't want to do. I've got no time for that with anything. You know, churches are out there trying to persuade people to join their church. I'm
trying to show people what's valuable about Jesus. And if they want that, they can fight through the thorns and the thickets and the fire to get there and I'll help them do that. But I'm not here to shove anybody towards what they don't want. That just causes tons of problems for everybody. So she would
have to be in a situation where she could persuade me that this is what is best for her. And I wouldn't just take her word for it. I'd really have to be convinced and she'd have to convince me that it is better than anything else for me and my family that already exists. And that's a very, very high
bar. Uh especially in this another point further down, there is a commandment that says that we can't do what would be worse for pre-existing wife and my wife, like every other lady on this planet has her own particular strengths and weaknesses and it ends up being a really hard puzzle to fit, you know
, and I don't have time to sit there and fiddle with that, right? And try to match things up and make it work, not interested. Ok? And then there's all the other things that would easily disqualify basically every modern woman. So for me, it's easier to imagine parting the sea than to find a woman like
this. And most of these things would be true given what I know. Now, even if I were single, looking for a monogamous relationship, let alone when I'm already married and not looking for anything more. So, being open and seeking are two different things, right? What I'm doing is way more important to
me than any of this. And so the attitude is very simple. I've got no time for any of this and I've got zero interest in the emotional and other baggage of pursuing it. I'm here. I'm doing what I'm doing. If someone's interested, they can try to get involved and otherwise they can take a hike and I don't
care. That's my attitude. Ok. But you better make things better or else it's not worth it. But what you see if you're one of these rumor tellers, um, you know, quote unquote recruiting a quote unquote plural wife. Uh, you're imagining like some shady dude stalking about manipulating unsuspecting victims
. And this is ridiculous. I don't do anything in the dark. God doesn't work in the dark, neither do his servants, his real ones. But as far as manipulating unsuspecting victims, I've literally publicly posted my thoughts on this for over a decade. The only thing I do is tell people that they're not good
enough, right? If that if you think that's manipulation or, or if you think that that's a tactic that is aimed at persuading women to be attracted to me, you're either dishonest or retarded. There are no other possibilities there. Ok? That's the least attractive thing to women is telling them they're
not good enough, right? Which I don't tell that to, I tell that to everybody that is the message that is the message of repentance. It's a message of improvement. Here's how you can be better. Here's why you should be for what it's worth at least one traditional polygamous sect that I know a few people
in, they don't even do that. Right. So, this whole thing is just like a boogeyman that they trot out when it's convenient. This particular sect, you can't have a plural marriage without approval by the senior leadership. It's, it's not quite arranged but it's pretty dang close like this isn't something
that you just sort of uh you know, stalkily stalking and shadily stalking uh and manipulate unsuspecting victims. I mean, there might be groups out there that do that, but that's not what the, the folks who are renowned for this do. I'm not even sure where that came from. Although like I said, I'm sure
there are abuses, right? And in the past there definitely were. But this is not a serious thing that, that when people say this, it's just pretty ridiculous all around. Now. Finally look, even if I were doing this, my part in this is actually just preaching the gospel, right? So if you look back on that
list, it's not, I don't even know like what you would go. I don't even know how you would do that except just this give everybody the successive next increment of truth, make blog posts, make write books, make videos, help people understand and live it. And then if you have interactions beyond that,
uh just invite them to to the next increment of improvement. Let's just preach in the gospel. And so in as much as this is, you know, this is what I do, right? So what the heck else these people might be imagining? I have no idea. But this is it, this is it. So let's please stop with the rumors. It's
, it's all out in the open. If you got questions, I'm here but don't ask me stupid ones. There are no stupid questions. Just stupid people, right? But we should all do this. This is, this is what we all should do is help everyone take the next increment of improvement. Everyone to learn the next increment
, learn and live next increment of truth. And if someone is out there and they see a certain path as the most beneficial for, for them and those involved in it, what business is it, of ours, least of all to use that as some excuse to not improve in ways that we've seen that we should. Right. And, and
just to be completely plain with this, my position on polygamy is the following. Whoever gets involved in that first and foremost should look at the legal ramifications and not break the law on something stupid. But two, if some lady wants to do that and she thinks it's what's best for her, more power