Proverbs 23, what's this point about?
The first point was about controlling our anger.
Second point, controlling what comes out of our mouth.
Third point, controlling our fleshly appetites.
What kind of appetites are we talking about?
We touched on fornication and adultery.
Those are major appetites that people struggle with today in the United States of America.
And our society is all around us and our society has condoned of those activities.
So that's a big area of struggle for a lot of people today.
Look at Proverbs chapter 23 verse 20.
Be not among wine bibbers.
Okay, bibbers there means wine drinkers.
Bibber is like the Spanish word baby beer, right?
It means what? To drink.
So be not among wine bibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh
for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty
and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
So God's warning us about two things here, drunkenness and gluttony.
Go back to verse one and let's see a self-control element here.
Proverbs 23 verse one, when thou sit is to eat with a ruler,
consider diligently what is before thee
and put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite.
Be not desirous of his dainties for they are a deceitful meat.
Now, let me just point out that phrase
at the end of verse two, given to appetite.
That means you have a tendency to be one who overeats.
You have a tendency to indulge in too much food.
Now, everybody has different problems
or tendencies or proclivities.
Some people are gonna struggle more with certain sins
that are pretty easy for other people to resist
and vice versa, right?
We all have the same temptations that are common to man,
but for some people, they're gonna struggle
in different areas.
One guy, fornication might be his biggest temptation.
Another guy, he could be really given to appetite.
Another guy is given to wine, right?
These are proclivities, tendencies, pitfalls
that we need to know about ourselves
and watch out for in our own lives.
That's why the Bible says that the pastor
should not be one who's given to wine, right?
What does that mean to be given to wine?
It means that his tendency would be toward drinking wine.
This is a guy who's given to appetite.
And what does the Bible say that he should do?
Put a knife to thy throat.
Now, this isn't talking about somebody else
having a knife to his throat.
This is about him having a knife to his own throat,
not literally, but figuratively.
If you did this at a restaurant,
putting the butter knife to your throat,
that's not much of a threat.
But the point is, the knife to the throat is not literal.
What is it saying?
Self-control, self-control.
I mean, if you're putting a knife to your own throat,
that's you controlling yourself, right?
Understanding, and look, this is a great verse
because what it tells us is identify the area of weakness
in our life and then use self-control.
You could use this to other areas besides food.
If you're a man that's given to fornication,
so to speak, put a knife to your throat,
make sure that you control yourself.
You could insert whatever that's in there
and use self-control.
So the Bible teaches against gluttony.
And the Bible says, if you're a man given to appetite,
put a knife to your throat.
Go to James chapter one, James chapter number one,
James chapter number one.
Self-control, what does that mean?
You know, we need to also be careful with what we eat,
right?
Now, we live in a time where, you know,
most preachers, they don't touch on this issue, okay?
For a few reasons.
Number one, it offends people.
And my desire is never to offend people
or hurt people's feelings, okay?
If I ever preach about something
and I kind of hit the nail on the head
or it hits kind of close home with you,
it's not because I'm just trying to burn you.
I don't get up in the morning and say,
you know who I'm really gonna sock it to this morning?
I'm gonna get him good this morning.
I'm gonna burn her from the pulpit
and oh, it's gonna feel so good to watch them squirm
when I start preaching on their sin.
You know, that's not my intention.
You know, the purpose of preaching against sin
is because you love people and you wanna help them.
Preaching helps us to be better people.
If we're sitting in the pew and we hear preaching
against a sin that we're given to
or that we have a tendency to do,
we'll sin less if we're in a hard preaching church.
It's just a fact.
If you're in church and you hear preaching against your sin,
you're less likely to commit that sin.
That's one of the biggest reasons to come to church
is to get chewed so that you don't go out
and just live an indulgent life of sin, right?
And you know, we tend to let things slip in our lives
and then the pastor gets on it and we're like,
oh man, you know, we need to deal with that.
All of us, everybody.
So, you know, pastors who won't touch on certain subjects
because they know it offends people.
What it means is that they love themselves
instead of loving people.
So they want people to like them.
So they're only gonna say things
that are gonna make people like them.
But sometimes a little tough love has to be shown
and we have to tell people what they don't wanna hear
for their own good.
And I've even had some people where I preach something
that makes them so mad that they'll quit the church,
but then I'll hear about how that person
is doing what I preached.
Like, oh, that makes me so mad,
but they still end up doing it.
Well, then you know what I say to that?
Mission accomplished.
Cause to me, it's more important that people live for God
than that they attend this church.
So if I make you so mad that you,
I can't believe he hit on my sin, I'm never coming back.
But then you actually go out and get that sin out
of your life cause you were so mad.
Think about that.
Cause it's not about me.
It's not about, it's about, it's about serving the Lord.
You know, it's about getting sin out of our lives
and hard preaching does that.
So the subject of eating or, you know,
it's not something that you'll hear about in most churches,
simply because number one, it offends people.
And number two, because usually the pastor
is carrying quite a spare tire of his own.
So it's gonna be pretty hard for him to get up
and start talking about self-control and denying self
and putting a knife to your throat
and how the gluttony is gonna come to bite.
It's pretty hard for him when he looks like
he's about nine months pregnant.
It's hard for him to preach that.
Okay.
Now look, and again, I'm not trying to offend anybody,
but it's true that is not the right way to treat your body.
And if it is the right way to treat your body,
well then you know what?
Let's go smoke a pack of Marlboros after the service.
Right?
I mean, I mean, virtually no preacher in America
would say that smoking is okay,
or that smoking is good for you.
Pretty much every preacher in America would say,
don't smoke, it's bad for you.
But there are other ways that we could abuse our body.
And again, I realize this is a tough one,
especially for people that have gone a long ways
down this road, it can be hard to fix it.
And look, don't get me wrong.
I'm not one of these people that thinks
we should all look like Hollywood stars
and we should all be twiggy and skinny.
And look, everybody's got their own look and proportion.
God didn't create everybody to be skinny
and bony and twiggy.
So don't get me wrong here, okay?
I'm not saying you need to look a certain way or something,
or be overboard.
But I am saying that there should be some thought
that goes into the food that goes in your mouth.
It means that's so radical to say
that you should eat some fruits and vegetables
and that you should eat healthy food
and not just go fast food.
I mean, look, if you're driving through fast food every day
and you're just drinking Coca-Cola's, you know what?
That's not good for you.
I know this is shocking to you,
but that's not good for you to eat like that.
And then some guys that are naturally slim, like myself,
I'm kind of a naturally slim person.
You know, sometimes guys like me will just take it
as a carte blanche of just, oh, I'm thin,
that means I'm healthy.
Let's just put whatever junk in.
But here's the thing, just cause you're thin
doesn't mean you're getting proper nutrition either.
Okay, so we should be wise in all areas of our life.
We should be smart.
So I'm not just saying this is a big versus little thing.
You know, we should think about eating nutritious foods,
eating healthy, you know, using some self-control.
Yeah, of course we all want it.
Look, in my flesh, you know, I would love to down
several root beers with lunch today.
You know what I mean?
In my flesh, yeah, I could easily drink a Coca-Cola
with every lunch and dinner.
I wouldn't go so far as to do it with breakfast,
but with lunch and dinner, I could see myself
easily downing several Coca-Colas.
Taste better than water, amen.
But here's the thing, water's good for you.
So as long as we deny Coca-Cola and drink water instead
as our primary beverage, right?
Maybe save a little money, take care of our bodies
a little bit, then to just constantly have to be
pouring Fanta and Faygo and everything, you know,
Dr. Pepper's, that stuff is not good for you
when it's got the sodium benzoate preservatives,
it's got artificial colors, artificial flavor,
and the diet sodas with the artificial sweeteners,
you know, it's been linked to cancer,
and yeah, I know you don't wanna hear this,
so I'm gonna change the subject, but I'm saying,
you know, we need to use self-control
when it comes to our diet.
You know, and we need to make sure that we use self-control
when it comes to not sitting around and getting lazy either.
Right, because if we'd get up and move our bodies,
that's a big health indicator as well.
You know, hopefully you have a job that keeps you physical,
but a lot of us today don't have a very physical job
because of all the technology.
You know, when you make a point to have some self-control,
even though it feels good to just sit on the couch
after work, we might need to say to our family,
hey, why don't we go take the dog for a walk?
Why don't we hop on our bicycles and take a bike ride?
Why don't we go hiking?
Why don't we get out and do, you know,
your family would probably enjoy that anyway.
Get out, move around a little bit, get a little exercise,
instead of just indulging the flesh
of just eating chips off your chest in front of the TV,
right, sitting in front of the idiot box,
past the soda, past the pork rinds, past the beer nuts,
and let's just sit here and veg.
Some of you need to stop vegging figuratively
and start vegging literally, like eat a vegetable, right?
All right, I'll get off that, sorry about that.
Really sorry that I preached the truth for a minute.