Well, Proverbs 15, really the theme of this chapter,
focuses a lot on the tongue and the things that we say,
and a lot about the heart as well.
And these things are really connected.
But it kind of starts off with this idea in verse one,
the Bible says, "A soft answer turneth away wrath,
but grievous words stir up anger."
You know, a lot of times foolish people,
when they're in any sort of verbal altercation or argument,
or heated discussion, if you will, with someone,
when it starts to get heated and someone says something
that's, you know, emotionally charging,
oftentimes people just try to up the ante with each other,
where the heat's rising, and you say something offensive,
and then they get even more mad,
and it kind of builds and builds until a blowup happens.
But there's a way to avoid that.
The Bible says, "A soft answer turneth away wrath."
And really, with most people in our lives,
we should be striving for peace with people,
getting along with people as good as possible.
Obviously, we wanna contend for the faith,
and we're not gonna compromise on the Bible,
on the things of God.
But just most of our everyday interactions with people
at work, our family members,
our extended family members, neighbors,
you wanna try to keep peace with people as much as possible.
And a good way to do this
is a soft answer turneth away wrath.
You know, when someone starts getting mad or worked up,
a good way to diffuse that is just to answer softly.
This will help a lot of people's marriage.
'Cause sometimes in marriage,
when the biggest fights happen,
is when one person's not doing this.
Oftentimes these big, gigantic blow ups
that happen in marriage, they could be diffused
if at least just one person decides to chill things out
and come with that soft answer.
But when both husband and wife are just ready to up the heat,
you know, it's gonna be a big battle.
A soft answer turneth away wrath,
but grievous words stir up anger.
So the opposite is you could bring out the,
you know, grievous words
and can cause the situation to be a lot worse.
Verse two, the Bible says the tongue of the wise
useth knowledge aright,
but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness.
Now, recently we learned that the Bible says,
depart from the presence of a foolish man
when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.
So what are we supposed to do
when it comes to the fool is just depart.
You know, when it comes to having an argument with a fool,
you're kind of being a fool as well in that situation
because that's the argument you shouldn't even have.
You should just depart from that person.
The tongue of the wise uses knowledge, a right.
So notice the wise person, they don't just have knowledge,
they use knowledge correctly.
And it's really annoying when someone has
maybe a little bit of knowledge about a subject,
or some head knowledge, if you will, about a subject,
but they don't truly understand it.
This is like all false prophets.
All false prophets, you know, they know some Bible verses.
They could, you know, quote some stories for you.
They have some knowledge,
but they don't use knowledge aright.
They don't use the knowledge correctly.
But the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness.
You know, how is it that you could tell someone is a fool
by the things that they say?
So we gotta pay attention to people's words.
Verse three, the Bible says,
the eyes of the Lord are in every place,
beholding the evil and the good.
Now, when it's saying the eyes of the Lord
are in every place, it's not saying that,
of course, he could only just see us.
We know that the Lord could hear us as well.
This is what this is saying, basically,
is that just God is omnipresent
and God is also all-knowing.
So if we stay on that theme of words,
yes, God could see every action that we do,
but he could also hear everything that we say as well.
And we know in Hebrews four, the Bible says
that the word of God is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart.
So God could see us at all times, hear us at all times,
see our thoughts at all times.
You know, this ought to make us fear the Lord,
realizing that God can always see us.
You know, this is a good lesson for kids to realize that,
hey, not just mom and dad can catch you doing wrong,
because a lot of times, kids are not gonna be just so bold
to do, you know, steal something in front of their parents.
When do they wait to do it?
When mom and dad is asleep.
I don't know how I know this from experience
or anything like that.
It's like when you're asleep and you wake up and find,
oh, something's been stolen.
But hey kids, the eyes of the Lord are in every place,
beholding the evil and the good.
And so God can see us at all times.
God is judging us at all times.
And really this verse could be looked at
as a two-edged sword, because on one hand,
if you're wicked, this should scare you,
that God can see you at all times.
But notice how it said that the eyes of the Lord
are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.
And so this could also be an encouraging verse to you,
because some people, you know, they're thinking,
I'm putting all this work in, I'm doing a lot of good works,
and I just wonder if anyone even notices.
But the truth is that God always notices.
And no good work is going to be unrewarded from the Lord.
He always sees the good that we're doing.
Verse four, the Bible says a wholesome tongue
is a tree of life, but perverseness therein
is a breach in the spirit.
So notice, when someone has a perverse tongue,
for example, if someone is getting up
and just preaching damnable heresy,
it's a revelation of something that's inside of that person.
It's a breach in that person's spirit.
And you know, we are taught in the Bible
to judge people by the things that they say.
If you look at Matthew chapter seven and Matthew chapter 12,
it talks about judging false prophets by their fruits.
And there's really two ways you could look at that.
Of course, their converts is one totally valid way
to look at that.
But another way to look at that is the things that they say.
You know, if someone gets up and is preaching,
for example, that Jesus didn't die on the cross,
it's like, okay, it's pretty obvious
that this person is unsaved.
You don't look at their lifestyle, right?
You don't look at how nice they are to people.
You don't look at how good their family looks.
It's like, hey, if someone's preaching false doctrine,
then they're a false prophet.
And a lot of people today who aren't in our types of churches,
they get deceived by appearances.
And I can't tell you how many babes in Christ I know,
people who I know are saved.
But yet, they'll send me videos
of these false prophets on YouTube.
Does anyone else have people in their life that do this?
It's annoying, it drives me crazy.
But it's because, like, hey, it's a big church,
and the pastor's dressed real nice,
and everything looks real smooth,
and he's a great speaker.
But that's not really what you should be paying attention to.
What you should be paying attention to is the doctrine,
is what comes out of their mouth.
Because, hey, if it's coming from a barnyard,
but it's a good sermon, preaching the Bible,
then that's a good preacher.
But if you're in some beautiful Catholic church
preaching that, hey, here I am,
I'm gonna give you the literal blood of Christ,
the literal body of Christ, it's like, okay,
there's perverseness in this tongue.
And what is that?
It's a breach of the spirit.
It's a revelation of who they are.
Verse five, the Bible says this,
a fool despiseth his father's instruction,
but he that regardeth reproof is prudent.
We'll get a little bit more into instruction
and correction later in the chapter.
Verse six, it says in the house of the righteous
is much treasure,
but in the revenues of the wicked is trouble.
So in the house of the righteous, there's much treasure.
You know, earlier in Proverbs,
we learned that there are those who don't really have much,
yet are very rich.
And so you could look at this either from a carnal sense,
how oftentimes God does bless people with riches,
with carnal things, and that's fine.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But even if you don't have those things,
if you're saved and righteous,
you have a lot of treasure.
You have a lot of riches spiritually,
but in the revenues of the wicked is trouble.
The lips of the wise disperse knowledge,
but the heart of the foolish doeth not so.
Look at verse eight.
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord,
but the prayer of the upright is his delight.
You know, some people think that any
and all religious acts are pleasing to God.
And some people just have this idea
that if God looks down and he sees someone
and they're just practicing a religion
or doing some sort of religious act,
that God's just gonna be pleased
that they're doing something religious.
But notice, even if someone's making a sacrifice,
you know, think about the Old Testament.
God did have the system of sacrifices
where you'd sacrifice a lamb or an ox.
But if you're wicked, if you're not saved
and someone is sacrificing to the Lord,
it's not like that's just neutral to God
or even just kind of gives you like a pat on the head,
like, oh, you're trying, you know,
here's some brownie points.
You know, when the wicked sacrifice to God,
he says that is an abomination.
And what does that tell us?
You know, false religion is an abomination to God.
God is not this, you know, kumbaya,
let's all hold hands and coexist kind of God.
No, God looks at every false religion
and it is disgusting to him.
It's abominable to him.
You know, and of course,
one of the biggest false religions in our country
is Catholicism.
And Catholics love to, you know, light the incense
and bow before their idols and go and confess to priests.
And they'll even, what, sacrifice in Lent.
They'll give up some meat on Fridays
or they'll give up something and they call it fasting.
Even if they're not giving up food,
they'll fast from video games.
You know, I remember being in high school
and some Catholic, you know, baseball teammates of mine,
they'd be like, yeah, you know, it's Lent.
I'm fasting video games this week.
Or I'm fasting ice cream this week.
And they're thinking like, oh, I'm sacrificing to God.
You know, I just want to please God.
And God looks at that and he says,
hey, that's an abomination to him.
The truth is you have to do religion right or God hates it.
And just having good intentions in your mind doesn't cut it.
You have to actually do things
according to what the Bible says.
You know, it makes me think about Isaiah chapter one,
where these oblations and these new moons
and the sacrifices and all these things that they're doing.
God looks down, he says, I hate all this stuff, right?
Because they're doing it with a wicked heart
'cause they weren't right with the Lord.
But on the flip side, but he, I'm sorry, verse eight,
but the prayer of the upright is his delight.
So on one hand, you can be doing all this sacrifice,
all this work, you could be giving all this money,
but if you're in a false religion,
God hates it, it's an abomination.
And on the other hand, us as just humble human beings
that to me just seem like we're little, we're dumb, right?
We're not really much in comparison of God,
but yet our prayer is his delight.
God looks down and actually cares about the individual.
We don't believe in Calvinism,
that prayer is just some meaningless exercise that we do.
No, God is actually inclining his ear to our prayers
and it's delighting him, it's making him happy
when he hears the upright pray.
And I think sometimes people take prayer for granted,
but we gotta remember that this is a great privilege
and blessing that we have,
that we could just go before the almighty creator
and bring him our needs and our wants and our desires
and just ask for help in time of need
and God is there to hear us
and he's there cheerfully to hear us.
Verse nine, the way of the wicked
is an abomination unto the Lord,
but he loveth him that followeth after righteousness.
So again, kind of this contrast here,
he hates the sacrifice of the wicked,
he hates the way of the wicked.
So not even just their religious exercises,
he's just like everything about their life,
just their way of life, it's an abomination to him,
he hates it, but he loves him
that followeth after righteousness.
Now, this implies that there's some sort of work
that's going on on your end of things,
because obviously we get the righteousness of Christ
when we believe in him,
and that righteousness is what takes us to heaven,
that's what seals us, that's what makes us saved,
but following after righteousness
is talking more about your sanctification.
You know, trying after you're saved
to follow God's commandments and live a good life.
You know, the Bible says God loves the person
that follows after righteousness,
and you have to think why.
Well, probably 'cause so few people are doing it.
You know, God created us with free will,
and a lot of people use that free will
to just serve themselves and just live a selfish life
and just do everything that they wanna do,
and so God looks down and says like,
hey, it's kind of special.
I love the person who actually is following
after righteousness.
Why?
Because it doesn't just come natural to our flesh.
You know, we don't just, we're not just born naturally
with this desire to go soul winning and to read the Bible.
Like, this is something that is a desire of the spirit.
When you're walking in the spirit,
when you're full of the Holy Ghost,
then you start to desire those righteous things,
but it's still a choice between walking in the flesh,
walking in the spirit.
When you're doing the things of God,
you've made a choice of your own free will
to serve the Lord, and that gives him pleasure.
It's kind of like, you know, us as parents,
we get pleasure from our kids doing that which is right.
And it doesn't even matter if it's the smallest little thing,
we're just thrilled and we're excited for them.
Even just put aside spiritual things,
even just like when they learn their first step,
we're just like cheering them on.
We're so excited for them, and they say their first word,
and it's just silly, it sounds ridiculous,
but we're just cheering, we're Googling all over them.
We love it.
Well, like that's how God feels when it's like,
oh look, someone got their first salvation.
And you know, it might be something small,
but yet to God, he's cheering us on.
It brings him joy, brings him pleasure.
You know, just the silliest things that kids do
brings you so much joy.
It's hilarious.
Heidi, she's a baby, obviously,
and her favorite word for some reason,
none of my other kids have this as their favorite word.
You ready for what her favorite word is?
Butt.
I don't know, 'cause mama changes her butt
and sings her a little song as she changes her butt,
and so Heidi is just like butt, butt, butt,
and it's just silly, but yet,
me and mom, we think it's so cute.
We think it's so adorable.
If someone else heard it, they'd just be like,
what is, you know, this is weird, what's up with this kid?
But yet, as dad, I just like,
oh, Heidi, you're so cute, you're so adorable.
Well, it's like, you know, God is our heavenly father.
He loves all of his children,
and when he sees us following after righteousness,
and he sees us doing things for him,
you know, he looks down with that fatherly love,
and it pleases him.
You know, we have a personal God that we serve,
who actually, you know, has emotions toward us
that we can, in some ways, change
by doing wickedly or by being righteous.
The Bible says in verse number 10,
"Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way,
and he that hateth reproof shall die."
So notice, correction is something that is burdensome,
that someone doesn't like,
when they have forsaken the way of God.
And let me tell you something,
beware of the person that attacks discipline,
that attacks parents for spanking their kids,
beware of the person that attacks husbands
for being an authority over their wives,
because it's coming from the same type of person
that would be grieved with God's correction against us.
You know, we just talked about how,
hey, God is our father.
Well, doesn't the Bible say not to despise
the chastening of the, but to endure chastening, right?
We're supposed to endure chastening.
We're the sons of God.
And you know, if you actually love God
and you want to give God that pleasure
we were just talking about,
you want your life to be pleasing in the eyes of the Lord,
well, you're gonna welcome any correction from God
that he gives you.
Because if I'm not right with the Lord,
if I'm doing something that's wrong,
and that's causing my relationship with God to be hindered,
I wanna fix that as soon as possible.
And so if God's gotta correct me for me to get in line,
thank you, Lord, you know, I wanna get back on track.
Well, this is just true of all righteous people,
is that no matter the God-given authority,
the God-given authority in your life,
if they correct you, you should welcome that.
You should love that.
For the same exact reason that we want that from God is,
hey, we want that good relationship with them.
You know, kids, if you wanna have a good relationship
with your parents, you better take their correction.
Better yet, just do that which is right to begin with.
But if you do wrong, take the correction, own it, apologize.
You know, your parents want to love you.
Your parents want to have a good relationship with you.
They don't enjoy spanking you.
And so the sooner you just take the correction
and have a good attitude about it,
the happier your life will be.
The happier your parents will be.
But the person who's wicked,
correction is just grievous to them.
They get corrected even if it's in the slightest way,
even if it's in the nicest manner,
and even if they just totally deserved it.
And they take the correction and they're just,
they're turning red, they're mad, they change their attitude.
They get all rebellious.
You know, that's a wicked person.
And like I said, beware of the person who attacks authority
being able to correct people under them,
because that's what this type of person is like.
He that hateth reproof shall die.
Hell and destruction are before the Lord.
How much more than the hearts of the children of men?
You know, you ought to just get to a place in your life
where you truly love correction,
when you truly love God, you know, chasing you even,
because hell and destruction are before the Lord.
If God can look into hell
and see everything that's going on in there,
how much more can he see into the hearts of men?
You know, you cannot fake who you are to God.
You cannot fake whether or not you truly love chastisement
and love instruction and love correction
from the word of God or not to God.
God can see right through that.
And you know, you might be able to fool some people.
You might be able to put on a stoic face
as you're getting correction,
but you know, God actually sees inside of your heart
and the attitude that you have.
And so we ought to remember that
and ask God to help us have the right emotions.
Verse 12, the Bible says,
"A scorner loveth not one that reproveth him,
neither will he go unto the wise."
So who is this type of person that attacks, you know,
instruction and correction and reproof?
It's called the scorner.
And what is the attitude that the scorner has?
He does not love one that reproveth him.
What does that tell us?
You should love someone that reproves you.
You should have positive feelings and positive emotions
towards someone that would correct you.
Because honestly, the truth is,
it's not easy to correct someone.
Maybe in the military, I've never been in the military,
maybe when you just have like rigid, extreme discipline
and punishments and people just step out of line
and they're just like immediately punished for it.
Maybe it's easier to correct people in that environment.
But most of the time, most people,
they kind of have a hard time correcting people.
It's kind of uncomfortable.
And so if someone is willing to do that for you,
realize that it's probably harder for them
than you even think.
And it probably took a little bit of time
and thought and prayer to get to that level.
So the way I look at it is,
even if someone in time past has corrected me
and I felt like that their correction wasn't even merited,
that it was perhaps wrong,
the right attitude you should have is first of all,
think I could still be wrong,
even though I have this feeling and opinion right now,
hey, I could be wrong.
I could deserve this correction.
But hey, I love that this person cares about me enough
to even give me that correction,
whether or not everything was 100% factual
or I deserved every single bit of it,
because that's actually a loving person
that would actually reprove you and sometimes even rebuke you.
You should love that person.
And so kids, love your parents when they correct you.
Wives, love your husbands if they correct you.
Love your pastor if they correct you.
Love your authority if they correct you.
The Bible says in verse number 13, I love this verse here, it says, "A merry heart make
it a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart, the spirit is broken."
Hey, you know, us as Christians, the Bible says that we should rejoice evermore.
You know, us as Christians, our default emotion in life, I believe, should be that of joy
and happiness.
And look, I'm not saying you have to walk around the street all the time with a joker
smile on your face, or, you know, be like these fake preachers that they're just smiling
through their entire sermon and it kind of gets uncomfortable.
But you know, every once in a while you could look like you're not on the verge of going
six feet under, if you will.
You know?
And I've noticed this with, like, Russians.
I lived in Washington for a while and there's tons of Russians there, and they just never
smile.
And I guess a hundred years of communism will do that to you.
You've got no joy.
But you know, us as Christians, I mean, we have so many reasons to be happy.
We've got so much good going on in our lives, and look, it does not even matter your personal
circumstances necessarily, because in general, we have a lot of good in common here.
You know, we all live in a great place.
We live in a safe area.
We live in a place with a lot of freedom.
We have good, clean water at our disposal.
We've all got running water at home.
You know, we're not in India.
Praise God we're not in India today.
There's just so many reasons, and that's just the Cardinal.
Then we have the King James Bible.
We've got Anchor Baptist Church.
We've got soul winning.
We've got YouTube to watch all these great sermons.
You know, hundreds of years ago, not even that long obviously, you wouldn't have been
able to do that.
You wouldn't have been able to tune in to Pastor Anderson in Phoenix, Arizona, or Pastor
Shelley or Pastor Thompson.
You wouldn't be getting all that extra spiritual nourishment, but we have that today.
There's just so much to be happy about.
We have good jobs in America.
We've got cars with air conditioning.
You know, we've got all this great stuff.
And so hey, a merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.
It's all right to smile every once in a while.
And by sorrow of the heart, the spirit is broken.
So yeah, the Russian communists in bread lines for a long time, that's why they don't
smile.
They've got no joy there.
But in verse 14, the Bible says, "The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge,
but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness."
One of the themes that just constantly comes up in the book of Proverbs over and over is
that people who are smart, people who are wise, they are always seeking more wisdom.
They're always wanting more knowledge, and it's kind of paradoxical because you would
think like, "Oh, this person's arrived to really high intellect and educational status,"
and so they kind of have it made.
But people who are smart, they never feel that way.
They just constantly want the next book.
They constantly want to read the next chapter.
They constantly want to get the next lecture, the next sermon.
They're always seeking more wisdom, but it says this, "But the mouth of fools feedeth
on foolishness."
It's like the exact opposite for a fool.
What does the scorer and the fool do?
They despise the correction.
They don't love one that reproves him.
They just want to feed on foolishness.
Man, this is just a lot of the younger generation today.
What do they just spend their time watching?
It's called brain rot.
Who's heard of brain rot?
Brain rot is just like these absolute mindless videos that just suck your soul away from
you and your time away from you, and it's just making you stupid, literally.
It's called skibbity toilet, and I wish someone never showed me this.
There's literally a YouTube channel with just like millions of views, and it's just like
a dancing toilet.
I'm not joking.
You think like, "Oh, I'm being sarcastic here."
No, no, no.
There's like millions and millions of kids watching just millions of hours collectively
videos of dancing toilets, and Gen Z over here is laughing because he knows what I'm
talking about.
It's a real thing.
You know what I mean?
That is what fools do.
They literally just feed on foolishness.
They don't want to read a book.
They don't want to go to church.
They just want to just sit there and feed on foolishness, watching skibbity toilet.
Or here's something foolish people do, maybe millennials are more into this one.
How about sports betting?
Talk about feeding on foolishness.
You got a bunch of grown men today that will go to a bar and they'll sit there and bet
on every single play of a game.
It's like, are you 10 years old?
Are you a teenager?
You're a grown man?
You know, and people literally get in fights over this stuff.
People have, you know, there's been people arrested because they've like gone after NFL
football players being like, I had $10,000 on you kick, you moron, you idiot.
It's like, I think you're the idiot.
You're the one that's just feeding on foolishness, spending your time in absolute vanity and
stupidity and doing nothing productive.
That's what the fool does.
And man, one of the negative effects of technology in our world today is that it's just given
people so much more free time than we've ever had.
I mean, throughout human history, most people are not working eight hours a day.
They are working from sun up to sun down.
Men and women.
You know, we'll talk about that in Proverbs 31, it describes a woman living that type
of a lifestyle.
And you know, men are just up super early, they're working super late.
And if they've got anything to do in the evening, it's like, eat dinner, pray with
the kids, read the Bible, maybe work on a book or something like that.
But people weren't just laying in bed, that's what people do.
Just laying in bed and just scrolling brain rot.
This did not happen in previous generations.
And we need to be careful about it.
We need to make sure that we're guarding up the loins of our minds and not allowing
this stuff to control us, because man, it is addictive.
You know, I preach a sermon called Weapons of Mass Distraction.
These things can be used as weapons against us.
And if you just allow yourself to just feed on foolishness, let me tell you what, you
will become a fool.
You will become a vain and empty person.
And sometimes you just got to put the stupid phone down.
You know, if you struggle to read your Bible, maybe you need to like go put your phone in
the tornado shelter or something and then sit down at the table and read the Bible
for a while.
Maybe you need to lock it up in the gun safe or something for 10 minutes, 20 minutes and
read the Bible.
Some people today, they spend their whole lives just feeding on foolishness.
Bible says in verse 15, "All the days of the afflicted are evil, but he that is of a merry
heart hath a continual feast."
You know, the awesome thing about being a Christian is we have, like I said, so much
to be happy about.
We have so much joy.
You know, we are saved.
We are children of God.
Jesus Christ is our Savior.
We've got a great church.
We've got great families.
We've got the Word of God.
We've got all this great stuff going for us.
And when you, when you sit down and you actually appreciate and count your blessings, name
them one by one, and just think about all the things that God's done for you, here's
the thing.
It doesn't, it doesn't cause you to focus on the negative in your life as much.
When you sit down and you just think about the good, which is what we should do, we should
think on those things that are good, things that are pleasant, things that are pure, things
that are of a good report.
You know, we're supposed to think on these things.
And when you do that, life is like one giant continual feast.
You know, think about great days of the year, Thanksgiving.
That's a great day of the year, right?
We feast.
We eat a bunch of great food.
And when you eat a bunch of great food, you're just happy.
You're around brothers and sisters in Christ, you're around family members, and it's usually
a happy day, a joyous day.
Well, you know what?
All of life can be like that when you actually put in perspective how good we have it from
the Lord.
But you know what I've noticed is like leftists are some of the most miserable people on earth.
Like, you ever notice how angry liberals always are?
They're always out protesting, and especially like the young college-age girls, they're
just like foaming at the mouth, they hate themselves, they hate their lives, no man
wants them, they have a stupid college degree, they've got all these, you know, mountains
of debt, and it's just like, "Oh, it's Christianity's fault, it's the white man's fault, it's Trump's
fault."
They're just angry at everything.
Meanwhile, we're over here, we're just like, "Hey, look, we've got beautiful families,
beautiful kids, beautiful friends, we've got a great church, we've got soul winning, I'm
reading my Bible this evening, we're hanging out eating good food, you know, we're trying
to get healthy, we're trying to do good things, we're trying to memorize the Bible."
Like, we're just honestly happy in life.
And let me tell you something, the happiest life you could live is the Christian life.
That does not mean you won't go through times of sorrow.
That doesn't mean you can't experience extreme heaviness and depression at times in life.
That doesn't mean you won't get persecuted.
But just the overall picture of life, I promise you, the Christian life is the best one that
there is.
You know, the Bible says that the way of transgressors is hard.
No, no, no, people who are living a wicked life, they're not happy.
No, all the days of the afflicted are evil.
And he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.
That's what the Bible says.
Look at verse number 16, continuing on this thought, it says, hey, better is little with
the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith.
You know, you would rather have little resources, a little house, a little bank account, a little
job, a little happy life with love and with the fear of the Lord than this great treasure
and all this trouble.
You know, money is important in our life, we need it to function, but money is not absolutely
everything.
And some people today, they'll trade like almost 100% of their time and 100% of their
mental health and 100% of their family time and 100% of their church time to get some
super, super high paying job.
And at the end of the day, a lot of people realize, yeah, it wasn't worth it.
You know, I have all this great treasure with a bunch of trouble therewith and people, you
know, oftentimes they'd say, hey, I'd rather trade that for little with happiness, with
joy.
And it continues there in verse number 17, better as a dinner of herbs where love is
than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
You know, think about that Thanksgiving dinner, that joyous picture I painted for you of hanging
out with brothers in Christ or family that you like, hopefully, and you're eating good
food and, you know, that in and of itself is good.
Now, just imagine you're eating the best food ever, but everyone hates each other.
That wouldn't be fun, right?
Like, I'm thinking about me, like, what if you just put the best steak in front of me
and the best food and sparkling cider and just this wonderful meal in front of me, but
I had to eat it in the presence of the protesters of Steadfast Baptist Church, who was my enemy
for like three years straight.
I wouldn't enjoy that meal.
They wouldn't enjoy that meal, you know, that would be a terrible situation there.
And look, not even that extreme of an example.
A lot of people, you know, they have really messed up marriages where husband and wife
hate each other's guts, and I guarantee you those people would rather eat a literal vegetarian
meal where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
And look, that's pretty extreme language because I don't eat vegetarian meals.
Like I'm not saying I wouldn't do it if I had to, it's just I prefer to eat meat whenever
I can.
And I have a rule for my wife, she's not allowed to make dinners that don't have meat
in them.
It happened only one time our first year of marriage, I was like, what is this?
This is missing something quite important.
But here I'll say this though, I would rather have a vegetarian meal and peace with my wife,
peace with my kids, a loving home, people that are saved, my kids being saved, my wife
being saved, us serving the Lord together.
I would take that every single day of the week over just the best food and having a
bunch of hatred toward your family or vice versa or your friends.
You know, the things in life that people in this world seek after are usually not important
whatsoever.
Today, they want to seek after money, seek after having the nicest things possible, the
biggest house, and then they get those things and they realize, oh, I'm still not happy.
I'm still empty.
And so you need to prioritize the things of God.
The Bible says in verse 18, a wrathful man stirreth up strife, but he that is slow to
anger appeaseth strife.
So strife is not always bad.
We've talked about that.
Contending is not always bad.
You should always be in a battle for the Christian faith.
But the truth is, is that all of the battles that we fight, even the righteous battles
that we fight, it's because someone else is stirring it up.
Whether that's the devil stirring it up, or false prophets stirring it up, or the sodomites
stirring it up, a wrathful man stirreth up strife.
You know, we don't want to be the people that stir needless strife.
You know, if strife comes to us, we're never going to shy away from it.
We're ready to fight.
You know, I want to be a fighting church.
We shouldn't be the type of people where we're the ones constantly going around stirring
strife in our personal lives, as a church, as a nation.
Man, wouldn't it be nice as a nation if we didn't go around stirring up strife?
You know, here's an example of stirring up strife.
How about using the CIA to topple governments and replace them with puppet leaders?
This is what America does.
This is like the MO, what the CIA has done since its beginning.
And look, that's wicked.
It's us going around just stirring up strife, you know what it causes?
It causes fighting, it causes problems, it causes needless death.
And you know, just with all the stuff in the news recently with Iran and Israel, you know,
my perspective is that I could not care less about who is in charge in Iran.
I really don't want, I don't care about my tax dollars going to topple the government
of Iran.
I've got two brothers that are active duty military right now, I don't think that their
lives are worth toppling some Muslim in Iran and just replacing it with someone probably
worse.
You know, it's a bunch of wickedness that our country does meddling in other people's
affairs and America needs to stay out of it.
And man, I can't wait for baby boomers to lose their political power when they die,
when they get off the scene in America, because you know, none of us young people care about
this stuff.
We wouldn't go and sign up or vote to go bomb Iran in this kind of garbage.
Why?
We stir up strife, we're trying to live peaceably, but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.
Verse 19, the way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns, but the way of the righteous
is made plain.
What is this saying?
Someone who is lazy, they will always have an excuse for failing.
They will always have an excuse for not being able to get done what they need to.
Everything's just an hedge of thorns.
What is that?
It's like some obstacle stopping them.
But notice, it's like this is just a characteristic, not of this person's environment, but of
a lazy person.
A lazy person finds excuses, but it says, "But the way of the righteous is made plain."
A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish man despiseth his mother.
Do not despise your parents.
Do not despise your mother.
And this is kind of a growing trend I've seen.
I've even read articles about this that Gen Z is pretty heavily separated from their parents
a lot more than any previous generation.
And I know a lot of people that they're just ready to cut off their parents at the drop
of a hat.
They're ready to just sever relationships, not even for biblical reasons.
I'm just talking about regular unsaved, you know, Gen Z people.
This is kind of an epidemic right now in our country.
But you know, you're a foolish person that despises your mother.
You should try to make peace and have a good relationship with your parents as much as
possible.
Without compromising your beliefs, of course, without compromising the Bible, you know,
we should honor our parents and don't despise your mother.
You know, we saw this recently with all the new IFB drama where there was kids literally
just despising their mom, saying all sorts of evil, wicked things about their mom.
And people were just sharing that and liking that and defending that kind of crap.
But notice what the Bible's saying here, "Hey, it's the fool that despises his mother."
You know, as Christians, let's be wise, let's not be foolish, and despise our mom and dad.
And not back people up as they're literally despising their mom.
You know, yes, there's the 1% of people out there whose mother is a reprobate, but I don't
think that's you in this room.
Most people, they are the rule, not the exception.
And so you're never going to impress me, or at least no one should be impressed by you
talking crap about your parents.
Talking crap about your mom.
No, try to honor them as much as possible.
Even if they're not saved.
Even if they're not going to a great church.
Notice what verse 21 says, "Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom."
And that's just a crazy thought, you know?
Joy should come from doing things that are righteous, having a family, having children,
getting someone saved, going to church.
These are things that should bring joy to us.
But notice, to the person who is just destitute of wisdom, destitute of understanding, folly
is actually joy for that person.
You know, the typical pothead that's just laughing as he's smoking pot being an idiot,
it's just like folly is joy to someone who is an idiot, a fool.
It says, "But a man of understanding walketh up rightly."
You know, people like to criticize Christians and act like, you know, "Baptists are dumb,
independent fundamental Baptists, we're just a bunch of oaky smokies," or whatever.
But the Bible actually says that those who have understanding walk up rightly.
We'll see who's laughing at the end versus someone who's lived an extremely worldly,
wicked life, drinking, doing drugs, despising their parents, fornicating, cheating on their
spouse, getting divorces, doing all this wicked stuff.
We'll see in the end who's lived a better life versus, oh, the straight-laced, oaky
smoky, you know, person you like to make fun of who reads their Bible, goes to work, stays
faithful to their wife, does that which is right.
No, the person who is actually wise is going to walk up rightly.
Verse 22, without counsel, purposes are disappointed, but in the multitude of counselors, they
are established.
So, you know, God has given us the blessing of living around other people.
You know, God has created us to be members of a body, the church, to bounce ideas off
of each other, to have people in our lives that could give us counsel.
And it's always wise to get multitudes of counsel.
Verse number 23, it says this, "A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth and a word
spoken in due season, how good is it?"
So notice the fool, folly is joy to him.
But a wise person, this person's getting joy just by the answer of his mouth and a
word spoken in due season, how good is it?
You know, a wise person, they're going to actually get joy from reading a chapter of
the Bible.
And people today who are out in the world, you know, that would sound hilarious to them.
But I feel bad for them, what they're missing out on, because I don't know about you, I
open up the book of Psalms and it's a joy.
It's a pleasure.
You know, it's fun to read the Bible and to get wisdom and a word spoken in due season.
How good is it?
You know, how many times have you been down or just had a need in your life and your Bible
reading that day just hit exactly where you needed it and you got exactly what you needed
from God to help you in a situation or you're going through a hard time and you show up
to church and the pastor just happened to prepare a sermon on exactly what you needed
and it's like, man, a word spoken in due season, how good is it?
You know, that actually brings wise people joy.
But people who are fools today, idiots today, what gives them joy?
Sports betting, skivity toilet, drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, watching stupid
conspiracy videos on the internet, just being an idiot, that brings them joy.
It's like, hey, why don't you read the Bible, then you could actually get joy from a wise
source.
Verse 24, the way of life is above to the wise, right?
So seek those things which are above, Colossians 3 says, that he may depart from hell beneath.
The Lord will destroy the house of the proud, but he will establish the border of the widow.
This is a very striking example because, you know, you think about the house of the proud,
usually people are proud because they have a lot of power, might, financial resources
and looking, you know, from the outside in at the house of the proud, you'd think like,
man, they're indestructible, they've got it going on, but the Bible says that the Lord
will destroy the house of the proud, but he will establish the border of the widow.
See the widow you look at as saying like, wow, she's weak, she's on the verge of destruction,
she's powerless, but she's humble, and so the Bible says that the Lord will establish
her border.
And that just goes to show that we should never rely on our own strength as Christians.
Wherever we're at in life, regardless of your financial status, we should always stay humble
in our own minds.
We should always be little in our own sight.
We should always realize that at every single moment, we are constantly needing and depending
on the Lord.
You know, it's good to tell God that, by the way, when things are going good.
If things are going good in your life, you should just be praying and saying like, "Lord,
thank you that things are going good.
Lord, I acknowledge that this is all coming from you.
Lord, I acknowledge that at any time you wanted to take this away, it could be gone.
You're giving me power to get wealth.
You're giving me health in my life."
Like, acknowledge that all that stuff is coming from God and then maybe God will allow you
to keep having those blessings.
But oftentimes, God has to humble people.
He has to destroy the house of the proud because people think they've got it all figured
out on their own.
People think that, "Oh, I've got this settled," and I heard Pastor Anderson say something
recently that is just so true.
He said, "I live my life thinking that it could all be crashing down at any moment."
And it's like, "That's true.
We should think that way because here's the truth.
It can."
You ever read the book of Job?
Man, it really seemed like he had all of it going on, right?
He had the 10 kids, he had the riches, he had the assets, he had everything you could
think of, yet it all came crashing down fast.
To realize, man, we are weak, we are just dust in this world, you know, God holds our
fate in His hands, we should constantly stay humble and realize that.
Verse 26, "The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord, but the words
of the pure are pleasant words."
You know, this has to be one of the reasons why God is not just a loving God, but He's
also a wrathful and angry God and a vengeful God and a terrible God, the Bible says, is
because, you know, I don't even like having to look at the wicked, or if I hear of something
that the wicked did, it vexes me.
But God hears these people's thoughts all the time, and you know, it kind of starts
to make you realize why hell is very just, because could you imagine, you know, God just
constantly having to hear all these wicked thoughts for all of eternity, they're gonna
be cast out into hell.
But the words of the pure are pleasant words.
Verse 27, "He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house, but he that hateth gifts shall
live."
So again, people who are greedy, who just want to seek money as their end all be all,
that's what they're living for.
You know, they're actually harming their own house.
They think like, "Man, if I just chase money at all costs, you know, my wife will just
love the mansion that I buy her and all the cars and everything."
But a lot of times you end up just troubling your own house if that's all you're seeking
in life.
It says, "He that hateth gifts shall live."
So, kids, there you go.
No more Christmas gifts.
No, I'm just kidding.
Obviously, this is talking about kind of like being bribed or bought off or, you know, extortion,
stuff like that.
Gifts.
Verse 28.
"The heart of the righteous studyeth to answer, but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil
things."
You know, us as Christians, we should be slow to speak.
We should think about the things that we say.
Some people like to brag about how like, "Oh man, I'm a guy, I've just got no filter.
I'll just say the first thing that comes out of my, you know, comes into my heart, comes
into my head."
And people kind of brag about that and act like that's a virtue.
Let me tell you, that is foolish.
It is not a virtue, "Oh, I'm just so transparent, I just say the first thing that comes to my
mind."
You don't want to do that.
I don't want to live in a world where people do that.
You know, we should have some discretion in our lives and realize that not every single
thought that enters our brain should exit our lips.
I mean, the Bible says that the thought of foolishness is sin.
What does that tell us?
People are probably having foolish thoughts all the time.
You're probably having stupid thoughts all the time.
Same with me.
And we shouldn't just blab out whatever comes into our heart or into our mind.
That is not a Christian virtue.
It says the heart of the righteous study it to answer.
You know, if you're going to speak on a topic, if you're going to speak about something,
please know what you're talking about.
And you know, think about soul winning.
We do this with soul winning.
You go out, you make a plan, you highlight in your Bible, you memorize the verses, you
know what you're talking about.
This should be how we treat every area of life.
Study to answer.
And if you don't know something about a subject, that's okay to just say that, to just say
like, "Hey, I'm not an expert in this.
Maybe this will be a good person you can talk to."
You don't want to have this prideful attitude.
And we've probably all been around people like this, that they just know everything
about everything.
It's just amazing how they just know everything about everything.
I mean I remember this one guy telling me that he has had like every job you could think
of.
And it was just crazy.
Like every week at work he was telling me this other job he used to have.
And he was like, he was a soldier, and then he worked as like a barnacle cleaner off of
a ship, and he was a cop, and a firefighter, and an EMT.
And it's just like every week he's coming at me with a new job and I'm just like, man,
this guy is a fool.
He's just lying and coming up with all these stories.
Man, those know-it-alls are just frustrating to deal with.
The mouth of the wicked poureth out evil things, right?
It says in verse 29, "The Lord is far from the wicked, but he heareth the prayer of the
righteous.
The light of the eyes rejoice at the heart, and a good report maketh the bones fat.
The ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise."
So again, we're getting this idea of wise people.
What do they constantly do?
They want to hear reproof.
And you know, it'd be nice today if Christians had just the smallest amount of wisdom to
at least just show up to church.
Because by showing up to church, you're showing that you're willing to hear some reproof.
You want to be instructed out of the Bible.
You want to be corrected if you have to be corrected on something.
And man, we need to get back to the idea in America of exalting church.
And we need to teach our children by our word and deed that church is important.
We need to emphasize to our converts out there that church is important.
Because like I said on Sunday, so many people today are just downplaying church for acting
like it's not important.
And it just goes to show that they're a foolish person, that they don't want to abide among
the wise by hearing the reproof of life.
Notice verse 32, "He that refuseeth instruction despiseth his own soul."
And boy, isn't that the truth.
People today that want to just not go to church, not read the Bible, "No, I don't follow a
man, I'm not going to listen to anyone tell me what to do," you just hate yourself then.
You just despise yourself because it's the world today that's being destroyed by living
according to the councils of this world.
It's the world today and people not obeying the Bible that are seeing their marriages
destroyed by feminism.
You know, marriages today are not getting worse because of Ephesians chapter 5.
They're getting worse because of women like Taylor Swift and her feminism.
They're getting worse because of people like Hillary Clinton.
They're getting worse because of ex new IFB pastors despising the home.
That's why marriages are failing today, not because of the reproof of the wise.
It's not from Ephesians 5, folks.
It's not from the Bible.
You know, why are people's lives being destroyed today?
It's because they're out smoking pot.
And you know, if you were in the house of God, if you come to Anchor Baptist Church,
we're going to tell you not to smoke pot.
But it's kind of like a cultural thing in Oklahoma.
We're so proud that pot's legal in our state.
Isn't that so great?
No, let me tell you who smokes pot, idiots, fools.
You think people who actually read books and are intelligent and have good jobs, you think
those people are the ones that are smoking pot?
Absolutely not.
It's a gateway drug to worse stuff.
And people, you know, people were kind of being down on that statement about 10 years
ago.
People were saying, "Oh, marijuana's not a gateway drug."
Let me tell you something, marijuana is a gateway drug.
I guarantee you, all the homeless derelicts that are shooting needles into their arm this
evening, they were smoking pot as teenagers.
They were smoking pot in college.
And look, if you've done that in the past, just ask for forgiveness and never do it again.
But don't sit here and start defending drugs.
Don't sit here and tell me, "Oh, you know, here's what's popular now.
Psychedelic mushrooms are popular now."
And I know of Christians who defend psychedelic mushrooms.
Oh, man, it'll just open your mind, bro.
You'll have a closer experience with Jesus, bro.
Just do it.
You're a fool.
You're an idiot.
And see, people's lives today are being destroyed, not from the doctrine of the Bible that says
"Be sober!"
That's what the Bible says.
It's coming from the councils of this world that tell you smoking pot's just fine, fornication's
just fine, feminism is just fine.
Hey, here's a great idea that the world gave us.
Let's take our precious, innocent, defenseless daughters at 18 years old and let's just ship
them to a den of iniquity called a college, excuse me, with a bunch of young dudes pumped
full of testosterone without supervision.
Great idea.
What could possibly go wrong here, leaving them on their own like that, without a husband,
without a father to protect them?
See, this is the way of the world today.
This is why people's lives are getting destroyed.
Not from church, not from Baptist preaching, not from the Bible.
He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul.
Let me tell you something, if you go out and you start living a wicked life contrary to
the things that are preached at this church, you go out and you start drinking alcohol,
it's like you hate yourself.
It's like you despise your own soul because while we're here living clean lives, having
a blessed family, having a blessed church, you know what drunks are doing right now?
Vomiting in the toilet.
You know what drunks are doing right now?
Committing adultery, committing fornication, having bastard children or like a lot of young
people are doing, having bastard children that they then go murder through abortion.
You're despising your own soul when you walk in the councils of this world.
But he that heareth reproof, getteth understanding.
The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom and before honor is humility.
You know there's this phrase that I've heard often times from a really long time ago and
again recently where these like liberal weak preachers that are really watered down on
sin they won't preach really hard against anything they constantly say stuff like this
well this isn't necessarily wrong or this isn't necessarily spelled out in the Bible
but it's not really wise.
You know I heard a preacher say this recently like you know cross dressing really isn't
forbidden but is it really wise to wear the short daisy dukes is it really wise to do
this.
You know I've heard preachers like this in the new evangelical camp say stuff like this
for like decades but notice what wisdom actually is this is what's so funny the same preachers
that want to tell you fearing the Lord isn't that big of a deal keeping God's commandments
isn't that big of a deal look at this verse the fear of the Lord is the instruction of
wisdom.
You know what wisdom is teaching you to fear God wisdom is constantly teaching you to fear
the Lord what does fearing God mean we talked about this on Sunday it's an emotion of trembling
and having literal fear in your heart toward God and it's doing the things he says to do
and not doing the things that he says not to do this is what fearing God is and you
know what wisdom is it's teaching you to fear God the wise person you know what they're
going to do obey God's commandments not just come up with your own ideas of morality that's
not wisdom that's pride coming up with your own ideas for things the wise person is going
to fear God and before honor is humility you know the person that actually fears the Lord
that just exalts the word of God that just says hey everything this says about every
area of life is correct that's actually the humble person that's actually the person that
has humility and it's funny today because people will attack Baptist preachers and call
them prideful for preaching hard but let me tell you something if you have an idea that's
contrary to God who's the prideful one is it the guy that's saying hey thus say it the
Lord this is what God Almighty says hey let's listen to what God says or is it you that
says I know better than the Bible you're the prideful one and today the most prideful people
are ones who don't like hard preaching the most prideful people today are the ones not
reading their Bible not going to church before honor is humility and you know there's coming
a day where we're going to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ at his judgment seat and
we're going to be judged according to our works and we're going to spend that thousand
year reign with Jesus Christ ruling and reigning with him and hey if you want to have honor
during that time you know what you need to have now humility to not think so highly of
yourself to not put your desires and wants before the things of God the humble person
says hey this is always right what this says I should do with my life is what I should
do with my life the attitudes that this says I should have I'm going to have that's humility
and it's true of the judgment seat of Christ it's true of your job it's true if you want
to be in the ministry someday hey the way up in the Christian life is down let's pray
Lord we thank you for this chapter for the book of Proverbs and all the wisdom therein
I pray that we really continuously read these chapters throughout our lives and just try
to soak in as much of the wisdom in it as possible and I pray that you bless us as we
go home this evening and go our separate ways keep us safe and bring us to soul winning
and church services this weekend safely we love you in Jesus name we pray.