["Pomp and Circumstance"]
Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the St. Louis Baptist Church.
Great to see you all here for Sunday evening's service.
Please have a seat and grab a hymnal and open up that hymnal.
It's song number 18.
We can begin the secret service by singing song number 18,
Take the Name of Jesus with You.
Song number 18.
["Take the Name of Jesus with You"]
Take the name of Jesus with you,
Jealous, our own and our own,
It will joy you come forgive you,
Take him, deliver him, come,
Precious name of our King,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven,
Precious name of our King,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven,
Take the name of Jesus ever,
As assured from heaven's name,
In temptation found together,
We now hold him in prayer,
Precious name of our King,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven,
Precious name of our King,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven,
Hope of precious name of Jesus,
How it throws us on the ground,
When his love will not deceive us,
Precious name of our King,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven,
Precious name of our King,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven,
From the cave of Jesus' house,
A way across the country,
We now hold him in prayer,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven,
Precious name of our King,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven,
Precious name of our King,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven,
When the name of Jesus' house,
A way across the country,
We now hold him in prayer,
When our journey is complete,
Precious name of our King,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven,
Precious name of our King,
Hope of earth and joy of heaven.
Father God, thank you for this day.
Thank you for the soul winners,
and thank you for the souls that God won today to you,
and thank you for this evening's service.
Father God, please bless this evening's service,
and thank you in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.
Amen.
Michael inside
my Savior be, and give my sovereign life.
Would He give all thy sacred land,
for such a world as thine.
Was it your Christ that I had done?
He broke upon a tree.
Amazing grace, a home, and love beyond the grave.
Thou mightest shine in darkness' light,
and shine in glory's aim.
May Christ the mighty neighbor die,
for man and of angels sing.
I will last the crops of wheat in every way,
the dead above my own.
Dear Lord, I give myself to Thee,
to sow all that I can sow.
Amen.
This time, we're going to go with the announcements.
We're going to do the following, and we're
going to do the song number 34.
All right.
If you'd like a bulletin, we're just
glad to slip up the handle.
I'm going to bring you one.
As always, our service times are in the upper left-hand side.
We'll be back this Thursday night at 7,
going through Acts chapter number 15.
And then, of course, we've got the soul-winning times
beneath that, both the church-wide and regional,
salvation, the baptisms.
Quick note about the church, and then
don't forget the five-year anniversary's
coming up in just a couple of weeks.
Continue to sign up if you're going to be bringing a dish,
if possible.
And then also, there's going to be the soul-winning marathon
the Saturday prior.
So we'll be here at 10 AM, kind of organized, dispersed.
Go out for a couple hours, come back, have lunch.
Go out for more in the afternoon.
If you can't do both sessions, totally understandable.
If you can only make one, or maybe you can't make it at all,
I understand that as well.
But you could take your pick here before or after,
or you can do the whole thing.
Just let me know.
Well, don't even let me know.
Just show up, OK?
So I'm sure we'll have plenty of food and everything else.
Also, don't forget to sign up for the cleanup is back there
if you'd like to volunteer to help clean the building.
And then also on the back, just some notes
about our different soul-winning activities been taking place.
We had the Toronto soul-winning results, 187 salvations
and 36 soul-winners.
So that was a very, very profitable trip.
And it also looked very fun, too.
I know brother Rob, who lives up in Toronto, always
does a great job putting these things together.
And there was a lot of fun that was had.
Also, below that, there's the FWBC Germany church
plant that had 11 salvations and five soul-winners out
yesterday.
And then don't forget the big missions trip to St. Lucia.
Also, the note there, if you have any photos or videos
that you would like to share with me
so that I might be able to include them in the I'm
putting together a five-year anniversary kind of montage
video that will play that Sunday morning,
just to kind of look back over the years.
And so if you have that, you can share that with me.
If you have Apple products, if you use iPhoto,
that's probably real easy to just make a library
and then just add me to that.
And it'll just come through the cloud.
That way, you don't have to worry
about handing me a drive or anything like that.
But there's other ways we can get it.
But the sooner, the better on that,
just so I can get started working on that project.
So if you have anything, I know there's people out there
that got a lot of videos and things like that, some pictures.
It'd be great to include as much as we can in that video
so that I don't have to preach that morning.
No, just kidding.
So it'll be good.
So that we have, you know, it's not just my photos and things
like that, so that I can actually
be in some of the photos.
You never know.
But anyway, not that I need to be, right?
Maybe that's for the best, I'm not.
Who knows?
But anyway, if you got that stuff,
go ahead and share with me one way, shape, or form.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning
going back to Friday, if there's anything from Friday.
And then was there anything from yesterday?
There was, wasn't there one yesterday?
And then I heard we had a great group out today,
19 soul winners, so praise the Lord for that.
And then we had what, six salvations?
Anything outside the group for anybody?
I think the whole group's here.
That's a six, so praise the Lord.
And then keep up the great work, soul winning.
We'll go ahead and sing one more song
before we get into the preaching tonight.
Song number 34, I Know the Pirate Beaver Living.
["I Know the Pirate Beaver Living"]
I know the pirate beaver living,
and the lord of the earth will get your scent.
I know eternal life he gave,
and that Christ is well.
Our name is Ben.
I know, I know, that Jesus living.
And on the earth will get your scent.
I know, I know, that I can give in,
by grace and love, all in his hand.
I know that his promise never failed.
The word is being.
You cannot die.
No, you cannot live with what God's just saying,
and you cannot just sing.
I know, I know, that Jesus living.
And on the earth will get your scent.
I know, I know, that I can give in,
by grace and love, all in his hand.
I know, I know, that Jesus living.
And on the earth will get your scent.
I know, I know, that Jesus living.
And on the earth will get your scent.
I know, I know, that Jesus living,
by grace and love, all in his hand.
Amen.
It's time to pass the orphan plate.
I'll take this around.
Let's turn our bodies to Proverbs chapter 1.
That's Proverbs chapter 1.
As always, we'll read the entire chapter.
Please follow along slightly.
We'll be giving the receipts from Proverbs chapter 1.
Proverbs chapter 1.
Verse 1, the Bible reads,
The problem of Solomon's son David, King of Israel,
with no wisdom and instruction,
is to perceive the words of understanding,
to perceive the instruction of wisdom,
of justice, of judgment, of decadence,
to give subtlety to the simple,
to the young man knowledge and discretion.
A wise man will hear, will increase in learning,
and a man of understanding shall attain
unto wise counsels.
To understand the problem of interpretation,
the words of the wise and the dark sands,
the fear of the Lord's beginning knowledge,
the fool of despising wisdom and destruction.
My son, hear the instruction of thy father,
and forsake not the law of thy mother,
for they shall be an ornament of grace
unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.
My son, your sin is enticing,
and set thou not, but they say,
Come with us, let us lay weight for blood,
and let us work privily for the innocent
without cause.
Let us swallow them up, and lie as the grave,
and hold, so that they go down to the pit.
We shall find all precious substance
which shall fill our houses of wood,
cast them out among us, let us all have one purse.
My son, walk not thou in the way of thee,
refrain thy cooking from their path,
for their feet run to eat them,
and make haste to shed blood,
surely in vain, and then spread on the side of anybody,
and they lay weight for their own blood,
and learn privilege for their own lives,
and throw their ways where every one
is greedy in great pain, and shaketh the way of life
and the owners of it.
Wisdom cried without, but she uttered the voice
in the streets, and she cried from the chief place
in the opening of the gates, and the city
she uttered for words, saying,
how long you said it was, we love simplicity,
and scorners do lie in your scorn,
and fools hate knowledge.
Turn thee on my way, behold, I'll pour out my spirit
unto you, I'll make known my words unto you,
because I have called, and you have refused,
I have stretched out my hand,
no man to guard you, and yet said,
and not all my counsel, and with none of my approval,
I also will laugh at your calamity,
I will mock when your fear comes.
When your fear cometh as desolation,
when your destruction cometh as a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you,
then shall they call upon you, but I will not answer,
they shall seek me earlier, they shall not find me,
for that they hated knowledge,
did not choose the fear of glory.
They were none of my counsels, they despised
all my reproof, therefore, shall immediately
approve of their own way, and be filled
with their own devices, for the turning away
of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity
of fools shall destroy them.
The fools so hard can attend to me,
shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet
in fear of evil.
But Adam is faithless,
for whom the Father shall take you today,
Lord God, and draw you new for us,
and just give you the glory and honor, Lord,
and bless you to bless the rest of your service,
Lord God, and bless the preaching, Lord God,
until you give us your spirit,
and just give us an understanding
of your word, Lord Jesus, holy name we pray, amen.
Amen. Amen.
In Proverbs chapter 1 there, I want to look at
just a few verses to begin with where it says
in verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of the world, and the fools despise wisdom
and instruction, and I want to preach a sermon
tonight, a real practical sermon, just looking
at the fear of the Lord in the book of Proverbs.
Of course, this is something I talked about
this morning to some degree, and hopefully
I didn't kind of ruin tonight's sermon.
I was kind of reluctant to preach this just
because I feel I kind of covered this topic
this morning, this idea, this topic of the
fear of the Lord. Obviously, this morning
we looked at how the fear of the Lord is
something that is commanded. It's somebody
that we ought to fear, but the great thing
is that it's such a practical book. There's
so much practical application, so we can look
at the fear of the Lord in a more practical
manner this evening. We can look how this
kind of plays out in our lives, the importance
of it, why we should fear the Lord, not
simply because it's commanded as we saw
this morning, but because there's great
benefit to ourselves when we
fear the Lord, and also what it's
going to take to be somebody who fears
the Lord, okay?
So we're going to look at the fear of the Lord
in Proverbs tonight, and if you look there
it says that the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge. So if we want to
be people who have knowledge, who have
understanding, who have wisdom
according to God's word, it begins
with the fear of the Lord. Without the fear
of the Lord, we're not going to have
knowledge. That's why it's the beginning of
knowledge. We need to have that as
our basis, that's the starting point
in order to become a knowledgeable and wise
person is to have the fear
of the Lord in your life.
If you look there
again in Proverbs, it says in verse
29, we'll look there, it says
for they hated
knowledge and did not choose the
fear of the Lord. And she of course is talking
about this is the response of wisdom, replying
to those that would not hearken unto her cry
and she stood out in the streets
in the chief places of concourse
saying to the simple ones, come and
turn unto me and I'll give you wisdom.
But of course it says that they set at
not all of her counsel and had none of my
reproof. And then notice in verse
26, the reply of wisdom
personified. It says I also
will laugh at your calamity.
I will mock when what? Your fear
cometh. So one of the things we can
learn right out of the gate here about
fearing the Lord is that you're going to
fear something in this life.
As a Christian, if you're somebody
who decides not to fear the Lord,
you're going to be fearing other things
and you're going to be afraid of the calamity
and the fear that will eventually come into your life
because you're somebody who lacks
knowledge and because you're somebody who lacks
wisdom, you're going to fear
eventually, right? And what is it that's
going to come upon you is the calamity,
the sin, the judgment, the
wrath, the consequences of sin,
the things that come as a result of having
set at not all the counsel of God
and saying, you know, I don't need to hear this.
I don't need to listen to this. This doesn't apply to me.
I'll be fine without the Bible.
If we set all that on the side, if we learn
if we decide not to fear the Lord and not
have that knowledge and that wisdom, you know,
eventually we're going to end up fearing the results
of it. We're going to be afraid of what's
going to happen to us. Isn't that what it's kind of
saying here? Right? It's starting out in the chapter
saying, hey, the fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom. But then
she talks about all the people who set
aside her counsel, right?
And eventually, she's going to have
their fear is going to come.
And what is she going to do? Fear.
What is the Lord going to do?
I will laugh at your calamity, right?
I will mock when your
fear cometh. You know, if we are
people who scoff at the Bible, we mock
the things of God, we don't take the things of
God seriously, when our
calamity comes, when the consequences of
having that attitude finally come to
fruition in our life, you know, God's, you
know, might just sit back and say, hey, now it's my turn.
Now it's my turn to scoff
and mock and ridicule and kind of just disregard,
you know, the things that you
expect. You know, God wants things from us
and if we don't give them to him,
you know, we can't really expect to get things from God
in return.
Look at verse 32, it says, the turning of the
way of the simple shall slay them and the
prosperity of fools shall destroy
them. You know, the simple person
who says I don't need knowledge and wisdom and turns
away, you know, they're going to be
destroyed eventually because they're not going
to go through this life with the knowledge
and wisdom that they have.
You know, and this happens all the time in the world.
People who live their lives, you know,
apart from scripture, you know,
they eventually are destroyed, if not in
this life, ultimately in hell, you know, the
ultimate destruction. But they
even along the way managed often
to make just a complete mess out of their lives.
They make bad decisions,
they do sinful things, and they get
themselves painted into these corners
that there's just no way out of sometimes in life.
Why? Because they did not choose
the fear of the Lord.
If you look there again in Proverbs 129, for
they hated knowledge and did not
choose the fear of the Lord.
You know, the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom, but it's not something that's
just going to come upon you. You know,
the fear of the Lord is something that you have to choose.
You have to say, this is something I want in my
life. I want to be somebody
who fears the Lord. I want
that knowledge. I want that wisdom.
I want that understanding. I don't want to be
somebody that has calamity come
into my life. I don't want to be somebody that, you know,
is fearing the results of, you know,
putting off the things of God, not
regarding the things of God. You have to
choose that. That's an attitude you have to have.
That's something you have to determine to do every
day. You have to wake up and say, today I'm
going to fear the Lord. I'm going to crucify
the flesh. I'm going to walk in his commandments.
You have to choose it.
But again in verse 29,
it's showing us that they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord.
You're not choosing the fear of God.
What you're really saying is, I hate knowledge.
You know, I want to be stupid
is basically what you're saying. Now
obviously a lot of people today aren't just going to come out and say
that, hey, I just want to be dumb. I just want to be
stupid. I just want to make dumb decisions
and do stupid things.
But you know, when you, when people reject
the Lord, when they choose not,
choose to not fear God, that's
essentially what they're saying.
When we say, you know, I don't need church. I don't
need the Bible. I don't need to do the things that it
says. What we're basically saying
is, I want to be a fool.
I want to be somebody who just hates
knowledge. Because, you know, knowledge
and the fear of the Lord, as we're seeing in
chapter one, what it's showing us
is that these things go hand in hand.
If we want to have knowledge, we want to have
wisdom, we want to be instructed,
it starts with fear.
You know, one comes before the other.
We can't skip over the fear of the Lord
and then expect to be people that have knowledge
and wisdom and understanding.
You must start with the fear of the Lord.
We don't want to be people who hate it
and who decide to not choose it.
Look at verse, chapter two.
Look at verse one. It says,
My son, if thou wilt receive my words
and hide my commandments with thee so that thou
incline thine heart unto wisdom and apply
thine heart to understanding.
Right? This inclining, you know,
like you think about an incline is kind of
like having an angle on something. If you think about
if you were to get on, you know,
a treadmill,
I know probably none of us would ever do that, right?
But if we would abase ourselves
thus, you know, if we would do ourselves
the dishonor of getting on a treadmill.
I'm just kidding to anybody that gets on a treadmill, okay?
Probably standing on a treadmill, right?
But one of the settings on the
treadmill is what? It's the incline, right?
You can increase the incline
on the treadmill, right?
You're putting an angle on it, right?
So when he's saying if thou wilt incline thine ear,
he's kind of saying, you know, if you put an
you know, you kind of hold your head down low.
Have you ever tried to lean in to hear what somebody had to say
in a noisy room or something?
You kind of lean in, you kind of incline it.
That's what he's saying there. You know, if thou wilt incline
thine ear, you know, that's
something you have to choose to do.
That's something you have to purpose to do.
That's something you have to choose just like we saw
in the end of chapter 2 or chapter 1.
You have to choose the fear of the Lord.
It's something you have to want to bring
in your life. It's something you have to incline yourself
unto. He's saying if thou
would incline thine ear unto wisdom and
apply thine ear unto the heart. So you can kind of see
how these are, you know, there's kind of a theme
going here in the beginning of the book.
When it comes to the subject of wisdom and the
fear of the Lord, it's something you have to apply yourself
to. You have to incline it yourself to.
You have to want it. You have to choose it.
Right?
I mean, think about the great lengths that people
go to to get, you know,
treasures. Gold, silver, things
like that. People go to great lengths for
that. They'll go way out of their way
to, you know, find some gold.
Think about the gold rushes in California,
the things that people did there.
You know, they would leave everything they were
familiar with back east, you know, and head out
to a new land and try to make it
and strike it big. And they would risk
everything that they had. And they would
go into these, they'll dig mines into the earth
and hopefully it doesn't, they'd be, you know, cave in on them
and they'd go out and they'd handle dynamite and swing
pickaxes. And then they'd go nuts.
They'd get gold fever and they just, they just,
they gotta have it. But, you know,
what the Bible is showing us is what's way more precious
than that is knowledge,
wisdom, it's understanding.
That's the real value. That's what's really gonna
profit us in life is if we have knowledge
and wisdom and understanding. But
in order to do that, you know, we have to apply
ourselves. We have to want it.
Right? You have to cry after it.
We have to seek it. Right? If thou seekest
her as silver
and searchest for her as for hid treasures.
Now notice in these verses,
if thou, right, there's this if then
thing that you always see in Scripture.
There's the prerequisite to verse five.
Right?
The understanding that will come.
First, it's if thou will receive
my words. If thou cryest
after knowledge. If thou seekest her as
silver. So again, the, you know,
the, the, it's
being put upon us to seek these things,
to do these things, to choose these things.
You have to do it. You have to want it.
You have to choose it, cry after
it, but notice the promise there.
Verse five. Then thou shalt
understand the fear of the Lord
and shall find the knowledge
of God. Right?
If you would keep your finger there, let's go over to James
chapter number one. You know, this is a great
promise in the word of God.
You know, wisdom, the Bible says, is profitable
to direct. Wisdom is a very
profitable thing. It's something that we
want in our lives.
We don't want to, we don't want to live our lives as fools.
We don't want to set ourselves up for failure. We don't
want to set up ourselves so that later in
life, after we've made a ton of bad
decisions that, you know,
wisdom, as we saw in Proverbs,
is, you know, proverbially laughing and mocking
at our calamity and saying
well, you know, you kind of reap what you sow.
We want to learn to sow
good seed. We want to learn to
make smart decisions and have
wisdom in our life and have the wisdom and
knowledge and the discretion that God
gives. It's a great promise in the
word of God that it's there. That's what it said in Proverbs.
Then thou shalt understand
the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
You'll find it. If you seek it,
if you cry after it, if you
search for the knowledge of God, you know, you're
going to find it. You're going to understand
the fear of the Lord, okay?
And notice again that the fear comes before
the knowledge. You'll understand the fear
of the Lord and then you'll find the knowledge
of God. Again
showing us that one comes before another.
If you look there in James, look at
verse 5. If any of you lack wisdom
let him ask of God to giveth to all
men liberally.
Okay, obviously today when we say the word
liberal, there's a different connotation.
You know, we think about some
you know, green haired
you know, baby murdering
you know, whatever, abortionist
or something, right? Some Democrat.
But the way the Bible
is using it is saying it's being very liberal
right, meaning it's being very generous.
And that's why we call them liberals today because they're
very generous with other people's money, right?
They're very lax and
general with their, you know, their ways of
living and things like that. They're very loose and very
liberal with it, okay?
But obviously what he's saying here is that if you
lack wisdom and ask God
you know, let him ask of
God and it shall be given, excuse
me, that giveth to all men
liberally. God's not
stingy with these things. God's not stingy
with wisdom. It's not like God's
like holding out on wisdom. Like he's
you know, let me see if I got any left.
You know, he's scraping the barrel of
knowledge and wisdom and understanding.
You know, God has this
infinite resource
of knowledge and wisdom and understanding and he just
wants to pour out onto us and give to us
in abundance. He wants to
give it to us liberally.
That's how it's using that word there, liberally.
And it breadeth not.
You know, if we ask God for wisdom, he's not going to be like
what are you asking me for that for? You know,
how dare you, right? He's not going to bread us
for that. He's not going to get upset and
angry. He's not
going to bread us and he says and it
shall be given him. It
shall be given him.
You know, we can have the knowledge and wisdom
and understanding that we need in order
to live a godly life that is
pleasing unto God.
We have a knowledge and wisdom
and discretion that's available to us
in order to
understand how to raise our
kids or, you know, run a
business or run a household
or run a church or just
live our lives. You know, there's so
many myriad examples that we could, you know, talk
about in life, but look, every
aspect of life the Bible touches
and God has wisdom to tell
us what to do. You know,
and those are the things that we should be seeking after.
That's the wisdom and knowledge that we should try to
understand it with our lives and apply our hearts to
and incline our ears unto.
And now, you know, people get so
caught up sometimes in some of the silliest things,
right? And I get it. People get curious
about things, but it's like
they'll ask these just bizarre far out
questions sometimes about what does the Bible
say about this or what does the Bible say about that?
And it's just like it has no
bearing on their life whatsoever.
It's like, you know, the answer isn't going to make, you know,
any difference. It's just a curiosity.
And there's nothing wrong with that, you know,
and having those questions, but let's make sure we're not,
you know, in lieu of that for going,
you know, all of the knowledge and wisdom
and discretion and understanding that we need
to have in our lives to actually live
up, you know, practically in this world
and to actually know what it is
that we ought to do in certain situations.
Know what it is that God expects of us
to have that knowledge.
You know, but what's that going to require in order to have
that? Fear.
You know, it's going to require us actually
fearing God.
And actually, you know, being afraid of the
results of not having that
in our lives, the calamity that comes.
And asking God for it.
Crying after it as, you know, for, you know,
searching for his treasure. Crying
out after it. That's what it said in Proverbs, right?
To cry after these things.
You know, that's like strong,
you know, crying out
is like, you know, lifting up your voice.
Give me wisdom, God!
Give me knowledge! Give me understanding!
I need it! That's the kind of, you know,
that's the picture that it's painting in Proverbs.
And that's what we're seeing in James,
too, and he's saying, look, if you ask,
it shall be given.
If you seek for it, it shall be found.
You will have the understanding.
You will have the knowledge. It's there.
You'll know what it takes. You'll know what to look for.
You know, when you're
making all these decisions in life.
And look, you have
big decisions to make in life.
And it's not like any of us is ever going to get to a point where
we're done making decisions in life.
You know, we're all going to have to
make decisions and have to sermon how to handle
situations and everything.
Life is complicated.
We need the wisdom.
And he's saying again, look, ask him.
It shall be given.
Look at verse six, but let him ask in faith.
You know, you've got to
believe that God's going to give you this wisdom.
You know, sometimes
I wonder if the reason why
we lack faith and wisdom is
maybe it's not even because we're not asking.
Maybe it's just because we're not asking, going, well, you know,
I know if the Bible says if I pray that
I'll get wisdom, but I'm not really sure.
I really don't know
if God would actually help me have knowledge
and wisdom and understanding. But, you know, there's examples
of this. Like in Exodus
where they're, you know,
or is it Exodus?
I'm not sure exactly, but where they're building
you know, different parts of the
scripture, where they're building out the temple
and they're building out, you know, the tabernacle
and doing different things. Like God
sends men to Solomon. God sends men
to Moses. You know, and
even early on in Genesis, there's a guy
Tubalcain, you know, who was an
artificer in brass.
And it says that God filled these people
with knowledge and wisdom
and that skill. Right? God just
filled them with these skills.
You know, God will give us the wisdom and
knowledge and the understanding that we need.
It's so many different endeavors in life.
Right? If we just ask,
but that's a problem we don't ask.
And we need to learn to go to God and ask
for the wisdom that we need.
He shall give it, but let him ask in faith
nothing wavering, for he that wavereth
is like a wave of the sea
driven with the wind and tossed. Let not that
man think that he shall receive anything
of the Lord. A double-minded man
is unstable in all his ways.
So we need to
make sure we're asking in faith. Look, it's there
for us. The fear of the Lord is where
it starts. We've got to make sure
we have that in our lives. Don't go ask
God for things if you
have no fear in your heart. Because you're
not going to get it. You know?
You don't have the faith to
believe, you know, what the Bible says.
Okay?
Look
at Proverbs chapter number 3. We'll be in
Proverbs all night. But Proverbs chapter
number 3. Actually, you know what? Go to
Romans 12. I'll just read to you. Go to Romans
12. It says, Be not wise in thine own
eyes. Fear
the Lord and depart from evil.
So again, we're just looking at the fear of the Lord
in the book
of Proverbs. And it says here in Proverbs
3 verse 7, Be not wise
in thine own eyes.
You know, this is why a lot of people
choose not to fear the Lord. This is why
a lot of people decide they don't need the wisdom
of God. Because they have their own wisdom.
They have the wisdom of their own
understanding. Like, I
don't need the Bible. You know, I
don't know what the Bible says about this
subject or that subject. You know,
I've got so and so to teach me how
to do that. You know, or
I'll figure that out on my own. They're wise
in their own eyes. They think they're smarter than God.
It's crazy that people
think this. They just
write off the word of God. They write off
the biblical preaching because they think, well, I've
already got that figured out.
You know, they think, oh, I don't need to know
what the Bible says about child rearing. I don't need
to, you know, know what the Bible says about
marriage. I don't need to know what the Bible says
about finances. I don't need to know what the Bible
says about work. I don't need to know anything about
what the Bible says about anything because I
already know it all.
You know, and these are adults that talk like that.
And you know what they sound like as a teenager.
I already know everything.
Got it all figured out.
But they, you know, they might know something.
They might have the wisdom of this world.
But what does the Bible say about
the wisdom of this world? That's earthly, sensual,
and devilish.
Right? You know, the wisdom of this world,
they might teach you some things that you could
actually apply, but where is it going to lead you?
Right? What path
is it going to take you down? It's not
going to take you down the path of fearing God.
You know, the world
will teach you how to, you know, chase money
and chase women and
you know, just be a party animal
or whatever. Right? They'll
teach you how to do that. They got a lot of wisdom
on how to do it. They figured it out.
But what's the end of it? It's not fearing God.
It's the calamity that's going to
come, that God's actually going to mock and laugh at.
I had you go to Romans chapter 12.
You know, we need you to learn
to not be wise in our own eyes.
It says, Be not wise in our own eyes.
Fear the Lord and depart
from evil. You know, if
we really feared God, we'd begin to depart
from evil. And whenever
evil popped up its ugly head in our lives,
we'd go running in the other direction.
But you know, if we're just, every time
evil comes into our lives, we just throw
our arms around it and embrace
it, can we really say we're fearing God?
Right?
Because here's the thing, you know,
God chastens his children.
I know I preach about this all the time.
But Hebrews chapter 12 teaches us that he chastens
every son and he receives.
So if we just go around as God's child
just disobeying the rules and not keeping
them and just, instead of departing from
evil, just running towards it,
you know, how can you say you fear the Lord?
We depart from evil
because we're afraid of what God's going to
do to us if we don't.
That's what he's saying there.
You know, but a person who's wise
in their own eyes says, ah, I can get away with it.
No you can't. You know, that's a
foolish thing.
We need to learn to depart
from evil. What does it say in Romans chapter 12 verse 1?
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy
and acceptable unto God,
which is what? Your reasonable service.
You start
reading verse 1 and you think, man, well that's heavy.
Present my
body a living sacrifice?
You know, obviously God's not literally
suggesting that you, you know,
light a bunch of candles
and, you know, get some robes on or something,
hold some of the séance or you're going to get on a
stone altar with a knife and
ah, you know.
But he's saying, hey, mortify your members
in the earth.
He's saying don't just give in the lust of the flesh.
Have some temperance, have some self-control.
You know, rule your body.
Rule your spirit.
And present it as a vessel unto God.
The Bible says you're not your own, you're bought
with a price. You know, as with the blood
of a lamb, as the precious blood
of a lamb. We've been redeemed
by God and we are not our own.
Right? It's actually his
body. We just need to present it to him
as a vessel that he can use.
Right? And fill and
use.
And so it sounds heavy, right? Present
your body as a living sacrifice.
Holy and acceptable
unto God. Which is your reasonable
service?
It's like, God's not asking anything unreasonable.
Right? God's not asking
anything, he's not suggesting anything
that's far out when he says,
hey, fear the Lord and depart from
evil. And what does departing from evil
look like? It means you're not
just going to give in to the lust of the flesh. It means that
you're actually going to present your body
unto God. Look at verse 2, and be not
conformed to this world but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind
that you may prove what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God.
Right? Don't be wise
in your own eyes. Don't just adopt the
world's philosophy. And
if you have, say, you know what? This is wrong.
Reject it and be transformed
by the renewing of your mind.
By the wisdom that God
will give us. You know, if we fear
him, if we seek him, God will
literally change our minds. We'll have a
totally different perspective on life.
I remember after I first got
saved, you know, one of my family
members came to me and said, the you of
two years ago would laugh at the person that
you are now. They would mock them. And I
said, I know. But what
happened was that my mind was transformed.
I changed.
My outlook on life, you know,
the things that I, you know,
used to do, I stopped doing.
The things that I would have, you know, ridiculed
others for doing, I started doing.
Go to church, read your Bible,
pray.
You know, I used to mock those things.
But then, you know, after I got
saved and, you know, presented
my body that living sacrifice and just saying,
hey, not perfect in every way by no means.
Still haven't arrived.
But I at least was presenting
myself and saying, Lord, you know, help me to
understand. Give me wisdom. Give me knowledge.
I mean, I read the book of Proverbs.
I was in Proverbs a lot, especially
when I first got saved as a young man.
And I highly recommend that especially
young people make a habit of
reading the book of Proverbs repeatedly.
Read a Proverb a day.
There's 31 Proverbs. You know, it's about
usually typically about 30, you know,
30 days in a month. I know there's a few that
are a little off. So maybe one day
you'll have to read two
or not. I don't know.
I'm not going to figure out the math right now.
But just read the book once a month.
Just get it done. It's not that big of a book.
And look, the things that you read in Proverbs
are so practical, they'll stick with you.
You know, it'll give knowledge to the simple.
It'll give understanding.
Right? And it'll teach you the fear of
the Lord. And if you start with that,
you know, your mind will be transformed.
It'll be changed.
You'll stop being wise in your
own eyes. You'll actually start to
see the way we think sometimes for what
it really is. Stupid.
You know, sometimes we might
look back in the ways we used to think
and the things we used to just go, what an idiot!
I mean, sometimes
we all think about the, you know, the
proverbial time machine we wish we could get in
and just go back to when we were a younger person and just
slap that guy around.
Give him a swift kick in the pants. Right?
What happened?
Our minds were transformed.
At the time, everything we were doing seemed perfectly
sane. Yeah, it makes sense to do this.
It makes sense to think this way and to act this way.
Makes perfect sense. Why?
Because we were walking according to the course of
this world. According to the prince of the power
of the air that now work in the children of disobedience.
Right? But once we got saved out of that,
you know, our minds have been transformed
if we've presented ourselves that
living sacrifice. Okay?
So don't be wise in your own
eyes. Fear the Lord. Depart from evil.
Go over to Proverbs
chapter 18.
Proverbs chapter 18.
And say, you know, why doesn't everybody
do this? Why doesn't everybody just depart from evil?
Why doesn't everybody
stop being wise in their own eyes?
Why doesn't everybody just admit that they're wrong?
Right?
You know, it sounds nice, but
the reason why people don't do it is because of
basically pride.
You know, it takes humility to admit
that you're wrong. It takes humility to say
you know what? I need to have my mind
transformed. I need to stop
thinking the way I'm thinking. I need to stop doing
the things that I'm doing. I have to start seeing
the things that are evil in my life
as what they are. Evil.
And depart from these things.
You know, it takes
humility to do that. That's why a lot of people
don't do it. The Bible says the fear of the Lord
I'm just reading in Proverbs 15. I'll just read.
The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom
and before honor is humility.
Right? The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom.
And before honor is humility.
That's where it starts.
You know, the fear of the Lord will teach us
humility. This is why so many
people don't choose to
depart from evil. That's why they don't want to
stop being wise in their own eyes.
Because it's an admission that you're wrong.
That the way you're thinking about things
is incorrect.
You know, and this is why pride
is such a wicked sin in Scripture.
And it is.
Okay? Look at Proverbs 8
verse 13. The fear of the Lord
is to hate evil.
Now, I want to just kind of take a minute and just
part, you know, just kind of narrow this
down a little bit. The fear of the Lord
is to hate. Let's just forget about
the evil part right there for a minute.
Because some people need to figure that out.
Oh, God would never
hate anybody. God, we were not, we shouldn't
hate anything. Right? This is out there.
This philosophy that's just
permeated Christianity today.
That, you know, hate's a bad word.
It's real strong
language. It's like, yeah, I know.
It's a strong feeling.
You know, and it's a feeling that's perfectly natural
to feel, by the way.
You know, I remember I said once I hated
something. And it was like something just
nonchalant. You know, it's just like, I hate,
you know, like that kind of food
or something. Not that there is a food I hate.
Right? But I can't even remember
what it was. But I remember saying this and I said, whoa.
That's a strong word. And they were dead serious.
I'm like,
it's not like I'm going to go burn
across in their yard or something.
You know, it's like I hate
dominoes. It's like I'm not going to go vandalize
dominoes. It's just saying I don't prefer it.
And I was just using that term loosely.
Hate. Right?
But that's what's out there, people.
So you can't even use that word loosely. It's like a bad
word. It's like the new four letter, it's a new four letter
word. I mean, it literally has four letters. But it's like,
you know what I mean? Right?
Like, oh, it's like a cuss
word now or something to say hate.
Well, you know,
it's a word that's in the Bible quite a bit.
Okay? And it says
here that the fear of the Lord is to
hate evil. You know why some people
won't depart from evil? Because they
don't hate it.
You know, the reason why people won't
depart from evil
is because they don't hate evil.
You know, and this is a big
turning point in the Christian life
is when you actually learn to hate sin.
The reason why
we sometimes don't get sin out of our lives
is because we don't hate it.
We like it.
I mean, the Bible says there's pleasure and sin
for a season, right?
It's for a season,
right? But when sin has conceived, it
bringeth forth death. With sin when it is
finished, with lust as conceived, it bringeth forth
sin, and sin when it is finished, it bringeth forth death.
Lust leads to sin, and sin
leads to death.
Right?
You need to learn to hate it.
Whatever that sin is
in our lives, we need to see it the way
God, how do you learn to hate it?
You've got to see it the way God sees it.
You've got to have the humility to fear God
and see things, God's, we have to have your mind
transformed.
You've got to be, you know, just start with
humility. Start with the fear of God.
Present your body a living sacrifice
unto God. Have your mind transformed.
Right? Have your mind
transformed and no longer be conformed
in this present world. Then you'll actually start to
see sin the way that God sees it.
Then you'll actually start to hate it.
And then you'll depart from it.
And then you'll have fear, and you'll understand
and have knowledge, and God will give
you wisdom. Right?
Obviously none of us is
going to live a perfectly sinless life.
But we can't
just have sin in our lives habitually.
If we
expect to have wisdom,
if we expect to have the fear of the Lord
being a part of our lives,
we need to depart from evil.
We need to have
humility and we need to be able to
hate pride. The fear of the Lord
is to hate evil.
Pride and arrogance
are the top of God's list. Right?
And the evil way
and the forward mouth do I hate.
Now who's
speaking there in that latter half? I believe it's
the Lord speaking. It's the Lord saying
I hate pride and the
arrogance and the evil way
and the forward mouth. God hates pride.
And isn't it ironic
that these haters
of God, that's their
big banner that they wave, their pride
flag. That's
what they've chosen to name their movement.
Pride.
Right? You know, tell me
that isn't ironic.
That's no coincidence, friend.
That's demonic at its core.
The devil's like, what are we going to call this?
What does God hate the most?
Ah, pride.
Being proud about the most filthy
and abominable thing there is.
That God has just literally destroyed
people over. Rained fire and brimstone.
Not only are we going to do that,
but then we're going to be proud about it.
It's like they're doubling down on
things that God hates.
Right? Anyway, let's
not get caught up in that, right?
The Bible says in Proverbs 29, I'll read to you
that a man's pride will bring
him low.
Right? If we don't have the humility
to stop being
wise in our own eyes and to depart from
evil, it's going to bring us low.
Through pride.
Okay?
Go to Proverbs chapter number 14. We'll
hurry up and just get through a few of these here.
You know,
a man's pride shall bring him low.
But, you know,
if we want to live a life that's blessed
of God, you know, and we have the fear of the Lord,
we must have the fear of the Lord
if we want to live a life that's blessed of God.
And when we actually do have the
fear of the Lord,
it's going to benefit us in so many
ways. Right?
The Bible says in Proverbs 10, I'll read to you,
verse 27, the fear of the Lord
prolongeth days.
It prolongeth days.
There's so many different ways you can apply that.
How does the fear of the Lord prolong
days? Well, one,
if you fear the Lord and you depart from evil,
you're not going to hang around people that
might end up
cause you to come
to a short end in life.
I mean, that's what we read in Proverbs 1.
Right? He's saying don't cast in
your, you know, don't have one purse with these
people. Don't lurk privately for innocent blood.
Don't be a mugger. Don't be a robber.
You know, don't go out and abuse people.
Don't get, don't run with people that do.
Don't join a gang, is what he's saying,
basically. Right? That would be kind of
bring it into the modern vernacular.
You know, don't be a gang banger.
Cause a lot of gang bangers, you know,
they got a lot of pride and they're brought
pretty low when they're sitting in the state penitentiary.
Doing life for 10 to 20
or whatever.
Right? Or they're, you know, they're brought pretty low
when they're lowered six feet into a grave.
Cause they, you know, they went out
and got shot or whatever.
Right? Cause they had to represent.
Right?
They were in the wrong colors or whatever.
I don't know.
But that's what he's saying. That's one
way that the fear of the Lord will
prolong your days.
You're not gonna go, you're gonna depart from evil.
I mean, you're not gonna hang out with an evil bunch of people.
You're not gonna get
involved in sin.
Right? It's gonna prolong your days
when you don't go out and get drunk and get behind the wheel
of a car.
Right? You're not gonna be the guy who crashes
into a pole and goes out in a, you know,
burning wreck.
It's not gonna bring you loaded apart from evil
when you're not the guy who's paralyzed from
a drunk driving accident.
You know, that's what they don't show you.
On, you know,
the beer commercial.
What do they show you in the beer commercial?
Everybody running up and down the beach with a,
you know, a six pack in their hand and a six pack
on their stomach.
Those things don't mix, friend.
That doesn't go together.
One does not lead to the other.
They're all got, you know, this forty-eight
age vertical playing volleyball
and swilling Bud Light or something.
You know, that's, you know, most athletic
people aren't getting drunk
on cheap beer and, you know, alcohol
at all, right? But that's the picture
that they paint.
You know, but, you know,
the Bible tells us that, you know,
they that tarry long at the wine hath
woe. They have wounds without cause.
You know, that's
what the Bible pictures, it paints
a very different picture about alcohol
than what the world will. So if we depart
from evil, if we take and say, oh, I'm going to stop being
wise in my own eyes. I'm going to stop
just believing what the world has to say about the subject
and actually be transformed in my
mind and actually just, you know,
humbly just entreat the Lord and say, he's
right, I'm wrong, present my body a
living sacrifice. I'm going to fear the Lord
and depart from evil. It's going to prolong your days
when you don't end up with, you know, some
liver disease.
From drinking alcohol.
These are just the practical ways in which the fear of the
Lord will prolong your days.
Right? And there's other
applications that we can make.
It says, the fear of the Lord prolongeth
days, but the
years of the wicked shall
be shortened.
You know, we go out and just live a wicked sinful life,
you know, there's a real good chance that our life is going
to be a lot shorter than it had to be.
Look at Proverbs,
do you go to 14?
Verse 26.
In the fear of the Lord is
strong confidence.
Strong confidence.
You know, the
angel of the Lord encampeth
round about them that fear him.
When we're walking,
when we're right with God, man, it's such a confidence
that we can have.
To know that God's going to bless
us, that God's pleased with us, man,
it gives us such confidence.
And his children shall have a place
of refuge.
You know, we
know that God's going to keep us safe.
God's not going to be laughing and
mocking at our calamity when it comes because
we have departed from evil
because we fear the Lord. Look at verse 27.
The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life
to depart from the
snares of death. You know, it will prolong
your days, the fear of the Lord. The fear
of the Lord is a fountain of life.
The fear of the Lord is not something
that is taking from us.
Again, this is, you know, that's
people being wise in their own eyes.
Well, if I fear the Lord, they sit there and they go,
I won't be able to do this and I won't be able to do that
and I won't be able to go there and hang out with them
and blah, da, da, da.
And they just start to think about all the things that it means that they're
going to have to depart from.
But what you need to do is get over that
and see everything that the fear of the Lord is going to
bring into your life that is
good. The prolonging of
your days, the fountain of life that
it's going to bring into your life, into
your life, brings
life, right?
And look, it's not like it's going to be one
day or the next either. Let me just, you know, don't set
yourself up for that disappointment.
It's not like, you know, I'm going to
quit running around and doing all these things and just the next
day I'm going to have this godly family just
hand it to me. That's
not how it works. I mean, maybe
in some instances it might.
But you know, as we live for the Lord
and we're faithful and God will
begin to bless us, as we begin to have the fear of the Lord
and wisdom and knowledge and just, you know, these blessings
begin to come into our lives
over time and over
the entire course of our life.
You know, I
really don't try to make, you know,
use myself as an example too much, but it's
the best one I know, okay?
You know, I look
over the course of my life and I was just thinking about it
today. If you would have told the
guy, you know,
even just 10 years ago that I'd be doing
what I am today, I would have,
you know, told you to, you know, slap
me and, you know, call me Susan
because I wouldn't have believed it.
I would have said, no way.
You would have come to me and said, hey,
you know, you just keep serving God and being faithful,
move your family out to Tempe, Arizona,
get involved in that church, you know, start
soul winning and just serve God out there the best way you know
and eventually you're going to
be the deacon at Faith Word Baptist Church, you're going to be
pastoring your church in Tucson, living there
in this beautiful city with the best
Mexican food in the world, you know, like, I mean,
okay, sorry, I
get a little excited when I start thinking about my Tucson.
Can I get an amen,
right? But if you would have told me that, I would
have been like, no way.
And when I'm saying it, you know, but that didn't happen
the day after I got saved.
I got saved at, you know, 21 years of age.
You know, just before
my 21st birthday in
November, you know, it
took me a couple years to even just
a year or two to just get faithful going to
church and then learning about the
Christian life. I mean, years went by.
I was saved and in church for seven
years before my wife, you know, came
around. And then it was like, what, another two
years before we finally got married?
Something like that? Don't say anything.
I'll be embarrassed.
Like, I can't believe it took that long,
right?
But that's how long it took. And then it's like, but here's the thing, it didn't
stop there. You know, it's just
like, steadily increase the blessing,
the fountain of life that God has just opened
up.
Obviously, there's been, you know, struggles and
failures and shortcomings along the way,
but man, and I'm not
saying this trying to big myself up, I'm just trying to,
I'm using myself as an example. It's the best one I know.
But what I'm saying, that's available to anybody.
You have no idea what God would bless you
with if you would just start to fear God,
depart from evil, and just walk out
in His ways.
And just allow yourself,
you know, to be transformed by the
pain in your mind. But it's going to take humility.
It's going to take a, stop being
wise in your own eyes and just admit you're wrong
and just start living for God.
And, you know, over the course of time, over the course of
years, over the course of a lifetime,
you'll be able to look back and say, God has blessed me, God
has blessed me, God has blessed me, God has blessed me.
The fear of the Lord has been a fountain of life to me.
And not only
that, you will be a fountain of life
to others.
You know, when you are fearing the Lord, when you're
obeying God's commands, when you're preaching
the gospel, you know, you'll go out and you'll have
salvations.
I mean, six people are going to heaven
tonight because there's people in this room
that feared God enough
to just obey the command to go preach the gospel.
You know, that's being a fountain
of life to other people.
It's a, it's a, it's a well of life
of water springing up onto life
eternal, okay?
That's what the fear of the Lord is.
Well, we gotta, I gotta move along. I was gonna have us
turn over to 1 Peter, but
you know, we'll just go there. Let's go to 1 Peter chapter
number 3. Let's see why I wrote that down.
1 Peter chapter number
3. I'm curious.
1 Peter chapter number 3.
Yeah, verse 10.
For he that will love life
and see good days.
I'm not
gonna even ask for a show of hands.
Because I, you know, I already know every hand would go up.
Hey, who here wants to, who, who
here loves life and wants to see good days?
Not
me.
Right? We got one hand.
No, I'm just kidding.
Boy, you guys.
You know what I'm preaching next Sunday,
right? You know, but he
that would love life and see good days.
What does it say? Well, what's the secret?
You know, what's the secret to a
prosperous life?
You know, is this some, is this
Tony Robbins, is that the big motivational
speaker? Is this gonna be a quote from
him here next? Is this something,
you know, no, of course not.
Let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips
that they speak no guile. Let him
eschew evil and do good.
What does it mean to eschew?
It means to depart from evil.
To avoid it.
Stop doing evil and start
doing good. Let him seek
peace and ensue it.
Look, if we want, if we love
life and we want to see,
you know, as it says there, good
days, not evil days.
You know, then there's some things we have
to learn to avoid in this life and some things
that we need to learn to pursue.
We need to depart from evil, stop being wise
in our own eyes. We need to seek peace. We need to
seek good and we need to do it.
Right? Let him seek peace and ensue
it. Look at verse 12. For the eyes of the Lord
are over the righteous and his eyes
are open unto their prayers.
The face of the Lord is against
them that do evil.
You know, and that's the thing about the Christian life.
God's either for you or
against you at that point. I mean,
I say it all the time. God's not
neutral and you can't be neutral with God.
God's not just
going to be like, see, you start doing evil,
you start doing sin, he's not going to
go, oh, okay, I'm just going to look the other way now.
Let me know when you're done.
Let me know when you're finished and then we'll talk again.
No, he's going to
see that and then he's going to come down on us.
That's what he says. The face of the Lord
is against them that do evil.
Except for Christians. That's who he's talking to.
He's
literally writing that to Christians.
I don't want
the face of the Lord against me.
You know, God just
frowning on my life.
Just angry at what I'm doing.
Why? Because I love life.
You know, I want
to see good days.
Not just days of God doing this to me.
All the way through my Christian life.
Ahh!
Obviously there's
going to be some of that in our lives, but
let's not make that the overarching
theme of our life as a Christian.
Well, what did you do
with your Christian life? Well, I got
whooped.
What did you do to spend your time on
earth for God? Well, I spent my time just
getting whooped by God.
That sounds great.
Yeah, it was real fun. Would you call that
good days? Of course not.
But that's, you know, that's kind of the theme
you see throughout all scripture. The if-then.
And it all starts with
what? The fear of the Lord.
You're not going to depart from evil
if you don't fear
God. And what I'm trying to get across
is that God's something to be afraid of.
Kind of made that point this morning. I'm just
kind of driving it home tonight.
The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous.
When He watches over them
and His ears are open in their prayers,
you know, ask God for wisdom. It shall be
given. But don't forget
also that the face of the Lord is against them
against them that do
evil. Okay?
And that would include us. That might not
be the immediate context of that passage, but it applies.
Let's move along
here. Let's go back to Proverbs.
We figured out what I was doing in 1 Peter 3
and it worked out. Praise the Lord.
It's the fountain of life. Go to Proverbs 19.
Proverbs 19.
The Bible says in Proverbs 16,
by mercy
and truth, iniquity is purged.
By mercy and truth,
iniquity is purged.
You know, what's mercy? Like not giving
somebody what they deserve. Not getting what
you deserve. You know, it's
God holding back. It's
mercy and truth. Iniquity
is purged. Right?
And by the fear of the Lord,
men depart from evil.
How do men depart from evil?
By fearing God.
Look, that's where it all starts in the Christian life.
Fear the Lord.
You can see how practical the book of Proverbs
is. You know, it's really
easy to just get up and preach, hey, you should fear God.
You know, Bible commands it. We looked at it this morning.
But what does it mean
practically to do that? It means to depart from evil,
folks.
It means having to separate company. It means
having to get sin out of our lives.
It means having to just start presenting our bodies,
not living sacrifice, and just
doing what God told us to do, whether we like
it or not.
Okay? That's what it means to
depart from evil.
Look at Proverbs 19, verse 23.
The fear of the Lord tendeth to life.
Again, it's a
great verse about what the fear of the Lord will
bring to you. So again,
don't be one of these people that just sits there
and thinks about all of the sin
that God, you know, God's just, you know,
speaking away. Like God, you know, the whole point of
Christian life is God will just spoil all your fun.
That's not it.
God is sparing us,
sparing you a bunch of heartache.
Okay?
The fear of the Lord prolongeth day. The fear of the Lord
is a fountain of life. The fear of the Lord
tendeth to life.
And he that hath it shall abide
satisfied.
When you look at somebody that's fearing
God and has been fearing God and living for the Lord
for decades,
you know what? They're not lamenting the fact that
they've done that.
They're not looking back going, man, you know,
what a wasted life living for God.
Man, you know, I wish
I would have been like these other people, just gone out and just
sown my wild oats or whatever you want to call it.
Basically, go out and live a wicked
lifestyle. Right?
I mean, there's some Christians that have
never done certain things. They've just never done it.
You think they sit
around and are just like, man, you know, I wish I had done that
sin. No, they
abide satisfied.
But the people that just spend their life chasing
after the pleasures of sin, year after year
after, they're never satisfied.
Ever. And it never will satisfy.
Doesn't it sound nice to be
satisfied? Wouldn't it be nice to have good, you know,
to love life and see good days
and to abide satisfied? Well, it begins with the fear
of the Lord.
He that hath it, what?
The fear of the Lord shall be satisfied
and shall not be visited with evil.
One of the most satisfying
things about the Christian life and
fearing God is knowing that God's not going to
whoop me. I'm
safe from the fear of evil.
God's not going to do me harm. Because, you know, evil could just mean
harm in the Bible. It doesn't necessarily mean something sinful.
I'm
not looking over my shoulder like, when's
God going to get me?
Is he around this corner?
Is he going to show up now?
That's not
a fun way to live life.
Flinching.
You know,
the preacher turns to a certain passage,
you know what's in there, and you're like,
I knew I shouldn't have come today.
You know, you want to slither
out the door, right?
I like not being visited with
evil. You know, that's a
pretty satisfying thing.
How do you get it? The fear of the Lord.
Go
to Proverbs 23, and
we'll end there. Proverbs chapter number 23.
The Bible says in Pro- you know, just go to Proverbs 22.
There's just two more to look at.
Obviously I'm not looking at every single verse
in the Proverbs that deals with
this topic. We're really just looking at that
phrase, the fear of the Lord, in the book of Proverbs.
It says,
by humility and the fear of the Lord
are riches, honor, and life.
So it's just- it's just this
theme in Proverbs. You want- you want
what, prolonged
days, a fountain of life.
You want to, you know,
have the-
not be visited with evil,
to abide satisfied, to
have a good life. Fear the Lord.
But what's it going to take?
Again, humility.
What does that humility
look like practically?
You know, being able to say-
to stop being wise in your own eyes.
To just say, I'm wrong.
I'm wrong. The Bible's right.
Let me just get on God's
program, and
do things His way. That takes
humility.
That's why a lot of people don't do it.
And that's why pride is the thing
that God hates the most.
Because it just robs people
of His blessing.
He says,
humility and the fear of the Lord are riches
and honor and life.
You know, the fear of the Lord will make you
successful. You're honest in your business
dealings. You're straightforward.
You pray God for the wisdom that you need.
Man, it'll bring abundance.
I believe that.
It'll bring you honor. It'll bring you life.
Look at Proverbs 23. We'll end there.
Because I think this is
really a key verse
when it comes to the fear
of the Lord.
It says, let not thine heart
envy sinners.
And this is especially
something that maybe
people have to deal with a little bit more
when they're coming out of the world.
Right?
Or, you know, when we're younger.
This is something that we might
be more prone to do.
To start to actually envy
sinners.
Especially in this culture, where sin
is just dolled up. Right?
Where they just put this facade
out there and say, oh, this is what
this is what a sinful light looks like.
It's not that bad.
Don't let that Bible tie you down.
Don't let those old
fuddy duddys down at that Baptist
church spoil all your fun.
Look at all the fun we're having. We're fine.
And that's what Christians will start to tell them.
That doesn't look so bad.
I wish I could do that.
I wish I could get away with that.
You know, one thing that a lot of
Christian young people don't understand is that
the reason why those people are out there
having, you know, look like they're having
so much fun and getting away with it is because
they're unsaved.
They're unsaved.
You know, they're going to have a real good time
all the way to hell.
You know, Proverbs 73
or Psalm 73. There is no Proverbs 73.
But Psalm 73, man, you live in that one
sometimes. That lived in that chapter.
You know, until I went in the
sanctuary of God, then
understood I their end.
Surely thou didst set them in slippery
places.
You know, sinners, the wicked,
the unsaved, man,
they've got one foot in a banana peel
and the other one in a grave.
And they're that close to just
slipping right into hell.
Why would I envy that?
I have
salvation.
You know, maybe I'm not going to go out there and
enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, but I'm
also not going to deal with the consequences and
I have eternal life.
I have a fountain in life
given unto me. I am a
fountain of life. Man, they should be
envying me.
You know, and it's funny, it's a lot of times
eventually those tables usually do turn.
When you actually don't
screw up your life,
when you do, you know, start raising a godly fan,
then they start, they're like, oh man, anyway.
You know, I know I made fun of you early on,
but now it seems like you actually, you know,
have got some things figured out and you're not
dealing with the problems that I have.
It's like, yeah. So who should
be envying who?
Why would I sit there
and envy sinners? Let not thine heart
envy sinners.
But you know what, that's something our hearts often
are prone to do if we're not careful.
How do you fix it?
But be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day
long.
Just be in the fear of the Lord.
Some temptation comes our way,
we start to envy some sinner.
You know what, we should just have some Bible verse
memorized.
We should just, you know, be in the fear of the Lord
and just remind ourselves,
you know, of all the good things
that come to us through
the fearing of God. All the
bad things that are going to not come into our lives.
All the evil we're not going to be visited with.
Just remind
ourselves of that. And be in that fear.
And not to envy sinners.
That'll help us to not envy sinners when we
are in the fear of the Lord all of the day long.
Let's go ahead and close the word of prayer.
Dear Lord, again, thank you for
the wisdom and the knowledge
and the understanding that is at
our fingertips in the word of God.
Thank you for the
discretion that is given to us
through it. Thank you for the
filling of the Holy Spirit that is available
to every single one of us.
Thank you for the salvation
that's been brought to us through Christ. Thank you
for that throne of grace that we can go to
when we have need,
Lord, that we can come boldly before your throne.
Lord, that we can ask
you for the wisdom that we need in this life
and it shall be given us. Lord, help us to believe
that. Help us to pray it.
Help us to have it, Lord, so that we can live it.
We ask these things in Christ's name, Amen.
Alright, we'll go ahead and sing one more song before we go.
Let's open up our head to
song number four.
Song number four,
The Way the Cross Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way
the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way
the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross
Leads Up.
The Way the Cross