And the Bible reads in verse number one there the wicked flee when no man
pursueth but the righteous are bold as a lion. You know whenever I read this verse
I always think about this experience that I had when I was out soul winning
in South Chicago and there was a bus that was coming to pick up those of us
that were coming in. For some reason I just broke into a run and I was wearing
a shirt and tie because I was out soul winning and I broke into a run toward
the church bus and this guy is standing there by the side of the street and he
just yells oh bleep and starts like running away from me like as if I were
chasing him but I wasn't chasing him at all. I was just running to get on the bus
but because I was kind of running in this guy's general direction he just
starts sprinting away because he thought I was the cops or something or he
thought I was you know I don't know what he thought you know Special Agent
Anderson or something with my tie on and then once the guy realized that I was
running to get on this bus and that I wasn't chasing after him then his
buddies started like laughing and making fun of him because we were in a really
rough area and this was kind of a gang banger kind of derelict area but that
was so hilarious to me and it's what I always think of when I read this verse
because this guy had a guilty conscience and so anybody starts running in his
general direction it's like ah they're after me you know and because how many
crimes was this guy guilty of who knows and so the wicked flee when no man
pursue it when you commit sin when you have a guilty conscience about all
manner of things that leads to fear you're scared because you're worried
about getting busted but the Bible says the righteous are bold as a lion having
a clear conscience and being right with God gives you confidence that the wicked
don't have you can go to sleep at night and rest assured that God has got you
covered and everything's gonna be fine and you know as a pastor this verse is
important to me as well because I want to preach the Word of God with boldness
as a pastor and so many pastors today are afraid to preach what needs to be
preached because they've got the same Bible that I have and and they've got
the same Holy Spirit that I have and so we all know what needs to be said what
needs to be preached but some people are afraid to preach it but often what
they're afraid of is kind of a boogeyman because I preach this stuff all the time
and there aren't really any consequences for me like you don't see me preach a
hard sermon against sodomites or something you don't see the police come
in and drag me off the stage or something okay rock stars have been
dragged off the stage many by the police more than I have okay I don't get
dragged off of the of the podium while I'm preaching because of the fact that
we live in America and we have the First Amendment and so we thankfully have the
freedom to get up and say whatever we want now look if preaching the Word of
God got me arrested then so be it I I'm gonna preach the Word of God anyway but
thankfully that's not even an issue because we live in America and we have
the freedom to preach the whole Council of God without any consequences from the
law so then what are these pastors afraid of why don't they just get up and
preach it I mean oh they're afraid of persecution most of the persecution
doesn't even end up actually materializing we do go through some
light persecutions and light afflictions but the vast majority of the time God
protects us from these things anyway and so in many cases we have pastors even
that are fleeing when no one's pursuing and we don't want to be like the wicked
in that regard we want to be like the righteous that are bold as a lion
because we have trust that God is with us so who can be against us right and
that gives us a boldness or a confidence to do right and to preach what the Bible
says now the next verse says for the transgression of a land many are the
princes thereof but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state
thereof shall be prolonged now we're in this part of Proverbs where these seem
to be just kind of individual disconnected Proverbs but in this
section of the book of Proverbs the ideas are a little bit more connected
than in the previous section so you can kind of see a connection or a flow
between these verses and a train of thought and the way that I would put
this together with verse one is that the wicked flee when no man pursues so sin
produces fear in our hearts people that have a guilty conscience they're scared
all the time because they're worried about their evil deeds catching up with
them and then the Bible says for the transgression of a land many are the
princes thereof now what does that mean many are the princes thereof one way
that we could put this in a way that we would all understand in 2023 America is
big government right many are the princes thereof equals big government
right lots of chiefs you know for how many Indians there are okay many princes
is not a good thing because of the fact that we don't want to have big
government and big government is actually the result of a land filled
with sin and transgression so the more sinful we get the bigger the government
we get now that makes sense because if you think about it godly righteous
people wouldn't really need to be babysat by this bloated gigantic
government I mean think about if we had a job where there's just a multitude of
supervisors you'd probably think well I guess the workers need a lot of
supervision here that's why we need so many supervisors because apparently they
can't do what they need to do on their own without somebody standing over them
and making them do it and so when a land becomes sinful and filled with
transgression then they have to have this big giant government dictating
their lives and ruling over them and many are the princes thereof lots of
bureaucrats and leaders and rulers over that sinful land
but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be
prolonged so on the one hand we have many princes in the first half of the
verse and then in the second half of verse we
have a man now that doesn't sound like big
government does it a man of understanding so the key is
that we'd rather have a small government even possibly one guy who is actually
a wise man a good leader a man of understanding
than having a whole council or a board or a whole group of rulers
who are all bozos or who all want to babysit us
and rule over us and dictate every facet of our lives
so having more leaders isn't necessarily the answer
spreading out the burden of ruling isn't necessarily the answer bigger government
isn't the answer because many princes is a bad thing
according to this verse what you want to make sure is that you
have a quality of leadership even if it's just one person or a small
group of people that they have understanding and
knowledge so that the state might be prolonged that the state thereof
might be prolonged so the way i would connect this to verse
number one is that sinfulness leads to fear and
fear leads to a desire for big government as well
because if people are scared and in fear they want to have lots of police and
military patrolling and keeping them safe because
they're scared right but if people are living in peace and
tranquility and prosperity and people are doing the
right thing and it's a godly society where people are kind of leaving their
doors unlocked and not really worrying about things
they don't really want a big government invading their lives and
and interfering and taxing them heavily and telling them what to do
but i mean think about it if there's just blood in the streets and all kinds
of crime rampant you'd say yes give us a bigger
government more cops more rules you know get these people off the streets
and so when we see our country losing freedom or having a
bloated government this is because of the fact that we're
becoming more sinful as a nation a godly nation is going to have more
freedom just like in our families if the kids
are being responsible and if the kids are doing the right
things we're going to have less rules for our kids
but if the kids are constantly getting into trouble then we're going to have to
have more rules and more supervision and and so forth you know if we want to
have freedom in this country we need to have godliness
and in fact some of the founders of our country even have some great quotes on
this where they say look you know the
government that we've established here will only work
for a moral and religious people it's not sufficient to govern any other
kind of people you know you can't have a bunch of
sinful wicked godless non-christian people and
then have this really limited government with lots of freedom
because people are just going to abuse that freedom and
get into all kinds of trouble and create all kinds of problems and just kind of
burn it all down and so if you want to fix our country
it's not a political solution that's going to fix it
what we need to do is preach the word of god
and get people following god living for god
following the morality of the bible that's going to bring more freedom
and liberty and smaller government whereas if you just
allow atheism and wickedness to run rampant
don't be surprised if we end up losing our freedoms
having an oppressive government and so forth because these things are
very much connected sin brings bondage in our lives personally but sin also
brings bondage politically because for the transgression
of a land many are the princes thereof now in the
next verse it says in verse three a poor man that oppresseth the poor
is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food and the first thing i want to point
out about this verse is that there are poor people out there
who if given the opportunity to do so will oppress the poor
so therefore the answer again is not a political solution of
well let's put the poor in charge if we put the poor in charge
that's going to fix everything not necessarily because according to the
bible it's possible for the poor to oppress
the poor and how many times did we see in the 20th century these
movements of ordinary people young poor people
some poor college student and you know forgive me
if i don't know all the details of this history but you know
a young che guevara or whoever you know you want to
lift up these communist role models or whatever
the for power to the people and you know they're gonna
fix everything okay well how'd that work out in cuba
right i mean that's the poor oppressing the poor over there
and everybody ends up worse off everybody ends up with less food less
resources less freedom you know it's not the
answer you know the the dictatorship of the
proletariat right and putting the poor people in
charge and having democracy well you know what democracy
means is that we just have way too many rulers
because now everybody's in charge right and so
democracy doesn't work that's why our country is not a democracy
it has never been a democracy the founding fathers
would would be so offended if they heard anyone say that america is a democracy
okay it's a republic because a democracy is two wolves and a
sheep voting on what's for dinner and so poor people are not just
automatically going to protect the rights of poor
people often when poor people get in power
they'll just turn around and oppress other poor people
now obviously this same chapter also talks about
rich people oppressing poor people because of course
the rich will often oppress the poor as well
so the moral of the story is it's not about
whether the leadership comes from an aristocratic background
or whether the leadership comes from an everyday
joe plummer kind of a background or a proletariat kind of a background
what actually matters according to this chapter is whether the leadership
has the wisdom and knowledge and understanding that comes from god
so what we want is righteous leaders knowledgeable leaders smart leaders
leaders with understanding leaders that are going to do
good by the people it doesn't matter whether they are rich or poor it doesn't
matter whether they are aristocratic or whether they come from common roots
or the roots of common people i wouldn't just say oh you know this guy
grew up in the neighborhood he's one of us
let's put him in charge not necessarily is he knowledgeable is he righteous is
he godly does he have understanding
you know like i i saw some campaign ad of like
um or i i don't know i got a text message sometimes i just get these
unsolicited political text messages and i just get
some text messages like this candidate doesn't live in phoenix
this other candidate does so vote for him i'm just thinking like i don't even
know what election you're even talking about
i don't even know who these people are but if i knew what this election was and
if i were voting in it that's probably not going to be my
biggest concern of whether this guy lives on this
side of the tracks or that side of the track
you know i want to know what does the guy stand for if the guy's righteous if
the guy believes anything
you know it's not like well you know he's our guy
because he's from awatuki or so you know he's our guy because he's from tempe or
you know he's from south phoenix like us you
know or or you know uh our guy over in
congress in washington you know because he's he's our arizona guy
or something folks who cares you know what it really comes down to
is righteousness integrity godliness i don't care where he came from
okay because a righteous man or a poor man
can oppress the poor can be a bad leader can be given to covetousness etc so look
at verse three it says a poor man that oppressed at the poor
is like a sweeping rain which leaving no food i mean that's the worst case
scenario when you when you put the poor in charge and then
they start oppressing the poor then you get cuba then you get the
soviet union right then you get these failed states of the
20th century all these failed experiments of
communism that ended up also killing so many innocent people
if you jump down to verse 16 the bible reads the prince that wanteth
understanding is also a great oppressor because we
just talked about the poor oppressing the poor it says
here the prince that wanteth understanding is also a great oppressor
why is he oppressing what's his motive well it says right here in the next part
but he that hateth covetousness shall prolong his days
so the implication here is that the oppressor is often a covetous man
so if we have ungodly leadership in government
they are covetous meaning that they desire money
they desire wealth that doesn't belong to them they desire
power that doesn't belong to them they covet money
power and things that don't legitimately belong to them
that is the oppressor and the bible says that the prince that wanteth
understanding is also a great oppressor so the man who
doesn't have wisdom knowledge understanding
is going to be the same guy who ends up abusing his power
taking money from his subjects to enrich himself or
taking away freedom to give himself more power
and so both of these verses are connected they both use the same word
oppressing and so it gives a little more insight
about what we want in leaders we want men of understanding
not necessarily a certain demographic ruling us
but men who hate covetousness who have understanding
and will be a godly and righteous leader look at verse number four it says they
that forsake the law praise the wicked but such as keep the law
contend with them and you know i normally don't preach very political
sermons like this but i feel like this chapter just kind of lends itself well
to this kind of theme connecting a lot of these verses
they that forsake the law praise the wicked
so therefore we should never praise wicked people but yet we see
a lot of our politicians do this all the time in order to be popular
they'll lift up and praise someone just because they know
that it makes it popular to do so you know
for example they'll praise martin luther king jr
where you say whoa what in the world martin luther king jr is a baptist
pastor who denied the virgin birth he denied the bodily resurrection of
jesus okay you read all of his own writings
and his own statements on that he was a serial adulterer on the record
it's all come out and all been even admitted and acknowledged
by the the mainstream media it's a serial adulterer
very all and he's the reverend dr martin luther king jr now you say
well you know he's not a religious leader he's just a civil rights leader
really so why does he have reverend in his name can someone explain that to me
why was he the pastor of a baptist church
okay that's what we don't want to talk about right we don't want to emphasize
the fact that he's a baptist pastor who doesn't
believe in the bodily resurrection of jesus
or the virgin birth of christ now here's the thing you know out there on the
street there are a lot of people who don't believe in
the virgin birth and they don't believe in the bodily resurrection because
they're not saved they're not christians right
i mean muslims don't believe in that atheists don't believe in that agnostics
don't believe in that if we walk up and down the street you'll
find all kinds of people that are
normal people nice people but unfortunately they're not saved and
they need to get saved and we want to give them the gospel
so that they can get saved before it's eternally too late but you want to know
the difference between those people and martin luther
king jr is that martin luther king jr is calling himself a baptist pastor
and this means that he has zero integrity
this means that he is a false prophet this is what the bible describes as
a false teacher crept in unawares and let me tell you something
there are people out there that are nice sincere people
who don't believe in jesus who hopefully down the road
will believe in jesus and get saved but they're not just
horrible rotten reprobate evil scum they're just they're just lost
right and we want to reach them with the good news of the gospel
but a man who gets up behind the pulpit in the house of god
who doesn't believe in jesus is scum he's trash he's filth that's what the
bible says the bible calls them filthy dreamers
the bible calls them reprobate rejected trash
i mean this is what the bible says we could read the entire chapter
of second peter chapter two right now and see what god says about
these false prophets who pretend to be christians but deny the faith
we could read the entire book of jude about false prophets
who pretend to be christian and deny the faith well let's talk about the civil
rights no no let's talk about a man who is
abusing and prostituting the house of god
and the office of pastor for whatever reason
and is it any wonder that this man has no morality so he's going around the
country filling his hotel rooms with
prostitutes and so forth which is just acknowledged by everyone
now in 2023 but oh you know shut up don't talk about
that but yet we see people constantly
praising this man and getting up and and praising him and
talking about how wonderful he is well i'm not going to because i don't
forsake the law of god so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna praise
the wicked i'm not gonna praise hollywood actors
and actresses the whores and whoremongers of hollywood
i'm not gonna praise them i'm not gonna praise wicked people okay
they that forsake the law praise the wicked but such as keep the law
contend with them you know i would rather do battle
with the wickedness in this world than to get up and praise people just because
society says i'm supposed to love this person
we're all supposed to love so and so and we're all supposed to be against
this guy over here and we're all supposed to be for that well no
because i'm going to let the word of god determine who is righteous and who is
wicked i'm not going to let society tell me to
praise someone that is wicked okay it's a forsaking of the law of god
when we get up and praise wicked and ungodly people
just because we're supposed to so no i'm not going to be celebrating that holiday
in january oops i just missed it right it was a month ago or whatever
but the bible says in verse 5 evil men understand not judgment but they that
seek the lord understand all things and now we see this
idea of the prince that has understanding
versus the prince that doesn't have understanding in this verse we kind of
get the context of what that understanding is right because
evil men understand not judgment okay so an evil person is not a person
that we want to put in charge of justice of the justice system of
judgment of of ruling of governing of of determining
right and wrong in our country or anywhere else because
evil men don't understand judgment they don't get it
but they that seek the lord understand all things why because god has the
answers and so those that seek the lord are on a
quest for truth and the bible says that everyone that
seek is shall find and not only that but the bible says if
any of you lack wisdom let him ask of god they give it to all
men liberally and it braideth not and it shall be given him so if we ask
god for wisdom he promises to give it to us if we seek
the truth we will find it if we hunger and thirst
after righteousness we shall be filled and so therefore
they that seek the lord understand all things if you want a guy who has
understanding you want a guy who seeks the lord
that's the guy who's going to understand wicked people they don't get it
they don't understand justice they don't understand judgment they don't understand
right and wrong that's why if you have an atheistic
government don't be surprised if it's an unjust government if their rules don't
make any sense their laws don't make sense
and if their government totally fails whereas
governments that are based on the principles of the bible have been the
most successful governments in the history of mankind
right united states of america has been very successful
because it's founded upon many principles of god's word
not to say that all the leaders were saved or that
all the founding fathers were saved but in general
our nation has been a christian nation as far as the people have been christian
and many of the principles of our government in the beginning
were based upon biblical principles and you could point out
those correlations and that's why it's been a success
because god's way is the right way the law of god is perfect
the further we stray from god's law the worse things are going to get the closer
we get to god's law the better things are going to get
that's the way it works obviously our country is getting more
non-christian and immoral on a yearly basis
that's the trajectory and so therefore our government
is going to get weirder and weirder worse and worse
now i'm not worried about it because i'm living in the land of goshen
so whatever egypt does whatever happens to the egyptians i believe god's going
to protect me and my family and my loved ones because
i'm in i'm in the land of goshen like the children of israel
where god will protect so i'm not worried about it
because i will walk at liberty because i seek god's precepts
but the bible says here in verse five evil men understand not judgment but
they that seek the lord understand all things
verse six better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness
than he that is perverse in his ways though he be rich
so again it's not about rich or poor god is not a respecter of persons
god doesn't respect the rich more than the poor
he respects they're both equal in his sight
but they both have the potential for good or wickedness
and so that goes back to what i said a little earlier look at verse seven
who so keep it the law is a wise son but he that is a companion of right of
riotous men not righteous riotous men
shameeth his father and so keeping the law what are we
talking about here keeping the law are we talking about just
following the laws of our country well the context here is talking about the
law of god right so keeping the law is not just
talking about civil law like not robbing a
a store or something but also about keeping god's law because god has
laws and and if you would flip over this just kind of popped into my head
but flip over if you would to first corinthians
chapter number nine
first corinthians chapter number nine
and if you would look down in your bible at verse number 19 of first corinthians
chapter 9 it says in verse 19 because a lot of
people will say well you know you talk about the law
that's old testament you know we're not under law but under grace and this is
true that we are not under the law in the way
that they were in the old testament we have a new covenant
and so in the new covenant there's been a change of the law
and you know i understand that the law was given by moses but grace and truth
came by jesus christ and i don't have time to go into all
the differences between old and new testament
but we don't want to misunderstand when the bible says we're not under law but
under grace we don't want to misunderstand that as
god doesn't have rules that we should be following
because the bible says you know jesus said if you love me
keep my commandments he didn't say keep my suggestions
he said if you love me keep my commandments so are there still
commandments in the new testament absolutely
and we as christians are still expected to follow the laws of god okay
look what and i'll prove this to you because look you know the apostle paul
and his epistles he taught he's the one who said in his
epistles we're not under the law but under grace
and he talks a lot about the the difference between old and new covenant
and how we don't want to be an in bondage to the letter of the old
testament but that we want to you know serve the lord and the newness of the
spirit and so forth but look what look what the apostle paul
says in verse 19 for though i be free from all men
yet if me yet if i made myself servant unto all
that i might gain the more and unto the jews
i became as a jew that i might gain the jews to them that are
under the law as under the law that i might gain them that are under the law
now look at verse 21 this is the key to them that are without law as without
law so he says look people are people that
are jews i've you know i became as the jews when in
rome do as the romans do i tried to relate to the people that i'm trying to
reach so when i'm trying to reach the people
that are under the law then i became as one
under the law right and then he says you know the people that are without law
i became as without law but notice what he says in
parentheses here because he doesn't want you to get the wrong idea
with what he meant there he says being not
without law to god but under the law to christ now isn't the apostle
paul saying that he's not without law to god
and he's under the law to christ so how can you turn around and say well for the
new testament christian there are no laws there are no rules is
that what paul's saying here and see he doesn't want you to get the
wrong idea of hey to those without law i became as
without law so i went and i and i drank with them
and i did drugs with them and i partied with them
and i caroused with them and i fornicated and committed adultery
and and is that what paul is saying he did
no because he said look when i went to reach those without law i became
as without law meaning i didn't try to judaeize them
but he said i wasn't without law to christ like i still
made sure to follow god's laws i still made sure to follow
christ laws i wasn't going to go out and sin so that i could reach the sinner
right that's not what he's saying and so this right here this scripture is
showing that even in the new testament there are
rules right jesus said if you love me keep my commandments or what about when
jesus gave the great commission he said go ye therefore and teach all nations
baptizing them in the name of the father and son of the holy ghost and teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever i have
commanded you right jesus said teach them
to observe all things whatsoever i've commanded you
so if i'm a pastor that's fulfilling the great commission
i'm supposed to get up and teach you and teach everybody to observe all things
that christ commanded hey christ commanded some stuff let's do
it let's follow the commands of christ and
then somebody comes along and says well you're legalist
man what's with all the rules the dudes you know we're just getting up and just
telling you to do all things whatsoever christ
commanded to observe all things whatsoever christ commanded
now we're not serving in the oldness of the letter we're not going through
rituals and we're not going through all of the
things that they did in the old testament all of those
meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances that were imposed on
them at that time according to the bible and going through all of these rituals
and things but the moral law of the old testament
is still there the ceremonial law is not something that we observe but the
moral law is still there you know we still
aren't supposed to kill or steal or commit adultery or bear false
witness or covet or do any of those things
and so when the bible says in proverbs 28 if you want to go back there
verse 7 who so keep it the law is a wise son
you know this still applies today even in the new testament even though we're
not talking about necessarily every ordinance and statute of the
mosaic law we're still talking about keeping the law of god
and following what things christ commanded us
we should still be following those things and that will make us a wise
son as opposed to being a companion of riotous men
and bringing shame to our parents so who so keep it the law is a wise son
but he that is a companion of riotous men
shameeth his father and so the kind of leaders that we want to have
are our leaders who respect the law of god
the bible says in verse 8 he that by usury
usury is the charging of interest he that by usury an
unjust gain increase at the substance he shall gather it for him that will
pity the poor and this is basically just saying that god's not going to bless
people who get rich by oppressing the poor
abusing people taking advantage of people and
getting unjust gains the bible says he shall gather it for them for him that
will pity the poor this is similar to the verse that says
the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just
right wicked people they gather up a bunch of money god has a way of
redistributing that to righteous people and causing
the wicked to lose their unjust gains and by the way
usury here is connected with the oppressing of the poor
because we saw a little bit earlier this idea of
oppressing the poor it comes up again later in the chapter
well usury oppresses the poor okay because uh how let's see can we find
any usury oh there it is right across the street
well we didn't have to go far did we because right across the street from us
is uh check or is it that way i was only
pretending to see it it was that way okay i busted you got me
is there one over there too well it's both there you go so we got
uh these check cashing places or or uh you know you'll see these places
like tio rico te ayuda or whatever right
and uh you know a rich uncle helps you would be the literal translation of that
and i see these signs and places and you've got these payday loans
right but man they charge you a boatload of interest
and they're basically taking advantage of poor people
taking advantage of gullible people taking advantage of people who are hard
up and just really just running them through
the ringer and charging them 29.99 percent interest
or hitting them with not interest but fees
and nailing them with all the fees and the interest rates and the usury
taking advantage of them because uh they you know they don't have money now
please never go to one of these places don't ever go to one of these places but
you and you know what people are going to these places are
obviously making a mistake obviously these people are not using
you know their brains to their highest capability
to ever go to these places but let me ask this does that make it right for the
people that are running these places just because going to these places is a
dumb idea doesn't make it right for somebody to
start a business whose goal is to rip off people who
aren't that smart or people who are in a bind or
whatever you understand what i'm saying you say
well it's those people's fault for going there
well okay obviously they shouldn't be going there because obviously it's a
really bad idea to go there because it's such a rip-off
and it's such a waste of money but it doesn't matter
the person who's doing the oppressing is still doing the oppressing
if they're oppressing people that aren't that smart they're still oppressing
people and the bible calls usurers
wicked usury is wickedness in fact it's in the same breath as
unjust gain he's gonna he that by usury and unjust
gain increases his substance well why put
usury and unjust gain right next to each other
because of the fact that they're both in the same category
they're not right okay it isn't right to uh to to charge those kind of interest
rates and to uh take advantage of people in that way
it's a it's an it's it's called predatory lending
right there this is an actual term that's that i'm not making this up and
no pastor is making this up this isn't coming from religion i mean
even just out there in the financial world you'll hear this term
predatory lending and you say well those people signed up for that loan
they didn't read the fine print that's your fault for not reading those 30
pages of fine print none of us have read i mean look who
here owns a home put up your head if you own a home
okay well you know what who here keep your hand up if you read
the entire document
one person okay and it's not me because my my hands going down
because i didn't i was just like get me out of here and signed it as fast as i
could and was just like where do i sign give me you know give
me those little uh those little neon colored stickers my
friend because i don't even want i don't even want to try to figure out
where i'm supposed to sign let alone read this junk
i want neon stickers and arrows in fact i want it to be a computer where
i can just keep pushing a button it's just like
ding ding ding sign sign sign initial initial initial initial initial initial
sign sign sign signs all right give me the keys
you know that's how i was now congratulations on
reading all that but one person read it another hundred people didn't read it
because of the fact that you know yeah it's just too much reading
you know other things to read than than that but man
uh just because you know you signed or something that doesn't make it right
for the person who was ripping you off you know obviously we as consumers
should be smart and wise about the loans we get into
and and do due diligence but you know at the same time
you can't just let the predatory lenders off the hook
they're usurers gaining in wealth by usury
and it's not right but in the end god's not going to bless them
god's going to take that wealth away from them and give it to the person that
will pity the poor the person who will actually say hey you know let's not hurt
people let's not rip people off just because this is
the only way they can afford a house it's the only way they can get into a
house so let's just kind of milk them for everything we can
you know no they'll have pity for the poor and say hey you know what let's
help this person get into a home and not
abuse them or rip them off let's be honest and get them the best deal
possible
now it says in verse number nine he that turneth away his ear
from hearing the law even his prayer shall be abomination
and again we already talked about how even in the new testament
there is a law of christ that paul talked about there are
things that christ commanded us and we don't want to turn away our ear from
those things or ignore those things we don't want to turn away our here from
hearing the law because the bible says that
the person who does that even his prayer shall be abomination
now praying is normally a good thing right
praying would be something that would be a godly
pious thing to do praying but you know god says well if you're not going to
listen to me i don't want to listen to you
why would god want to listen to you praying
when you're refusing to listen to him because you're turning away your ear
from hearing the law then even your prayer is an abomination
now what does an abomination mean it's something that is hated
right so if i said you know that a certain
food is an abomination if i said you know sauerkraut
is an abomination unto me it means i hate sauerkraut it means i i don't want
it i don't i don't want to eat it i'd rather
skip it right and i i don't like sauerkraut by the
way but especially not for breakfast
i've been served sauerkraut for breakfast when i was in germany and
it's just yeah it's not i'm not into it but i ate it
because i ate you know you gotta you gotta be polite and eat what's
in front of you oh this is great you know
but here's the thing you know that's what abomination if something's an
abomination unto you it means you you don't like it you hate
it it's disgusting get it away from me
right with food you can kind of understand that
well you know when the bible says that something is an abomination to god
right and and you know it's used often in the context of
hate because like the bible says you know these six things does the lord
yay seven are an abomination unto him so you notice how the things that god
hates are things that are an abomination unto him
okay so what god's basically saying here is that
he hates it when people refuse to listen to what he has to say
in his word and then they pray to him like he's supposed to listen to them
it's like shut up and listen to me is basically what they're saying
i don't want to hear what you have to say but listen to me talk for a while
and you say oh it's so godly they're praying no no
they're they're actually they're like talking over him
you know sometimes you'll you'll see people in a conversation one person
talks over the other person doesn't let them talk
that's what they're doing to god like god's trying to talk to them he's got
the word he's got the law he's got the bible
and they're saying no no listen to what i let me pray to you
even while i ignore your word and refuse to hear your word and won't listen to
what you have to say you can see how that could be an
abomination to god when people want to talk but they
don't want to listen and he's the god of the universe he's the creator
we need to be still and know that he is god
and we need to be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools
and so he that turned away his ear from hearing the law even his prayers shall
be abomination and again we live in a time that the bible predicted
would exist where people would turn away their ears from the truth
and would be turned unto fables so the new the new testament says the
time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine
but after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching
ears and they will turn away their ears from
the truth and they shall be turned unto fables
now notice they'll turn away their ears from the truth
doesn't that sound a lot like turning their ears away from hearing the law of
god because turning away his ear from hearing
the law god's law is truth god's word is truth
god's law is god's word god's word is truth and so turning away
your ear from hearing the law of god is right there with
turning away your ears from the truth and being turned unto fables
okay and god's saying that if you do that
he doesn't want to hear from you this is similar to what he says in malachi
chapter 2 when when he refers to the solemn assemblies of the
israelites as dung because of their wickedness because of
their refusal to listen to what he has said
and they're you know coming up with their own
religion outside of that now jump down if you would
to verse number 26 okay it says in verse 26 because some
people will say well you know i'm not really going by
the letter of god's word or you know the do's and the don'ts and
you know it to me it's it's not just about you
know what the bible says and chapter and verse and everything you
know i'm i'm gonna follow my heart on this
and you know and people will just kind of just go
with what feels right or seems right to them and then they'll claim that they're
being led by the spirit but here's the thing if you're led by
the spirit that leading should be consistent with the written word of god
because if some spirit's leading me to contradict everything that's
written in the word of god is that the holy spirit
that doesn't make any sense the holy spirit is the author of the bible
because holy men of god spake as they were moved by whom
the scripture was given by inspiration of god and holy men of god spake as they
were moved by the holy ghost so if the authors of the bible were
moved by the holy ghost why would the holy ghost move me in the
opposite direction it doesn't make any sense right well
however the holy ghost is leading me he's going to be leading me in a way
that's consistent with the written word and if he's leading
me in some other way it's a different spirit it's not the
holy spirit it's it's a different spirit or
it's somebody's imagination that's often what it is too
a lot of people will follow their own heart
and then claim that it's god leading them it's a way to just spiritualize
every decision they do what they think is right and say well this is how god
led me god was leading me you know you'll hear
people talk about all the sudden you know i was doing such and such
and god spoke to me and said and it's just some random thing that's not in the
bible at all and what that really is it's called
our internal monologue right i mean all of us kind of have this voice in
our heads of our own internal monologue our own thoughts
where you know but here's the difference is that when i have this internal
monologue in my mind i'm not like oh god's talking let me
listen as my heart pours out all of its thoughts
i'm like what was that lord you know you have a
big problem when you're confusing yourself
with god you know confusing your own heart but people do this all the time
you know it's like i looked over and i saw this and god just told me
xyz and it's it's it's totally not in the bible it's just
it's their imagination my friend
and i obviously you know getting into all of how the holy spirit actually
operates is a totally different sermon but the the verse in question here verse
26 says he that trusteth in his own heart is a
fool you can't just trust your heart and just
say well i'm just gonna follow my heart well
the bible says the heart is deceitful above all things
the greatest attribute of the human heart is deceit
the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked
that doesn't sound good who can know it you say well not my heart my heart is is
is like a compass that just always points
due north well here's the thing about that who can know it
how do you know that your heart is that accurate because the bible says the
heart is deceitful which means your heart's going to trick
you into into thinking that it's right when it's not
the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked
who can know it it's god who searches the reins and hearts right
it's god who can look inside our hearts and know
every thought every intent every emotion he can see right into the core of our
being he knows what is legitimate and what is
not we don't and so at the end of the day
obviously you know we're all influenced by our heart
but we don't want to place our faith and trust in our own heart at the end of the
day we want the word of god the law of god
the commandments of god the written word the new testament
the old testament that which we know is divinely inspired we want that to be
the bedrock of our faith and hey we're all going to be guided by
our hearts to some extent but let's be guided by
our hearts within the parameters that god has set
for us in the written word and why don't we do this why don't we
test what our heart is telling us with the bible
and if what our heart is telling us is consistent with the word of god
then let's go ahead and follow our heart but if our heart is contradicting the
word of god then we need to just kind of slap our
heart silly and say no i'm gonna go with what the
bible says because i think my heart's wrong
you see sometimes our heart might say something different than the word
of god and you say well my heart always agrees
with the bible 100 of the time well that's interesting maybe i don't
know maybe you're like a second the second coming
or something i mean you know obviously no human is truly going to
agree with god 100 of the time because god
is so far above us his thoughts are so high above ours
that that god says my thoughts are not your thoughts
neither are my ways your ways as the that the heavens are high above the
earth and i'm paraphrasing hopefully i'm in the ballpark here
as the heavens are high above the earth he says you know so are my thoughts
above your thoughts okay and so god's thoughts he says my
thoughts are not your thoughts my ways are not your ways so if you say
well you know god and i always agree 100 of the time
that's not really consistent with what the bible is saying because the bible is
saying my thoughts are not your thoughts and so
what's probably going on is that you're maybe
just making god agree with you all the time
because if if you're actually being honest and looking at the word of god
and actually reading the whole bible 31 000 verses
you're going to come to some things that contradict what you've been taught
or what you previously thought or what your heart had sort of told you
and you're going to come to some things that contradict that and you're going
to have a choice to make right to be conformed to the word of god or to
stubbornly hang on to what your heart has told you
now obviously the more we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our lord and
savior jesus christ we're going to find that our thoughts
are being more and more conformed to his thoughts at least that's what's supposed
to happen right we are to be uh
transformed not conformed to this world but transformed
by the renewing of our mind and so as our mind is renewed
yeah we're going to get to the point where as we read the bible
less and less goes against the grain because we're getting on his program
but still every once in a while there's going to be a thing where it's like
ah i want to do this but the bible is saying to do this
what are you going to do you got to go with what the word of god says and
there are a lot of times when i say you know what
i mean i would think it's this way but the bible says it's this way so you know
what i'm going to defer to the bible here i'm
going to go with the bible the bible's right i'm wrong
of course we all have to admit that we're wrong from time to time right
because we're human and we make mistakes and so
we all have to admit that we're wrong from time to time if
you never admit you're wrong well then you know you're just a person
that i want nothing to do with all right uh let's keep going here
it says uh he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law verse 9
even his prayer shall be abomination and then we jump down
to verse 26 where it said he that trusteth in his own heart
is a fool but who so walketh wisely he shall be delivered then if we just
back up one verse it says he that is of a proud heart
stirreth up strife but he that putteth his trust in the lord shall be made
fat you say i've been trusting the lord i understand
my weight now no i'm just kidding but anyway
he that is of a proud heart is probably the same guy who's trusting
in his own heart right because you know you're of this
proud heart like i'm always right and so i'm going to trust what my heart's
saying sounds like you got a proud heart that
thinks that it's the boss when in reality god's word needs to be
the boss and so it says you know he that is of a
proud heart stirreth up strife obviously people that are prideful and
can't ever admit that they're wrong they're going to get in conflict and
strife and arguments with other people because only by pride cometh contention
but then it says but he that put this trust in the lord shall be made
fat now what does this mean when it says he shall be made fat
well what you have to understand is that in the ancient world
most people weren't getting the levels of nutrition that we're getting today
in 2023 we live in a land of plenty we have such an abundance of food we
don't really worry about not getting enough food we you know
probably no one in this room maybe there could be one exception
probably no one in this room wakes up in the morning hoping you know
am i going to get enough calories or enough calories going to be available
for me to sustain
my body today or am i going to starve or or you know uh all of us not only get
enough calories but we get the the macronutrients we need
we get enough protein we probably eat more meat
than any human beings you know in the history of mankind
because you know we have such abundance and plenty
and we have all this great food and we can eat things that are out of season
because of refrigeration airplanes etc i mean throughout you know
throughout history in the winter time people didn't really have these fresh
fruits that we would have today the summer fruits you know you couldn't
necessarily store that stuff unless you dried it out or something but
a lot of people even in america a few hundred years ago
would be pretty deficient on things like vitamin c over the winter and then you
know you get uh spring fever you know and and they uh
they would once the things would start coming into
season they could start getting those vitamins and minerals that they need
once again and so you know a lot of people in the
ancient world would be more malnourished than us and and
obesity is probably not a big problem for most people living in those days
because they didn't have a lot of like
processed foods a lot of the sugary drinks
are what get us right and candy bars and processed foods because they they
pack so many calories into such a small space
in our stomach that we can really just pound
thousands of calories and and we're still we're still hungry we still want
to keep going and so in many ways obesity being
widespread is probably more of a modern phenomenon i'm sure it's always existed
on some level but it's become more common say
in 2023 than it probably was in say 1923 or
1823 right you think that it was a bigger problem then
or now so that's why being made fat doesn't sound as scary back
then as it does now because now in 2023 you're like well i
don't want to be made fat that's the last thing i want right
because what you know i'm trying to lose weight or i'm trying
to stay thin i don't want to be made fat you know but but the reason why the
bible says that if you trust the lord you'll be
made fat is because being made fat there is just a
reference to uh you're gonna have an abundance of
food you're gonna have what you need to eat as much as you want not not
necessarily getting overweight but just you know
think of someone who's underweight and then think of kind of fattening them up
a little bit to a good weight to a healthy weight to
a normal weight i think that's more the idea here
being made fat it's more of a proverbial fatness of
having abundance having plenty having what you need you know i guess
having the ability to get fat if you want to because you got so much food
available in the old pantry
so it's it's coming from probably a different perspective
of people who are struggling to have enough food
people that are not surrounded by calorie dense foods
so you know it's if it makes you feel better maybe you could spell it with
like a p-h-a-t or something no i'm just kidding that was a joke
don't don't patrick boil is not going to approve of that it's a joke all right
i'm kidding but anyway uh yeah you know obviously
putting trust in the lord is going to cause blessings and abundance
and a spiritual fatness right we think about like the fat of the land
right milk and honey and wines bursting out with new or
vats bursting out with new wine and uh the barn
is full and there's grain in the old silo and so forth
you know that's what the bible is saying so don't go out there
and try to get money by unjust gain usury oppressing the poor
getting elected to public office or something so that you can
enrich yourself through insider trading or some other scam
and i'll close on these last two verses here look at verse 20
a faithful man shall abound with blessings
and the abounding with blessings is the same thing as being made fat
you know that's what the bible is talking about the man who trusts in the
lord is going to be made fat the faithful man
shall abound with blessings but he that maketh haste to be rich
shall not be innocent person who's going to cut corners
and steal and rob and oppress to get rich
it's not going to work for him verse 22 he that hasteth to be rich has an
evil eye right so he's covetous and uh evil eye
he wants what doesn't legitimately belong to him and considerth not that
poverty shall come upon him in the long run what does the bible say in verse 80
that by usury and unjust gain increase this substance
he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor
why because in the end of verse 22 poverty shall come upon him
how many times have you seen rich people become poor
or how about a guy who scams and cheats and steals
and he ends up in prison and then he owes the
government millions of dollars in fines he has to pay
millions of dollars of damages the point where all of his wealth is death is
completely eliminated he's in prison he has nothing he gets out
of prison all his money's gone it's all been
forfeited i'm sure stories abound so the moral of
the story is go through life following god's laws
trusting the lord following the commandments and the precepts
set forth in the bible not trying to just cut corners
and do whatever to get money but being humble
follow the bible don't just trust in your own heart but do
the word of god follow those rules and you know as far as our government well
there's nothing we can do about our government
you know if voting changed things they wouldn't let us do it
and so at the end of the day we can talk in theory about what godly leaders look
like but at the end of the day the most
important thing is that we make sure that we live a godly life
and that whatever areas of leadership we have
in business home community that we ourselves are leaders of
understanding and that we don't oppress and harm other people for our own gain
but that we make lawful gains by hard work and faithfulness to
the principles of the bible let's borrow words in a word of prayer father we
thank you so much for this chapter lord i pray that we would glean some wisdom
from it tonight lord help us to follow your word and
to observe the things that jesus christ commanded us
and lord please bless us as your people as we live
in a crooked and perverse nation among whom we shine as
lights in the world and in jesus name we pray amen