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we pray. Amen. Men, in Proverbs chapter number 10 here, we're entering a new section in the book of Proverbs, which is kind of signaled by this first verse where it says the Proverbs of Solomon, which that's what we would expect to find at the beginning of the book in chapter one. But the reason that we see that again is because we're entering a new section. So the first nine chapters of Proverbs, each chapter had sort of a story to it or a narrative that it took you through. And all of the material in those chapters was connected and it flowed from A to B to C. This new section that we're getting into in Proverbs goes from chapter 10 all the way to chapter 29. And it's really just a collection of Proverbs. So what you end up with is just a lot of standalone Proverbs where each verse just stands alone, as opposed to being part of like a chapter long narrative where we're talking about, I looked out the window and he went the way of the house of the strange woman. And then she met him and kissed him. And it's like an actual story. So let me just start out by saying this part of the book is a little bit more challenging to preach through because you could really, you know, on chapter 10, preach like 32 sermons because each statement is kind of a thought or an idea or a sermon in and of itself. Whereas for the first nine chapters, it was a lot easier to think, okay, what is this chapter about? And then preach what the chapter is about. So what I'm planning on doing as I go through these chapters is really just picking some kind of a theme that flows through the chapter. And every verse isn't really going to necessarily tie in with the theme because if I were to try to make every verse all fit one subject, it would pretty much be impossible because this is just a collection in many ways of miscellaneous Proverbs. And that's how chapters 10 through 29 are. But there are a lot of thoughts that go together here. And in each chapter, I'm just going to pick an overarching theme of the book of Proverbs. And then we'll think about that theme in light of what we have here in front of us with chapter 10. So tonight, the theme that really jumped out at me going through these Proverbs is the idea that in general, if you do what's right, things are going to go well for you. And if you do that, which is wrong, things are going to go badly in your life. You know, I've often said that the path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience. If you want things to go well in your life, you need to do the right things. Now, everybody in this world, you would think, right, would want to prosper, to be blessed for things to go well. We don't want to get up in the morning and go to work. And everything that we touch just falls apart. We're constantly failing at everything we attempt. No, we want everything that we touch to turn to gold. We want to succeed. We want whatsoever we do to prosper. Let me tell you something. If you obey the Lord and follow Christ, you will be blessed and things will go well for you in your life. Now you say, pastor Anderson, are you preaching a prosperity gospel? Here's the difference between what I'm preaching and the prosperity health and wealth gospel. Okay. What the Bible teaches is that if you do what's right in the end, you will be blessed and everything will turn out well for you. And you will look back at your life and say, I'm happy with the way things turned out. God blessed me. I'm glad I'm here. I'm so glad that I followed the Lord with my life. But you're going to go through trials and tribulations along the way, right? The Bible says, mark the perfect man. The end of that man is peace, right? Consider Job, right? You've heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. So you look at the latter end of Job and he's blessed. The Bible says that God will reward us on this earth a hundredfold. Whatever we give up for Christ, he'll reward us on this earth. Not even just what we get to heaven, we'll be rewarded on this earth. But he said that that will come with persecutions, with tribulations, with afflictions. Whereas the health and wealth gospel tends to gloss over the tribulations, persecutions, and afflictions, and also focus on, you know, you being rich or something. I'm not saying you're going to be rich. I'm saying you're going to be blessed and your life's going to turn out well. I'm not saying that you're going to necessarily have a private jet and be covered in, you know, all this ostentatious jewelry and fancy clothing and stuff like that. Okay. So there is a difference, but here's the thing. Of course, there's a little bit of truth in the prosperity preaching because that's what the devil does. He takes a truth and then he twists it or takes it to an unbiblical extreme. Okay. So let's jump into this chapter with that in mind that if we do what's right, things are going to go well in our lives. And then if we do what's wrong, it's going to end badly. Okay. The Bible says in verse number one here, the Proverbs of Solomon, a wise son make of the glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. You know, heaviness is kind of what we would think of as depression, right? Heaviness, sadness, melancholy, depression. And you know, the Bible says in the New Testament, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. And then isn't it interesting that it says that here a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. So having children can either be the greatest blessing or it can bring great heaviness upon you. But of course the good news is that in general, if you train up a child in the way he should go when he's old, he'll not depart from it. And again, what we need to remember when we're studying the book of Proverbs is that Proverbs is speaking in generalities. And we're going to see this a lot in this chapter, generalities. In general, you do what's right. Things are going to turn out very well for you. In general, if you're lazy, you're going to fail. In general, you work hard. You're going to succeed. Obviously the exception proves the rule. Obviously our children have free will. Once they're adults, we don't know what they're going to do. You know, hopefully they will not be fools. Hopefully they will be wise. But at the end of the day, we have God telling us that if we train up a child in the way he should go when he's old, he'll not depart from it. So in general, if we raise our kids right, they're going to turn out right. Okay. Verse number two, treasures of wickedness profit nothing but righteousness deliver from death. So what the Bible is basically saying here is that cheaters aren't going to prosper. The treasures of wickedness, people who cheat and steal and get all kinds of unjust gain, in the end, that's not going to profit them anything. Whereas righteousness deliver from death. Now, when it comes to salvation, of course, it's Christ's righteousness that delivers us from death and hell, not our own righteousness. But in our own lives here and now on this earth, okay, righteousness delivers from death in the sense that if we follow God's commandments, if we honor our father and mother, if we seek the Lord, our days will be long upon the earth. Whereas the Bible says that again, in general, the wicked shall not live out half his days, in general. Verse number three, the Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish, but he cast it the way the substance of the wicked. So again, people who are wicked and ungodly about the way that they acquire their money, if they acquire it through cheating and stealing, gambling, whatever other wrong way of getting money, God will cast away the substance of the wicked, but he will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish. Now, again, the book of Proverbs speaks in generalities. This statement, however, the Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish is not a generality because elsewhere in scripture, God explicitly promises that the righteous will never starve. He says, I've been young and now I'm old, but I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. The Bible says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. My God shall supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. So sometimes in Proverbs, of course, we're speaking in generalities, you know that, Hey, you know, if you, uh, bless your father and mother, you're going to live long. That doesn't mean Steven, the martyr didn't bless his father and mother cause he died young. He's an exception to that. But I believe that this is one of those things that has no exception because of the fact that there are a lot of clear explicit statements about God, not allowing his people to starve. And that if we seek first the kingdom of God, that he will not forsake the righteous and, and our seed will not be begging bread. Now, this is something that in America, maybe we don't really think that much about because of the fact that we have so much abundance and prosperity that even when people are very poor in the United States, they typically still have food to eat, right? You don't see people starving death. And every once in a while, these libtards will come along and say, Oh, there's so much starvation and hunger in America. And they'll say, look at this obese person. You know, they're starving to death or whatever. There was a documentary like that, literally showing obese people and saying, these people are starving. I'm not even kidding. This documentary was called a place at the table. If you really want to laugh your head off, check out this documentary. And it's talking about how hunger and starvation is real in the U S and there were literally fat people starving in this film. And I'm just thinking, man, what if we took this to a country where people are really starving? Think about how offended they'd be. Like if we took this to somewhere in Africa or India where there's actual hunger, it's like, yeah, I know you're hungry cause you're fat, but that, you know, that's not the kind of hunger we're talking about here, buddy talking about when you actually have no food to eat, but they're like, Oh, you know, people are starving right here in America. And then they show this police officer like going to a food bank and getting food cause he's having trouble affording food or something. It's like, come on, you can afford your donuts buddy. Okay. But the point is, you know, obviously, yeah, we could come to a point where we're struggling financially struggling to pay our bills. Maybe we have to, uh, you know, eat more vegetarian meals per week or have a little rice and beans, but come on, is anybody in this room really in danger of starving to death in the United States of America when there's just, I mean, we throw away so much food in this country. You could, you could find food in the garbage can of any restaurant or grocery store and at least survive. I mean, there are people in this world that are legitimately starving. Okay. But let me ask you this. If we think about those countries where people are literally starving, cause it's not the United States cause they're all kinds of food banks and soup kitchens and all kinds of charitable outlets where you can get food and whatever, all kinds of programs and there's food everywhere. Yeah, this is, yeah, there we go. Right over there. Thank you. See that table over there. All that food's free. So nobody's going to starve on my watch. Okay. We've got all that food over there. That's free. Okay. That was donated to us and we're giving it away and we do that like every Wednesday night because, because there are just so many places just getting rid of so much food and expire. Some of it might've expired yesterday or something. Who cares? You know what I mean? Like I eat expired food in my own home all the time. Okay. I don't care because I'm not just like, Oh, you know, this expired yesterday. I got out of my sight. You know, being some, some prima donna about my food or something. But let me ask you this, those countries where people are legitimately starving, how did they get to that point? Is it because they were just, they were following the Lord, their, their nation was just serving God and just preaching the word of God and just, I mean, I mean like, I mean, I'm sure they're starving in India because they're so Christian. Is that right? Maybe it's because they're worshiping Satan, Kali, right? These demonic, horrific, they're worshiping serpents and demons and all these really scary like bosses from mortal combat and everything that they're bowing down to and worshiping, you know, and God's not going to bless that. And you want to know why God has blessed America is because America has historically been a Christian nation. Now we're being de-Christianized at this time, but historically this country has been very Christian. And you know, don't talk to me about how the founding fathers were or politicians. I'm not talking about politicians. I'm talking about the people of our country, the population of our country, the vast majority throughout history has been evangelical Christian. And even to this day, the greatest segment of our population is evangelical Christian in the United States, tens of millions of Baptists, tens of millions of evangelical Christians. And God has blessed our nation. And God has blessed us as individuals who have trusted in the Lord, served the Lord, obeyed the Lord, you know, is God obligated to supply all the need of pagans worshiping Satan, according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. And this is kind of a hard truth that I'm preaching, but it is the truth, my friend, that if people are worshiping Satan and bowing down to demonic idols, perhaps they will starve to death. And so yes, there are people starving to death in this world, but no one who worships the Lord Jesus Christ and reads their Bible and follows the Lord. I'm not saying they're perfect, but nobody who's following Christ is going to starve to death. I believe that that's, that's God's promise. And, you know, obviously none of us are going to starve to death because we're blessed to live in the United States of America, the land of plenty, the land of prosperity. But, you know, we want God to meet our needs, want to be able to pay our bills, want to be able to have a decent place to live, want to be out, have a vehicle to go to work. So, you know, want to be able to pay our bills and, you know, we don't want to have to just scrape by and just subsist, but, you know, we want God to meet our needs, you know, and, and basically so that we can enjoy a middle-class life so that we can enjoy a life where we're not just living hand to mouth, right? And I believe that God will meet those needs and prosper us. If we follow the Bible and work hard, God's going to take care of us. Okay. He's not going to suffer the soul of the righteous to famish. The Bible says in verse four, he become a poor that deals with a slack hand again in general, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. Uh, he that gathereth in summer is a wise son, but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that cause it's shame. So again, if we're out there working in the field, we're sowing the seeds, we're bringing in the harvest, we're showing up at work, we're doing what we're supposed to do. God's going to make sure that we're rewarded for that and that we have food to eat and that we can pay our bills, et cetera. Now here's the thing about that. You know, today in America, a lot of people are afraid to have a lot of children, even though I believe that it's God's will for us to have children as Christians and to reproduce and be fruitful and multiply and to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, uh, so that we can raise up another generation of godly Christian young people. But a lot of people today, you know, they're, they're afraid to do that because of inflation, because of the economy. They're not sure that they can afford it. And you know, you see a lot of people in our church who have big families and that have had a lot of kids and you know, it takes a little bit of faith to have a lot of kids because obviously it's expensive to have a lot of kids. And so there's the concern as a, as a husband and father of, you know, how am I going to pay for all this? How am I going to pay for all these kids? And so there's a temptation to just go the way of this world and take advantage of all the birth control that's out there and just have one or two kids and just limit that. But is that God's will or is that a decision that you're making because you're afraid to just trust God to meet your needs and just do what's right by the Lord and just let the chips fall where they may. You say, well, what about the environment? You know, if you have all these kids or your carbon footprint is too great and you're going to destroy the environment. Well, a couple things. First of all, number one, you know, my personal family is a drop of water on a hot stove compared to the 8 billion people in this world. If I just decided not to reproduce, right, is that really going to change the population of this world in any significant way? No, because you know, a bunch of Muslims are going to keep reproducing, a bunch of other, a bunch of Catholics and a bunch of other Mormons and whoever they're all going to be reproducing no matter what I do. You know, why don't we as actual born again Christians, why don't we reproduce and actually produce some godly Christians that we could send out into this world to be salt and light in this world? Number one. Number two is that this world is not designed to last forever. So the environmentalist believes that this world has to last forever and you know, we're going to run out of resources at some point, but this world's not going to be here forever. The earth is going to wax old as a garment, okay, and so I'm not trying to worry about making sure that this thing can last for thousands of years because you know, it's going to last as long as it needs to last. Because God is in control of the forces of nature and I'm not for degrading the environment, I'm not for dumping toxic waste or destroying our resources, but at the end of the day, you know, it's not really my job or my problem. It's not what God has called me to do as a born again Christian to make that my number one mission in life of, hey, let's fix the environment. You know, the environment is going to get damaged. People are going to damage it. It was getting damaged before I was born. It's going to continue to be damaged after I'm gone. And at the end of the day, it's up to God to worry about it. And it's not my problem, okay? I'm just going to follow the Lord with my life. I'm going to have children. I'm going to raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I'm going to do the best I can to produce a godly seed in this world. And so I'm not going to worry about the environment. That's God's problem to make sure summer and winter happen and seed time and harvest. And he's promised that he would do that. And I'm also not going to worry about the fact that it's going to be expensive or cost a lot to have children because I believe the promise of God that he can supply my needs. And I remember when I first got married, my wife and I just barely got by on the money that I made. But yet, we had a child and we didn't really necessarily know how we were going to afford that. But we just trusted that if I went to work and worked hard, that God was going to provide. And that's what happened. Our first son was born, Solomon. And I got a raise and God opened doors and I was able to make ends meet. But when my wife first got pregnant with our first son, I couldn't really see on paper how we're going to afford that. When she got pregnant with the second, I couldn't really see on paper how we're going to afford that. Third, fourth, now I'm getting it figured out. But I'm saying like in the early days, it's a struggle. When you're just starting out in your career, you're just barely getting by just the two of you and you have to figure out, okay, how do we afford having a baby? How do we afford having a second child? But you know what? I just trusted God that he was going to meet my needs like he promised he would do in scripture. And I just believed that I'm not going to be forsaken. My seed aren't going to be baking bread. God's going to supply all my need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. And I had to have the faith to believe that. And I also thought to myself, I can always make more money later if I mess up my finances at some point, if I get in the hole financially, I can always work hard and fix that later and dig myself out financially later. But you know, there's going to come a point where I can't have kids later because obviously there's biology involved with that, that you come to a point where you can't have kids anymore. So I figured, you know, let's get while the getting's good, let's have children now and we'll worry about how to pay for it when the time comes. You know, the Bible says, take no thought for the morrow. The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. You know, I'm just worried about today. And so I'm not worried about what am I going to do five years from now, 10 years from now. You know, I don't know. God's going to figure that out. And so that's how I've lived my life. You know, over the last 22 years that I've been married, my wife and I have just trusted God with that. We've had a child like every two years. And, you know, uh, turns out there's this other promise of God. That's true. You know, they shall still bring forth fruit into old age. So, I mean, it seems like we're just going to keep on going, right? I don't know who knows, but here's the bottom line though. Okay. God has been faithful in my life and other people in our church that have trusted God in this area, God's been faithful in their life too. And they've had a whole bunch of kids and they've been able to feed them and so forth. Now look, obviously sometimes you might have to make sacrifices. They're going to be trade-offs financially, but you're not going to be destitute. You're not going to be forsaken. Okay. And ask me how I felt about having a lot of kids in 2020 when those stimulus checks started to roll in. Okay. That was when faith became sight. Okay. You know, you know, it's like, I mean, that was a lot of money. You know, I was just, I just talked to my buddy that also has a big family. He's actually one ahead of me. He has 13 children and he's like, oh man, I paid off my house with that money. It was just, you know, it was just so much, uh, stimulus, so much money, you know, and here's what I say to that. You know, the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. And so God came through big time. Every year of my life, I've been able to get by. I've always been able to pay the bills. I've always been able to put food on the table through all the economic ups and downs of this world and of business and of, you know, my secular job and so forth, uh, before I became a pastor or before I was pastoring full-time because for, you know, many, many years I was working a full-time job and pastoring God provided and then in 2020 God provided big time. Okay. And now God's continuing to provide in Arizona with additional benefits for homeschoolers and, and you know, God's always coming through and you know, just the amount of money that I've saved on my taxes over the last 22 years, because sometimes I see how much other people pay in taxes and then I forget like, oh, that's right. You don't have 12 dependents or whatever, you know, our 10 dependents. And then it's like, oh, that's why I'm paying so little. Ah. And so by hook or by crook, you know, God's going to supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. So step out in faith. You know, I could have just said, well, you know, I don't know if I'm going to be able to afford this, you know, honey, we're going to pump you full of birth control. You might grow a beard and get cancer and whatever, but Hey, what, you know, let's just pump you full of birth control. You know, then I would have missed out on all those blessings in 2020. Right. I would have missed out on first of all, the blessings of having children, but then also I would have missed out on financial blessings because I have a feeling that God would have just allowed me to make less money if I had less kids, because it seems like God wants to keep us to where we have enough, but not too much. And you know, that's kind of where I want to be. Anyway, later in the book of Proverbs, it says, give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me. You know, I don't want to be wealthy, but I also don't want to be living hand to mouth, right? I want to have that middle way of just having what I need. And so guess what, by having more children, I needed more. God provided more. If I had less children, God would have probably just provided less and just always kind of kept me a little bit hungry, but met my needs and kept me in business and paying my bills and so forth. So, you know, I just want to encourage you that the Lord is not going to suffer in verse three there. He's not going to suffer the soul of the righteous to famish. He's going to take care of you financially. So go ahead and follow Christ, seek first the kingdom of God, make sure that reading your Bible is a priority, that praying and going to church and going soul winning, make those things a priority. Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Live your life. Do what he says, get married, have kids. Don't worry too much about the future because just trust God. He's going to take care of you and he's not going to suffer the soul of the righteous to famish. But he casted away the substance of the wicked, but the people who are ungodly and their life's all about money, he has a way of just making them lose all their money and just taking it away from them or even just taking away their life. But the Bible says he that gathereth in summer is a wise son, but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shape. So again, you know, you have to get out there and do the work, man, right? You have to get out there. You can't just say, well, God's going to provide. So I'm just going to kind of sit around on my blessed assurance and just wait for God to provide. No, you obviously have to get out there and go to work. But if you seek first the kingdom of God Sunday and then Monday, you get out there and work hard and Tuesday and the rest of the week, you know what? God's going to take care of you. You're going to be blessed. You're going to, you're going to do well. Verse six, blessings are upon the head of the just, but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot. Right? Look what the Bible says in verse nine, he that walketh uprightly walketh surely, but he that perverted his ways shall be known. You know, in the end, if you walk uprightly, you're on a sheer foundation. Whereas the people who pervert their way, they end up getting busted. That's what it means when it says they shall be known. They're going to be exposed. They're going to get busted for their crooked dealings financially or otherwise in life. Jump down to verse 15, the rich man's wealth is his strong city. The destruction of the poor is their poverty. The labor of the righteous tended to life, the fruit of the wicked to sin. You see, if you work hard, God's going to bless you. God's going to reward you. And if you're wicked with your life, you know, the end of those things is death, right? It's just, it's destruction, it's curse, it's failure. Look what the Bible says in verse 21, the lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for want of wisdom. So the Bible is saying, again, if you're righteous, you're not only going to be able to feed yourself. You're going to be able to feed many. We in our house feed many at every meal. Okay. But not only is it talking about feeding your big family, it's also talking about, you know, you're even going to be able to help out other people. You're going to have an abundance where you could even help out other people that are in need. You can take care of yourself and you even have money to give to help someone else that's in need. So the lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for want of wisdom, right? Idiots end up dying because they're stupid. Okay. I'm just trying to break this down into our modern vernacular. Fools die for want of wisdom. Idiots die because they're stupid. Okay. And again, this is speaking in generalities. In general terms, that's true. People go out and do stupid things and they end up dying. What are some stupid things that people do that could end up getting them killed? Let's name a few, shall we? How about taking drugs? I mean, taking drugs is a stupid thing to do. Recreational drug use is stupid and it can kill you easily. That could cause you to get killed. How about drinking and driving? Is that stupid? And that can easily get you killed. Committing adultery with another man's wife, that's a stupid thing to do and that can get you killed. Okay. Just other self-destructive behaviors. What else? Is anything else popping into your mind? Shout it out. Fornication, going out and sleeping around with a bunch of... And then you're going to get monkeypox or whatever and you're going to die. All right. Is monkeypox something that kills you? Does anyone know? Is it even happening or is that another failed... Was that another pandemic that didn't quite get off the ground? Is it happening? It's not a pandemic. It's a fag-demic. Okay. So yeah, because the etymology of the word epidemic means it's upon the deem or upon a certain town, city, state, location. Whereas the pan, pan means all deems, everywhere. It's hitting everywhere. It's a pandemic. Then there's a fag-demic. It's just all queers are being affected. Okay. Okay. So I'm just saying that word does have some merit. It could work. The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for want of wisdom. The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich and he addeth no sorrow with it. Okay. So God's blessing brings in financial prosperity because if you're out working hard and God's blessing you, yeah, you know, you can make good money. And again, the purpose of our lives is not to be rich. We're not desirous of being rich. We just want to have what we need to pay our bills and take care of our families. But he says that the blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich and he addeth no sorrow with it. Whereas a lot of other people are rich in this world, but they're not happy, right? There are a lot of ungodly people, unsaved people, non-Christian people who are rich, but that doesn't mean that they're happy. They could be totally miserable. I mean, would you rather be poor and happy or would you rather be rich and completely miserable, right? You'd rather have just the dinner of herbs and love than a stalled ox and hatred therewith, right? You'd rather have the blessings that are spiritual blessings and real joy and peace and all the things that only God can give you than to just have money because there are all kinds of people that have money and they're committing suicide and they're miserable and they hate life, etc. So the blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich and he added no sorrow with it. Verse 24, the fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him. You know, the Bible is saying, you know, if you're a wicked person and you're scared, be afraid, be very afraid because the stuff that you're scared of, it's going to happen to you. You're doomed. But the desire of the righteous shall be granted, right? But the righteous are going to get what they want out of life. The wicked are not going to get what they want out of their life. I love verse 25, as the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more, but the righteous is an everlasting foundation. If you think about a whirlwind, also known as a tornado, right? That's what we would call it today, but the Bible calls it a whirlwind. Whirlwinds are pretty impressive. They're pretty amazing. I mean, we're talking winds of up to 300 miles per hour in a tornado. And I mean, they do just an incredible amount of damage. There was a tornado many years ago in Oklahoma city that came through and just leveled houses and just destroyed everything in its path. But you know, as impressive and powerful as a tornado is, it's just gone in a moment. You know, like you have this tornado and it's just gone and it's just over. It doesn't continue to exist the next day. It's, it doesn't exist anymore, right? No matter, even if you say, Oh, it lasted for hours. The next day, it's not going to exist a week later. It's not going to exist a month later. It doesn't exist. Right. And so even as impressive as the wicked people of this world could be, even as much damage as they can do, even as much of an impact that they make, whoever the celebrity or whatever they do, no matter how grand they are, you know, they're going to be gone, right? It's like they're there and then they're gone. You know, as the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more, but the righteous is an everlasting foundation. You know, the righteous are going to persist. They're still going to be there. The wicked are just so temporary. They're just a flash in the pan. We have eternal life. You know, he that doeth the will of the Lord abideth forever. And so we are an everlasting foundation. Verse 27, the fear of the Lord prolongeth days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened. So in general, kids, if you want to live a long time, will keeping God's commandments help you to live longer in general? Absolutely. So if you want to live long, follow the Lord, keep God's commandments. If you want your life to be cut short, you want to die in your forties, your fifties, early sixties, then you know what? Just go out and live a life of sin. And in general, and again, obviously there are exceptions. There are good, righteous people who die young. There are wicked people who live to be a hundred, but in general, if you want to live a long time, you'd better follow the Lord and keep his commandments. If you want to live a long time, that's what the Bible teaches. Okay. Because the wicked, they have their years shortened. Their life gets cut short. The wicked should not live out half his days. It says in verse 28, the hope of the righteous shall be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked shall perish. Right? We're going to get what we hope for the things that we desire. God's going to give us the desires of our heart, the things that we wish for the things that we hope for the things that we dream of. God's going to allow us to enjoy those things in the long run. Whereas the expectation of the wicked shall perish. They're not going to get what they want out of life. This is ironic. If you spend your life trying to gratify yourself and trying to get everything you want and get the money and the car and the house and the whatever you want, whatever pleasure and enjoyment you want, if you spend time trying to get what you want, you're going to go through life and find out that you don't end up getting what you want. And most people in this world, they don't end up being satisfied with their life. Most people in this world don't end up getting what they want and they don't end up being satisfied and their dreams don't necessarily come true. But if you are a Christian and if you are serving the Lord and seeking first the kingdom of God, you will receive what you want out of life. You're going to get to the end of life and you're going to look back over your life and you're going to say, you know what? I got what I wanted out of life. I'm glad that I followed the Lord. God blessed me and I'm so happy with where I ended up. And I'm thankful for the path that I took. And I'm thankful for the way things went. You know, you get to the end of your life and you're like the apostle Paul, who's, what was his original name? Saul, right? So when Saul of Tarsus got to the end of his life, he said, I'm now ready to be offered the time of my departures in hand. I fought a good fight. I finished my course. I kept the faith. And you know what? He was blessed big time. Now, did he have a lot of trials and tribulations along the way? Of course, but he was blessed big time. You know, what he really wanted to do was he really wanted to excel in the Jews religion before he got saved. That was, that was big for him, right? I mean, he was really dedicated. He really wanted to be the best Pharisee that he could possibly be, you know, but he ended up forsaking all that, forsaking that religion that he put so much effort into and converting to the truth, to Christianity, to following Jesus Christ. And you know what God actually allowed him to do what? He actually gave him what he wanted really at his core because what did he end up doing? He ended up laboring more abundantly than all the other apostles and becoming the greatest apostle of the New Testament. I mean, look at the book of Acts. Half of it's about the apostle Paul. Look at the New Testament. Half the books are written by the apostle Paul. And he said, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, I labored more abundantly than they all. And so in the end, he got what he wanted and he achieved what he set out to do. And he ended his life satisfied with what he had done. Whereas think about Old Testament, Saul gets to the end of his life and he says, you know what? I played the fool. And what did Saul really want? Like, like think about biblical characters. What do they really want? You know, we all have certain things that we really want deep down, you know, certain things that drive us, certain motivations that, that are kind of the big things that we want in our life, right? All of us are like that. So we kind of talked about that with, with the apostle Paul. You know, what did he, what did he really want? You know, he wanted to really serve God and really excel in religion. You know, he had the wrong religion, but then he got it right and got saved and followed Christ. But if you think about Saul, one of the things that Saul really, really wanted, what was really important to Saul, if we study the life of Saul in the Old Testament, is that he really wanted, you know, his son, Jonathan, to be the next king, right? Wasn't that just super important to him? It was really important that the kingdom be established, not just him ruling, but that it be a family thing, that it be a dynasty, that, that his sons after him would reign. I mean, this is a big motivation for him. And at the end of it all, not only is his son not going to become king, but all of his sons end up getting killed in battle. So not only does he not leave behind a son as a king, he doesn't even leave his sons behind. You know, his firstborn son and his older sons and these great warriors that he had trained and taught to someday, you know, take the kingdom after him, they all end up getting killed. And he gets the end of his life and says, I played the fool. And he ends up dying a shameful death where he actually falls upon his own sword, right? He actually ends up getting wounded and he's fatally wounded and he's afraid that the Philistines are going to come abuse him and torture him and humiliate him in some way. So he ends up falling upon his own sword. I mean, that's a pretty bad way to end your life. Why? Because he stopped following the Lord. He stopped obeying God. He's disobeying God's commandments. He's disobeying Samuel the Prophet, and then he's persecuting a godly man, David, without cause. He's killing innocent people. He's trying to kill David who's innocent. And he ended up just completely destroying his life. You know, and so the hope of the righteous shall be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked shall perish. Meaning that whatever it is that you want in your heart deep down, you know, we all have these deep down desires of what's really important to us. You know, maybe you're a young person and it's really important to you to get married or to have children or a certain career that you want to do or a certain achievement that you want to achieve or just whatever these deep-seated desires are in your heart. You know, God can cause the hope of the righteous to be gladness, and he can cause the expectation of the wicked to perish. And so if you're a child of God and you go out and just decide, well, I'm just going to go chasing after my dreams and try to fulfill my desires and my ambitions, nuts to what the Lord wants, nuts to the work of God, nuts to the local church, nuts to soul winning, you know, to hell with everybody who's unsaved, you know, I'm just pursuing my goal and my dream. You know what? There's a good chance that you're not going to make it. That you're not going to achieve it. But I believe that if you'll put your ambitions and your desires on the back burner and seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, I have a suspicion that God is going to say, you know what? You gave that up for me. You put that on the back burner because you put serving me first. You put winning lost souls to Christ first. You put studying the word of God first. So you know what? Now I'm going to give you what you want. I'm going to allow you to achieve what it is that you wanted. And you know, that's God. I don't want to make this about me, but like, I've thought about it and there were things that I wanted when I was young and I kind of skipped those things because I was, you know, trying to seek first the kingdom of God. And then it's like, God found a way to give me those things later or to, or to allow me to do those things later after I did his will first, you know, and God has a way of sometimes doing that, you know, where, where, where we might think, oh, I'm giving this up for Christ, but anything that we give up for Christ is you're not really giving it up because God's going to give you either something better. He'll replace it with something better that maybe you didn't even realize you wanted and you like it better, or you'll end up getting what you gave up back later. Maybe it'll be given back to you later. And so we need, what does this all come down to? If you want your life to turn out in a way where at the end of it all, you can look back and be happy with the way it turned out and satisfied with the way it turned out, put God first, obey God first. Don't try to lean on your own understanding and take it into your own hands. Trust the Lord, seek his will first. You know, Hey, you want your week to go well, start out here on Sunday morning in church, worshiping the Lord in church. You want your day to go well, start out first reading your Bible and praying. You want your life to go well, start out seeking the Lord when you're a teenager and a young adult, you know, the best years of your life, as far as physically, when you're the most healthy and strong, you know, why don't you take some of those healthy, strong years and use them to do some soul winning, use them to take a missions trip, use them. And what about when your brain is fresh and you're young and you're like a sponge and you can learn and take in information, you know, how about burying your head in the Bible and learning the Bible, you know, and do that when you're young, give God the first fruits of your life, give God the firstlings of the flock, give God your best, start out and say, you know, yeah, there's stuff I want to do in life. Yeah, there's stuff I want to do, you know, yeah, I want to get married. I want to have kids. I want to have a career. I want to do this achievement. I want to have that achievement. Maybe I want to learn this or achieve this, but you know what? Why don't you put God first and then watch how God can give you those things later because you put him first. And I believe that from the bottom of my heart, that that's the way your life's going to go down. Whereas if you're like, Oh no, let's put God on the back burner and let's get the stuff I want to take care of first. And then you're just like running on a treadmill and it's like, you don't even, you don't even get to your destination because God's not blessing. Whereas if you put God first, God can like fast track you to your destination in ways that you maybe can't even imagine. And so, you know, sometimes you see young people complaining about being single, right? But they're not soul winning. They're not reading their Bible. They're not making church the number one priority. Then it's kind of like, well, you know, maybe if you would put more effort into the things of God, then maybe God will put more effort into your situation, you know? Or it's just, Oh man, my finances, you know, they just, I just can't seem to turn the corner financially. You know what? Then maybe stop focusing so much on finances and just be content with your bad financial situation and just start throwing more effort into the things of God. And then see if maybe God will turn around your financial situation, right? See if he'll turn around your love life. See if he'll turn around your financial situation. See if he'll turn around, whatever, because you're seeking him first. Okay. And that's what I believe the Bible is teaching in this chapter over and over again. And that's why I love verse 28. The hope of the righteous shall be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked shall perish. Verse 30, the righteous shall never be removed, but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth. The mouth of the just bring forth wisdom, but the froward tongue shall be cut out. Now look, that's not how you want to end up in life. Having your tongue cut out of your mouth, but this is where wickedness takes you. My friend, you go out and live a life of sin. Bad things are going to happen to you that you haven't even thought of yet. And if you go out and live a life serving the Lord, good things are going to happen to you that you can't even imagine. God is able to answer us exceeding and do for us exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think. And look, I'm not done with my life yet. You know, I've not yet begun to fight. Okay. I'm only 41 years old and God willing, you know, I hope to be, you know, you know, one of these verses about people living long and everything's, you know, I hope, I hope that I'm not an exception to that where it's like, even though I honored my father and mother, I'm still going to get smoked or something. You know, I hope to live long and I do strive to honor my father and mother and try to do the right things so that I can do that. But, you know, I really hope I live a long time. You know, maybe when you're a young person, you don't really think about that, but when you get older, you start thinking about like, I want to live a long time. You know, I want, and not only do I want to be alive, I want to be preaching when I'm in my nineties. I want to be up here 50 years from now and I want to be preaching. That's my goal. You know, I really hope that God allows me to live a long time, but you know what? Even if I died tonight, if I died tonight, you know what I would say? If I like, as I were dying, I would be able to say, you know what? God has given me a fair shake. Like God has, has given me the desires of my heart and every sacrifice that I made for the Lord has been repaid to me already. Even in this life to where I don't, I feel like already at age 41 that whatever sacrifices I've made, God has already given back to me and God has already like blessed me more than I could have asked and that things went better for me than I ever could have imagined. And that God was very gracious to me and very good to me. I wouldn't be sitting there thinking like, what, where are all these, you know, as I'm, as, as my, as I'm bleeding out on the highway or something, I wouldn't be thinking like so much for me being rewarded in this earth so much for God giving me the desires of my heart so much for my life turning out the way I wanted it to turn out. I wouldn't be thinking, I'd be thinking, you know what? My life did turn out the way I wanted it to turn out and God did give me the desires of my heart and God did bless me enough. Now, you know, hopefully I still have, you know, more than half of life ahead of me. I hope so. But even if I died right now, you know what? I'd be satisfied with the life that God has given me because God has blessed me and given me more than I've deserved. And so that's why I would say to you, you know, that I do not regret any sacrifice that I ever made for the Lord. You know what I, you know, what I regret is, is sins that I've committed. You know, what I regret is times that I didn't put God first or the things that I regret are the times when I was selfish or times that I violated God's work. But I don't regret, you know, living a clean life or I don't regret skipping fornication here or skipping drunkenness there. I don't regret doing right. And you will not ever regret serving God with your life. Like if you, when you get to the end of your life, you are going to be glad for every righteous thing that you did, every prayer that you uttered, every soul that you won to Christ, every chapter of the Bible. I don't regret reading a single chapter of the Bible. Okay. But I do regret time that I've wasted. I think back at my life, oh man, I wasted so much time on this. I wasted time on that. But reading my Bible was never a waste of time. Soul winning was never a waste of time. Loving the Lord is never a waste of time. Doing other good things like working hard at my job or, or spending quality time with family, you're not going to regret those things. You're going to regret all the stupid, selfish, sinful things that you do. That's what you're going to regret in life. And I'm telling you, you will not be disappointed with how God rewards you in this life for what you do. And again, that's not even to mention the fact that when we get to heaven, we're going to get rewards in heaven. That's a whole nother thing. But even if there were no rewards in heaven, even if we all got to heaven and God just treated us all the same and just gave us all a penny and it was just all the same and we all got there and it was just everybody's equal. That's saved. That is obviously, cause you got to be saved to even get there. You got to believe in Jesus. But let's say we just got there. Let's say we just got there and the most backslidden Christian who did the least for God and the best Christian in the world and everybody in between was just kind of all on the same level. And we're just kind of there. You know what? Like we still, I would still not regret anything that I ever did for God because God rewards us even on this earth. And we're more blessed even in the here and now we're more blessed and he gives us the desires of our heart and our life turns out better than if we didn't put God first even now on this earth. And so don't forget that. You know, yeah, it's great to think about rewards in heaven, but don't forget the fact that your life on this earth right now, how it turns out is determined by whether or not you follow Christ. And if you follow Christ and you put him first, you're going to be happy with the way your life turns out in the end. And if you don't, and if you're one of these idiot young people that, you know, grows up in a church like this, and then you just go out and you're just going to do everything different than you were taught. And you're going to go out and you're going to drink and you're going to get, you know, get the tattoos and you're going to party and you're going to fornicate and you're going to do whatever, you know, if you're going to do that, just take it to the bank. You're going to pay for it. You will pay for it. And the joke's on you. You are shooting yourself in the foot big time. Whereas if you stay with the Lord, you stay with what's right. You are going to be happy with the way that your life turns out. Not only do I believe that, but I've experienced that in my own life. I've seen it in the lives of other people. And I am sure that if you follow Christ, you will be rewarded on this earth. There's no question about it. And in fact, I'll just give you this one last verse in closing chapter 11, verse 31. Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth. Much more of the wicked and the sinner. So this thing cuts both ways, doesn't it? Okay. So our lives right now are determined by what we do. Let's bow your heads in that word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this chapter, Lord. And thank you for this truth that we find throughout chapter 10, that if we follow you, we will be blessed. And if we are wicked, then we're going to pay for it. Lord, help us to strive every day to put you first and to keep you in the place of preeminence in our lives. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.