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sermon this night in Jesus name we pray, amen. Man, tonight we're continuing the series through Proverbs and as I mentioned last week we've entered a new section in Proverbs. Chapters 10 through 29 is it's just this section filled with individual Proverbs whereas chapters 1 through 9 were full chapters where there's kind of a narrative that takes us from the beginning of the chapter to the end of the chapter and one thought leads to the next rather chapters 10 through 29 are just a collection of individual Proverbs that often don't have a lot to do with one another so this chapter ends up being all over the place so it's a little bit challenging to preach a sermon on Proverbs 10 or to preach a sermon on Proverbs 11 because each verse is its own topic it could be a sermon in and of itself so what I'm doing is I'm just picking a certain theme each week that is present in a lot of the verses and sort of looking at the chapter through that lens so if you remember last week we really focused in on this idea of us as Christians being rewarded on this earth being rewarded in this life and the fact that God's going to bless us if we do the right things and that was the idea that we saw over and over again in chapter 10 and we sort of borrowed this verse from chapter 11. If you look at the last verse of chapter 11 verse 31 behold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth much more the wicked and the sinner and that was the idea that we really focused on and we saw that all throughout chapter 10. Well tonight what I want to focus on is the idea of integrity that's something that comes up over and over again in Proverbs chapter number 11 the importance of having integrity look if you would at verse number one there in chapter 11 a false balance is abomination to the Lord but a just weight is his delight you know abomination is a pretty strong word isn't it an abomination is something that the Lord absolutely hates and so this is very strong language what is a false balance a false balance would be someone who is cheating in business right so they have a scale that reads wrong so let's say they're charging you by the pound they're going to give you less than what you're paying for so they're going to cheat you and rip you up and God says that this device a false balance is an abomination to the Lord but a just weight is his delight so God delights in looking down from heaven and seeing someone in business who's actually selling someone a fair product for a fair price or doing a good job and giving people their money's worth people are honest in business God cares about this a lot of times we might get this idea that well there's the secular world and then there's church and religious things and God's really not that worried about what I do on Monday Tuesday Wednesday just at my menial job you know what does he care about the landscaping business or the electrical business or construction or computer programming but you know what God delights in seeing people do a good job at their place of business and most importantly that they have integrity in their business dealings we as Christians should be the most honest people the most forthright people we should have integrity what does integrity mean it means that you adhere to certain principles of ethics or morality that you have a sense of right and wrong and that you have a sense of fair play in short integrity means that you don't cheat and this is something that should characterize us in every area of life whether it's business whether it's our family whether it's church we need to be people who have integrity you know what this is one of the most important things to me personally I think about this all the time I want to have integrity I love that word integrity I think about it all the time and as a pastor I want to be a pastor that has integrity I want our church to have integrity I want our soul winning program to have integrity I want to have integrity in every area if I sit down and play a board game I want to have integrity and those who cheat more than anything else are cheating themselves and cheaters never prosper and cheating is an abomination to the Lord it's also an abomination to me personally I hate cheating okay you know cheating in school is an abomination cheating on your schoolwork if you're homeschooled is an abomination you know God delights in looking down and seeing you actually do things right and do things fairly you know when I was a kid I was like other kids mischievous breaking the rules getting in trouble because foolishness is bound in the heart of a child the bible says right foolishness is bound in the heart of a child but the rod of correction will drive it far from him so when I was a kid I got into trouble I broke rules at school but you know one thing that I could never countenance was cheating I never cheated in school okay I did I broke a lot of other rules that I'm not proud of but I didn't cheat in school and I was that kid who wouldn't let you look at my paper either you know sometimes people want to look at my paper and I'd be kind of like you know covering that up because I don't want you cheating off my paper and you might think oh come on what's the big deal but God looks down from heaven and he is displeased when people cheat in any way shape or form he wants us to have integrity whether it's our job and by the way if you get in the habit of cheating at school you're probably going to grow up and be dishonest at your at your workplace as well and this world is filled with people who have no integrity in business okay look I worked in the business world there were so many people who just didn't pay lied cheated I remember I would go out to these jobs and the panel would be like 30 years old the fire alarm panel and I'd be like hey you guys need a new panel and they'd be like oh this was just replaced a year ago I'm like no it wasn't it's got a date on it it's from the 1980s and then basically they said well look let us show you and they showed you where they'd paid many many thousands of dollars to have the thing replaced and the company just hadn't done the work but they just billed them and charged them all the time I saw stuff like that where people would lie they'd say they changed the batteries and then you go out it's the same old batteries because we're talking big expensive batteries uh just constant lying constant cheating people being dishonest in business you know it's epidemic out there my friend we as Christians need to have integrity okay I would rather lose with integrity than to win by cheating and so a false balance is abomination to the Lord but a just weight is his delight what's he saying he delights in fairness equity justice not this false balance cheating and so forth look at verse number three it says the integrity of the upright shall guide them but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them you see our integrity guides us through life right we have all these decisions what do I do integrity needs to be our guide I need to stop and ask what is the honest thing to do what is the fair thing to do what is the right thing to do and even if it costs us money even if it means we get a bad grade or whatever let the chips fall where they may we need to be honest we need to have integrity what does it mean for a preacher to have integrity it means he preaches the whole bible and that he's not up here telling people what they want to hear but sometimes he has to preach things that are unpopular because it's the right thing to do right be fair the integrity of the upright shall guide them in your life that's my line of business I'm a pastor right I'm about the father's business and you have your line of work but it is just as important for you and your line of work to have integrity as well and not to cut corners do bad work you know take pride in the work that you do and do everything heartily as unto the lord it doesn't matter whether it's secular or spiritual let integrity be your guide okay the perverseness of the transgressors shall destroy them now what does perverseness mean perverseness literally means crookedness that's the literal meaning of that word okay and so there's the one who's crooked he's a crook he's cheating he's dishonest and then there's the one who's upright and has integrity the bible says in verse five the righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness that's pretty similar to what we saw in verse three right being guided directed decisions are made by our integrity right it lets us know what the right thing to do is many decisions for a person with integrity are no decision at all because oh do I look do I lie about it or do I tell the truth you tell the truth right you know do I charge the customer for this part that I didn't install no you charge a fair price for a fair service and you know part of integrity means that when you show up for work you work the time that you're supposed to work you know if you're if you're clocked in for a certain amount of time you actually work that many hours you don't want to pad the hours and and stretch them out and lie about how long you were at the job and so forth it says in verse number six the righteousness of the upright shall deliver them but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness and and again what the bible is saying is that if you cheat eventually it's going to catch up to you and you're going to be the one who loses you're cheating yourself you know think about all these athletes who've cheated but look how often they get caught right they're taking steroids performance enhancing drugs they're getting blood transfusions in the middle of the night they're doing all of these sketchy things in order to win the tour de france or whatever but it's not worth it they're going to be taken in their own naughtiness be sure your sin will find you out lance armstrong and all the rest of these people that were taking all these drugs and cheating and lied about it and tried to justify their sin but you know what they all eventually got outed and uh you know lance armstrong also lost one of his stones over it because of the fact that that's what that stuff does to your body when you're taking all those hormones and steroids and stuff like that and so he paid a pretty big price for that not to mention being publicly humiliated and called out and so you know you cheat at your schoolwork eventually that's going to catch up with you because here's the thing about cheating at your schoolwork you're the one who ends up being dumb you know oh man i fooled the teacher and i fooled my parents and you know i didn't actually learn how to do math well the joke's on you because now you're the one who's uneducated and ignorant you're the one whose brain isn't functioning at a high level because you skipped all the hard work in school you know the other kid who's actually doing the math and doing the english and doing the history and science and actually having integrity and not cheating and just copying answers or whatever you know he's actually going to succeed in life because he's going to have a brain in his head and he's going to be able to succeed at whatever he puts his hand to whereas the one who cheats in school and and you know graduates high school barely knowing how to read or whatever the joke's on him isn't it because he's the one who's going to fail in life and so you're only cheating yourself when you cheat the bible says the righteous is delivered actually let's back up i skipped one look at verse number seven it says when a wicked man dieth his expectation shall perish and the hope of unjust men perisheth the righteous is delivered out of trouble and the wicked cometh in his stead meaning that the righteous delivered out of trouble and then the wicked guy falls into that trap that the righteous was delivered from verse number nine a hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbor but through knowledge shall the just be delivered so the hypocrite the faker right he destroys his neighbor with his mouth but it says that through knowledge shall the just be delivered so again if you are a cheater on your schoolwork as a kid you're not gonna have the knowledge to deliver you you're gonna end up failing and getting hurt and making mistakes and getting ripped off for the rest of your life okay see i walk into a car dealer or something i'm not gonna get ripped off because i can do the math when they're coming at me with how much it costs and the payments and the interest rate i'm not just like oh okay whatever sometimes they're just lying and and cheating and and sometimes the math isn't adding up you know i i get all these calls from my lender on my house so you know i own a home and i've got a 30-year mortgage and everything like that and so you know they call me up and they want me to refinance and they just lie about it and they they come at you with all these numbers that are false and i'm on the phone with them and i've got a pen and paper and a calculator and i'm explaining to them like you're stealing from me like this no they'll flat out just lie to you and if you know math you'll be able to tell that they're lying and you'll be like no thanks i'll stick with my existing loan thank you very much but of course they want you to refinance and pay thousands of extra dollars in interest and and you know uh pay all the i mean i they were trying to offer me some deal where like i was going to be losing money for like the next like 17 years or something before it would begin to help me a tiny bit it's just like no this is stupid and then they want to add like six or seven grand to the principal it was just like but you know that they could just pull the wool over people's eyes with this stuff and people will just fall for it because they don't really understand the math and i literally i was trying to explain it to the salesman on the phone i don't think he understood i think he slept through math class because i was explaining it to him and it was going over his head like why what he was offering me was a bad deal but he's probably just reading off some script that some guy is in a back room somewhere like you know you know i'm not going to mention uh what type of person that probably is in that back room what religion they probably are but um you know jewish but anyway uh you know coming up with these scamming predatory lending type deals you know he's probably just reading a script or whatever but you know if you if you go through life without knowing math you're the one that's going to get ripped off if you go through life not learning the basic teachings that your parents are trying to give you in homeschooling or that uh whatever the school you go to is teaching you you know you're the one that's not going to be able to function in modern america without the basic language math science skills that you need the joke is on you through knowledge you will be delivered from a lot of things in life okay the bible says in verse number 17 the wicked worketh a deceitful work but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward okay so the wicked work of the deceitful work so he goes to work and you know he lies about how many devices there are and he says that he changed the panel he didn't do anything he says he changed the batteries and whatever and he's working a deceitful work but to him that so with righteousness shall be a sure reward you know i had a guy working for me and he was constantly uh lying about changing batteries and eventually i figured out that he was lying about it and i let the guy go and so that's not that's not a a sure uh reward right there right because it says you know the wicked work at a deceitful work but to him that so with righteousness shall be a sure reward you know if you actually do things right with integrity and work hard and you're honest maybe you won't make as much money in the short term because you're not lying and cheating and deceiving but in the long term you're going to have a sure reward okay you're going to prosper in the long run you know we had to go i'll talk about this now since the company doesn't even exist anymore but uh fries electronics right down here you know we had a bunch of guys from our church that worked at fries electronics at one point and you know there were a lot of salesmen down there that were just being dishonest and you know sometimes there were incentives to sell people not the best computer but the computer that made the company the most money even if it was an inferior product even if it was not really what the person needed but you know we had some guys from our church that worked down there and they just had an attitude that said you know what i'm gonna do i'm just gonna sell people what i believe is the best product that they are actually looking for i'm just gonna have integrity and just tell the truth and just you know if they come in and say this is the laptop i need or whatever you know i'm gonna tell them the truth about it and i'm gonna set them up with what i would want because what is the golden rule my friend it's therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you do you even so to them for this is the law and the profits so if you walked into fries electronics do you want somebody to sell you something that you don't need something that doesn't have what you do need and it has a bunch of stuff that you don't need because they're just trying to make the maximum commission or would you want someone to actually show you the best product for you and so we had some guys at our church and i talked about this with them and and and uh kind of how the company incentivized certain things and they just made a decision and they said you know what when i deal with these customers i'm just gonna sell them whatever is the right product for them and care about them and take care of them like they were my friend or something and then whatever the commission is even if it's no commission or super low commission whatever because sometimes the best deals paid no commission because the company is not making as much money on the come-on deal and you know people like this when i talk to them you know brother sigora was one of them you know he used to work there a long time ago and and and you know i remember these guys basically telling me stories about how god would just bless them for doing that where they would they would sell somebody the best deal laptop even though it didn't really pay commission but then they'd end up you know getting warranties and getting other things and buying other things and it just seemed like god blessed them and they actually ended up making more than some of the slimier salesmen around them who were just trying to just make the maximum buck off every transaction instead of actually just trying to do a good job and sell people what they need and what they want and actually uh you know give people the treatment that they would want to receive okay this is the way we need to live our lives as christians you know christianity yeah it's about reading your bible it's about praying it's about going to church it's about preaching the gospel to every creature but you know what christianity is also just about being a good person it's about being a good person it's about being a good brother a good sister a good parent a good child and it's about being a good salesman meaning one with integrity it's about being a good employee it's about being a good employer it's just about being a nice person an honest person a good person you know we don't want to have this attitude of well i'm a good christian because i read my bible and pray and go to church and i'm really involved in a faithful word well you know but if you're if you're really a good christian that should permeate into every area of your life and just give you integrity whatever you do well i get so upset sometimes just about how many just charlatans and frauds and scams there are in this world doesn't it just drive you nuts doesn't it drive it's just every single day multiple times a day my phone rings it says scam likely and it's just like it just keeps doing it's just like scam likely scan i'm just so used to it's just like autopilot you're just like decline decline but i mean my phone number's kind of been dragged through the mud a little bit so i might get more calls like this than you but who gets scam likely calls every single day well that makes me feel better you know it's not just me but i'm getting these calls every day and sometimes i just i just get angry and i just think to myself like why are there so many people out there trying to rip me off and i get text messages like i got a text message telling me oh your banking website is you're locked out you know you need to sign in and fix it click this link just i'm just getting scam texts scam phone calls scam emails there's always some company that's trying to sell you some bogus product some bogus whatever and it's just like ah there's so many fake scams out there and so many frauds and then think about church i mean think about how many phony preachers there are or how many preachers lie and just teach false doctrine they know they're lying they know it's a false doctrine but they just teach it because they know it's what people want to hear they know it's what gets them paid it's sick it's evil right how many people pretend to know things that they don't actually know anything about you know i can't even count how many people have come in here and and put themselves forth as like some kind of a hebrew expert or they you know they know all these languages and then i'll just start talking to them in that language oh well i mean how many pastors get up and say you know well you know if you go back to the greek it means x y and z and they literally couldn't even read the menu in a greek restaurant like they couldn't even they don't even know the basics of the language they couldn't even count to 10 in greek but they just get up and just pretend to know these things they just lie about it and it's just it's like that in every you know that's something i noticed because i'm a pastor so you know i i noticed that but i'm sure you notice it too when you're an electrician or a plumber or just how many frauds are out there how many charlatans how many fakes are out there doesn't just drive you nuts well guess who else finds it abomination the lord okay he wants us to have integrity and that means that if we're supposed to be an expert at something we better actually learn the material you know if we're supposed to be doing a certain job we do that job with integrity we do it right we do it heartily we don't cheat we don't cut corners eventually you're going to get caught not only that but the lord is displeased and that's the most important thing so don't work a deceitful work sow righteousness and receive that sure reward of sowing righteousness that's verse 18 verse 19 says as righteousness tendeth to life so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death at the end of the day you know i'm getting mad all these people these scam likely and all the frauds and charlatans that are out there but you know what at the end of the day those people are the ones who are going to suffer in reality i feel sorry for them because their life is going to be so bad and so miserable and i don't even care how much money they make even if they make a bunch of money by selling some lying folk fake you know bogus product i don't care how much money they make because you know what god's going to punish them and eventually it's going to come back and bite them you know they are the ones who are doing something that's an abomination to the lord and they're going to pay for it and you know he that pursue with evil pursue with it to his own death you know it says in verse 20 they that are of a froward heart are abomination to the lord but such as are upright in their way are his delight so it's not even just the action where god says you know that a false balance is an abomination the just weight is his delight now he makes it personal they they're of a froward heart those people are abomination to the lord and such as are upright in the way the people that are upright in their way are his delight right god delights in people who are upright in their way upright in their way okay this is kind of a silly illustration but let me tell you about a business that just lacked integrity and just ripped off millions of kids across america okay we're going to go back in time the power glove who knows what i'm talking about with the nintendo power glove okay so a few people are going to get this illustration there's about 15 of us the rest of you can just listen in okay let me tell you something when i was a kid this thing came out it was called the power glove and this thing was way ahead of its time only one problem it didn't work if it would have worked it would have been awesome but did it do it did not work at all it did not work whatsoever okay and so this is what happened you know here we are and and i don't remember exactly what year this was i want to say this probably around like 1990 you know don't quote me on that but it's real close to 1990 maybe 91 around that time but there was this one christmas when everybody wanted the power glove and this hollywood movie came out that glorified the power glove and on this hollywood movie the power glove just worked perfectly on the movie and this kid you know pulls out his power glove and he's using and it was basically like what would later be the nintendo we isn't that the one where like you you you move your hand around and whatever so this was that except in 1990 it was this glove and you just play the video game with your hand like you can move it around whatever it did not work at all like it didn't work a little bit it just didn't work it was horrible i can't even express to you what a failure it was the movie was lying the commercials were lying the company was lying but here's the thing when i was a kid man i wanted the power glove so bad and all my friends we all wanted the power glove so bad and and you know what all the spoiled brats they got the power glove you know the kids whose parents get them whatever so i had a friend that was a spoiled brat and so he of course got the power glove when it came out and i was like i gotta come over to your house i gotta try the power glove like ask your parents if i can come over you know like what you know you know because it was like he went to church with me so i was like you know i'll go home with you after the sunday morning service i can come back for the evening service and so i got to and he's like you don't want to do the power glove because it's garbage and i went over to his house and i experienced it for myself the power glove didn't work at all so i watched this documentary about the power glove okay there's a whole documentary about it okay and and here's what happened the guy who invented the thing was a genius and he invented a power glove that worked perfectly okay but here was the only problem it cost nine thousand dollars to manufacture each unit so to make one was nine grand so then the company that it was like mattell or hasbro or whatever here's what they said they said hey we need you to get this down like you know to like 40 bucks or something so it cost nine grand to make it the right way and it's like we need you to make it for 40 bucks or whatever because they want to sell it for 100 bucks so basically what they ended up having to do is just basically just completely throw out everything about the design that worked and just make some janky piece of junk that didn't work and here's what see a lot of you kids probably don't really understand this story that i'm telling right now and here's why you don't understand the story because today if something doesn't work what do you do let's ask a child who's 10 years old put up your hand okay uh what do you do if you bought something that didn't work what would you do you just return it is that what the rest of you kids are thinking you have to understand this is 1990 you don't return stuff stores don't take returns oh you open the package you can't return it does anybody remember those days this isn't amazon this isn't walmart you didn't return you can't return things they don't take returns so this company literally sold millions of these things and they made a profit of like 35 or 40 million dollars on a product that did not work no one was happy there was not one child on this planet who was satisfied with the power glove except on that movie you know and that's because that's a movie so it's all lies now you say why are you telling this big long story about the power glove because it just illustrates how you know a company can make millions of dollars selling junk that doesn't work and you know what i guarantee you though that those people got punished somehow you know because god looks down and he sees that and they might have just been laughing all the way to the bank like hey well we made 30 million dollars who cares if we ruined all these kids christmas and and you know mess with they're spoiled anyway that's why their parents even bought them the power glove who received a power glove as a kid who actually owned a power glove did anyone here see that that's they're not in church tonight because they were too they're spoiled brats none of us got the power glove that's why we're here that's why we love the lord because our parents didn't just give us everything we had to go over to our buddy's house to play the power glove and realize what a worthless piece of junk it was and after 20 minutes say unplug that stupid thing hand me a controller give me a game controller get this thing out of my what i don't think anybody's suit we need a class action lawsuit right now no i don't think the company got sued my understanding from the documentary that i watched and i watched it years ago but my understanding for the documentary was that the company just made millions of dollars ruined everybody's christmas and it was just like they never really paid for it yeah exactly but maybe the kids aren't in church because they're too damaged from the bad experience with the power glove but the point is that you know you may think like oh they got away with it look i don't believe that anybody gets away with anything in life you know what i mean because if that's the way you live your life and that's how you make money and i'm just using that as an illustration okay but you can think of all the other examples in your own life if that's how you make money selling people bad products that don't work selling lies and cheating and stealing and whatever if that's how you go through life making a living i promise you god will punish you for that and i promise you that the creators of the power glove or the people who sold that junky version of the power glove you know i guarantee that god punished those people or or he's going to okay you say well pastor anderson you're being ridiculous right now god doesn't care about the power glove let me tell you something god cares about every single person who lies and cheats and steals in this world the hairs of our head are numbered if a sparrow doesn't fall to the ground without god knowing about it i promise you that every shady dealer every scammer everybody who lies and cheats and steals for money is going to pay for it even if it's something as silly as a video game they lied they cheated they ripped people off they banked on the fact that no one can return it because if returns would have been allowed back then it wouldn't have worked everybody would have just gotten that box put it back in and sent it back to amazon and said nope i want my money back but let me tell you something god will punish these people if if they're saved you know they're gonna get scourged my friend on this earth and if they're not saved that's one of the things they're gonna be paying for at that white throne of judgment is that they stole money from people and they lied and didn't have integrity that's gonna be one of the sins but you know it's like their hell's gonna be a little hotter because of that whole power glove fiasco okay and you know what i am not kidding right now i mean i know it's funny but i'm actually dead serious right now okay i am dead serious and i hope you understand that i'm serious i hope you understand and i hope that this sticks in your mind this is why i'm using this illustration that's kind of silly that's kind of out there because i want you to understand that what you do on thursday morning at your job god is paying attention if you're a liar and a cheat and if you're stealing you're gonna pay for it period okay it's an abomination to god god loves it when people do a good job and have integrity and do and he hates the stealing and the cheating and the scamming he absolutely hates it and i hope you know that i am as serious as a heart attack up here telling you this i'm it's funny but at the same time it's real it's serious okay i mean it that those people who did pulled off this power glove scam are wicked okay they should just realize hey it costs nine thousand dollars to make maybe we just can't make it or maybe we just have to sell it for ten thousand dollars or whatever and some spoiled brat's still gonna get it but no they they they lied to everybody they they they used hollywood to to spread their lie about that power glove that you know oh i love the power glove it's so bad yeah it was bad all right it's a different kind of bad all right back to the word of god here i hope you take that seriously the wicked work of the deceitful work verse 18 but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward as righteousness tend to the light life so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death right he's hurting himself if he does evil to other people and hurts other people that's going to come back around because you reap what you sow they that have a froward heart are abomination to the lord but such as are upright in their way are his delight though hand join in hand think of like a business handshake some corporate deal that's made between hasbro and nintendo or mattell or whoever it was though hand join in hand the wicked shall not be unpunished but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered though hand join in hand the wicked shall not be unpunished right you're not going to get away with it it's not worth it to cheat you need to just make an honest living verse 22 as a jewel of gold and a swine snout so is a fair woman which is without discretion now that verse right there might not really on the surface seem like it has a lot to do with our integrity theme tonight right we're talking about having integrity and being honest and being fair but if you think about it you know part of having integrity is that what you see is what you get right part of integrity is truth in advertising that when something looks a certain way right you expect it to be actually the real deal and you know what the bible is saying here is as a jewel of gold and a swine snout so is a fair woman without discretion a fair woman there fair is referring to her beauty it's basically saying a beautiful woman who has no discretion it's like putting a jewel of gold in a swine snout meaning that it's still ugly okay if you took a pig an ugly dirty pig and then you decorate it with a little jewelry it's still going to be ugly am i right and here's what the bible is saying you know a beaut a physically beautiful woman who has no integrity who isn't the real deal who is not godly who is not righteous who does not have the good qualities that you would look for in a woman she's ugly still right she's like that pig with a jewel in its snout so you know women should seek to have integrity themselves look what the bible says in verse 16 a gracious woman retaineth honor and strong men retain riches what's the bible saying that a woman should hold on to her honor just like a strong man is going to guard his wealth he's going to guard his castle he's not going to let somebody come and steal from him and rob him if he's a strong man he could be able to defend his goods well the bible is saying that the gracious woman is going to retain her honor in the way that a strong man retains his riches she's going to guard that treasure of her honor and you know here's another word for honor integrity okay women need to have honor and integrity not to be just a facade and you know women they care a lot about their outward appearance don't they women are way more into their appearance than men are men usually aren't that into their appearance or at least they shouldn't be okay you know women they care about how they look but you know you ladies need to make sure that when you make the outside look good you better actually have something worth decorating on the inside that you actually have honor and that you actually have integrity and that you actually have discretion and godliness and righteousness and virtue on the inside so that you're not basically just a lying advertisement basically making yourself look so good on the outside when in reality you're toxic you're rotten you're ugly you have an ugly personality right you have an ugly character no no work on actually having your inside match your outside you know as you beautify the outside make sure that you're spending time on the inside you know it doesn't matter how much time you spend making yourself look good on the outside what really matters is how much time did you spend reading the bible how much time did you spend praying to the lord how much time did you spend actually learning how to be a good wife a good homemaker a good mother you know you young ladies that are teenagers or uh even younger than that even just young girls in the home you know you should be learning how to grow up and be a woman with some actual skills like the virtuous woman right and you're kind of learning how to take care of the house learning how to cook learning how to take care of the baby also you know you're doing your school work as well and actually working on learning the type of things that are going to make you a good home economist right because you know my wife she doesn't just cook and clean she runs the household what does the bible say guide the house says that women should guide the house and so in many ways i end up being sometimes like pada far you know where it's like okay this is my food that's on my plate but it's joseph that's making it all happen behind the scenes and so wives need to be smart enough to actually do the math and figure out what's on sale what grocery store to shop at you know they got to be able to double that recipe or in our case you know multiply that recipe by a thousand or whatever you know they got to be able to double triple quadruple that recipe and last time i checked cookbooks are filled with fractions and they need to be able to do that math they need to be able to figure that out they need to be able to balance the budget balance the checkbook right i mean who wants to be married to a wife that overdraws the account because she can't do math huh you want you want to pay those bank fees 30 bucks a transaction 40 bucks a transaction for every single transaction because your pretty little wife can't do math and overdraws the bank account no and so you young ladies you know make sure that you grow up and you're honest and you have integrity and that you are a virgin when you get married and that you actually have qualities that will help you to be a good wife and a good mother so that the man who marries you will rise up and call you blessed not be cursing you under his breath and wishing that he never married you because oh you're so beautiful but you're an adulterous or you're bad with the household or because you cheated your way through school so you're dumb as a brick you know because you uh are lying to him all the time who wants their wife to lie to them all the time right you want your wife to tell the truth you wanted to do a good job have some skills right and so you in short want a woman with integrity and so it's important that we as men in business have integrity but it's important that our wives have integrity too you know when i have breakfast lunch and dinner at my house i want it to be a meal with integrity right i want it to be quality i want it to be homemade you know i want it to be good ingredients i want it to be well prepared not just phoned in so that my wife could just watch more soap operas or play more candy crush or you know dust off that old power glove and you know throw it at the wall and curse it you know we need to have integrity people right we want to be the real deal what does integrity mean it means being real not just an outward facade that looks good on the outside bad on the inside want to be the real deal want to be honest not cheat not falsely advertise who we are the bible says in verse 23 the desire of the righteous is only good but the expectation of the wicked is wrath there is that scatterth and yet increaseth and there is that withholdeth more than his meat but attendeth to poverty think about that the one that scatterth and yet increases what does it mean to scatter in this context it means being generous there's the guy who's generous and and you know he ends up prospering but then there's the one who withholds more than his meat think of like an employer maybe holding back on the paycheck you know the bible says in james chapter 5 behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud crieth and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the lord of sabaoth what's he saying he's saying you know these employers that are shortchanging their employees and then the employees get ripped off the lord hears those cries and god says he's going to punish them he's going to bring wrath upon them for withholding for keeping back by fraud withholding more than his meat meat means appropriate fitting suitable withholding more than is appropriate basically cheating their employees not giving them what they've actually earned the bible says that there is that withholdeth more than his meat but attended to poverty you know that guy's going to go out of business the guy who's ripping off his employees and stealing from them why because of the judgment of god because the wrath of god upon him he's going to end up in poverty god's going to punish him and the person who does right the person who has integrity is going to be blessed the person who scatters and is generous and open-handed is going to increase the bible says he that withholdeth corn the people shall curse him but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it now why would someone withhold corn instead of selling it you know what this is this is someone who doesn't put their product out to the market because of the fact that the price is too low so they hoard it all and they want to create and manufacture a fake shortage right so hey let's keep all the corn in the barn let's create a shortage and then everybody will freak out and then we can sell it for more money later you know the bible says no god's going to bless you when you just grow the corn and just sell it but when you withhold the corn the people are going to curse you blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it he that diligently seeketh good procureth favor but he that seeketh mischief it shall come to him he that trusteth in his riches shall fall but the righteous shall flourish as a branch so the people who do right and have integrity and have fairness and you know just manufacture a good product and sell it go to work clock in and put in a good honest day's work those kind of people are going to flourish and thrive and god's going to make sure that it's so whereas the people that are uh finding all these mischievous ways to cut corners and be dishonest they're eventually going to reap what they've sown and so tonight i want you to decide that you're going to make integrity a big part of your life and just everything you do you're just going to do the best and you know what this is a habit that should carry over to every part of our life even if it's something that doesn't even matter you know if i go to the gym i'm not going to do partial reps at the gym because i have too much integrity to do that even if no one's watching why because i don't want to be in this person that's just in the habit of cutting corners and cheating all the time so even something stupid like that that doesn't matter bodily exercise probably a little but you know what i don't want to cheat and cut corners you know if i'm if i do a push-up i'm gonna go all the way down and come all the way back up even if i'm by myself why because i just don't want to become a person who just does things halfway and cheats and cuts corners i just want to do things the right way just we we should strive for excellence in every area of life just always doing things the right way even things that don't even matter just be a person who just has integrity and just does the whole thing and just doesn't cheat just is honest just be a person and you know what that integrity the bible says is going to be your guide and it's going to direct you and it's going to bring you good places in life whereas not having integrity is going to take you all the wrong places let's borrow that word of prayer father we thank you so much for this chapter lord and the wisdom here in the book of proverbs lord i pray that all of us would have integrity and please lord just reward those who do have integrity lord and punish those who are cheaters lord and that are scammers and all these phone calls and text messages and emails of all the frauds and scammers out there lord i pray that you would just punish them and destroy them lord and that you would honor those who put in a good day's work and help them to have the money that they need to pay their bills lord in these in these uh times of inflation lord i pray that every single person who's in the auditorium tonight who actually works hard at their job and has integrity lord i pray that you just bless them and help them be able to make ends meet and in jesus name we pray amen