(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

You say, amen. Man, Proverbs chapter number 17, we're more than halfway through the book of Proverbs. And this is such an important book because it's filled with so much life wisdom that if you'll actually listen to the things that are taught in this book, you're gonna save so much trouble in life and so much pain and suffering from just bad decisions. And so, especially as a young person, listen to what the book of Proverbs is saying because this advice is going to work in your life. And so if you're smart, you'll listen to what God has to say and you'll follow the advice in this book. Listen to the Bible, listen to your parents, listen to preaching and save yourself from all of the bad things that Proverbs warns are gonna happen to you if you don't listen to these things. So it starts out in verse number one here. Better is a dry morsel and quietness there with than a house full of sacrifices with strife. Now, obviously when we're talking about a house full of sacrifices, we're talking about animal sacrifices, we're talking about meat. So the idea is all kinds of meat and flesh, steaks and just really rich food versus just a dry breadcrumb, just a dry crust of bread, something boring and plain. He's saying, you know what? You'd rather have the dry morsel and quietness there with than a house full of sacrifices with strife, with discord, anger, bitterness, hatred in the home, ruins everything. And so there's so much that we can get from this verse. First of all, that money isn't everything. Money doesn't buy you happiness in life because obviously money is gonna fill your house with all of the delicacies and the sacrifices and the food. But if you have bad relationships with the people in your home, you'd rather be poor and have really cheap food, but actually have a house filled with love and everybody gets along and everybody's happy. And so money can't buy happiness in this life. And so many people, they think that if they just have more money, everything in their life will be great, but it isn't true. Some of the richest people are the most miserable people because they don't have actual love in their lives. They don't have Christ in their hearts. So their life in many ways is vain. But even as saved Christians, we don't wanna fall into this trap in thinking that money is gonna somehow fix everything in our life or make us happy. If you're poor, don't complain about it. Just be content with such things as you have and just value the people in your life that God has blessed you with. And you say, well, I don't have any people in my life. Well, then you can be really quiet with your dry morsel because nobody's making any noise around you, right? At least it's better to be alone than to be in a house full of strife and contention and hatred and variance. So the Bible says better is a dry morsel and quietness there with than a house full of sacrifices with strife. Here's another point from this verse. Don't be the person who creates strife and friction and anger in your home. Be a peacemaker in your home so that other people can enjoy their food and so that other people can be happy. Don't be someone who brings contention and strife into the home. You know, the Bible says it's better to dwell in the corner of the housetop than with a contentious woman in a wide house, okay? That a continual dropping on a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. That's what the Bible says. So don't be argumentative. Don't be contentious. Obviously it's talking about women, but it could go both ways. Obviously dudes could be argumentative and contentious and annoying as well. And so I wanna make sure that we are not the source of strife in our home. Be a peacemaker who resolves conflict, not someone who creates conflict in your house. The Bible says in verse two, a wise servant shall have rule over a son that cause its shame and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren. What the Bible is saying here is that merit is what is going to determine where we go in life, not just what position we were born into, okay? So if you're born into a certain family, that doesn't necessarily guarantee you success. If you're the pastor's child, or if you're the child of some godly involved Christian or a deacon's child or something, that doesn't guarantee that you are going to succeed because a son that causes shame, his parents aren't gonna do anything for him, right? His parents are gonna cut him out of the will. His parents are gonna not bless him. Whereas the servant, the Bible says, shall have rule over a son that causes shame. So the person who is born into a situation where he's just a servant, maybe a slave, whatever, he could actually go further in life than the kid who's born with the silver spoon in his mouth, but squanders that legacy by being a son that causes shame. The wise servant shall have rule over a son that causes shame and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren. He's saying, you know, if you're a servant and you do a good job and you love your master, you could actually climb the ladder and end up inheriting among the sons of the family. Now let's jump forward in the chapter to another verse that we could kind of tie in with that. Look at verse 21. He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow and the father of a fool hath no joy. That's a pretty strong statement, isn't it? The father of a fool hath no joy. Now we could compare this with the New Testament statement. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. So on the one hand, the greatest joy is to have children that walk in truth. And then the father of the fool has no joy. So you can see how depressing it is for parents when their children are idiots, because that's what fool means, right? It means someone who's stupid or someone who's an idiot. And you can see how depressing this is that the father of the fool had no joy, right? He that beget the fool doeth it to his own sorrow. And if you think about that with verse one, it's like better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith. Even if you have money and success and everything, but if your kids are idiots, it could be so depressing you could just ruin everything and just suck all the joy out of your life. And so we need to do our best to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And you kids need to realize that when you go out and do stupid things and mess up your life, it's very depressing for your parents. And you should love your parents and wanna honor your father and mother and not be a source of pain and frustration in their lives. First of all, God's not gonna bless you if that's what you do to your parents, if you torment your parents. And so you're gonna be cursed, you're gonna reap the whirlwind, but you should love your parents anyway and wanna make them proud and wanna make them happy and wanna do things that they would approve of and that would make them actually proud of you as opposed to being ashamed of you. Don't be a son that causes shame. Don't be that joy-sucking, disobedient child that just ruins the lives of their parents, okay? And so it's a pretty strong statement when it says the father of a fool has no joy. Or you could be the greatest joy to your parents if they see you walking in truth. You could bring them supreme joy. And it's interesting, the very next verse says, he that begateth a fool doeth it to his sorrow and the father of a fool hath no joy. Then it immediately says, a merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bone. So being a source of pain and frustration to your parents can literally harm their health and just suck the life out of their bones and make them miserable. So back to the beginning of the chapter, it says a wise servant shall have rule over a son that causes shame and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren. The fining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord trieth the hearts. Now, what is this talking about? Well, the fining pot, we would say in our modern vernacular, refining, right? The Bible just says fining. But what we're talking about is just a purifying process of refining gold or refining silver, meaning taking out the impurities. And so the fining pot is where you would heat it up really hot so that you could separate the silver from the dross, separate the gold from any impurities. And the Bible says that the Lord does that with our hearts. The Lord trieth the hearts. You know, elsewhere in the book of Psalms it says, the Lord trieth the righteous, but the wicked in him that loveth violence is soul hated. And so those whom God loves, those whom God wants to bless, he tries them. He purifies them, right? Every branch in Jesus Christ that brings forth fruit, he purges it so that it can bring forth more fruit. And so God works in our lives and he puts us through fire. He puts us through heat. He puts us through trials and tribulations so that he can purify us and make us better so that we could grow and be more pure and bring forth more fruit. Just like the fining pot is for silver, the Lord trieth the hearts. The Bible says in verse four, a wicked doer giveth he to false lips and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue. So birds of a feather flock together. And also when you are on the receiving end of lies and slander and gossip, you're somewhat guilty as well because you're that wicked doer who gives heed to false lips. You're that liar that gives ear to a naughty tongue. So not only do we not wanna produce lies and slander, we also don't wanna sit and listen to it and be on the receiving end of it or enjoy it. We should actually shut people down when they try to come at us with unsubstantiated rumors, lies, slanders, criticisms of good people. We need to shut that down immediately. The Bible says in verse five, the one who so mocketh the poor reproacheth his maker. And he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished. Well, what a scary thing to be looking down on people who are suffering or laughing at people who are going through something bad, like somebody gets hurt. And in our society, sometimes there's this attitude that just thinks it's funny to watch people be destroyed or to get hurt or something. Like sometimes they'll have these videos where it's just like a compilation of people getting hurt really bad. And people will watch this and enjoy it and laugh at it. And I can understand it, like if people are watching a video and people slip and fall and it's funny, but if the people actually get hurt, it's not funny at all. Sometimes I've even seen where they'll play clips like that and then they'll have a little disclaimer like, hey, this guy didn't get hurt at all. And then you're kind of like, okay, that I can laugh at that then because nobody actually got hurt. But there's no way I would ever laugh if somebody was actually really injured or suffering because we don't wanna be one who laughs at calamities. He that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished. Don't mock people who are suffering financially, who are suffering because they've been injured or hurt in some way. Because God could see you having that kind of attitude and then he'll put you through the same thing and then we'll see if you're laughing about it now. And so we wanna stay humble. And when we see the car accident, when we see someone die young, when we see bad things happen to someone, we should always think to ourselves, but for the grace of God, there go I. And we should always pause and reflect about how transient our own successes and our own prosperity and our own good health, and just thank God every day that we're healthy and safe and we should fear God. And when we see bad things happening to other people, we should always realize that we could be next. And so we need to serve God with fear and trembling, not enjoy seeing other people fail because God could see that and he could bring those same calamities upon us if we upset the Lord. Because the Bible says he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished. God's saying like, I will punish you if you're glad at calamities. So that's a pretty chilling verse when you think about that. It says in verse six, children's children are the crown of old men and the glory of children are their fathers. And so of course, old people wanna have grandchildren. So in order to have grandchildren, you have to have children yourself. And you also have to have children who want to have children, okay? Unfortunately, today we live in a society that does not value having children like they should. The Bible says children are in heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath this quiver full of them. They should not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. And so children are a blessing from God. It used to be a blessing, be fruitful. God blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply and repunish the earth. I love it when Isaac marries Rebecca and they are kind of sending Rebecca off and they give her this blessing. Be thou the mother of thousands of millions. I mean, can you imagine that in a wedding announcement or a wedding congratulations like, be thou the mother of thousands of millions. I mean, that's a pretty crazy number. Those are called billions. And so, you know, throughout the word of God, having children, being fruitful, bringing forth fruit, even in old age is considered a blessing from God. But in our society, people find out that you have a lot of kids. There's like, oh, your poor wife, oh, you know. People ask me like, does your wife want to have all those kids? I just had, I had somebody ask me that literally like a few weeks ago. Like, but did your wife want to have all those kids? I'm like, well, I don't know, you know, I hope so. Otherwise she's, you know, she must not be very happy right now. But what a question, you know, in reality, having children is a joy. Now you say, well, yeah, but the father of a fool have no joy. But see, a lot of the reason why people are freaked out by big families is because their one kid is out of control or their two kids are out of control. And so they look at that and then they're kind of just like doing the math, like, okay, well, here's my situation. Let me just multiply that times five. Oh man, you know, what in the world? And, you know, of course the media and everybody tries to make it out like, oh, it's just so crazy to have a big family and they promote having a smaller family. And in our society now, you know, people just don't want to have a lot of children. But here's the thing about that is that you could say, well, if I have a lot of children, I'm increasing the chances that one of them is going to be a total idiot. Then I'm going to beget that fool and have no joy, okay. But here's another way of looking, instead of saying like, oh, well, you know, by having so many kids, right, then it's just more problems and more headaches. But at the same time, let's say you only have one kid and they turn out to be a complete idiot. You have all your eggs in that one basket. Now you're not getting any grandchildren or you're not, you know, you're not going to get any joy out of having a righteous son or daughter. Whereas if you have a lot of kids, you know, you have a lot more chances for grandchildren and for children growing up and serving God and doing great things for God and loving the Lord with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, because you've got more kids. You don't just have one or two. You know, in today's world, also, by the way, you know, if you just have one child, listen, if God only gives you one child, then that's God's will, and I'm not down on that. If you have two children, because that's all God gave you, amen. I'm not down on that. But I believe that we should have as many children as God gives us, okay? And if God blesses us with more children, we should have more children, okay? Because that's the way the Bible looks at things, that more children are a blessing, be fruitful and multiply. And so if that's what God blessed you with, amen, okay? But if you just have one kid, because you're like, well, I'm just gonna have this one kid, because I wanna just give it everything. I wanna give it all my attention, and I wanna just give it all the material things that I didn't have growing up or whatever, you're probably gonna raise that kid to be a total spoiled brat, okay? Because here's the thing about having a lot of kids, they kind of have to learn how to play ball. They kind of have to learn how to get along with other people, and they learn pretty quick that the universe doesn't revolve around them, because there is a lot of competition for attention in that house. And so if you just say, oh, I just wanna have one kid so I can give it all my attention, well, what if giving your kid too much attention could cause them to become maybe prideful, arrogant, self-centered, conceited, thinking that the world revolves around them, because it's all about them. You say, well, I just don't know, Pastor Anderson, if you're able to give sufficient attention unto your children, because you have so many children. Well, you know, if they get a little less attention, good, because then maybe they won't grow up just thinking that everybody's just at their beck and call, and maybe they're gonna have to pitch in and do some housework and help each other out and realize that sometimes they have to wait their turn and get along with other people and learn how to be a part of the team. You know, when you have a big family, you have to run a tight ship. You just have to. Like maybe you have the option of letting your kids run amuck when there's one or two of them, but when you have 10, 11, 12 kids, it's like, you better get it together, folks, or else they're gonna burn the place down. And so, you know, because the stakes are just so much higher. And so today's generation, they have that one kid, they have those two kids. Well, here's the thing. What happens when they're one kid, especially if they're not bringing them up in church, if they're not raising them around the things of God, if they're not teaching them the Bible, you know, worldly, unsafe people out there in just 2022 America with their one kid, and then it grows up to be some purple-haired, nose-ring lesbian, and then they don't get any grandkids and they just have some lesbian freak as their only offspring. What in the world? But that's the reality today of many people today that are just living for themselves and just having their token one child or token two children or whatever. And, you know, all they get is that one kid with the metallic boogers, you know, explaining to them why they're not reproducing, okay? And I know this has nothing to do with the sermon, but why do people think it's attractive to have a metallic booger in their nose? Can someone explain this to me? Who knows what I'm talking about? It's everywhere now. I don't know if this, it seems like the last few years, this has really taken off, and it's just like a metallic booger in each nostril. It looks stupid. It looks weird. I mean, at least we know you don't pick your nose because you couldn't. You can't even get your finger in your nose if you needed to. So, I mean, I don't, like, who comes up with this stuff? And I wonder, like, does everybody just do it because they just see other people doing it and they just kind of jump on that bandwagon and they just follow the, it's like, oh, you have a little metallic, because literally I look at people and I think that I need to offer them a tissue or something, I think that they just have a big old booger in their nose and it's a piece of metal inside their nose, like a little metal ball in each nostril. It's a metallic booger is what it is. That's not what your parents want to see. That's not what grandparents want. They want you to grow up and be a normal person and they want you to reproduce. They want you to grow up and be a normal person and marry and bear children and guide the house. That's what they want you to do. Honor your parents. Children's children are the crown of old men. And the glory of children are their fathers. You know, not only do parents like to have kids and they like to have grandchildren, but, you know, children should also look up to their parents also and think of their parents as heroes or role models or have, you know, proper respect for their parents. The glory of children are their fathers. Children's children are the crown of old men. You know, it's an achievement to have grandchildren, to have children, you know, this is what old people brag about at the old folks' home, right? I mean, I've been to a lot of old folks' homes. I actually learned how to preach in an old folks' home. I used to preach in an old folks' home every week for years. That's how I learned how to preach. And they want to tell you how many kids they have and they want to tell you how many grandkids they have and that's what they're proud of. That's what they're happy about. And you know what they never say? Like, oh, I just wish I would have had less children. I wish I would have just spent more time and money on myself and had less children, you know, but a lot of them wish that they had more children, more grandchildren, you know. You're going to want to be at the old folks' home with some, you want to have some big numbers when you get there someday, all right? Or if your numbers are big enough, you probably won't even ever end up in an old folks' home because you'll have enough kids and grandchildren to just kind of pass you around and take care of you without that, you know, everybody could just put in a week or two per year and you'll be taken care of full time. So anyway, children's children of the crown of old men and the glory of children of their fathers. Excellent speech becometh not a fool. You know, it doesn't really go, you don't expect an idiot to have excellent speech, but much less do lying lips a prince, right? So we want to make sure that we always tell the truth, that we don't lie, it's important. And today, you know, in our society, maybe lying isn't considered that bad because we're living in a society that just kind of downplays sin in general. But we as Christians need to take it really seriously that we're people who love the truth and that we speak the truth and we teach our children not to lie, teach them to tell the truth. It's important to tell the truth. A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth. Obviously, when somebody gives you something that's special, you receive a gift, it has a meaning, not necessarily because of what it is, but because of the fact that it was given to you in love. You know, and just speaking of gifts, as we go into the Christmas season, make sure that you don't get a carnal, sinful attitude during Christmas time where you get caught up in all of the covetousness and especially kids, you know, the whole month of December can just be just lusting after and just coveting things that they don't have, just desiring all these material goods and it just becomes all about buying things and, you know, getting gifts and so forth. You know, first of all, it's more blessed to give than to receive and whatever we give should be given from a heart of love. It's the thought that counts. So when Christmas comes around, if you don't get what you wanted, why don't you just be thankful for whatever you get and just be thankful that somebody loves you and gave you a gift and don't get caught up in all the commercialism of the holidays. You know, I hate Black Friday because like Thanksgiving, you were supposed to be thankful for what we have and then the next day we're all just, ah, we gotta go buy all this stuff. I don't participate in it personally and so I do like giving gifts and receiving gifts is nice. It's a great custom and it's biblical to send gifts to one another. Obviously, Christmas isn't in the Bible but just giving gifts to each other and celebrating is in the Bible. We're celebrating something nice, the birth of Jesus Christ, we give each other gifts. It's a wonderful time but just make sure that you have a godly attitude about it, not one that's all commercial and covetous and discontent with the things that you have. You know, I wake up on Christmas morning, I don't expect anything. Now, you say, well, that's because you're an adult, you know, so it's different. Yeah, okay, it is a little different when you're an adult. It's not, you're not just super into the gifts but you know what that's called? It's called being mature and growing up and so if you wanna be mature for your age as a kid, then maybe you should go into Christmas without some big expectation of all of the things that you're gonna get and then just whatever I get on Christmas is just like a bonus. I'm not expecting anything. I just go into it, all I expect is the dinner. You know, I expect my wife to really hit it out of the park on that dinner because she does every single time but other than that, any gift I get, if somebody hands me a gift, if I get something under the tree you know, that's just a bonus for me because I don't expect anything. I already have everything I need. I'm already happy to just be a saved Christian and I've got my family, I've got friends, I've got church, I'm just happy and so anything that I get on top of that is just icing on the cake and so it's good to have an attitude of being content with what you have and when you get that gift, just be thankful because it's the thought that counts and not just you know, wishing that it was something else or something when you get the gift. You know, I used to work at a lot of department stores when I was in the fire alarm business and you know, one of the busiest times of the year is right after Christmas because everybody's returning everything to the store and I'd be there and there would just be lines out the wazoo like one of the customers I had was Kohl's Department Stores and there'd just be just this huge lines of people just returning everything. You know, I understand sometimes things don't fit or you know, something wasn't right or whatever but a lot of people, they'll just return it just because it just wasn't their very favorite exact thing instead of just realizing, hey, somebody loved me and picked this out for me, I wanna enjoy this. It seems like there's just a lot of returning going on these days. So it says in verse nine, he that covereth the transgression seeketh love but he that repeateth the matter separateth very friends. Now here's the thing about this is that obviously there are some things that should not be covered up at all, okay? Like for example, you know, you think about horrible things like people who molest children or commit rape or murder or those type of things. Obviously those type of things should not be covered. That's not what the Bible is talking about here when it says he that covereth the transgression seeketh love. This isn't talking about like, oh, a pastor committed adultery. Let's seek love and cover that transgression. No, because obviously things like that have to be dealt with serious, things like that obviously have to be brought out and dealt with. But in general though, sins don't need to be broadcasted to the world, right? So we're all sinners. We all do things that are wrong. There'll be people in the church that commit sins and there's no reason to broadcast these things. Okay, even when we have to do church discipline where somebody commits one of the sins that's on that list of church discipline things and something needs to be dealt with, okay? Even then we always, you know, turn off the camera and turn off, you know, any kind of internet or anything and just deal with it. And because we're not trying to just broadcast sins to the world. Now there's always some idiot that pulls out their cell phone and starts filming or so. I can't control that in 2022. I can't control what bozos are just gonna pull out their device and film something when we're specifically not broadcasting something live to the internet. And you know, I've had people say, I remember one time we had a Wednesday night church service that was not broadcast on the internet. And this is what people said. It was a secret meeting down at faith for it. It's like last time I checked, our church services are public and they happen at 10 30 on Sunday mornings and six o'clock on Sunday nights. And they happen on Wednesday nights at seven o'clock and they're public services filled with hundreds of people that are advertised publicly. I wouldn't call that a secret meeting, okay? Just because it's not broadcast live to the world on YouTube. Now look, I love the fact that we can broadcast live to the world on YouTube so that we can reach people with the gospel, reach people with the word of God. But here's the thing, I'm not trying to embarrass people publicly to the world. And there are people that have been church disciplined many times where they repented and they got it right and they became great Christians or they picked up the pieces and fixed it and they're living for God now. So why would we want there to be just some permanent internet record of people's sins, okay? But you know what, wicked people, they love to just revel in other people's, they rejoice in other people's sins, they rejoice in their calamity as we talked about earlier, they rejoice in their downfall. Now, certain people obviously do need to be publicly condemned, okay? For example, somebody who is pastor of a church like myself, okay, are held to a certain standard. And so if I were to commit some serious sin, something like adultery or something where it's punishable by death in the word of God, or if it's something that's just totally disqualifying me from the ministry, okay? Like for example, if I were to commit adultery or if my wife were to commit adultery or if my wife were to leave me or something, obviously that kind of thing, yeah, that has to be public because I'm permanently disqualified from the ministry at that point, okay? And so yeah, deal with that publicly. But here's the thing, if Joe church member, let's say just Joe church member commits fornication, adultery, whatever, does that need to go out on the internet and be broadcast to the world? Even if it's something that has to be dealt with, a serious sin like that with church discipline, it doesn't mean it needs to go out onto the internet and be broadcast to the world. And how much less sins that are more minor than that, even smaller sins than something like adultery or fornication, which are huge sins. What about even smaller sins? Like why would that be broadcast publicly to the world? It shouldn't be, okay? So again, if the president of the United States commits some major sin, like for example, Bill Clinton, committing this kind of perversion in his office or whatever with the interns or whatever, whatever fornication, adultery type sins that he's committing in there, obviously, that's something that needs to be dealt with because he's the president of the United States. And so he's held to a certain standard. Pastors are held to a certain, I get that. But at the same time, we don't wanna have this attitude that just says, oh, don't cover anything up, broadcast every sin that happens. That's stupid and it's not biblical. It's a false doctrine, okay. So again, if somebody is a pedophile, covering that up would be wicked. If a rape takes place, covering that up is wicked. These major sins, major crimes or people that are in positions of authority committing huge abuses of power or something, yeah, obviously that has to be dealt with, but you don't wanna have this attitude that says, oh, we don't cover things up, so let's just broadcast every church member's personal sins online to the world. That is wickedness. And the person who's suggesting that is either just really immature and stupid or they're probably just a wicked person that just wants to just bring shame to the name of Christ or just do something to make the church look bad or just try to ruin someone's personal life so that they can't actually live it down, right. And look, we're living in the age of the internet. It's hard to live things down, isn't it? You know, there are a lot of blessings about the internet, but the internet also has some curses to it too, because normally certain things would just be forgiven and forgotten. Whereas with the internet, things are just set in stone. And I wish that I could just grab every young person, just kind of shake them and get them to realize things on the internet will never go away. You know, like, because, you know, text messages that you send, video messages that you send, pictures that you send, you say, oh, I uploaded it to a website where it self-destructs after, isn't there a website like that? Like, is it called Snapchat? Isn't there another one like that too, or no? Where things self-destruct after a certain amount of time, or is that the only one? I've never used it. What? Signal private messaging. Okay, I don't care how private your so-called messaging, your uploading, whatever the video picture site, photograph site, because people like, I guess they want to just go get drunk, upload a bunch of crazy stuff, and then it all goes away. Yeah, except that, hey idiot, all somebody has to do is just take a screenshot of it. Oh yeah, this message is gonna disappear. Not if the person that you sent it to screenshots it, okay? And the thing is that, you know, there's a danger with chat rooms, texting, email. There's a danger for young people for a few reasons. Reason number one is that people are more uninhibited on texting or emails than they would be in real life. I mean, think about it, there's things that you wouldn't say verbally in the presence of it, you wouldn't say to someone's face, but yet you're emboldened when you're texting or emailing to say things that you would never say in real life. So there's less of a filter there, number one, okay. That's why I'm always telling my children, you know, you need to talk to people in real life face to face, or if you wanna talk to people and you're not in the same geographic location, then pick up the phone and talk to each other. But today's young people, they just wanna text all the time, they just text, it's all texting. Which I'm not against texting, I mean, we all text. Text for our jobs, we text in our lives, I text my wife all the time. But the thing about it is though that it's easier to be uninhibited on texting and to basically say things that are sinful or to say things that are too bold or inappropriate, because you're emboldened by the fact that you're kinda hiding behind that screen and that keyboard as opposed to actually facing people. And so it's something that you need to be careful of. And then here's the other side of that, is that not only are you emboldened to say stupid things that you wouldn't actually say in real life, but not only that, now you've put it in print, whatever stupid, idiotic thing you've said, and then all the other person has to do is just take a screenshot of it. And then now, and look, let me tell you something, when I was a teenager, I said a lot of stupid things. I mean, all kinds of ridiculous, stupid things came out of my mouth. But thankfully, when I said those stupid, idiotic things, they just kinda went out into the ether and disappeared. And they're gone forever. And so my friends from when I was a teenager, they can't come and say like, oh, Pastor Anderson, let me humiliate you with all the stupid stuff you said when you were 13, 14, 15, because it's all gone. It actually did self-destruct, okay? Because there was no texting, email, people weren't videoing and recording all the time. Let me tell you something. People that you think are your friends are not necessarily your friends. They don't necessarily love you. Especially as a godly Christian, you're gonna have people that are out there trying to beguile you, seduce you, trying to entrap you, trying to trick you, trying to get you to say something just so that they can catch you saying it so that they can then broadcast it to the entire world. And so you send a text message to your friend, you send somebody to your friend, how do you know that that person isn't just collecting, and no, I'm not being paranoid, okay? Collecting stuff that they can throw in your face later. I mean, even the world knows this, that people out there that are stupid, and I know this is kind of a sensitive subject, but I'm gonna handle it as delicately as I can because I don't wanna corrupt young people or offend any young eardrums, so I'll speak in a way that only adults will understand, but people out there that are stupid enough to send pictures and videos even to their spouse, okay? But how much more is it idiotic for the fornicators of this world out there, right? Unsaved or backslidden people that are out there and committing fornication to send these obscene photos or videos or whatever, and then what happens is that it's known as revenge, fill in the blank with the four-letter word that I'm skipping, okay? Revenge, P-O-R-N, where basically then they'll just, oh, well I'll show, oh, you break up with me? I'll show you, let me just broadcast this picture, let me just broadcast this video. I mean, look, the guy who banned our church from South Africa, the guy who banned myself and like 20 other people from Faithful Word Baptist Church banned from South Africa when we were going there to do soul winning, we're going there to preach the gospel, and Minister Gigaba got us banned from the country? Well, let me tell you how God punished that man. And by the way, he was a big time politician and he was in line to become, he was like thinking about running for president and he was one of the people that was being talked about to be eventually the, I don't know, prime minister, president, whatever they have in that stupid country that's the rape capital of the world. But anyway, sorry, I'm just bitter about getting banned, especially after I put so much work into learning how to speak Afrikaans and then I got banned. That was not cool. But anyway, that's life. That Minister Gigaba had obscene videos of himself that he had sent to whoever put all over the world on adult sites and his political career was just totally ruined. But you know what, that's his punishment for fighting against the gospel and fighting against our church and trying to hinder us from preaching the gospel and getting people saved. God punished that man by humiliating him to the entire world by causing his personal pictures and videos that he had sent out that were very embarrassing for him to go out to all these adult sites all over the world. But that goes to show you though how that can happen to people and how the stupidity of sending out stuff like that, and he claimed like, oh, I just sent it to my wife. Yeah, right, I mean, the guy was committing adultery all over the place and sending those pics all over the place. But the point is that you need to realize that in this world today, the internet is this just unforgiving, unforgetting place. So don't be an idiot and do these things and say these things. First of all, don't even obviously say and do anything wicked because God's watching, number one, and God's not pleased. But secondly is that when you put this stuff out publicly, even just saying something stupid, saying something inappropriate, even if it's just telling a dirty joke, even if it's not something pornographic or something, but just telling a dirty joke or saying something disrespectful about other people, talking bad about another person in the church or talking bad about someone in your family, talking bad about someone else, that stuff's eventually gonna get back to them. That stuff is gonna be just engraved in stone in the internet somewhere. And so just don't be so foolish as to just ruin your reputation and put that stuff out there. But you know what? We should not seek to ruin other people's lives and other people's reputation either. And glory in having that piece of evidence on so-and-so or whatever, what does the Bible say? Look at verse nine. I kind of went off on a tangent there, but what was it that sent me off on that tangent is verse nine. He that covereth a transgression seeketh love, but he that repeateth a matter, separateeth very friends. So you see how the person who screen captures that text message, screen captures that email where you got a little carried away with your mouth and criticized someone, that could ruin a friendship, right? Because you made fun of someone. And here's the thing. We all sometimes say stupid things that we shouldn't say, like we make fun of someone. And sometimes we'll make fun of someone that we're friends with and we don't mean any harm by it, but sometimes we go a little too far and maybe joke about someone, make fun of someone, say something hurtful about someone. And then the moment that it comes out of our mouth, we're like, ah, I shouldn't have said that, right? And maybe we even say, oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. But here's the thing. When you're typing something like that in a text or an email, now it's just in stone now. And then you get some gossip on the other end, some tale bearer on the other end, and then they go and show that person, oh, this is what they said about you and blah, blah, blah. So what are we gonna do? Are we gonna cover a transgression and seek love? Or are we gonna repeat a matter and separate chief friends? So again, do we cover up crimes? No. But what does the Bible say? Should we cover transgressions? Should we cover sins? If people do something stupid or commit a sin, should we cover that transgression or should we broadcast it to the entire world? What does the Bible say? But you see, people will take a bad example of somebody who's covering for felonies and covering for perversion of children being molested or pastors committing adultery or something. Yeah, obviously that's a wicked coverup, okay? You know, if the government kills its own citizens and there's a coverup, yeah, that's wicked. But when we're not talking about murder, we're not talking about adultery, we're not talking about fornication, should we cover a transgression or should we repeat the matter? You know, should we just be on this hunt for sin to expose everyone's sins to the world and we just wanna just expose every sinner in the church? Well, guess what, then every single person is gonna be exposed because every single person's a sinner. Now, is everybody a murderer? No. Is everybody an adulterer or a fornicator or a drunk? No, but everybody is a sinner. So more minor sins than that, yeah, we're all guilty, okay? When it comes to those kind of serious sins, hey, some of those things need to be dealt with. But do they necessarily need to be dealt with to the internet, to the world? No. They'd be dealt with in the church so that they can be talked about, dealt with, forgiven and forgotten. If there are major things that have to be dealt with, deal with them, get it fixed, move on, okay? The only things that need to go out publicly is when it's a public figure that's involved who actually needs to be marked as permanently disqualified from office. Because here's the thing. Let's say a pastor commits adultery and they say, well, you know, we don't wanna make a big deal out of this. We don't wanna make it public. Well, the problem is that that guy could often just go to another town and just be pastor in another town. And that's probably what that type of person will do because there are lots of pastors who've committed adultery lots of times and they're still a pastor because they just go from church to church, and that's what serial adulthood is. So obviously, somebody like that, okay, there has to be a public reckoning for a pastor who commits adultery, okay? Because that's a big major permanently disqualifying thing. I get it, okay? But that doesn't mean that every single church member who commits those things needs to be internet broadcasted of their sins, no matter what their sins are, okay? I hope everybody can understand the distinction there. And don't ignore this verse. This is the Bible. He that covers the transgressions seeketh love. You say, what's the motive for covering up that sin? Seeking love. That's the motive according to the Bible. But he that repeateth the matter, separated the very friends. And you know what, there are people out there that just wanna repeat every juicy tidbit that they get. And this is what they are called. They're called a tale bearer. And the Bible says that they're a wicked person. And so we need to be very aware of verse nine here and say, okay, this is part of what we do. This is who we are. If we catch someone in sin, our goal is to maybe correct that person, maybe take them to an authority to correct them. Maybe if a teenager or a child is caught in sin, maybe take them to their parents and say like, hey, you're in trouble with mom and dad now and let the parents deal with them. But is it our job to broadcast it to the whole world? But you know what, that's what wicked people wanna do. They wanna broadcast to the whole world because they're wicked people. And they're not practicing what the Bible teaches here in this verse. The next verse, verse 10 says, a reproof entered more into a wise man than a hundred stripes into a fool. So if you're smart, you'll listen when Pastor Anderson just tells you, don't do this. This is gonna be bad for you. Here's what the Bible says. Follow my advice. Don't be texting inappropriate things. Don't get all bold in your texting. Don't say things that are offensive or don't tell dirty jokes. Don't spread rumors about other people. Don't criticize people in a text message. Don't get all bold and arrogant and prideful in your texting because that stuff's gonna come back and bite you. That, a reproof, just being told, hey, don't do that. Be smart. That enters more into a wise man than a hundred stripes into a fool. Meaning you can take an idiot and beat them a hundred times and beat them like, no, stop doing this. You know, you're being an idiot. And it's like, they still don't get it. Whereas the wise person, you just tell them, don't do it. And they're just like, okay, I won't do it. Whereas the fool, you beat them and beat them and beat them and they still don't get it. And this is why he that begateth the fool have no joy. Whereas, you know, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. And so you children need to understand that you can be a source of pain and anguish to your parents or you can be a source of joy to your parents. And if you're smart, you'll listen to your parents. And yeah, your parents are gonna spank you because the Bible teaches us that we need to spank our children. And that if we spare the rod, we hate our son. You know, the Bible doesn't say, spare the rod, spoil the child. It says, he that spareth his rod, hateth his son. But he that loveth him chaseth it be times. Obviously, we're gonna spank our children. But you know, if you're smart, you'll just listen when your parents just tell you something and that even without a spanking, you would just listen to what they're saying because they're actually looking out for you. Okay, when they tell you, hey, I don't want you texting all the time. I don't want you emailing all the time. I'd rather that you talk to people in real life. I'd rather that you talk on the phone. You know, it's like, ah, my parents are in the dark ages or whatever. It's like, you know, all your parents are doing is just looking out for you because you're the one who's gonna get into trouble. You're the one who's gonna make an idiot out of yourself. You're the one who's gonna mess up your life and mess up your reputation. More than it hurts your parents, you're gonna hurt yourself at the end of the day. And so your parents are looking out for you. They're trying to protect you because let's face it, you know, when I was a, you know, I was a teenage boy once, right? I was 14, 15, 16, 17, and I talked to girls. You know, that's what teenage boys do, right? And you know, you're interested in girls and you're talking, but here's the thing. Because we didn't have like texting and emailing and everything, you know, we were shy because 14, 15, 16-year-old, 17-year-old boys are very shy and God has made you that way because that kind of keeps you out of trouble. Because if I hadn't have been shy, then I might've been saying all kinds of things, just had all this boldness to say all these things that I didn't say because I was timid and shy. But see, the problem with texting and emailing is that sometimes it can remove some of these inhibitions because it's pretty easy to sit behind that keyboard and like, hey, baby, you know? And so, whereas in real life, you're not gonna walk up and be like, hey, baby. And so it could cause relationships to escalate too quickly or for people to be too bold or get too serious or whatever. And so it's just things that we need to watch out for. This is why I don't give my children unfettered access to the internet. I don't give them just unfettered access to devices to just do whatever they want on them. It's not because I'm just trying to be some kind of a spoil sport and just ruin their love life or something or just ruin their lives. It's simply because I care about them and so I wanna put restrictions on them so that they don't get hurt, so that they don't make idiots of themselves and so that they can grow up and be a little bit more mature and not have too much power at their fingertips when they're not smart enough to control that. And so, I hope that that's helpful. I didn't get through the whole chapter tonight, of course. It's hard in Proverbs because there's so much in each verse. But young people, just be wise and don't make an idiot of yourself online. And this is why I don't allow my children to go on social media at all. Because, look, I'm on social media, but I'm a married, adult, mature person and I'm on there just pretty much to promote our church is the main thing that I'm on there to do. I don't really do much else on there. But the thing is that giving young people that kind of power is giving them too much power, just giving them unfettered access to all these devices and social media and things. But if you're on their kids, if you're on social media and you're on these devices and texting an email, be smart and don't get carried away and say stupid things that are gonna come back and bite you later. And here's what I tell my children. Here's what I tell our church all the time. Never say anything on the phone or text anything or email anything that you don't want broadcast to the entire world. And you know what? I know that I'm a pastor and I have a big target on me where people always wanna attack me and hurt me and do what they can to take me down, right? Because I'm Pastor Anderson. And so therefore, I know that people record me on the phone all the time. And I don't like that. I don't want people to record me on the phone. And I've said many times that if I find out that you're recording me when you talk to me on the phone, then I'm just gonna consider you my enemy. Because I've recorded phone calls before when I considered someone a bad person, I recorded the phone call. When I considered them an enemy, I recorded the phone call. But do you record phone calls of your friends? People that you love and care about and that you consider a friend? Do you record the phone call of a friend? No, you don't. And so if I find out anybody's, I always just tell people, if you're recording me, then you must be my enemy because why else would you be recording me on the phone? But that being said, I'm smart enough to know that people probably record me on the phone all the time. And so I'm careful with what I say talking on the phone to anyone because I just think to myself, whatever I'm saying right now might be being recorded because I've never known who the Judases were in the past. I'm probably not gonna know who they are in the future. And so I just have to be careful what I say that whatever I say might go out to the entire world someday. Might be some YouTube video of some phone call with Pastor Anderson, uncensored. Pastor Anderson telling us how he really feels, you know? Now look, I definitely might say some things in a phone call that I wouldn't say from the pulpit, but I'm kind of, you know, but at the same time, I'm kind of like, you know, if these things go out to the world, it's not a big deal. You know what I mean? Because that's how I feel. It's what I believe. I'm not saying anything that I'm gonna be embarrassed of later. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? And so if you young people are smart, you'll be the same way where, you know, hopefully no one's recording you. Hopefully nobody is screenshotting your text messages and emails, but you know what? Just type every single text message and email as if it's going out to the entire, as if it's just going on that new, is there a thing in New York like that, like a marquee that, where is it? In Times Square, is there like a marquee that has words on it or no? Just every time you're typing a text message or typing an email, just picture that Coca-Cola sign in Times Square with that little running digital, is that even a thing or am I, did I imagine that? It's real? Okay. Just imagine that whatever you're typing as a text or an email is just on that marquee in Times Square right now. It's just live. And your mom and your grandma are there. They happened to be in Times Square that day while it's playing, okay? Just, you know, realize it. And then on the flip side of that, if you are the one who has, and I've even talked to people who admitted that they recorded me and I told them, I said, well then you know what? You should delete every conversation that you've recorded of me because, you know, I thought we were friends. And so if you're the person who has all the screenshots and the photos and the incriminating whatever, you know, you should delete that crap and quit being a tale bearer and trying to just, you know, expose everyone's sins to the world or find everybody at their worst moment and, you know, broadcast it to the world. You know, love covers the transgression, but the whisperer separated the chief friends. This probably isn't a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the book of Proverbs. Lord, help us to take this wisdom to heart. Lord, I pray that people would listen to my advice and not humiliate themselves or the people around them by saying and doing stupid things. And Lord, if we catch people sinning, Lord, help us always deal with it in a righteous way. Help us to, you know, take them to their authority if that's necessary, Lord, or to just let it go, pass over a transgression, cover the transgression to seek love. And Lord God, we thank you so much for the fact that we have the book of Proverbs to save us from so many heartaches and mistakes. Lord, if we would just listen to the advice that you give us in your word, Lord, help us to take that reproof that you give us and that you don't have to beat us with 100 stripes before we figure it out. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.