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

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