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as he preaches your word so that your children will be edified in your word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Men, Proverbs chapter 31, the Bible begins in verse number one, the words of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him. Now first of all, who is this author, King Lemuel? We know absolutely nothing about who this man is who wrote this, but what you have to understand is that in the time that this is being written, there were lots of what we would call city states where you have a king of just a city. Think about how when the children of Israel are doing their conquest of Canaan in the book of Joshua, it just lists all of these kings that Joshua defeated and when you have 30 some kings in an area that from top to bottom, north to south is like 144 miles long from Dan to Beersheba, 30 some kings because these are just kings of cities. So of course they're gonna be forgotten to history. Even kings of giant nations from 3,000 years ago are forgotten to history. How much more kings of little cities and towns and areas and so this guy is obviously some kind of a minor king and his name is Lemuel and it doesn't really matter who he is because much of the Bible is anonymous in its authorship. The important thing is that it's inspired by God, that it's the word of God, that the Holy Spirit is the author in that sense and so the Bible says these are the words of King Lemuel and then it says the prophecy that his mother taught him and one of the things I wanna point out here is the use of the word prophecy because a lot of people, they have this idea that prophecy is always telling the future and so that when the Bible talks about prophesying, it must be some kind of a prediction that's being made but in reality, prophecy is often not necessarily foretelling but forthtelling, right? Telling forth as opposed to foretelling and I would point to this as a great example of that because nothing's being foretold about the future here. This is not an apocalyptic chapter. This is not eschatology. This is just a mother teaching her son the word of God, teaching him principles about how to live his life and yet the Bible calls it what? Prophecy. So when the Bible talks about prophesying in the New Testament, it's not always necessarily predicting the future. It could just be speaking the word of God, preaching the word of God, that's it. Obviously, many times it does predict. Many times the word of God is talking about end times or future events but it isn't necessary. So the word of God, the word of King Lemuel, yeah, it is the word of God. The word of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him, what my son and what the son of my womb and what the son of my vows, give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroy the kings. So in one sense, Lemuel is the author, but in reality, it's not even Lemuel that's the author who's actually speaking here. It's actually Lemuel's mom that actually is the source of this teaching. He's just writing down the prophecy that his mother taught him. So the voice is the voice of his mother speaking to him as her son. He says, give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroy the kings. Now, let's not forget that this is a poetic book. This is poetry. And so one of the main features of poetry in the Bible is this parallelism or saying the same thing two different ways. So we have give not thy strength unto women, and then we're gonna repeat that a different way, nor thy ways to that which destroy the kings. It's not for kings, oh, Lemuel is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink. So there are two subjects that we're gonna talk about in this chapter more than anything. And those two subjects are women and alcohol. Now, these are obviously two things that could be the downfall of a young man. A young man could be sucked in by the strange woman and destroyed, or he could be destroyed by alcohol or drugs. And obviously, the Bible doesn't sit there and talk about each drug individually. But whenever the Bible is talking about alcohol, you can apply the same principles about alcohol to drugs as well, because they would be in the same category. He doesn't need a whole chapter on cocaine or something. Because you know, you get the idea from just learning about alcohol. And that can be applied to discussions about marijuana or methamphetamine or cocaine or heroin or whatever you wanna talk about. Even abusing prescription drugs, you know. It's the same idea with alcohol. So the alcohol teaching can be extrapolated out to those other things. Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroy the kings. It is not for kings, oh, Lemuel. It is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink. Now look, God does not want us to drink alcohol. The Bible warns us a lot about alcohol within the Book of Proverbs and elsewhere. And in the New Testament, it clearly teaches us to be sober, be not drunk with wine, we're in his excess, but be filled with the Spirit. Be sober. Now, I've actually seen people take this passage and try to use it as a text of why it's okay for us to drink alcohol, which is absurd. But who's ever had somebody bring up this passage to you in a positive way about drinking alcohol? And it just goes to show how when people want to believe something, they can be so blind to what's right in front of them. Because when people don't wanna see something, they just don't see it. And when they don't wanna believe something, they just, they won't believe it, even though it's right in front of their face. It's such a bizarre twisting of scripture. Because what the Bible is saying here, first of all, is it's not for kings, oh, Lemuel. It's not for kings to drink wine. This is a mother talking to her son, King Lemuel, saying, look, it's not for you as a king to be drinking alcohol. Why? Because it says in verse five, lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. She's saying, look, your job, your responsibility as a king is too important for you to be messing with alcohol because you are gonna screw things up if you drink. So don't do it, it's not for kings to drink. Now, Christians would say, well, okay, it's not for kings, but it's for me to drink. But here's the thing about, I'm not a king. But here's the thing about that. First of all, spiritually, the Bible said that God has made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, number one. Number two, our job as Christians, our job as ambassadors for Christ is more important than Lemuel's job being a king of a city 3,000 years ago. Souls are in the balance. It's not life or death, it's heaven and hell. Okay, we as Christians are ambassadors for Christ. Do we wanna forget the law? Do we wanna forget God's law? Do we wanna pervert judgment? Do we wanna pervert the gospel of Christ or pervert truth? Hey, we're supposed to be letting our light shine before men that they may see good works and glorify our Father, which is heaven. Whatsoever we do, we're supposed to be doing it for the glory of God. Is alcohol going to help with that mission in any way, shape, or form? Is forgetting the law gonna help? Is perverting judgment gonna help? Absolutely not, and I would argue that, number one, we are kings, we are priests as believers in the New Testament, but I would argue secondly that our job is more important than that of what really amounts to the mayor of some city 3,000 years ago, the king of a city-state so long ago. Whatever judgments he made were important at the time, but they're not really important now, but you know what is important forever is the spiritual work that we do as Christians. And I'm sure King Lemuel did some spiritual work in his life, I'm not talking down on him because I guarantee you that he does have some spiritual legacy that we don't know about, and I'm sure he's up in heaven with all kinds of rewards, not for the job that he did as an earthly king, but for the spiritual accomplishments, the preaching that he did, and the word of God that he preached. So it says here, it's not for kings, O Lemuel, it's not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink. And then jump down to verse six, it says, give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Now people will again, they'll use this as a positive, like that it's literal. Like, hey, we're commanded to give booze to people. Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Oh, you're a little sad? Well, drink up, buddy, because the Bible says. Now that is a really ridiculous way to interpret this passage. You know, is any sick among you? Let him pray. No, no, how about this? Is any sick among you? Is any sad, may he have a beer? Why doesn't James 5 just come out and tell us that? Right? Is any merry, let him sing Psalms. Any sad, this bud's for you. I mean, that's not what the Bible teaches, that's stupid. Does it make any sense? When she says, give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. This is sarcasm. This is like, hey, drinking's for losers, give it to losers. You're a king, you're important, you matter. Don't drink, give it to some guy who's about to perish, and just let him forget what a miserable loser he is. But then it's like, no, no, we need to have a ministry. I guess we're supposed to be like a spiritual St. Bernard traveling around the city with a little barrel of booze around our collar, and just giving it to every homeless derelict. I mean, we should have a ministry, according to these people, of just distributing booze to homeless derelicts. You know, you're like, oh man, I'm afraid if I give money to homeless people, they're gonna use it for beer. Well, we need to just be giving them the beer, according to this interpretation. Cut out the middle man. Cut out 7-Eleven, cut out Circle K. Isn't that ridiculous, though? It's absurd, okay? The Bible uses sarcasm. There are many times where it's easily demonstrable. In fact, we just saw it in the sermon that I did on Sunday about Mary, where Solomon is sarcastic with his mother Bathsheba when she says, hey, can we give Abishag the Shunammite to Adonijah? He said, oh, okay, well, why don't, yeah, why don't we give him Abishag, and why don't you ask for him the kingdom also? Why don't we just give him the whole kingdom? Is he serious? No, it's sarcasm. And so obviously, this is sarcastic. It's talking in hyperbole. It's saying like, hey, drinkings for a loser. Give it to that, bozo, but it's not for you, son. You're too good for this. And parents say this all the time to their kids. You're better than that. I expected more from you, son. That's what we're talking about here. But let's say that we looked at this, and we actually wanted to take an ultra-literal interpretation. I do think that there is a legitimate literal interpretation that you could derive from this if the Bible says, you know, give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, okay? I would say this, and first of all, whosoever believeth in Christ shall not perish, so I'm never ready to perish. You know, we're living for Christ. We're not just these losers about to be toast or something. But if you wanted to take a literal interpretation, I will say this. I do believe that both alcohol and narcotics could be legitimately useful for, say, performing surgery on someone, like cutting off a body part or something. I mean, think about it. Let's say you're out at sea or whatever, and you've got some wound on your leg, and some guy's gonna saw off your leg because you're on a pirate ship, I don't know why you're on a pirate ship, but just go with it, all right? Look, if I were living before the era of modern anesthesia, and somebody had to perform surgery on me or cut off a limb or something or cut off a body part, without anesthesia, you'll probably die, or you'll go into shock or lose your mind or something. And so there are certain situations where you would need some kind of anesthesia, and alcohol is not the best anesthesia, but it's probably better than nothing. So if somebody were cutting off my leg, I would have no issue drinking myself into oblivion before I get my foot cut off or something, because my eyes aren't gonna behold strange women. My mouth's not gonna utter perverse things. I'm not worried about getting, that's a situation, and here's the thing about that. Don't you think there's a situation where narcotics or opioids or some kind of a hardcore painkiller would be useful in 2023? Look, wouldn't you, if you went to the doctor and had to have some major surgery, would you be against taking Vicodin or taking codeine or whatever for intense pain? No, I mean, when you're in a lot of pain, that's a legitimate use of those things. But let me ask you this. Do you think that we should be using those things recreationally? No. And just as we shouldn't be using drugs recreationally, we shouldn't be using alcohol recreationally, but I do think that there could be a legitimate analgesic use of these things or medicinal use of these things in extreme situations. Obviously, it's totally obsolete now in 2023 because we have better ways of putting you under than here, drink this and bite on a stick. We've come a long way, thankfully. Thank God we're never gonna have to go through anything like that. But I think if you wanted to take a literal interpretation, you could say, yeah, if somebody is literally in this life or death situation or going into surgery or something, yeah, of course you're gonna dope them up. Or maybe before you had those things available, you might drink them into oblivion. That could be a legitimate use of these things. But just as you wouldn't use it recreationally now when we're talking about these hardcore Pecos, you should never use any of these things recreationally. Okay. And so that's as literal as you're gonna get with this. But other than that, it's obviously, the primary application is it's sarcastic. So to sit there and say, this is telling us that we're supposed to be giving out alcohol to everybody who's sad, well, everybody gets a heavy heart from time to time. Is that the answer? Is that what the Bible's saying? Hey, heavy heart, here's the answer, booze. Now that goes against what the rest of the Bible is teaching, it's foolish. And I'm done talking about it because you're smarter than that. I expected more from you. You're better than that. So it says, let him drink and forget his poverty, remember his misery no more. Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously and plead the cause of the poor and needy. And then we get into the famous passage about the virtuous woman. So like I said, two main subjects here, you've got women and you've got booze, two major downfalls for young people. So if we back up to verse three, we talked about alcohol, we're done talking about it. Now we're gonna talk about women. Verse three, give not thy strength unto women. What does that mean, give not thy strength unto women? Well, every one of us has talents, abilities, strengths, virtues, and we don't wanna waste those on the wrong pursuits, right? So we don't wanna give our strength and our energy and our time and effort toward chasing after the strange woman or going into fornication, being a whoremonger, right? We wanna use our strength for God. We wanna give God the best years of our life, our youth. We wanna give him those strong years and we wanna use our strength for his work, not for something wicked, okay? Another way you can think about this is Samson and Delilah. I mean, talk about giving your strength to women, right? He literally lost his strength because he committed fornication with the strange woman. Bible doesn't explicitly say that he committed fornication with Delilah, but that's obviously what's going on in the story. He's with a harlot in just a few verses before, that's obviously what Samson was doing. And so don't give your strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings. That which destroy kings could be a restatement of the strange woman, a wicked woman, or it could be a foreshadowing of that we're about to talk about alcohol and then alcohol destroys kings as well. But then we get into this part about the virtuous woman. Now, what you'll notice is that the virtuous woman passage goes from verse 10 to verse 31, okay? So that's 22 verses on the virtuous woman. And whenever you see the number 22 in the Bible, when you see things that come in a package of 22, it often has to do with the Hebrew alphabet. Because remember, we're talking about poetry. And one of the ways that you do poetry is by having words start with a certain letter. Like we know in our modern English vernacular poems that are acrostic poems where they spell a word or something like that. But what the Bible will often do in the book of Psalms and elsewhere is it'll have each verse start with a different letter of the alphabet. So when you find Psalms that have 22 verses, that's often what's going on with that. Well, like think about the book of Lamentations, right? Lamentations chapter one, 22 verses, right? Lamentations chapter two, 22 verses. Lamentations chapter three, 66 verses. Lamentations chapter four, 22 verses. Lamentations chapter five, 22 verses. Why is that? It's because verse one starts with an aleph, verse two starts with bat, verse three starts with gimel, dalet, hay, bov, and down the line. Each one starts with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Psalm 119 in your King James Bible is broken into these little sections of eight verses. So what's the first section called? Aleph, bat, gimel, dalet, hay, right? It goes down the list. What that means is that in the aleph section, each of those eight verses starts with the letter aleph. In the bat section, each of the eight verses starts with bat and so on and so forth. So here's the thing. You have all these people that will come at you with this attitude of, oh, well, you know, to really understand the Bible, you gotta go to the original Greek in the New Testament. Or, well, to get the true meaning of the Old Testament, you gotta read it in the original Hebrew. And we've all heard stuff like this, right? And let me just categorically tell you, it's false, okay? If you have an English King James Bible, you have what you need. And you do not need to learn Hebrew and Greek to get the true meaning or to really understand the Bible. You just don't. I don't even believe that pastors need to learn Greek and Hebrew in order to really understand. I believe that a pastor could just speak only English and just read only a King James Bible and be an excellent pastor and achieve everything that God has for him. And he's not delinquent or a lesser pastor because he didn't learn those things whatsoever. Because we have the Bible translated into English, is accurate, and all of the meaning is there. You know, I keep getting these stupid ads on Facebook lately for some Jewish Bible course. And you know what? It's some Christ-rejecting Jewish Bible course. It's from Jews, it's not from Christians. But it's obviously being marketed toward Christians because what they wanna do is they wanna suck Christians into this thing of like, oh, you gotta go back to the Hebrew and whatever. And their goal is to Judaize you and ultimately to get you into Judaism. Or to just get you into a corrupt form of Christianity, some kind of a Hebrew roots, Torah observing, whatever the Judaizing garbage that's out there. Okay, now here's the thing. These ads, these are the kind of things that these ads say. The ad said like, you know, English doesn't tell you how Jacob got his name. You know, or the name of Abraham is meaningless in English. You gotta read it in Hebrew to get the real meaning. And then they're trying to sell you some Jewish Bible course, some garbage. You know, basically, and any course that's put out by Jews about the Bible, here's the thing. They're not gonna have spiritual understanding or spiritual enlightenment of these things because of the fact that the Bible says that when they read the Old Testament, the veil is over their eyes. And then when they turn to Christ, the veil will be removed. If these people are unbelievers, if they don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, they're not gonna be able to give a better understanding. Christians will have the better understanding, period. Christians will have understanding, period. Okay, now, but what a dumb statement to say, oh, well, you know, these names are meaningless in English. Here's the problem with that. First of all, number one, the English Bible literally explains what those names mean. I mean, the English Bible flat out to, oh, you know, isn't he rightly named Jacob, you know, because he supplanted me these three, you know, I mean, these two times. So, you know, you have all these places where he's, you know, he's Abraham because he's the father of many nations. The Bible will flat out tell you, hey, I think I'm gonna call him Moses because I took him out of the water, you know. The Bible sits there and tells you where these names come from. Oh, how hast thou broken forth? Therefore, his name's called Perez or whatever. You know, it's over and over again. It just flat out tells you this person is named this because, oh, she's called Eve because she's the mother of all living. I mean, what else, what do you want? What do you need? He just told you what it is. So even the examples that they're bringing up in these ads don't make sense because our English Bible literally tells you what they're telling you it does. That's number one. But number two, guess what? If you learn Hebrew, you're still not gonna magically know what all these names mean. Can I explain something to you? If you speak English, you don't know what every English name means. Do you know what every American name means because you're an English speaker? Well, guess what? Knowing Hebrew doesn't mean that you automatically know what all these Hebrew names mean either, okay? Now, some of them knowing Hebrew makes the meaning obvious. And see, that's the kind of examples that they would love to bring up to you. They can hit you with these real easy examples like, you know, Abimelech, you know, Abimelech, you know, my father, king, you know, my father's the king. Yeah, but if only it were always like that. Guess what? It's not. They bring you a few examples like Elimelech or, you know, Abimelech or these really obvious ones where, yeah, okay, their name does mean it. But hold on a second. First of all, a huge amount of the time knowing Hebrew does not make you just automatically understand what these names mean because some of the names are more ancient than the Hebrew language that is used to write the Bible, okay? Or a name like Moses, you know, he's being named by an Egyptian, you know, first of all. Okay, so that's not gonna, knowing Hebrew is not gonna help, okay? But not only that, if God wanted us to know what the name meant or if it's significant or if it matters, then he explains it. Like whenever Leah and Rachel are having kids, it says, oh, you know, with great wrestlings, I've wrestled with my sister and therefore he's called Naphtali. Hmm, I wonder what Naphtali means. It's kind of obvious at that point, isn't it? So let me just say that, but let me tell you now, what are you missing by reading the Bible in English, right? What are you missing? What are you missing because you're not reading the New Testament in Greek? What are you missing because you're not reading the Old Testament in Hebrew? Well, here's what you're missing. You know, you wouldn't know the fact that in Proverbs 31, verse 10 starts with an aleph, verse 11 starts with bet, verse 12 starts with gimel, and these 22 verses start with the 22 letters of the aleph. But now ask yourself, why does that matter? You see what I'm saying? Sorry, I'm spitting on you, the splash zone. But you know, so what? Here's what you're missing. Oh, you're missing the fact that, you know, everything starts with the same letter in the Spirit. Does that, is that really important for you spiritually? Like, is that gonna change the way that you live your life? Is that gonna change any doctrine? I mean, what is the purpose of scripture according to the Bible? All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. Okay, what doctrine is derived by the fact that these all start with a letter of the alphabet? For doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, which of those things are you missing by not having this little acrostic thing going on, this alliterations and things? Are you really missing anything? You're not missing any meaning, you're not missing any doctrine, you're not missing anything you need, okay? You know what you're missing, honestly, is you don't see some of these poetic devices. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna get up here and lie to you and say you're not missing anything. But I'm gonna tell you the truth, you're not missing anything that matters. You're not missing anything that you need. So look, reading the Old Testament in Hebrew or reading the New Testament in Greek is fun. It's fun, it's interesting, because you'll see little plays on words and things that obviously don't carry over when you bring it into English. But guess what comes all the way over in English? The meaning. The meaning is 100% in your KJV and you don't need anything else. So these little plays on words and little games with letters, they're fun. They're fun, but that's all they are, is they're not necessary for your Christian life at all. And there are other ways to have fun that don't take thousands of hours of study, okay? And make no mistake about it, don't listen to these idiots with their master of divinity. They get a master of divinity doing one semester of Hebrew, two semesters of Greek, and now they're the master of the universe, okay? You really think that you can read the Bible in Hebrew after one semester? What a joke. I don't care how smart you are, you're not reading the Bible in Hebrew after one semester. You're not reading the New Testament in Greek after two semesters, which is not happening. It takes literally thousands of hours to learn how to read the Old Testament in Hebrew and it takes thousands and thousands of hours to read the New Testament in Greek. Arguably, New Testament in Greek's even harder than Hebrew and it takes thousands and thousands of hours to be able to read it. And so it's probably not worth the investment for you unless you really love language and you really have an aptitude for it and you really love it. Hey, I don't wanna hold you back, go for it, but just realize it will take thousands and thousands of hours and you will not find any esoteric, mystical meanings in the Bible. You will be shocked to discover that it says the exact same thing that it says in your King James Bible, okay? But you will find all kinds of fun, cool, little plays on words and things that rhyme and things that are alliterated and little tricks of the words. I mean, I could stand up here and bore you with them for hours, but they're not necessary. They don't profit you spiritually to know those things. They're fun, but like I said, there are lots of ways to have fun and that's only one of them and only certain people even find it fun, okay? And chances are you're not one of them. So that's really just the straight dope about going back to the Greek and going back to the Hebrew, okay? And so I just figured this is a good opportunity to bring that up because of the fact that, yeah, that's something that you can't get out of the English world, so what? What we really want is we wanna find that virtuous woman, amen? We don't care what letter it starts with. We want the wisdom, we want the truth, we want the learning. And by the way, guess what? There are all kinds of cool literary things in the King James that aren't in the original. Now again, there's no extra meaning. Sorry, Patrick Boyle and Ruckman and the rest of you guys. But the thing is, obviously we don't believe that the Bible was re-inspired in 1611, okay? We believe that it was accurately translated in 1611 and it derives its inspiration from the original. It is inspired by God because it's a translation of the inspired original, but it's not like God re-gave the Bible in 1611. You know why he didn't re-give it? Because it didn't go anywhere. It's been preserved in all generations, so the Bible already existed before 1611 and existed after. And so here's the thing about that, that the King James Bible, though, is a literary masterpiece in its own right. And so it has, the King James Bible has all kinds of alliterations. I like the part where he says, gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them. That's pretty cool. I like the way that sounds, right? And there are all kinds of little things like that where you have these alliterations and you have little, like what about where he says, ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Ask, seek, knock, spells, ask. That's pretty cool, isn't it? But guess what? There's nothing mystical or magical about that, right? It's a coincidence, but it's still cool, okay? And so we have all kinds of little cool things going on in the King James. And there are things in the King James that just rhyme. You know, like, for example, I'm just trying to think of examples, but you know, in Revelation, you thought I was gonna talk about the virtuous woman tonight. I'll get there, but like, you know, I was thinking about I counsel thee to buy of me, you know, kind of rhymes, right? I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, right? It's very beautiful, it's very poetic. And so here's the thing, even though we are not getting all the alliterations and rhymes and special things from the Greek and Hebrew, we get our own little alliterations and rhymes and English. And you know what? It ends up being just as cool of an experience, just as gratifying, just as meaningful for you as an English speaker to read your King James Bible as it was for the ancient Israelites to read it in Hebrew or for the Greeks of the first century AD in that church at Thessalonica. You know what? It was cool for them, but it is just as cool for you too. So get over it. English, my friend, it's what we need. All right, now let's talk about the virtuous woman. Who can find a virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband does safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoil. And what the Bible is saying here is that having the right wife is so much more valuable than anything else that you could possibly own, any house, car, jewelry, whatever. I mean, this is a treasure above all else, having the right wife. So it's very important whom you marry because you wanna have the virtuous woman, her price is far above rubies. Now, why? Because the ruby, it has value, but you know, thieves break through and steal or okay, maybe you sell it and you spend the money, eventually you run out. Think about how many people in this world have gotten huge amounts of money and then blown it all. But the virtuous woman is the gift that keeps on giving because the virtuous woman is one that you can rely upon. It says the heart of her husband does safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoil. He doesn't need rubies. Why? Because the virtuous woman is so good for him financially that he doesn't need to have some extra treasures or something. His normal income is just fine because his virtuous wife is able to make it work on that income. And she's even able to bring in extra money sometime or save money or, and he can trust her not to be maxing out the credit cards. And look, some of you guys are looking for the wrong thing in a woman because if you young men see some woman that's dolled up all the time and you say, oh, it's so great that she cares so much about her appearance, but you see all those expensive clothes and expensive accessories and expensive hairdos and everything, you're gonna be paying for that. Now it's not that cool. Like, is that really what you wanna be doing with your money for the rest of your life? You wanna go work your butt off and work two jobs so that it could just be like one little swipe at the credit card. That'll be $843 and it's just like a few outfits. Oh, sorry, I had to buy a few clothes. Oh, that'll be 900. Whoa, that's not what you wanna do with your money, okay? You know, as a man, you work hard, you wanna put food on the table. You don't wanna have credit cards all racked up, right? You wanna be debt-free. I mean, nobody here wants to be in a bunch of debt, you know, and especially not credit card debt or something like that, unsecured debt. You know, it's one thing to have a house payment or a car payment. You don't wanna have a bunch of credit card debt, but you know, the last thing you want is to go work your butt off and be like, yeah, I'm making plenty of money, I'm doing great. And then it's just like, where'd all the money go? Cause your wife is out buying all of the expensive purses and accessories. Oh, but she's so beautiful to look at. Well, you know, after a while you're gonna get sick of looking at her and just kind of want your money. You know what I mean? Like it's gonna just get old after a while. And you're gonna be like, man, is this really worth the money to look at this, you know? I'm just being real with you, okay? And so, yeah, but just do a little math here about how much you like looking at that woman and the fancy stuff and how much you wanna buy all that stuff to decorate her like a Christmas tree every day, like it's Christmas every day, okay? And you're having to take down the Christmas lights and put up new Christmas lights every day for the rest of your life. I'm not interested. The heart of her husband does safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. I mean, look, having someone live with you who does you good and not evil all the days of your life, how do you put a price tag on that, right? She sinketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands, okay? You know, you need a woman in your life that's gonna get her hands dirty. You don't want a woman as a wife that doesn't wanna do any physical work because who's gonna do all that work around the house? You're gonna end up doing it. So you're gonna have to go work your job and then you're gonna have to come home and do housework or you're gonna have to hire other people to do it. That's gonna be expensive too, C point A, okay. So she sinketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands. She's like the merchant ship. She bringeth her food from afar. Why would merchant ships bring food from far away? Because they get it where it's cheaper and they bring it and make a profit. You know, your wife, you want her to be out finding the deals. She doesn't just walk into Whole Foods and just buy everything at Whole Foods without even looking at a price tag. That'd be expensive. I mean, you just bought all your family's food, just didn't even think about it, just everything right off the shelf at Whole Foods. You're not looking for sales and all that. And look, there are some things that, you know, can legitimately be purchased at Whole Foods. You know, that's where you get that item or whatever. But I mean, for your main groceries, are you just gonna go to the most expensive place and just start taking it off the shelf? No, you know, you want her to know what's on sale. You want her going to the discount stores. You want her using a coupon. Whether you wanna use a coupon or not, you want her using a coupon. Okay, you're off at work, you're making money. You know, that's her job, right? And, you know, obviously I'm preaching this from a perspective of the stay at home wife, the stay at home mother, because that is the ideal. That is the biblical ideal. That is what we should strive for. Now, obviously there are situations where both people work, I get it. But I'm saying in general, the mother is at home caring for the children. And that ends up being a full-time job. I mean, look, we have 12 children, we have 10 children living at home. I say that a lot just because I don't wanna lose count. So I gotta remind myself so I don't forget the numbers. But the thing is, you know, don't you think that my wife is busy with 10 children living at home? I mean, one of them's an adult. Okay, we'll give you a pass, John. But come on, that's work, she's busy. Cooking, cleaning, running the household, homeschooling. It's a full-time job, it's busy. Okay, it's gonna take a hard working woman to achieve all that, okay? But that's her job. So therefore, if she's doing a good job at it, she's finding the deals on groceries. She's bringing her food from afar, like the merchant ships. Verse 15, she riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household and the portion to her mating. So look, do you wanna be married to somebody who sleeps in super late, rolls out of bed, and then just, it's all about social media. Rolls out of bed, and then spends two hours in the bathroom preening and primping, and then starts uploading pictures to Instagram. Or you want your wife to get up early, and you got huevos rancheros ready to roll. You got blueberry pancakes, right? You got French toast, you got crepe suzettes. What, you pick. Or you can get some Instagram pictures around noon. Keep the Instagram pictures, and give me the huevos rancheros. You know, she gives meat to her household. She rises up early and gives meat to her household. She feeds the family. She considers the field and buyeth it. With the fruit of her hand, she planted the vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength and strengthens her arms. Look, she's out in the garden. She's planting a vineyard she considers a field and buys it and plants a vineyard. Now some people have tried to say, oh, she's a businesswoman, she's a CEO. Read the chapter, my friend. She's getting up early and feeding the family. She's taking care of the family. She's sewing, she's cooking, she's bringing food from afar. She's not out there working a secular job in this situation. And again, I understand that different people are in different situations, but what are we talking about? We're talking about in a perfect world, God's plan, God's will, the ideal, the way this country used to be run was that man went out and did the work and women ran the household at home. That's what we still believe around here. That's what we still practice around here, okay? And so again, you could bring up all the exceptions and all the different situations, but we're talking about in general, God's plan for the family, in general, what has God ordained, okay? And so obviously this woman's talented. She's industrious, she's smart, she's resourceful, and she's hardworking. That's what's being described here. It says she planted the vineyard. She girded her loins with strength and strengthened her arms. She perceived it that her merchandise is good. Her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff. It's talking about making clothing. She stretched without her hand to the poor, yea, she reached forth her hands to the needy. She's not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry. Her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of the land. Now, what does that have to do with her? Well, he's freed up to go sit in the gate, in addition to doing his own work, doing his own job, taking care of his livelihood. He's out breaking his back at his job, but then he has time after he breaks his back out of the field to go sit in the gate, sitting among the elders of the land. He's able to take part in the civic and political and religious life of the community, why? Because his wife is doing such a good job of taking care of things. This gives him more time to engage with the community and do stuff like this. Verse 24, she maketh fine linen and selleth it and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. Now notice, yes, she is operating a side hustle where she makes money on the side. This is not saying that she's out doing a full-time job while other people take care of her children, other people take care of the house, other people cook, other people clean, because she's out being a businesswoman. What it is saying is that she has a side hustle, because notice, she's not out doing the business end of it. She's delivering girdles unto the merchant. See, what is a merchant? A merchant is somebody who sells stuff. A merchant is what we would maybe call a retailer. Notice, she is not the retailer. She's making stuff at home. She's basically got that sewing machine cranking to the point where she's not only making the clothing that her family needs, but she also has a surplus where she's delivering extra produce to the merchant and making extra money on the side. Now, of course, thankfully, we don't have to make our own clothes anymore, because it's probably more expensive to make your own clothes than it is to just buy them, because of the advent of machines. So nowadays, obviously, women don't spend all their time sewing anymore or making material for clothing, and thank God for that, but here's the thing. In ancient times, women did spend a lot of hardworking hours making clothing. They had to sit there and haul water and churn butter and wash clothes, and they had to do things by hand. They had to work hard. Look, we have all these wonderful tools, the dishwasher, the washing machine, the dryer. You've got the KitchenAid and the Instapot, and you've got the air fryer, and you've got the, what's that pressure thing called? That's the Instapot, ah, okay. I don't know what an Instapot is, you know? I just, Insta-food, I come downstairs, and there's food, you know? Upstairs, I should say. Yeah, I mean, it's all right there, but yeah, we have hot water on tap. We have a stove, we have the microwave, we have all of these appliances that just make life so much easier. But here's the thing, as women, you know, you don't wanna just say, oh, I have all these tools, so now, it's just all about primping and preening, Facebook, Candy Crush, Instagram, soap operas, telenovelas, whatever. You know, what you wanna do, though, thankfully, we don't have to work, look, we as men don't necessarily have to work as hard as the dude in this story. You know, farmers, 3,000 years ago, probably worked harder than most of us do, amen? So hey, our life's easier, our wives' lives are easier, great, but we don't wanna let ourselves become lazy and weak and soft because our lives are so easy. So women, yes, you have all these wonderful tools, then that's just all the more reason why you should be able to cook food from scratch if you're a stay-at-home. I understand that women that are out working, they're not gonna have the same time as a stay-at-home mom or a stay-at-home wife, which is why I believe in being a stay-at-home mother, a stay-at-home wife, but if you're a stay-at-home mother, if you're a stay-at-home wife, guess what? You have time to be cooking stuff from scratch. Nobody's asking you to churn the butter, but can you at least butter the cookie sheet and make something and butter the pan and fry it up fresh? Nobody's asking you to sit there and make these things from scratch in the sense of like, you know, we're not asking you to go kill the animal and dress it, we're not asking you to sit there and produce your own leaven for your own bread, but can you at least put something together from raw ingredients and cook something from scratch? It's not too much to ask of you in the 21st century to cook and clean with all the wonderful tools that you've been given. Just as men should be out working hard and bringing home the bacon and paying the bills, doing our best at our job. You know, hey, look, when I go to my job, I'm gonna do my best, amen? Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do what thy might. Look, if you're an electrician, plumber, carpenter, computer programmer, do your best. Well, guess what? Wives and mothers, they need to be doing their best too. They need to be doing their best at cooking, doing their best at homeschooling, doing their best at running the household, whatever authority, whatever power, whatever responsibilities have been delegated to the wife by the husband, they should take that as an important job and do their best with it. Just as when I would go to work and get delegated from a manager or supervisor, I'm gonna do my best, right? Men and women doing their best at their job. Is a TV dinner your best? Is everything constantly frozen, everything constantly out of a can, everything dehydrated? Are you giving it your best? Just a question, just asking. Not saying you're not, I'm just asking. Maybe a TV dinner is your best, yeah, right. Who do you think you're kidding? You can do better. All right, where were we? Let me land the plane here. Where were we? It was 25. Strength and honor are her clothing and she shall rejoice in time to come. She opened her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Look, we're not looking, as men, we're not looking for our wives to be dumb. Oh, you just want just some doormat, some dumb thing that can just look pretty and be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen or whatever. I do want her pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, but I want her smart while she's doing it. I want her to say smart stuff too. Right, I want her to open her mouth with wisdom. And in her tongue is the law of kindness. Right, it's not a virtue to be loud and obnoxious. It's a virtue to be kind, to be sweet, to have a meek and quiet spirit. She opened her mouth with wisdom. She says intelligent things. Look, I'm glad that my wife is intelligent. I'm glad that she's smart. In fact, that was one of the main criteria. Now obviously, look, Proverbs 31 should be guiding us as far as what to look for in a wife in general. But one of the things that was really important to me when I was young was I wanted to marry someone smart because of the fact that I like to talk. In fact, I talk for a living. And so I like talking, and I like to have an intelligent conversation. So I wanted to marry someone that's smart. You know, there were a lot of beautiful girls and nice girls and girls that I enjoyed being around, but they weren't that smart, and it just wasn't gonna work. You know, I was looking for someone who can open their mouth with wisdom, okay, because of the fact that that's important to me. And maybe different things are important to different people. Maybe that's not super important to you, but I know we can all agree on that business about having no need of spoil, okay? She looketh well to the ways of her household. Verse 27, and eateth not the bread of idleness, right? She's not sitting around wasting time. She's looking well to the ways of her household, making sure everybody's fed and clothed and educated. Her children arise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excelest them all. And you say, well, you know, I've seen all this description, but where's the physical appearance? But look what it says. It says, favors deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. You know, the Bible's telling us, look, it's way more important what her spiritual qualities are that she fears the Lord, that she is not lazy, right? But that she's wise and industrious and productive and kind, that in her tongue is the law of kindness. That's more important than just, oh, she's such a babe. She's so hot. You know, when I was a kid, this is what we said. She's fine. That girl is fine. Okay, hey, but here's the thing. It's not about being fine. It's about being godly. And godliness includes being hardworking, industrious, wise, these all have to do with godliness. This is what godly women are like. The virtuous woman has these attributes. Now, look, if you're a woman and you read this chapter, it could be easy to get discouraged because I do believe that this chapter is kind of painting an unattainable standard in a sense because of the fact that this is describing the ideal or perfection. So don't look at this chapter and just be like, I give up, I can't, you know, I can't even begin to do that. That's not the point. Don't compare yourself to this hypothetical virtuous woman. This is basically a hypothetical perfect woman. This is the ideal woman. Now, does the perfect woman exist? No. Does the perfect man exist? No, you're not perfect. I'm not perfect. You can't expect your wife to be perfect. And as wives, don't think to yourself, well, I'm not just like the Proverbs 31 woman. There are two thoughts you should not have. You shouldn't be like, you shouldn't read Proverbs 31 and be like, yeah, me, me, me, me again, me, me, me, oh, all right, I got 100%. On the Are You a Virtuous Woman online quiz, I scored 100%. You are 100% virtuous. That's a foolish thought because I really doubt you're that perfect. We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. But at the same time, you don't wanna read it and get discouraged and think like, oh, it's impossible. It's a standard. It's an ideal. It's something to shoot for. And as a young man, don't be like, well, I'm staying single until I find a woman that checks every box of Proverbs 31. Okay, well, enjoy being single for the rest of your life. Because no perfect person exists. And if they were a perfect person, why would they wanna be with you? Why do you wanna ruin the life of some perfect person? That's not right. Here, you're gonna come along and find the perfect person and screw up their life by marrying them because then they're gonna be married to you. Okay, so again, it's a standard. What it's teaching you is these are the types of things to look for. As a woman, these are the type of things that you wanna strive for. And as a man, these are the types of things that you wanna look for. But at the end of the day, you know what marriage is about? You know what romance and love is about? It's about loving people for who they are in spite of their flaws. And so my wife loves me in spite of my flaws. As a man, I love her. I'm not saying she has any flaws or anything, but I'm just saying we love each other. That's what it means to enter into marriage is you choose someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with and you bestow your love upon that person in spite of whatever imperfections are there. You love them anyway. That's what marriage is. And so we don't wanna get carried away with the ideal of Proverbs 31 and make it like a prerequisite for even being a wife, okay? Because that would be an abuse of this passage. It's a standard, it's an ideal. God sets us standards all throughout the Bible and we're always gonna come short. But we gotta try every day to hit these standards and become more and more like Christ, become more godly. Let's borrow this another word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word and we thank you for this chapter in particular, Lord. Thank you for the godly women of our church, Lord. Help all of us to strive to be better people, both male and female, and to do the best we can at our job. Whatever our job is, help us to do it with all of our might and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.