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Amen. Amen. So tonight we're continuing through this first part of the book of Proverbs that goes from chapters one through nine giving wisdom especially unto young people and really emphasizing the fact that they need to listen to their parents, listen to the word of God, stay away from wicked influences and bad people that are out there whose goal is to corrupt them and to lead them astray. It says in verse number one of chapter four, hear ye children the instruction of a father and attend to no understanding. The word attend there, when we say attend we would just mean like hey show up, attend church. This is more like our word attention. So attending to no understanding is pay attention basically so that you can gain understanding from what your father is saying. Sometimes when parents talk to their kids, the kids can tend to just maybe glaze over a little bit and not pay attention to what is being said of them but he's saying hear ye children, listen, pay attention for I give you good doctrine forsake ye not my law. And kids that are growing up in this church, your parents are giving you good doctrine. You're very fortunate to be raised in a home where your parents are saved and they're bringing you to a church where the Bible is being preached and where we actually believe the Bible and not everybody is growing up with this upbringing and their lives are going to be damaged as a result. It's a great blessing to have parents that actually teach you good doctrine. So pay attention to what they're teaching you. And then he says at the end of verse 2, forsake ye not my law. Law is obviously referring to rules and what the Bible is saying here is that just because you leave your parents' home or leave your parents' supervision doesn't mean that you stop following the rules that they have set for you. Now obviously when you're a kid growing up, you have to follow your parents' rules. Your parents make you follow the rules and they'll punish you if you break the rules And then when you become an adult and you're out living on your own, now you're making your own rules for yourself because your parents aren't there standing over you and telling you exactly what you can and can't do. But the wise person will continue living by the rules that their parents gave them not because they have to because they're living at home but because it's good doctrine so they actually continue living by those rules even as an adult. You see, mature adults don't live with no rules, okay? They make their own rules for themselves but they don't live without rules. Being mature, being an adult is that you are parenting yourself. It's not that you just kind of just go out and do whatever you want. And when you're a kid, you think like, oh, when I grow up, I'm just going to do whatever I want and I'm just going to eat so much ice cream and candy and just party. I'm going to stay up super late every night. But what happens is if you're smart, by the time you get to an adult stage, you actually see the wisdom in the rules that your parents had for you and you start imposing those things on yourself. I'm constantly imposing hardships on myself, forcing myself to do hard things. And it's like, well, you don't really have to do that. Yeah, but I am forcing myself to do that because that's what adults do, right? Adults make rules for themselves, set boundaries for themselves, force themselves to do things that they don't want to do. Kids are forced by other people, their parents, teachers, whoever. But we as adults force ourselves to do things that we don't want to do all the time. And if you're smart, you won't just grow up and just forsake the law of your mother, forsake the law of your father. Hopefully you'll understand that your parents' rules make sense and you'll start imposing either the same rules or similar rules on yourself and not forsake their laws. For I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He taught me also and said unto me, let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments and live. So he's saying, look, I've been where you are. I've been a kid. My dad taught me and now I'm teaching you. And so these teachings need to be passed down from generation to generation. Get wisdom, verse five. Get understanding, forget it not, neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, the her there is wisdom. Forsake her not and she shall preserve thee, meaning wisdom shall preserve thee. Love her and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principle thing. Therefore get wisdom and with all thy getting, get understanding. This is a verse I think about a lot. Wisdom is the principle thing. What does that mean, principle? It means it's the first thing, right? It's the most important thing. It's the main thing. It's the primary thing. Okay. You think about the Spanish word, those of you who even just know a tiny bit of Spanish would know the word, principio, right? Because if you just open the Bible to Genesis one, one in Spanish, it's going to say en el principio, right? In the beginning, okay? And so wisdom is the principle thing. It's of the utmost importance. It's number one. It's the primary thing. It's the most important thing. There are a lot of things that you can seek after in life, right? You can seek after money, fame, athletic achievements, popularity, there are all kinds of paths that you can take. But you know, the main thing that you should really be seeking for in life is wisdom. That's the principle thing. That's the important thing. And of course, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, right? Wisdom comes from God. God is the one who gives wisdom to the wise. And so wisdom is the principle thing, therefore, get wisdom. It's more important than the other things you could spend your time pursuing, spend your time pursuing wisdom, the truth, understanding, right? Knowledge. This is the thing that we should spend our time looking for. And with all thy getting, get understanding, exalt her, and she shall promote thee. So what is he saying? Don't seek the promotion, seek wisdom. Then wisdom is going to promote you. If you seek wisdom, you get both. You know, we always think about that story of King Solomon, where he can ask God for whatever he wants. And he asks God for wisdom. He asks God for an understanding heart. And God says, well, because you didn't ask for, you know, long life or riches or the lives of your enemies, you know, I'm going to give you wisdom, but I'm also going to give you all the things that you did not ask for. And we might think of that as just a one time situation where God did that for Solomon. But in reality, though, what God's also trying to teach us in that story, though, is that if you get wisdom, you get everything else, because I don't even need that story to tell me that, because the book of Proverbs is telling me that in almost every one of these early chapters. We just saw it last week in chapter three, where long life is in one of wisdom's hands and riches are in the other hand. And so therefore, if you seek wisdom, you'll get the other things that you need in life. As I said recently in my sermon, if you know how to live, you will always be able to make a living. And if you're just all about learning how to make a living, you know, you may not know how to live, right? You can go after riches, you're not going to end up with wisdom. You go after wisdom, you're going to end up with both. Now, again, I'm not saying that you're going to be rich or wealthy, but I'm saying you're going to have what you need. And wisdom does give people the ability to produce wealth and to make money. But obviously, that's not the pursuit of my life and shouldn't be the pursuit of your life either. But wisdom is the key to anything else. The people in this world who do succeed in all these various ways, you know, there's an element of wisdom that leads into that. We want to have spiritual success. We want to be successful Christian men and women. We need to get wisdom, because if we exalt her, she will promote us, the Bible says in verse number 8, she shall bring thee to honor when thou dost embrace her, verse 9. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace, a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee. Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of thy life shall be many. So again, you want to be able to grow up and make money and support your family? Get wisdom and you'll have that, right? You want to live a long time, you want your days to be long on the earth, you want to be prosperous? Then get wisdom, because wisdom is going to give you the long life as well. Now again, let me just remind you that the book of Proverbs is constantly speaking in generalities. So if the Bible says that wisdom is going to give you a long life, that obviously doesn't mean that every single person who is wise is going to live a long time. You don't want to jump to the conclusion, if someone dies young, well, they must have not honored their father and mother. They must not have wisdom. They must be a wicked person. That's not true, because there are exceptions to all of these things. But in general, wisdom is going to give you a long life. In general, wisdom is going to give you financial prosperity and so forth. That's what the Bible is teaching here. And so it says, Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of thy life shall be many. Verse 11, I have taught thee in the way of wisdom. I have led thee in right paths. When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straightened, and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble. Now what does that word straighten to mean? Notice that there's no gh there in the spelling. So straight without the gh means narrow, right, like the straights of Gibraltar. And so when it says your steps will not be straightened, it's the idea of basically walking on a very narrow path, and you don't really have a place to put your foot, and maybe you're on a ledge, and the ledge is kind of crumbling, and your steps are straightened. There's just no place to step firmly and be on solid ground. That's what it means to have your steps straightened. And then the next phrase is along the same lines, thou shalt not stumble, right? It says when thou goest, thy steps shall not be straightened, and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble. Take fast hold of instruction, let her not go, keep her for she is thy life. Now what's verse 13 saying? Verse 13 is basically saying, you know, hold on to instruction, clutch it, grip it, and don't let go of it as if your life depended on it, right? Because what is it saying? Take fast hold of instruction, right? So get a firm grip, a tight handle on instruction, let her not go, keep her for she is thy life. Like if you were, you know, holding on to a rope, and if you let go of the rope, you're going to fall to your death or something, he's saying that's how you hold on to instruction like it's your life. Now what is instruction? Instruction is someone teaching you something, right? We're talking about right instruction, godly instruction. You know, the opportunity to have parents teaching you wisdom and your parents are Christians and they have good doctrine, that's a blessing, right? Going to a church where the pastor is opening the Bible and teaching you wisdom from the Bible is a blessing. You know, take fast hold of that. Don't just let go of it. So I think there's two things here. Number one, don't walk away from the instruction. Don't let go of the instruction, don't let go of that lifeline, number one. But number two, don't let go of the things that you've already been taught and the things whereby you've already been instructed. You know, isn't it amazing sometimes how flippantly or how lightly or how easily people get out of church? Are they laying fast hold on instruction? No, they're just letting go, right? They're just letting go of the lifeline, letting go of that cord. And you know, even if you make a lot of mistakes in your life and even if you get pretty backslidden and worldly and carnal, you know what? There's something to be said for at least staying in church at a minimum. You're going to be a lot more likely to bounce back from whatever backslidden condition you're in or whatever dry spell you go through, whatever dark place you go through. You're going to be a lot better at bouncing back if you stay in church. You know, this is one thing that I'm really thankful for about my upbringing is that we always went to church, always, always. I don't even know what it's like to not go to church. And even though, and of course I mean zero disrespect to my parents because I absolutely love my parents, I have a great relationship with my parents and I'm super thankful for all of the wonderful things that they taught me and the upbringing and I continue to have a great relationship with them. But just to be perfectly honest, when we were growing up, my parents were diehards when it came to going to church, but they weren't necessarily the most involved people in the church as far as, you know what I mean? They weren't super involved or they weren't in the ministry or my dad's not preaching or anything. They just went to church, right? They're Christians and they were definitely very serious about what they believed, but they weren't necessarily always super involved in church, okay? And you know, obviously I got really involved and became a pastor ultimately. Here I am. But the thing about that is that, you know, my parents were really good about just always going to church and there was never a period in our life where we just like didn't go to church for a while. There wasn't even like a month like that. It wasn't even like one month where we just didn't go to church. It was just like we went to, my parents, the only time they didn't go to church is if they were sick or if something happened or something was going on. But I mean just consistently since I've been born, I've gone to church every single week unless I was sick or something that providentially hindered me. But it's just church was just always there. And you know what? I have a strong feeling that that's a big reason why all four of my parents' kids are all in church right now. They're all Baptists. They're all saved, right? They all love the Lord. All four of us, we're all in church. And you know, my parents taught us to be in church, to always be in church. And so even if there were spiritual highs and lows in our family, we always stayed in church. And you know, I can think about when I was a teenager and I was, you know, not at my most spiritual when I was a teenager, but I was always at church. And I think that that's what kept me close to the Lord is just at least when the world is trying to just entice you away with everything else and distract you with everything else. You know, just coming once a week and just pushing that reset button spiritually and just keeping the things of God on your mind, just worshiping the Lord in the house of God and singing the songs and hearing the word of God. I'm telling you, it will keep you tethered, right, to the things of God so that even when you, maybe you drift far away from the ship, at least you're still tethered to it when you're coming to church. But I'm telling you, when you get out of church, you're kind of just, you're releasing that and it's a jungle out there. And there are so many people who have just faded away from Faithful Word Baptist Church over the years. They didn't leave because they got upset. They didn't have any issue with anything. They didn't have some big sin in their life or anything. No, they just kind of just faded away. I mean, so many people, good people, people that were involved, but they just kind of faded away because, you know why I think they faded away? Because they didn't have this attitude that just says, do or die, we go to church no matter what. No matter what happens, church is like a minimum that you do as a Christian. The bare minimum, you drag your butt to church because how hard is it? I mean, look, I want you to read your Bible. I want you to pray. I want you to go soul winning. I want you to be doing all kinds of good works for the Lord. I want you to be getting sin out of your life and cleaning up your life. Amen. I want you to do all that. But you know what? At a minimum, no matter how lame of a Christian you are, drag your butt to church. How hard is it to just sit in a chair and just be at church, just show up and just sit there and be there. But let me tell you something, showing up and sitting there and being there is going to go a long way for you spiritually. I'm telling you. And you get out of church for three weeks, four weeks, pretty soon it's eight weeks, and you're drifting further and further away and it's harder and harder to come back. And of course you can always come back whenever and jump in and we're ready to just pick up where we left off with you. But I find that people have a hard time getting back into it. It's not us. We're ready to bring them back at any time. It's just they drift away and they get out of the habit and they just, you know, they say, and you say, well, I live too far away. You know, it's just too long of a drive for me to get to church. Then go to church close to you. Then find a church next to you that you can go to. Well, it's just not as good. Then get your butt down to Tempe and go to the real thing, buddy. But quit whining and saying that you, you know, all the excuses why you're not going to church. It's up to you. Go to the one that's close. If this is too far, then go to the one that's close to you. Because I guarantee you we're in a giant city with 4.7 million people in our county. There are other churches that are still preaching a King James Bible and they still love the Lord and they're saved. You know, go there then. But just don't be a person that thinks church is optional. And that's the manner of some. Bibles is not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. But exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. Don't be this person that just is like, well, should I go to church or I think I'm going to get back into church or maybe I'll go to church. Maybe I won't go to church. You know, it should just be like, that's not even an option. That'd be like not going to church should be like, just like, well, I'm just going to quit brushing my teeth. I'm just going to stop taking a shower. I'm just going to stop using deodorant. You know, I'm just going to stop eating food, right? I'm just not going to go to sleep in a bed at night. You know, it's like, what in the world? Church should become that second nature. You say, well, that's a little radical. Take fast hold of instruction, right? Hold onto it like your life depends on it. And if you're going to church, part of church is instruction. Part of church is fellowship. Part of church is singing praises to God. Part of church is listening to the reading of God's word, but part of church is instruction. That's what preaching is. Preaching is instruction. You know, yes, listen to your parents, listen to the Bible, listen to the pastor, listen to other godly people in your life that are trying to teach you. Okay. Any time you have the opportunity to learn valuable information from someone, you know, take that opportunity, listen to them, ask questions, learn something, and take fast hold of instruction. It's your life, okay? Says in verse 14, enter not into the path of the wicked. So verses one through 13 were sort of one thought about how important it is to listen and listen to your parents. They've been a kid before. They learned this from their parents. They're teaching it to you. Get that wisdom of the ages. Lay fast hold of instruction. It's going to keep you from stumbling and crashing and burning in your life, right? But then when you get to verse 14, it kind of shifts gears. Because part of what's happening in these early chapters of Proverbs, we've probably picked up on the pattern a little bit in chapters one, two, three, and four, is there'll be a bunch of talk about how you really need to listen to this stuff. You really need to get wisdom. This is really important that you get understanding. Listen to what I'm saying. That's kind of how chapters one, two, three, and four all kind of started. And then they give you some advice. It's like, listen to me. And then, okay, here's the advice, okay? Verse 14 is where we kind of get into some of the advice. Enter not into the path of the wicked and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it. Pass not by it. Turn from it and pass away. What is he saying here? There are wicked people out there, they're toxic, they're evil, and you need to just stay away from them. Do not engage. I repeat. Do not engage them, okay? Just get away from them. And this is how I deal with a lot of kinds of people. You know, someone who's a sodomite or something, I repeat, do not engage. Just get away from them. They're predators, they're reprobates. Get away from them. Well, I'm going to go confront them. Just stay away from them. You just don't want to be around people like that, okay? Don't go in the way of wicked men. So don't go in the path of the wicked or the way of evil men. Don't go to the casino. This is a place where prostitutes hang out. This is a place where wicked people hang out, con artists, criminals, people who are just sinful in all manner of ways. Stay away from it. Don't go there. You say, well, I want to do the buffet. It's a great deal on the buffet. You know, I'd rather pay more for my hotel. I'd rather pay more for the steak. I'd rather pay more to just stay away from the way of evil men. You know, I'm sorry to offend those of you who've gotten those deals or whatever when you're traveling. I'm not judging you up here, but I'm just saying, you know, pay the extra and go to a different buffet. Go to a different restaurant. Stay at a different hotel because it's just not worth it to go to those kind of places because it's just smarter to just stay far away from bars, casinos, gentleman's clubs, right? Get away from these places. They're wicked places. Stay away. Don't go there. Avoid it. I love these little short phrases in verse 15. Avoid it. Isn't the King James Bible so hard to understand? I'm having a little trouble with the archaic language. Avoid it. Pass not by it. Turn from it and pass away. I wonder what that means. Does anybody have a dictionary? You see, if I were walking down the street and there's a strip club there, you know, I'm just going to cross the street and just walk across the other side of the street and then cross back over because I don't even want to get near a place like that. Does that make sense? You're walking around the city and there's something weird going on. There's weird people, weirdos, freaks, whatever. It's just like you just cross the street and just kind of get away from them. Give them a wide berth. Do not engage. Stay away from them. Verse 16, for they sleep not except they've done mischief and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall. Not only do these wicked people like to commit sin, they love to cause other people to fall. This is what they live for. This is why they get up in the morning, according to the Bible, they get up in the morning so that they can make good people fall so that they can hurt good people. I'm telling you, sinful people all the way back to Eve in the garden, they just want to get someone else to commit sin with them. It just makes them feel so much better if they can get you to take a bite of the forbidden fruit also. They want to get other people to sin with them. People love nothing more when they're a wicked, sinful person than to corrupt some Christian, to corrupt the pastor's children, to corrupt the deacon's children, to corrupt some godly Christian's children. I remember when I was a teenager, when people would find out that I was kind of a straight laced guy and that I was a serious Bible believing Christian, they would try hard to get me involved in sin. I remember I used to work at Round Table Pizza. I remember being offered hundreds of dollars cash if I would go with them to the strip club. They're literally saying, we'll give you $200 right now if you'll just go with us one time. We just want to take you there so bad and expose you to this. Can you imagine that? It doesn't even make sense. Why would they want to give me hundreds of dollars to go to a strip club? It doesn't make any sense, does it? It doesn't make sense to you because you're not a wicked person. It doesn't make any sense to me because I'm not a wicked person, but these wicked people, they just love it. They just want to cause someone to fall. They just want to drag you down to their level. They don't like the fact that you're living a clean life. To them, it's like I guess going to the strip club just isn't that fun anymore because they're so already corrupted to the max, it would be more fun to bring somebody who's never been there and just destroy the purity of this little Sunday school boy that they're working with because that's what they're thinking, right? You know what? They're right in the sense that, yeah, I'd never been exposed to anything like that and it would have been super corrupting and it would have been a shocking thing for me to be brought to such a place. Obviously, I said no because I'm not going to go by the way of Wicked Man. I don't want to get involved in that. I want to go to some super wicked sinful place no matter how much money I'm being offered or something like that, but the fact that I was offered money to do that, it's kind of crazy, isn't it? What's funny is sometimes you'll tell stories like this to children or something and they're just like, oh, come on. Did that really happen? Yeah, it did. I'll bet you there's probably other people in the room tonight that probably had something similar happen, somebody offering them money to commit some sin. Just to watch a Christian sin would be such a delight to them. It makes no sense, but yet it happened. Well, now it makes sense because the Bible says right here, they sleep not except they've done mischief. Their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall. They're not satisfied until they can drag you down to their level and cause you to fall. So being around these people is putting yourself in harm's way. They're out to get you. They are predators. They're out to corrupt you, and you're basically just delivering yourself to them on a silver platter by being around them. Now look, obviously you got to go to work as a man. So yeah, I went to work and I'm around people at work, but you know what? I'm not going to go after work and go hang around with these people on their turf at the bar. Well, I'm just going to get a soda. I'm going to go to the bar. I'm just going to get the wings or whatever. They have great wings there. Don't go to these people's turf and don't be around them. Now obviously we live in this world and we're going to be around sinful people at our job, but it doesn't mean that we have to let them become an influence on us. We're not going to be best buddies with them. We're not necessarily going to be getting together with them after work on their turf and getting involved in these things because they are trying to trip you up. And it's not being paranoid if they really are trying to trip you up because the Bible says that people are going to be trying to trip you up, so they're out there. They eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence, verse 17 says. This is their bread and butter in order to harm you and get you involved in fornication, drunkenness, to get you to try drugs, whatever. Just, oh, why don't you just try this one little drug. It's not a big deal. It's just one joint. It's just, here, I'll break the pill in half and you just take a little half. You're not even going to barely feel it. Do not fall for this. This is what they do. But the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness. They know not of what they stumble. They don't even realize why their life is so stupid and why they're so screwed up and why they're falling apart. They don't get it. But if you're smart, you'll get it. Because the way of the righteous is that when you're 20, you know a little more than when you were 19. And when you're 23, you know a little more than when you were 22. And when you're 41, you know more than you knew when you were 39. That's the way the righteous person, the godly Christian's life is supposed to be, continual growth and learning and understanding about this world. Whereas the people who are not in church and they're not following the Lord and they're hanging around at all these places I'm telling you to avoid, they actually are going deeper into the darkness every year. Like you'll talk to them when they're 25 and they're dumber than when they were 20. And it's amazing because you just assume like, well, isn't just being on this earth giving you some kind of experience or something where you're like learning something or is it always shocking when people are dumber years later? Because you'd expect them to be continually gaining knowledge. Because that's what you're doing. See, if you're reading your Bible cover to cover every year, well then you're learning stuff. So you're gonna know a little more Bible next year. You're going to church three times a week, you're reading your Bible, I mean you're learning stuff. So five years from now you're gonna know way more than you know right now if you're doing it right, if you're actually attending and paying attention and reading your Bible, praying, going to church. I hope I'm way smarter five years from now than I am right now. But I'm telling you, there are people in this room that may be dumber five years from now than they are right now. Because they're gonna get out of church, stop reading the Bible, and you lose knowledge. You lose wisdom. If you don't use it, you lose it. And so the way of the wicked is as darkness. They know not of what they stumble. And this is why, by the way, you should not take life advice from people whose life is a mess. Because they'll be like, oh man, I've been divorced so many times, let me tell you about marriage. I know because I've made all the mistakes. I've had five marriages fall apart. Let me tell you what not to do. No. Here's why. They don't know at what they stumble. They don't know why their five marriages fell apart. Better to get advice from the person who did it right than to go to the person who's, you know, if I want to hear about how to avoid drugs and alcohol, I'll probably talk to somebody who's never touched them than the recovering drug addict. You know what I mean? And you might think, well no, the recovering drug addict has way more experience with it and stuff. Yeah, but you know, I'd rather talk to the guy who's never touched this stuff and get tips from him on how to not become an alcoholic or a drug addict. The guy who's never touched it is probably going to have the best advice on how he did it, right? And so talking to people who screwed up is not the best source of advice. It's better to get advice from people who did things the right way, okay? Because a lot of times people don't know at what they stumbled. Now obviously there are some people who, you know, they made mistakes early in life, then they got saved, and now they're saved and now they understand what they did wrong. I get that. But I'm just saying, as a general rule though, you're probably better off just going straight to the successful people and getting advice from them. People that are living in sin right now are for sure not people that you would want to listen to about anything. People who lived a bad past and they're living for God now, yeah, they could have some good advice for you, they could have some good things for you. But again, I would prefer to talk to somebody about a certain issue that had actually done well with that issue all along. Because a lot of times people don't know why what they did didn't work. But the people who did it right, they probably do know what works, because they succeeded. My son, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings, let them not depart from thine eyes, keep them in the midst of thy heart, for they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. And you know, these verses that talk about, you know, keeping God's word around us all the time, and the advice of godly people, keeping it before us, keeping it in front of us, at our fingertips, in front of our eyes, you know, this is so easy in the age of technology because we have a smartphone. And so I always have a Bible with me, now, in any situation. You know, there were times in the past, you know, and obviously, you know, I was always in the habit of carrying like a little pocket New Testament back in the day when smartphones didn't exist. I always had like a pocket New Testament with me, but you know, you say always, but then there's that time, ah, I don't have it though, right? And I still think it's a great idea to have a physical copy of the word of God at hand, you know, on the coffee table, in the car, right, just in the lunchbox, wherever, just as a reminder to read it. But you know, there's really no excuse to not have God's word available to us when we have the smartphone, and there's so many free apps where you can have the King James Bible on your smartphone, and I'm constantly just able to just whip out my phone and just go straight to the Bible. But you know what? There's a lot of other places you could go on the smartphone too, aren't there? You could pull it out, you know, and go all kinds of other meaningless directions. But man, use the technology to have God's word always at your fingertips and before your eyes. It's so convenient. Or in the past, maybe, people would have had to have their eyes available in order to actually read the Bible, whereas now you could literally put on the headphones and turn on the audio Bible while you're doing whatever. There's no excuse not to read your Bible in 2022, right? Oh, I'm too busy. Well, listen to it in the car on the way to work, right? Listen to it while you're exercising. Oh, that's right, you don't exercise. No, I'm just kidding. You know, listen to it when you're doing the gardening, the yard work. Listen to it when you're brushing your teeth, right? We talked about that earlier in the sermon that that's not optional. Listen to it while you do your whatever hygiene routines, right? Listen to it, read it, have the app available, have the physical copy, right? Just have it around you at all times because it's life. And then it says in verse 23, keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. This is such a, this verse is so profound. I can't even overstate how profound this verse is. This is one of those verses that you'll have with you your whole life and like you'll keep understanding it on different levels because it's such a deep truth and it's such an important truth to keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. A lot of us don't realize that basically we in many ways have power over our thoughts, our feelings, our heart, our attitude, our mind, our beliefs, right? Obviously we control the type of things that go into our brain, the things that we watch, the things that we listen to. Obviously that's going to affect our heart, the things that are coming in. But also, you know, there are certain things that we can do in our life that will change how our heart stands. Like for example, the Bible says, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust is corrupt and where thieves break through and steal but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust is corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is there will your heart be also. So stop and think about the fact that if I lay up for myself treasures on this earth, not only is it vain because I can't take it with me, moth and rust are going to corrupt, thieves are going to break through and steal, the tax man is going to take some of it away, it's going to get robbed from me in other ways. Not only is it vain but also the problem with laying up treasures on this earth is that it affects my heart and that's even worse. That's the most, it's not that I wasted time and energy on something that doesn't matter but I don't want to be a person who loves money. I don't want to be a person who constantly thinks about money. I don't want to be a person where my heart is on the Wall Street Journal, I want my heart to be on the word of God. So therefore I'm going to make life decisions and financial decisions to keep money, I don't want to have my mind on my money and my money on my mind, okay. I want my heart to be the exact opposite of that song, okay. I want to have my heart not on my money and my money not on my mind, okay, and I'm also, no gin and juice but yeah, there's a lot of problems there. The point is, there's a lot of wickedness in just a few lines of music there. The point is that I want the exact opposite, I don't want to think about money. So therefore, you know, I don't want to make an investment or something that's going to make me constantly think about that investment or think about money, I don't want to think about that, you know, and people who have a lot of money, they think about money a lot. Now I don't want to be dirt poor either because then I'm going to be thinking about money a lot too if I don't have any and if I can't pay my bills then I'm going to be constantly thinking about money. What I really want is I want to take that middle path of neither poverty nor riches where I just don't really have to think too much about money. I just kind of have enough money to do what I need to do but I don't have so much money that I'm just thinking about it. I can just kind of just forget about it on most days, right, and just most days. I don't want to just wake up in the morning and check my banking. There are two people who wake up every morning and check their banking, people that are very poor and people that are very rich. Rich people are just, they constantly have their accounts pulled up. If you know people that are rich, they're constantly monitoring, they're constantly looking at it. I don't want to be that guy. Poor people are trying to figure out whether the transaction is going to go through so they have to keep checking their banking because when you have like $14.35 in the bank, yeah, you better keep an eye on that because that can go south of zero real fast and then you're going to get hit with all the fees and everything, you know. But people who have like a couple thousand bucks in the bank, they just kind of have a buffer of a few thousand bucks, they just don't think about it. Now somebody who's got $40,000 in the bank probably thinks more about it than the guy who has $4,000 and then there's the guy with $4,000, okay, so you got $4,000, $4,000, $40,000. Be the $4,000 guy, okay, where you just don't really think about it. Now I'm obviously speaking as an older man with a family and everything, you know, obviously when you're a teenager if you have $4,000 in the bank you're probably thinking about it quite a bit, okay. So for you maybe it's like $400 is the sweet spot for you, $400. But you know, I'm telling you, you don't want to make life decisions that cause you to constantly think about money because your heart is so important. Keep your heart with all diligence, out of it are the issues of life, don't let your heart get all caught up in money and mammon, right, you don't want that. You know a lot of people are offended by the fact that I don't vote, right, a lot of people are very offended by that. Now I used to vote but I quit voting back in 2012, the last time I voted was in 2012 I voted for Ron Paul in the primary, in the primary, and when Ron Paul didn't get the nomination I was done, alright. I voted for him in the primary in 2008, in the general election I voted for Pastor Chuck Baldwin in 2008, Constitution Party, and then in 2012 I voted for Ron Paul in the primary, I haven't voted since. Now look, hey, if you want to vote, go ahead. I'm not telling you not to vote, I'm not going to vote, I don't vote, I don't care. But part of the reason is because I've kind of declared my own independence, you know, and the thing about that is that voting would actually invest my heart in the process and I don't want to think about or care about politics. Politics don't matter to me, okay, I'm not interested. To me it's all sort of a dog and pony show and it can be a big time waster and everything. Now look, again, I'm not telling you to be exactly like me and I think that, you know, if you're a person that enjoys politics as a hobby, hey, it's better than going to the bar and getting drunk every night, you know, if that's what you like, if that's how you entertain yourself, hey, there's a lot worse things you could be into. So I'm not mad at you if you're into politics, I'm not telling you to stop being into politics. If that's a good clean fun for you, well, maybe you're kind of a sick person, but hey, whatever, you know, I'm not expecting everybody to, you know, people probably look at my hobbies and think that I'm a sick person, okay, you know, ultra running anyone? So you know, everybody's got their thing and so I'm not trying to take away your thing, I'm not trying to take away good clean fun from you, but you know, for a lot of people though, following politics has a negative effect on them. Now if you can enjoy politics and it's fun for you and you can eat the popcorn and watch all the political theater and enjoy it and it's entertaining for you and you're excited to go out and vote and you want your guy to win and everything like that, hey, I'm not trying to take that away from you. But you know what, a lot of people though, politics is really something that depresses them and it gets them really angry. I don't want to be an angry person. Anger rests in the bosom of fools. So I don't want to be angry on Monday, angry on Tuesday, angry on Wednesday. I want to just get a little angry on certain Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night, you know, rip on sin and then go home and not be mad anymore and then be happy on Monday, happy on Tuesday, happy even on a lot of Wednesdays and Sundays except for when those certain subjects come around where I need to really, you know, let her rip. Then I do want to get mad at the things that make the Lord angry every day. But I don't want to be an angry man. The Bible says make no friendship with an angry man. So I don't want to be an angry man where God's telling people not to be friends with me because I'm a bad influence because I'm so angry all the time. Anger rests in the bosom of fools. So if politics are making you mad every day, then keep your heart with all diligence and unplug from politics. And for me, part of unplugging from politics is not voting. To me, that has a greater psychological benefit for me. I get a greater psychological benefit from not voting and just feeling like I'm just kind of have transcended politics and declared my own independence. I get more out of that than whatever, you know, one vote towards some candidate is going to do for me. You know, and again, I know that offends some people and a lot of people disagree with me on that. But I'm okay with that. I'm not expecting you to, you know, have reached this conclusion or reach this level. You'll get here someday, all right. But anyway, I'm just saying that I don't vote partially because I don't because voting only encourages them, but also because, you know, I just don't want to think about it. And so by not voting, I don't think about it. You know why I don't think about the stock market? Can you guess why? Because I don't own any stocks. I don't even think about it. You know, so it's just certain things I don't want to think about. So I just kind of unplug from those things. That's why I don't want to be poor. That's why I don't want to be rich because I don't want to think about money. I want to just live life. I want to wake up and reach for the Bible, think about the things of God and not be too focused on money. I don't want to be focused on politics. I don't want to be focused on these. And again, like I said, I'm not against you doing these things as a hobby if you like it. But if it's having a toxic effect on your heart, keep your heart with all diligence. What we want to do is realize that our heart is something that we have control over and that we can influence it by our decisions, what we watch, what we listen to, who we hang around, decisions that we make. And so we want to think about, okay, how can I keep myself right toward God? How can I keep my heart tender to the things of God? How can I keep myself focused spiritually? And in a sense, learn how to manipulate our own heart instead of just letting our heart being just tossed to and fro, whichever this world and Satan wants to bring our heart. No, no, we keep our heart. We're going to take our heart in our hand and basically say, no, no, no, I'm going to guide this sucker where I want it to go. You know, we're going to, we're thinking about the things of God. We're going to read our Bible. We're going to be into soul winning. You know, find ways to motivate yourself to read the Bible. Why? Keep your heart with all diligence. Take control of your heart. Don't let your heart just kind of drag you all over the place. You take control of your heart. You'll follow your heart. No, my heart's going to follow me. No, actually my heart's going to follow the Lord. My heart's going to follow me as I follow Christ, but you know, it's like, follow your heart. No, no, no. Actually get your heart to do what you want it to do. Keep your heart with all diligence. Fence that thing in, control that thing, reign that thing in, for out of it are the issues of life. What a great verse. I mean, I love that. You should constantly think about that verse. It's such a powerful verse. Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a froward mouth and perverse lips, but far from thee. Why? Because that stuff's going to influence your heart. For me, I find that sometimes in the flesh, I don't want to read my Bible, right? And I think we've all been at a point where it's like, it's time to read the Bible. It's like, I don't feel like reading the Bible, but what I've found is that I have a love of foreign languages, so for me, one of the ways that I stay motivated to read the Bible is I'll read it in other languages because then it's like, oh yeah, okay, this kind of makes it feel fresh again or something like that. Now, obviously, not everyone's going to relate to that. Other people are going to be like, what are you talking about? But here's the thing, I figure out ways to motivate myself to read my Bible. And here's another thing, you know what motivates me to read my Bible is every time I'm doing any Bible reading, I'm always documenting it. So I've got all kinds of Bible reading charts. And by documenting my Bible reading, you know what that does, that actually makes me want to read my Bible more because then I get to check that box, right? So I'm finding ways to motivate myself to read my Bible because in the flesh, I don't always want to read it, but I need to be reading it, okay? I need to motivate myself to go soul winning. I need to motivate myself, so I find ways to motivate myself to go soul winning. I find ways to motivate myself to read my Bible, why? Because my heart needs to be brought into the conformity of what Christ commands. And obviously, our heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked when it comes to the flesh. Thankfully, we also have the new man. But it takes effort to put on the new man and to get our heart on board with God's program, get our heart off of money, off of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, and get it on the right things. And so I'm just throwing out a couple of examples. I'm just throwing out examples of Bible reading or whatever, money being something that could consume people, okay? But you could probably think of a lot of other examples too about how we need to keep our heart with all diligence. Well, let's back up quickly and just apply that to what we've seen so far in the chapter. The first 13 verses were all about listening to instruction, listening to your parents, listening to preaching, lay fast, hold on instruction, listen to the word of God above all else. Well, guess what? We need to make sure that our heart is ready to do that, okay? How do we keep our heart with all diligence? We don't go in the path, if we hang around the casino, do you think that could affect our heart a little bit? All that cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, do you think that that could create the love of money in our heart if we're hanging around a casino? Right? Do you think if you're hanging around at the strip club, that's gonna create a lustful heart and it's gonna get your mind on all kinds of carnal things? You're not gonna be in there thinking about the things of God, okay? And so you think when you go to the bar and all the conversations that are going on at the bar, the atmosphere, it's all pointing you toward drinking. It's pointing you toward other things that are not right. And so keep your heart with all diligence, right? Have the right friends, listen to the right people, go to church. And how about just the fact that if you go to church once a week or twice a week or three times a week just to at least stay tethered and not just drift off and just totally drift away spiritually, you know, that's keeping your heart with all diligence, isn't it? Because guess what? Sunday morning affects your heart, Sunday night service affects your heart. You know, your heart, going out of here tonight, I hope that your heart is a little more on the things of God because we spent an hour together thinking about the Bible, singing praises to God. So therefore you're gonna walk out of here, your heart is in a little different place than if you would have spent this hour at the movie theater, than if you would have just spent this hour at a sporting event, if you would have just spent this hour just playing a video game or just doing nothing. But no, you spent the time here and you actually did something to your heart. And your heart is everything. How is your day gonna go tomorrow? What types of decisions are you gonna make? What kind of a person are you gonna be? Well that's determined by what you do with your heart, right? So you gotta keep your heart with all diligence because out of it are the issues of life. Everything else about life kind of, it's all connected, that's why it's called the heart by the way. The heart is the thing that's in the middle, right? The core, you know, I never can pronounce this word right but it's like l'ecueur, you know. That's French for heart but I don't know how to pronounce it and I apparently never will. But the point is, how am I doing on that pronunciation? Oh yeah, what else are you gonna say, right? So the heart of something is sort of like, if you think about life being a wheel and all the different issues of our life are spokes on that wheel, the heart is the hub. If your heart is wrong then it's all gonna filter out and if the heart is right then it's all gonna basically be on track. Keep your heart with all diligence, out of it are the issues of life. Let's pray, let's have a word of prayer. Father we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and Lord help us to have our heart meditating upon your word and have our aims be wisdom and understanding and knowledge and not to get caught up in seeking after carnal, fleshly, worldly, you know, money goals or fame goals or anything like that, Lord. Help us to always keep spiritual things, our focus, help our heart to be on the kingdom of heaven and not on this world and on the treasures of this world. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.