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All right, Proverbs chapter 14, and this is going to be, I'll probably do this every time, but we're going to be jumping around a lot through the book of Proverbs here, or at least within this chapter in different verses, because I try to keep some of the similar topics together, and they kind of pop up at different places throughout the chapter. So I do have them all listed out, but as we continue through Proverbs, except until we get closer to the end, like Proverbs 31, where it picks back up into more of complete thoughts of just having verses and verses and verses, we're going to be doing this way of kind of skipping around a little bit, but we're going to hit them all. We're just not going to do the regular, like, verse one, verse two, verse three, verse four. So just stay with me here. We're going to do a little bit jumping around, but not a whole lot. We'll start off with verse number one. In other words, every wise woman buildeth her house, but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. Here we see a wise woman, a good godly woman, and again, we're going to get to this more when we get into Proverbs 31, but a wise woman builds her house, is actively involved. The Bible says that a woman is to be a keeper at home and should be raising kids, but whether or not you even have children, a wise woman is going to build her house and going to be involved in her own house and making sure that her house is kept well and doing all the things involved with building that house. It says, but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. And, you know, I have to chuckle. It just makes me think of, like, a woman kind of going crazy and just, like, throwing stuff around when I read this verse. I know that's not exactly what it's talking about, but it's the imagery that comes up when I read this. You know, don't be the foolish woman that just gets angry at your husband and starts breaking stuff, right? There's no point for that. You want to build your house, not destroy it. But this also goes in with verse number four, you know, a wise woman building her house. Look at verse number four. The Bible reads, where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase is by the strength of the ox. And this is a good proverb to keep in mind. You know, oftentimes the things that are going to really advance you and going to make you have more increase are going to be dirty. You know, what it's saying here, if you don't have an ox, hey, your crib is clean. The area of the ox would be would be clean. Your house is going to be clean. Your property is going to be clean. You don't have to worry about the dung. You don't have to worry about the food. You don't have to worry about all the mess that comes associated with having that animal. But if you have that animal, there's a lot of things you could do with that. There's a lot of increase you have. You could use that animal to plow a field. You could use that animal to do a lot more to better yourself. And you see, basically, you know, I would say don't be so caught up and worried about just how spick and span and clean everything is. You know, sometimes you need to just let things get a little bit dirty because you're doing other stuff that's going to help you to increase and to just do more. And the work that's important now, look, I'm not saying to have a messy house. Okay, I'm not, you know, don't take that away from this. And of course, every husband is going to decide what they want their house looking like. But in order to increase, oftentimes other things are going to have to not get done. And even, you know, for example, when you do work for the Lord, there's all kinds of things we can fill our time with. But when you're doing, when you're deciding, you know what, no, I want to do this and I want the increase that goes along with soul winning and memorizing and, you know, praying and everything else, something's going to have to give. I mean, if you're anything like me, I've got stuff going on all the time. I've got a full-time job. I've got the church, I've got people in the church that I got to talk to. I've got, you know, all different things that are going on in my life. Something is always giving. Sometimes I might have to give a little bit on spending time with my family. Sometimes I have to give a little bit on the work that I do at my job. Sometimes I have to give a little, you know, in different areas of your life. But make sure that you have the right priorities. You could say, wow, but everything's so spic and span and clean and we're so comfortable here. But you're not increasing. You're not doing anything to more, to further yourself, to better yourself. You always want to be moving forward. You always want to be progressing. You don't ever want to get to a point where you just kind of just stay stagnant. Because when you get to that point where you're just kind of leveling out, you're going to start moving backwards. And you start focusing on the things that don't really matter. And you're going to start spending your time, you know, getting a little bit more idle and filling that vacant time with things that don't really matter, that are just vanity. Instead of planning on, hey, I'm going to build this house. I'm going to increase. You know, I mean, even a woman who's finally maybe had kids and they're all grown and they're out of the house and now you have this clean house, say you could still work on building that house. And don't worry so much about the cleanliness. Worry more about the increase in doing more and being active and working harder. Let's jump back here to verse number two. The Bible reads, he that walketh in his uprightness feareth the Lord. But he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him. Now, we read a lot of verses throughout Proverbs that talk pretty much in generalities like this is of being righteous or being wicked, doing what's right, doing what's wrong. And just an important note, the thing about this, you know, if you walk in your uprightness, if you walk righteously, it says you fear God. And that's a good thing. Fear in the Lord is not a bad thing. It's not a negative connotation. That is a good thing. But he that is perverse in his ways, you know, those sins that you got, it says you despise the Lord. And despise is a pretty strong word. And we need to remember that, you know, when you have your pet sins and you get perverted in your way and you get perverse in the right way and living an overall general righteous life and you start doing things that are perverse, that are twisted, that are wrong, that are sinful. The Bible is saying here, if you're perverse in your ways, you despise the Lord, you hate the Lord. And by not following, you say, but I don't hate God. Well, when you don't listen to what he says and you're not following, you know, his commandments, then you're showing by your actions that you actually do despise this word. And again, keep in mind, we're talking about the big picture here. This isn't just every single, you know, every sin you do is still a sin and is a problem. But, you know, this is talking more about people who are perverse in his ways, not in like one small aspect where, you know, obviously we're all sinners. Look at verse number three. In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride, but the lips of the wise shall preserve them. The proud fool looks to get into arguments and get into debates. And that's why I think, you know, to use this, I love the, I love the language of the Proverbs and the Psalms. The mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride. You think a rod, you know, we just looked at the rod last week, right, for disciplining your children. And the rod is always used for that type of punishment. And here the rod of pride is coming out of the mouth of a fool. So they're using their words to basically, you know, beat on people and to try to take them down. And when it's done by pride, they're lifting themselves up, putting other people down, and they like to get into the arguments and the debates. Their mouth is being a rod of pride. And now we're going to jump to this. This segues into a topic here. We're going to read a lot of verses talking about fools and how we ought to avoid the fool. Look at verse number seven. The Bible reads, go from the presence of a foolish man when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge. This is great advice. When you come across someone and you're like, man, this guy is just a fool. You know, this guy is a blasphemer. This guy is a fool. The Bible says, you know what, the best advice is just to go away from those people. Don't spend your time just hanging out with them and say, well, I'm here. When you get into company of a foolish man, avoid them. Just go somewhere else. You don't have to spend your time with a foolish man because it's just going to lead to problems. Look at verse number eight. The Bible says the wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way, but the folly of fools is deceit. The foolish man is caught up in their deceit and in lying. And look at verse number nine. The Bible says fools make a mock at sin, but among the righteous there is favor. Now, keep all of these things in mind as we're going through the fools and everything we've learned from previous chapter as to why we want to go away from the presence of the foolish man. Here it says that fools will make a mock at sin, and when a fool gets started making mockery of sin, it's a lot easier for those around him to join in in the mockery. Now, this happens way too often even among believers, even among godly people making mock at sin and talking about things. I mean, it starts off and you think, I've preached on this before too, how the Sodomites have gotten such a hold in our culture. It all started with them being the butt of jokes on the television, right? They were being made fun of. They were the flamboyant, oh, look at that, look at that, that fag, you know, that, that, that real flamboyant queer guy on this, on this TV show or whatever. And everyone just made a joke out of it and it was just hahaha real funny. And what they do is they're just making a mock out of that sin. I mean, the Bible calls that sin an abomination, yet we just make a mockery out of it. We just just joke about it and jest about it. Turn, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 5. Keep your finger here in Proverbs 14, we'll be right back to it. But hanging around fools will make you start to talk like a fool. It will make you start to do the same things that fools do as opposed to just going from the presence of the foolish man and not having to do anything with their foolishness. Look at Ephesians chapter 5 and verse number 1, the Bible reads, Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. This is what we're supposed to do. We need to be followers of God as his dear children. And walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, look at this, let it not be once named among you as become a saint. He said you should have nothing to do with this wicked sin. You know, you definitely shouldn't be partaking in it. You'd better not be, you know, a fornicator or covetous, you know, uncleanness. He's saying have nothing to do with it. Let it not even once be named among you as become a saints. Look at verse number 4, neither filthiness nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. And then he goes into not only your actions, not only don't be a fornicator, not only don't be covetous, but don't even be talking like a fool. Don't even be saying the things that a fool says and don't be jesting, you know, this foolish jesting. And people too many times, look, I'm all for having a good sense of humor. I love hearing jokes. I love telling jokes. I'm not that good at it, but there's nothing wrong with having humor, being funny, you know, telling jokes and the like, but what your jokes are about, they shouldn't just be this foolish talking or making a mockery at sin. We really ought not to be making fun of the sin. You know, there's some things that people do that the Bible says it's a shame to even speak of those things which are done of them in secret. That the things that the reprobate does, the things that these really wicked evil people do, the Bible says it's a shame to even speak of those things. You say, yeah, but we're just making fun of it, so it's okay. No, don't even speak about those things. There's no reason for it to even come up. That's foolish talking, and that's foolish jesting that you just need to get away from and have nothing to do with. Flip back, if you would, to Proverbs 14. Just to get a little bit more specific, the unclean jokes, the unsavory jokes. Look, there's many of us that have friends out in this world or people that we know acquaintances, right? You work, you go on the job, and there's people that might tell dirty jokes, off-color jokes, jokes that are explicit about one thing or another about bedroom things or whatever, things that you ought not to be talking about, things that no godly Christian should be involved in conversation with. And this is where you have to be able to make the stand. Are you just going to stand there and go, haha, and just play along and joke with them and participate with their evil deeds? Or are you just going to say, you know, you could still do it tactfully, but just excuse yourself from the presence of those fools. And yeah, people might look at you different. Yeah, people might say things behind your back if you're that person. Oh, they might think that you're stuck up. They might think that you have, you know, you're better than ever, whatever. But we ought to be following the word of God more than worrying about what people are going to think or say about us. And you know what? Besides all that, God's called us to be a peculiar people. God has called us to be separate from this world. God says that we need to be living different than just everyone else. You don't just fit right in with the world. If you're a Christian, you ought not to or else you're not right with God. We need to have standards that we set forward. We need to be able to say, no, I'm a little bit different than the world. In fact, I'm a lot different than the world because I'm going to live and do things by the way that God has spelled out for me and not by the way that is just comfortable and what the world teaches and believes. I don't care if the world thinks it's super funny to make jokes about filthiness and about wickedness and about sin and making a mockery at sin. I'm not going to do it. Even if you find it funny inside, just avoid it. Get away from it and have nothing to do with it because a fool makes a mock at sin. Look at verse number 16 here in Proverbs 14. Paul reads, a wise man feareth and departeth from evil. If you're wise, you're going to fear God. You're going to be faced with a decision to make on committing some kind of a sin and you're going to depart from that evil. You're going to depart from doing that because you're going to fear God and that's what a wise man does. But the Bible says that the fool rageth and is confident. See, not only does a fool get involved in sin, but they're confident in their sin. They're proud in their sin. They're boasters in their sin. And don't you ever be deceived by the confidence of a fool. Because here's the thing, when someone has confidence, they tend to lead other people. Whether or not what they're confident in is right or whether what they're doing is right or true or anything like that, when you have a person that can speak and they could be bold and they can do whatever it is that they're doing and they could do it with confidence and they could carry themselves and just like, oh yeah, you know, if you've got a bunch of people standing around, for example, trying to maybe try to fix this little heater here, right, and no one really knows what they're doing. But you got one guy who's just like everyone else, doesn't really know what they're doing, but just starts talking and acting like, oh yeah, we just got to take this off here. Everyone's going to just listen to that person and kind of follow the lead. Oh, well, he must know what he's doing because he has that confidence. Well, watch out for the fools that have the confidence in their sins that are going out and there's nothing wrong with this. There's nothing wrong with going out and having beers and just being real confident about it, especially the people that want to tell you that things are scriptural or biblical. And you say, oh wow, he's really confident. He must know his Bible. I've run into, I'll tell you what, I've run into my personal experience. I do, in my secular job, I work as a computer programmer. Computer programming is something that, you know, with computers and writing code that a lot of people know nothing about. It's kind of like auto mechanics, right? There's a lot of people out there that have no idea how cars work. They bring them into a mechanic and just hope that the mechanic will be honest and fix your problem without, you know, just being deceitful and charging you for things you don't need and stuff like that. Well, computers are similar and probably even more so specialized where more people don't even realize what's going on. So, one of the things that I've noticed in dealing with other people and other programmers from other companies, these people could get hired in the jobs because they were really confident, because they were able to make a good interview. They were able to say things to the human resources person that's doing the hiring, that's not the, you know, who doesn't really know anything themselves about the subject matter. And they get in and then I ended up talking to some of these people, it's just like, how in the world are you working there? You know, like they don't know their stuff because when you actually know, you get to have conversations like, you don't know anything about this. There was even a guy that was working at my company, because it's a small business, there's not that many people working there. And he was the guy that was in charge of the server and everything else, and nobody had any formal education on computers or anything. They just thought like, oh, well he knows about computers and he would talk the talk. And then when I showed up and started having a conversation with him, I'm like, this guy doesn't know anything at all. But at first I was thinking like, oh, here's our server administrator, right? Here's the admin. So I started talking to him, you know, just like real humbly and expecting to kind of learn from him and stuff. And it was just like, no, no, no, no. And it was real quick. And I just started telling him, we need to do this and this and you know, but it's because of that confidence. It's because people that don't know any better are going to just put confidence in the wrong person, their confidence in someone who acts confidently. But all of that said, to watch out for the fool, to watch out for the fool that's confident in their sin, that's confident in what they're doing is right. They don't care what God says. Don't follow someone like that, especially if you're more of a natural follower, someone who's following someone else's lead. It's going to be a lot easier for you to get off in the wrong direction then when someone is confident, but make sure that you're using this mind that God gave you and the fear of the Lord. And that's why it's so important for everybody to be in their Bibles daily, to know what God's word says for yourself. So you don't get led astray. You don't want anyone coming in and trying to lead you off with false doctrine, even though they're real confident. You know, I've heard plenty of false prophets out there confidently just preaching from their heart and convincing all kinds of people and leading them astray in a false conference. Why? Because they could speak confidently, and it's attractive to people to be able to follow. They must know what they're talking about. They must be an expert. We all need to be experts in God's word. We all need to take the time and devote the time to not be led astray by the fool, by the false prophet, by anybody. Because God ultimately is going to hold you responsible anyways. He's not going to hold those other people blameless that are leading you astray, but you still have your own obligation to not be a fool and to read God's word and to have the fear of the Lord. But the fool will rage. It says here, the fool rages and he's confident. Doesn't care, right? God's word means nothing to him. He has no fear of the Lord. Again, another person you want to stay away from, depart from their company. The fool that's raging and is confident in their sin and their wickedness, they have nothing to do with that person. When God's judgment does come upon those people, you don't want to be standing around next to him. I'll tell you that much. Look at verse number 17, Proverbs 14, 17. He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly, and a man of wicked devices is hated. Really important, we need to be temperate. We need to make sure that we are not people that are soon angry. That the drop of a hat, any small infraction is just going to set you off and get you really angry. Because there is a time for righteous anger. It's not always a sin. It's not always wrong to have anger. Jesus Christ was angry. When he came into the temple and he saw the people, you know, the money changers and people buying and selling in the house of God, which is to be a house of prayer for all nations, and doing the things that they ought not to do. Hey, in his zeal, he was burned up, right? That made him angry. But you know what he didn't do? He didn't just start, just get at every little thing that anybody did, just start, you know, talking to the disciples. How could you be so stupid? You know, what are you thinking? He wasn't like that. He didn't just get angry at every little thing and every little infraction. There were a couple things that were just pretty big deals that made him angry. But even in his anger, he demonstrated temperance and control over everything that he did. Now the reason, one of the reasons why we have to make sure we're not soon angry is because you will end up dealing foolishly. If your fuse is real short and you're real quick to get angry, your ability to temper yourself is also going to be very short. And you're going to end up making foolish decisions and doing things and acting on things that you ought not to be. Saying things you ought not to be. When you get to that point, you end up letting your emotions take over and letting that anger speak instead of being able to filter the things that you actually say and say things righteously. We need to be able to control ourselves. And as Jesus did, you know what he did? When he saw that happening, he got angry about it, but he had the temperance to go and actually make a whip of small cords. He made a whip. He didn't just pull out a whip that was just like on his side and just go, wow, get out, you know, just immediately. He had the temperance to say, okay, here's the situation. This makes me angry. This needs to stop. And he made a decision. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a whip. I'm going to drive him out of here. He didn't just fly off the handle. It was calculated. He knew what he was doing. He was in control, yet he was still angry. And when you're, again, when you're quick to anger, when you're just a little thing sets you off, you're not going to have that temperance. You need to be able to have the long suffering and the patience to deal with problems before you get to the point to where you start getting, you know, where you get real angry, because then you could have still have more time to think about it and analyze the situation to make the right decision when anger does come up. It doesn't a man of wicked devices hate it. Jump down to verse number 29. I'm going to see the same exact thing taught here in verse 29. He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding. So you're wise. You have a lot of understanding when you could be very slow to wrath, being slow to getting to that point of being angry. It says, but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly. It's foolish to be hasty of spirit. It's foolish to be quick. Hasty just means quick, fast to act on your emotions. Let's go back up to verse 18. Moving, switching gears here now to a different topic here. Verse 18 says the simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. Now when the Bible uses that word simple, it's not a positive word. It's not something that you want to be labeled as simple. Simple basically means stupid. So you could say, well, simple, I'm just not that complicated. I'm simple. No, it's more of you're not very smart. You don't have very much intelligence. And the simple, it says here, they inherit folly and folly is like foolishness. You're going to be doing dumb things. When you're not very smart, you're going to end up falling for a lot of things. You're going to end up doing things that are not right. We need to get some smarts. You need to get an education. You could say, yeah, but I've never been one that was good at school. God doesn't want us to be dumb. God wants us to have intelligence. And if you don't want to be inheriting folly and always getting into problems and always having problems in your life and always getting into trouble, you need to get some smarts. Now, you don't have to learn algebra to have this type of wisdom. You don't have to learn calculus. You don't have to learn, you know, chemistry to have this type of wisdom. Now you learn that stuff great. I think all the better for you. There's a lot of, there's a lot of understanding you get just from having general wisdom and general knowledge is all a good thing. We should always be striving to have an education to get smarter, to increase our knowledge in many areas. I mean, look at Solomon knew a great deal about the trees and about animals and about all these other things, especially with God's creation. And there's so many parables. There's so many things. When you gain understanding of the way that God's world works, you could actually help you to gain deeper insights and understanding from God's word because of, because of the analogies, because of the things that are used, because of the way that God's system operates, there's inherent truth in all of these things, an amazing truth. And you start looking at things, you look at biology, you look at the way our bodies work, you look at all this stuff, you could see God's finger in it. And it really does add to your intelligence. And it's going to help you in your life in all areas. God, you know, having wisdom is very important. Look at verse number 15 of Proverbs 14. The Bible says, the simple believeth every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going. The simple person just believes anything that they're told. Instead of questioning, instead of looking into it, look at the facts, doing the research. You know, if you're simple, if you're not very smart is what that's saying. If you're stupid, you're just going to believe everything that's just told to you. And honestly, you know, anybody, you should not just believe the things that I say. I'm your pastor, I'm speaking to you, you know, out of love, and I'm trying to teach you, and I'm doing my best. But never just believe the words that anybody says. You always ought to look it up for yourself and fact check. And we live in a world today where people are real quick to just accepting as truth anything that they see, especially with the internet, right? I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've seen on social media things posted and reposted and reposted and reposted on these false stories, on things that are just lies. You know, there's people out there now that are literally creating lies just to see if they could get people to believe it, just to see if they can make things go viral, just to see how stupid people are and how quick they are to accepting things. Maybe you see an article and it fits your worldview. It fits what you've already predetermined is true, and it kind of matches up there, so you're just gonna say, oh, yep, that must be true too. And people get so caught up in, you know, the conspiracies, which, hey, do conspiracies exist? Yes, they do. Amen and amen. There are plenty of conspiracy theories that are called out there, which is just a disparaging word to get people not to think about it and just to ignore the actual arguments. But people get so caught up in this now, it's like, every single event that happens that's tragic or whatever, like every shooting, every man, you know, anything that happens now, oh, there's a conspiracy. Oh, that's a false flag. Oh, there's crisis actors. Oh, there's, you know, it's like, look, bad things happened before you learned about a crisis actor and bad things are going to continue to happen. Everything is not staged. And this government, I mean, do you really, look, our government is incompetent. Are they evil? Yes, by and large, yes. Are there powers that be that control things and spiritual wickedness in high places? Yes, there are. But do you really think they're that competent to just pull off all of these different events and just completely pull the wool over everybody's eyes? Oh, wait, except for you sitting in your mom's basement on the internet going, oh, I found it. You know, this person's also over here, you know, look, most of that stuff is nonsense. Most of that's nonsense. And the simple believe every word. I just saw an example of this yesterday. There was someone who had, and it was apparently one of my friends because, and I have a lot of Facebook friends, I don't know, I've added a bunch of people that listen online or whatever, however, they stumble upon adding me. So it's not like I know all these people. But I saw an article and it was about Pokemon. You know, there's that Pokemon Go and everyone's out doing this stuff. And look, I think Pokemon's wicked. I don't think Christians should be involved. I think Harry Potter's wicked. I think there's all these different things that are satanic and devilish and just not things that we ought to be spending our time with or getting involved in. But I saw this article and I looked at it and I was like, this isn't true. It was a real short thing. And they said, oh, you know, there was this, there was this interview from the career, a rare interview with the creator of Pokemon. And he said how he grew up Christian and this is just rebellion against, against Christianity and all this other stuff that he did. And I'm like, I'm reading, I'm just like, that's, that can't be right. But it was, you know, it was like, it was this article and it was posted from some blog or something, right. And they have these quotes and funny how nothing was sourced. They just said, oh, it was from this interview that Time did with him. I found the article that Time did with that guy and read the whole, the whole excerpt or from it or whatever. No mention of that at all. Just completely fabricated, completely made up. But these are the types of things and you know what, does that really, is that really a big deal? No. You know, I mean, does it, does it really matter whether or not people think that this guy said that? I mean, in a sense, no, but it matters to that guy. I mean, I know, I don't like it when people just go and spread lies about me. Now, even if what he did isn't, isn't good or like Christians shouldn't be partaking in it is, is kind of separate than someone just going off and just lying about them. I mean, don't be bearing false witness and don't get involved in spreading and promulgating this, this, the lies and bearing a false witness. You know, do your due diligence on anything. Don't just believe every word and just say, oh yeah, see, I knew Pokemon was wicked. See, here's the proof and just throw it up there because it was written online. Anybody can make a web page. Anybody can write an article. Anybody can make quotes. It's just a key press to put something in quotes and to put it on the internet. The simple believeth every word. With everything that you do, make sure that you have the right sources that you can be relatively sure. And see with the world, you can never be 100% sure. I mean, you could read history books, you can read biographies, you can read all these different things of men in the past and things that happened and you know, Jewish culture or anything else that happened in history, but you cannot be confident 100% that what you're reading is true fact and is not spun and it's not twisted and it's not perverted. There is one place that we can get a source of truth, unadulterated, not perverted and that's in our Holy Bible. That is what we can know for a fact. And everything that we believe ought to come with this as our guide, as this is helping us to discern what's right and wrong, help us to determine what we should be believing, what sounds like it could be true, what sounds like it might be false. Even in your day to day, the more you know this book, it will help you to be smarter to determine what is lie and what is truth because you have this ultimate truth. But just be careful not to believe every word. And these days especially, people are getting so good at making documentaries and short films and videos and stuff that it sounds authoritative. And this goes back to having the confidence, right? You get one guy behind the camera, he could speak very authoritatively, very confidently to win you over and to speak like this is fact. And you get, wow, I saw a whole documentary. We saw that shark, what was that shark movie? A submarine. It was the Discovery Channel, right? Was that right? The Discovery Channel? Because they have the shark week or whatever. We saw this online and because it was attached to the Discovery Channel name, you're thinking, well, this is like a legit organization. This is something that, and it has this whole documentary thing on it and it starts off with what looks like cell phone footage or some camera footage of the shark attack and stuff. And what it was, it was all false. It was this whole dramatized thing and they made it like a documentary. So they went, they had interviews, they talked to shark experts, they talked to all these people which, how do I know any of those people are experts other than it says, here's a person, here's their name and there's this whatever expert, right? But this is what you can do with video. And the first time we saw it with, I mean, there's something in your mind saying, you know what, this just doesn't seem right. But everything else is kind of saying like, well, I mean, Discovery put it out, it's this documentary, there's this footage. It's all a lie. It's all just a lie. It's all based on a myth is what it is. And they made an entire program out of it. It was well made, by the way, it was well made. But this is the type of thing, it's just another illustration that it's so easy these days to sway people and to feed false information to get you to believe you need to be diligent about. Now, again, that's another area where who cares if this great, gigantic shark really existed or not, or those events really, that's not that big of a deal. But this happens more often than you realize. False information is out there in abundance. Be careful with how you use the internet and the things that you decide to believe, even just with the journalism. You think you read a newspaper and you could trust the journalists that they, oh, this has been around for a long time. The Sacramento Bee, they interviewed me for all the stuff that was going on at the Red Hot Preaching Conference and spoke to the lady on the phone for a while. And she took, I don't know if she voice recorded me or took notes. Either way, she did a really poor job because I was misquoted. I was, you know, and again, I wasn't put in a bad light, but it's like, where's your journalistic integrity? If you're going to put a quote in someone's mouth and like, like Pastor Berzen said this, get it right. It was something, she said something like I was, I was heading up, I was leading or heading up the soul winning efforts. I never said that. I participated in them, but I wasn't the leader. I wasn't the organizer. I was a guest. I just came like everyone else and I went and was involved and participated in the, in the, in the soul. Now, again, it's, it's, it's, it wasn't a big deal, but it still wasn't true. I mean, what she was reporting just simply wasn't true. And now we're going to start off with the tiny, this tiny church in Sacramento that has a couple hundred people regularly attending. That's not a tiny church. I'm sorry. That is the lie. That is just deceitful. But in all of my experience with journalism in, in major news, I mean, we're talking Fox, we're talking ABC, we're talking all the, all of the local, it's always been a lie. There's always been a twist. There's always been a spin. Keep that in mind. You cannot trust the things that you read to be 100% accurate. Now you could trust that some of the events actually happen. Sure. But be careful about, about your information and where you get it from. Don't be simple. Don't be lacking understanding. Don't believe every word that you see unless it's coming from this book. You can believe every word in this book. Let's go back to, to Proverbs here because God's word will make you smart. See, you don't have to be simple. Proverbs 1 verse 4 explains, and we went over this in Proverbs 1 when we did that, that the book of Proverbs here is designed to give wisdom. Verse 4 says to give subtlety to the simple. It's to help you out, to make you smarter. To the young man, knowledge and discretion. But see, you need to want it. If you want to not be simple, if you want to not be deceived, if you want to not just be led astray and just believe every word, get in God's word. Hey, the book of Proverbs is a great book to start. Get the wisdom that's being taught here, but you need to want it. You need to desire it. Proverbs 1 22 says, how long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity. Don't love being ignorant. Don't love being simple. Desire more. Psalm 119 verse 130 says, the entrance of thy words giveth light. It giveth understanding unto the simple. God's word will illuminate you. God's word will provide the knowledge that you need. I mean, I've seen this happen with other people and it's happened even with myself. The more you get in the scripture and you are reading your Bible daily and getting it read cover to cover, you will gain intelligence. You will get smarter, not just in biblical knowledge, but in all knowledge. It will impact you in every area of your life. And the only way that you could know that for sure is to do it yourself. Test me out on that and see if what I'm saying is true. James 1 verse 5 says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him. This is a prayer that you are guaranteed to have answered. If, look at this, it keeps going, but let him ask in faith. Nothing wavering, for he that waveth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. We need to have that confidence in our prayer to God. Hey, you lack wisdom. The Bible says, ask God. He gives all men liberally. He doesn't withhold wisdom. He doesn't withhold the knowledge. He says, I'm going to pour it out for you. I want you to be smart. God wants you to have wisdom and understanding, but you have to go to him and ask him in faith and don't doubt God whether or not he's going to make you smarter because he will. Proverbs 14 here, let's look at verse number 12. The Bible says, there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. This is teaching us not to rely just on our own wisdom or lean not on our own understanding, but trust on God's word. See, there's a lot of ways that people just think, oh, it seems right to me. This just seems like the right thing to do. It feels right. The Bible says the heart is wicked and deceitful and that we need to trust in the word of God and not just in our feelings or our emotions. Oh, this seems right. Let's just do this without using the wisdom and the knowledge from God's word. Proverbs 3 5 says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. Let's jump back up to verse number 10, Proverbs 14 verse 10. This is right after verse number 9, by the way, to get a little bit of context. Verse 9 was the verse about fools making a mock at sin, which we covered already. Verse number 10 reads, the heart knoweth his own bitterness and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy. The house of the wicked shall be overthrown, but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish. Now, again, I don't think that the verses here are just completely random, even though we're kind of jumping around a bit. I'm doing that just for sake of trying to keep some certain topics together. But I do think that there is a relation between a lot of these Proverbs and the order that they're in. And that's why I just mentioned that, you know, fools making a mock at sin is followed by the heart knoweth his own bitterness, which is followed by the house of the wicked shall be overthrown. You think of the wicked fool that makes a mock at sin is ultimately, even though they may be mocking and thinking everything's a joke and thinking everything's funny, in their heart there's bitterness. In their heart they know, you know, you can put on an outward expression, you can make a mock at sin. And I remember, especially being saved and living a foolish lifestyle, there was no joy or fulfillment there. You may have this mirth, right? This, this, you know, you go out to the bar and, oh, ha ha, everyone's laughing, funny, hot, and then you go home and you're just empty. Emptiness. And actually even worse rottenness than before you even went out, just because you know what you're doing is vain and wrong, and you shouldn't be doing it. Verse number 13, the Bible reads, even in laughter the heart is sorrowful and the end of that mirth is heaviness. And that's the exact type of mirth. When you get involved in sin and you think, no, no, I want to do this. It's, it's not going to be, it's going to bring heaviness even in laughter. Even if you just think, oh, we're going to go out and have some fun. It's, it's, it's the opposite. You might be laughing on the outside, but you're not, you're going to feel it on the inside. The fool that mocks at sin, he has bitterness in his own heart and there's no real joy there, just emptiness. Look at verse number 14, the Bible reads the backslider and heart shall be filled with his own ways and a good man shall be satisfied from himself. And, you know, on and on we could keep on, you know, going into the backsliding. Watch out for, for backsliding. That's why we always need to be moving forward and increasing and trying to do more because as soon as you stop, as soon as you think everything's comfortable, you're going to start backsliding. You're gonna start going backwards and it says the backslider and heart shall be filled with his own ways. And as you start backsliding, you start getting into sin. As you start getting into sin, your joy is going to depart from you and you're going to have heaviness and you're going to be filled with your own ways, which is the backsliding ways, which is going to come back around and you're going to reap what you sow. And it's a warning. Jump down to verse number 34. Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. And this is the last main point I wanted to touch on. I've got a couple other, there's still a bunch more verses I need to cover, but probably a lot more quickly. Turn, if you would, to Deuteronomy chapter 4. Keep your finger here in Proverbs 14. Righteousness exalteth a nation. The nation that lives righteously. The nation that's doing what's right in God's eyes and has a good moral foundation and stands on the Bible. That nation gets exalted above the nations. But sin, a sinful people, a sinful nation is a reproach upon that people. America today is a joke in the world. People from anywhere else, but from America make a mock at America. And you know why? Because we have no integrity. You know why? Because we're seen as the whores and the whoremongers and the people that are just real loose and real obese and everything else, just getting into all of this decadence and filthiness. And people can see that and say, that's a joke. You guys think you're strong and mighty and you're a bunch of debtors. You're a bunch of slaves and you're so simple. You're so stupid. You believe everything that you see and that you just flaunt everything for the world to see and boast in your shame. When you've got the sodomized, just out and proud and everyone's tolerant, accepting of that and saying, oh no, it's fine. You don't understand how enlightened we are. The rest of the world looks at you as you're an idiot and you're stupid and you're blind. Deuteronomy four explains this. Verse number five. This is Moses speaking. Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me that you should do so in the land, whether you go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people for what nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God and all things that we call upon him for and what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day. That's God's word, my friends, and I believe it. I believe God's word when it says if you can follow these commandments, if you could have this type of a wise law in place in your land, all the other nations are going to see that and say, wow, that is a wise nation. That is a shining light. There is a really smart people that has God really close to them. That's what the word of God says and I believe it. You know, this country used to look like that a lot closer with the laws that were in place and I preached on this subject before on the things that were against the law lining up with biblical things that were against the law and the punishments thereof matching up much more closely with the punishments that the Bible prescribes as being a punishment. For example, putting sodomites to death was a crime punishable by death at the founding of this country. It was. I've had liars come on my YouTube channel and say, no, that's not the case. Yes, it is. Look it up. It wasn't just in the colonies. It actually was in the United States of America after 1787 in many places punishable by death on the books in the law. Yes, it was. As was many other crimes that line up with scripture. And you know what? That's when this country got blessed. Do you remember when, well, we weren't alive, but you remember according to history when people were flocking to the United States and wanting to be a part of this great nation that had God so nigh unto them? Why? Because it offered freedom. Why? Because it offered all kinds of opportunities that only comes from a nation who exalts God's laws. Look, God's a law of liberty. God's a law of freedom. God's like a God of freedom. He's a God of liberty. He wants us to go where the Spirit of the Lord is. There is liberty. God wants us to be free. He's put a few restrictions on us that make perfect sense where you're not harming other people. And other than that, He's saying, do what you want. These things that you do are sin. These things that you do are should be criminal and judged appropriately. And the people should hear and fear when you do these things not to do them again and that no one else would do those things. And if you got that, you're free. But the nation that serves God will be exalted. That righteousness will lift up that country. That obedience to God's law. People will see that. But when you get sinful, you become a reproach. And that's where this nation is. It's a reproach among all the nations. Let's go back to Proverbs 14. I'm going to try to blow through now the rest of these verses that we've skipped over and kind of gone past here. Proverbs 14 verse 19. The evil bow before the good and the wicked at the gates of the righteous. The poor is hated even of his own neighbor, but the rich have many friends. That's a true statement. Let's keep reading. Verse 21. He that despiseth his neighbor sinneth, but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy as he. God has a special place in his heart for the poor. He's always looking out for the people who are in trouble and the people who are in need. And God loves those people. And he has extreme wrath on those that would abuse and use and trample over the poor. But he has a lot of love for those that help those that are in need, that have the same type of heart that God has to provide mercy on the poor. It says if you despise your neighbor, you're sinning. You shouldn't be hating your neighbor. But when you have mercy on the poor, you're happy. Look at verse number 22. Do they not err that devise evil? But mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good. And what I like about this verse is that word devise. So people who devise evil, they're just just planning and making, you know, devising is you're sitting back and you're making a plan to do bad. Obviously, they're in error. But it says mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good. Now, you might be the type of person that you say, well, I don't really get involved with too much wickedness. I try to keep myself from sin. But are you devising good? Are you planning on doing things that are actually good and helpful for other people? Are you planning on doing things that ultimately are good or are you just kind of coasting through life just trying to stay away from bad? Stay away from the bad. Absolutely. Amen. But devise to do good. Plan on doing good. Make the attempt. And that's work. I mean, you are devising. You're actually, you're not just sitting at home and playing on your phone and playing games and watching TV. You're not planning anything that way. You're wasting time. But when you're devising good, you're actually making a plan. You're saying, this is what I'm going to do tomorrow. This is what I'm going to do this weekend. This is what I'm going to do with my life. I'm going to plan to do good. When you devise good, mercy and truth shall be to you. Good things to have. God will bless you for that. But you need to take the action and start doing things. Plan to do good. Bible says in verse 23, in all labor there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. Penury is being poor. So we're saying, yeah, you could talk about things all day, but those that just talk about them and don't do them, you're just going to bring poverty on yourself. But it says labor, in all labor there's profit. Work. It's one of the reasons why we sang that song, work for the night is coming. God wants us to work. We are laborers for God in this lifetime. We are his servants. We are his workers. We need to get our rear end in action, in doing, in work and get that profit from the Lord. We need to be workers and not wasting our time here. Don't just talk the talk. You need to walk the walk. There's going to come a day we're going to enter into Christ's rest. After we shed this fleshly tabernacle, we will enter into his rest. Until then, work. The Bible says in verse 24, the crown of the wise is their riches, but the foolishness of fools is folly. Verse number, we're going to go down to verse 25, but I want to read verse 5 first because we skipped that earlier. Verse 5 says, a faithful witness will not lie. A witness that you can trust, someone who's faithful, they're not going to tell lies, but a false witness will utter lies. Look at verse 25 now. The Bible says, a true witness delivereth souls, but a deceitful witness speaketh lies. You need to make sure that you're a true and faithful witness. A true witness isn't going to tell lies. A true witness is going to deliver souls. Obviously, we need to be delivering souls from hell, but also you could use this in a witness in any sense. Being a true witness, not telling a lie, but just telling the truth. There's a lot of people who bear a false witness to get other people in trouble. You can literally save people's lives by delivering a true witness about a person both spiritually and physically. Look at verse number 26. We're almost done here. Verse 26, and the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and his children shall have a refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death. I'm going to spend more time on a future sermon going over the fear of the Lord. It's mentioned many times in the book of Proverbs. Verse 28, and the multitude of people is the king's honor, but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince. Look at verse number 30. A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones. Sound means you're established, you're settled, it's sound, it's complete. When your heart is sound, it says it's the life of the flesh. You think about a heart that pumps, it provides blood, which the life is in the blood, right? It provides the blood to all of your body, and when your heart is sound, when it's in good condition, it's providing life to the flesh. I know that's the physical, but obviously this is talking about more than just the physical part, because it says, but envy the rottenness of the bones. So when it's talking about the sound heart, it's not saying you just have a really good strong muscle that's pumping blood. It's saying that you're content, you're happy, you're satisfied with where you're at, with what's going on. You're sound, you're complete, you're good, because it contrasts that with envy, being rottenness in your bone. Now, having a rottenness in your bones, think about having an infection that goes all the way down to the bone. I'm not sure about this, but I think the only solution for that is amputation, right? When it gets down actually literally in the bone, I don't think there's a solution for that. I think that's something that is so severe that you just have to cut it off. And when you have envy, meaning desiring things that you can't have, that don't belong to you, whether it be someone else's wife, whether it be things that you can't afford, whatever it is, when you have that envy, it's rottenness in your bone, it will destroy you. The love of money is the root of all evil, and loving money is envy. You're being envious of money, of things that you don't have, and that is not the way to live. You need to be content to literally keep you alive. When you're envious, it's going to get you into all kinds of trouble, and it's going to be rottenness in your bones. You're never going to find happiness. You're never going to be satisfied when you're envious of other things and other people. But when you could just be content, no matter what you have, no matter where you're at, then you can experience joy. And I mean, just think about the stress. You're not going to be stressed out. If you're happy with where you're at, with what God bless you with, how much stress can you possibly have? Usually, I know one of the biggest things for stress, and it's still one of the things that I battle with with my flesh, is just with money and how we're going to pay for these things. We've got these bills, we've got this stuff, and it's real stressful. And then it's like, oh man, my kids want this, and I want to please my wife, I want to do all these things. We just be satisfied and be content. I could work at that stuff, whatever, but not let it become rottenness, and definitely not let envy slip in to want these things. It's just going to stress you out, and it's going to cause you to have rottenness to where it's going to kill you. It's going to eat you up. Look at verse number 31, Proverbs 31. We're going to finish here. Proverbs 14 verse 31, he that oppresseth the poor reproachth his maker, but he that on earth him hath mercy on the poor. Verse 32, the wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death. Wisdom resteth in the heart of him that hath understanding, but that which is in the midst of fools is made known. And then verse 35, the king's favor is toward a wise servant, but his wrath is against him that causeth shame. And even having wise servants for a king makes the king look good, just like having the righteous laws to exalt the nation and when the people do righteously, having the right people around him. Because think about the king, and we don't have a king, but we have a president. How much worse does a president look when he's got corruption in all of his aides and his servants, his cabinet and all these other people? The more people that are just caught in scandal, it just goes right up to the top, right? And think about this, you may not be a king, but who do you want to surround yourself with? You know, shouldn't be the fool. You start hanging around with all the fools and you're going to look like the fool. But let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for this great book of wisdom, for all the truths that we could learn. Dear Lord, your word rings true every single day, dear Lord. There's so many things in here that we can increase our knowledge. God, I pray, I pray unwavering before you today, dear God, that you would just pour out wisdom and knowledge on myself as well as on everybody else here. Lord, help us to gain that understanding. Help us not to be simple. Help us not just to believe every word, but that we would search things out diligently and that we would have understanding. We would have the knowledge to make the right choices in our life. Dear Lord, I pray that you please help stir up our souls to devise good, to make plans with our life, to start doing good, to start doing work, to labor, to get the profit from the labor, dear Lord, that we have, to labor for you, dear God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.