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All right here, Proverbs chapter 18, verse number 1 is one of my favorite Proverbs in the whole Bible here. It's very deep. Let's look at it real quick here. Proverbs 18, verse number 1, the Bible reads, Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom. And this is great instruction, great wisdom, in order to obtain wisdom. It says, Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom. And it's followed up with verse number 2, which I've already preached on this verse. It says, A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself. And I've preached on this before, you know, people who just want to go off and just find, let their heart discover themselves and find themselves and just kind of no direction, just kind of go out there and just see what happens and, you know, wherever your heart leads you, that type of a mentality, which is a foolish mentality to have. We see the contrast between verses 1 and verse number 2. The fool has no delight in understanding. They don't care about seeking wisdom and knowledge and understanding the right path. They just kind of go out and just, well, whatever feels good, you know, whatever my heart is going to lead me to, that's what I'm going to do. Whereas verse 1 says, look, Through desire a man, having separated himself, so through desire is something that you want. You have to want it first. If you want to gain knowledge, if you want to get understanding, if you want to get wisdom, it starts with a desire. It starts with you actually wanting to obtain it. It doesn't just come by accident. You have to seek it out. You say, you know what, I want to be wise. You start off with just having that desire, but just having the desire isn't good enough. Just wanting to be smarter, wanting to have knowledge is not enough. You have to separate yourself. It says, having separated himself seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom. Now, Proverbs verse 15 here in chapter 18 also I think ties in with this. The Bible reads, the heart of the prudent getteth knowledge and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge. We should be seeking that knowledge for ourselves. Now, the Bible says, and we covered this in Proverbs 11 verse 30, the Bible reads, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that winneth souls is wise. And I kind of wanted to take a little bit of time and go through Proverbs 18 one here and apply it to soul winning. Right? If you want to be wise, if you want to gain that knowledge, we could apply all of these three things in Proverbs 18 one, excuse me, to preparing yourself to win souls. Because winning someone to Christ, leading a person to Jesus Christ, again, that doesn't happen by accident. Just like you don't just accidentally just get all kinds of wisdom and knowledge, you have to seek after it, you have to want it. If you want to, if you are going to lead people to Christ, first of all, you need to have that desire. You have to love people. You have to want to go out and fulfill the Great Commission. You have to want to go out and say, I want to do this. I know that my life is more than just me getting sent out of my life and trying to do good for myself. There's a lot more to it than that. I know that I need to be loving others and bringing the Gospel to every creature. And I know that this is important, so I really want to do this. And a lot of people want to do this. And it's a great goal to have, to want to lead another person to Christ in your life and want to lead as many people as possible to Christ in your life. But it can't just be a desire. You have to start with that desire, get that desire, but then you have to act on it. And it says here, through desire of man, having separated himself, we need to, one, make ourselves workers that meet for the Master's use. We want to, one of the best ways that you're going to be able to, as an ambassador for Christ, as someone who's going out and bringing the message of Jesus Christ, you're going to be the most effective. You're going to have the most success when you yourself are separated, when you're sold out to the Word of God, when you not only believe it, but you're living it. When the way that you, the words that you speak, it's not just a hypocrite speaking, well, this is what I believe, but I don't do any of this stuff. Right? Because no one wants to listen to a hypocrite. Nobody, no one's going to look at you, you know, you say, you say and you believe the Bible, but you fornicate, you drink, you swear, you know, it's like, who's going to want to listen to you or give you the time of day of, of, oh, why should I, why should I listen to you about Jesus Christ? You apparently don't believe the book that you say you believe in. Right? So that's why we need to separate ourselves. We need to separate ourselves from this world. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers? For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you and will be a father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. We need to separate ourselves from this world. We need to separate ourselves from, from the things of this world, from being yoked up and partnered up with the things of this world. We need to be separate from that. Through desire, a man having separated himself. You want to be a successful soul winner, you need to separate yourself from this world. Not only have the desire, not only separate yourself, but seek and intermeddle it with all wisdom. Seeking and intermeddling. I mean, think about when you're meddling with something, you're kind of messing around with it, right? And you're intermeddling with all wisdom. There's a lot of ways to gain wisdom when it comes to leading souls to Christ. One of those ways is knowing the scripture. Knowing specifically the verses about, about soul winning, about, you know, the plan of salvation, about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Learning those scriptures. Another way is by experience. Going out and doing it. Going out with someone else who has experience. Getting counsel from other people who go out soul winning. Getting tips. Getting techniques. Practicing. These are all various ways to go out and intermeddle with wisdom. And you can hear preaching on it. We've got soul winning seminars. You can do so many different things, but you need to be going out and seeking and intermeddling with all of these different sources of information to gain that wisdom and to make yourself be the best soul winner that you can be. The wisest soul winner. I mean, if you're winning souls to Christ, the Bible says that you're wise already. But it doesn't happen on its own. It takes effort. It's going to take some time. It takes desire. It takes work. Let's keep reading here in Proverbs 18. Look at verse number 3. The Bible says, when the wicked cometh, then cometh also contempt and with ignominy reproach. And ignominy is just kind of doing things that are shameful or just living an unrighteous life. And look at verse number 4. We're going to kind of go in a section. This passage, by the way, there's not really, there's kind of a lot of subjects that we cover here, but they all are somewhat interrelated. We're going to see here again a section where we're going to look at the power of your tongue and the words that we use. And this theme has come up many times, so I'm going to kind of skim through it pretty quickly this time. But let the words sink down as we're reading them. We're going to get this continual reminder about how we ought to pay attention to the words that we use. Verse number 4 says, the words of a man's mouth are as deep waters and the wellspring of wisdom as a flowing brook. Jump down to verse 6. A fool's lips enter into contention and his mouth calleth for strokes. So a fool's always looking to get into a fight. We don't go around looking to get into fights. We've got to be careful with the words that we say. We're not just going out to start fights with people. Instead, his mouth calleth for strokes, and a stroke would be like a beating, right? Verse number 7, a fool's mouth is his destruction and his lips are the snare of his soul. And a snare is just a trap. So basically, a fool runs his mouth and gets himself into trouble. A fool's going to bring himself into trouble. You've got the loudmouths that are always going out, always looking to pick a fight. You know what? One day they're going to pick a fight with someone that they shouldn't be picking a fight with, and their mouth is literally going to write a check that they can't cash. They're going to get off into messing with the wrong person, saying some stupid things for no reason other than maybe your own pride to make you feel good about yourself or something. I don't know. I've never been like this. I've known people like this that just kind of run their mouth, and it's never made sense to me. And the Bible calls it foolishness. Look at verse number 8. The Bible reads, the words of a tail-bearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly. You could do a lot of damage with your words. Just going around, being a tail-bearer, telling stories about people, spreading rumors. That actually hurts people. The Bible says it's like wounds. You've got to be careful with the things that you say. You shouldn't just be going around and telling stories about people. Jump down to verse number 20. Proverbs 18, verse number 20. A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth, and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. It's a pretty strong statement. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. You could cause people, as we've seen many times in the Bible, many examples, and I'm sure you probably know of other examples of people whose life has ended as a result of what people have said. Someone may be bearing a false witness. Lying about what someone else has done can cause someone to be put to death just for the power of what you say. On the same token, it can bring life. When we go and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, it definitely brings life. We're bringing eternal life. It just shows you how much power there is behind our words and behind the things that we can speak. You don't even have to lift a finger and you can cause either massive destruction or great life, everlasting life. Let's go back here in Proverbs 18. There's a few topics I'm going to spend more time on so we're going through some of these other ones a little quicker. Proverbs 18 verse 5, it is not good to accept the person of the wicked to overthrow the righteous in judgment. And I think we've gone over this in the past also, just accepting people because of who they are, because of what title they hold and what status they have or what celebrity they have. And it says overthrowing the righteous in judgment. So when there's a conflict between someone who's a celebrity and someone who's not, and someone who's not has been wrong and maybe there's some poor person, some homeless person, whatever, the Bible says it's not good to just accept the person and just say, oh yeah, this person would never do that. Or well, we like this person a lot. We don't care about this person and just overthrow judgment. Look at, jump down to verse number 9, Proverbs 18, 9. The Bible reads, he also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. Now, a lot of these Proverbs are great and as we go through the whole book of Proverbs, you might want to take note of ones that are specific to you. And I'm not stopping on this one because I'm saying, you know, someone in his room needs the others. I'm not saying that at all. But we go over so many different topics. And the reason why I'm saying this is because these are great verses to memorize any of these. If any of these kind of you feel like, oh man, this kind of stings. Oh, this is something I need to work on. Oh, this is an area where I'm not doing so well in my life. Write down the passage and work on this as your own personal Bible memory passage to keep that in your mind. Because a lot of these things that we deal with are things that are, you know, almost involved in like your character and things that are going to be a day to day thing in your life. You know, with with watching your mouth, the things that you say, I mean, that happens all the time, like every day in our life, we have to be careful of those types of things. And if you're someone who maybe you're prone to being a tailbearer and getting involved in other people's business, you know, memorize some of these verses, a tailbearers, you know, the words like a wound, you know, to remind yourself of the things that you say. Here we are in verse number nine, it says he also that is slothful in his work as someone who's lazy in their work, someone who's not a hard worker, someone who who puts in just like half effort or just partial effort to get their job done. It says their brother to him that is a great waster. Lazy people also have a tendency to waste a lot too. The people who are not hard workers also are just just big wasters. Why? Because they don't care. One of the reasons why people are lazy and doing their job is because they don't have they don't care. It doesn't mean that much to them. So they become lazy. It doesn't mean much to them, you know, whatever they're employed with or whatever their job is. So they end up becoming lazy. And when you don't care about things, you end up wasting things too. Right? When you work hard for something, it's going to mean a lot more to you. When you when you earn your keep when you when you're struggling and you're working real hard, you know, and maybe you're not that rich, whatever you can afford to get, you're going to you're going to put a lot more stock in it, you're going to take a lot more care of that you're going to take more care for, you know, everything. I mean, if you're if you're just making ends meet, and you're trying to put food on the table, and you're working hard for that food, you're going to be a lot less likely to go and then just dump it all in the trash. Right? When you're working day in day out, and you're like, man, we need to put food on the table. But if you're just lazy, don't really care, just collecting a paycheck from the government, you don't really have to do anything for it. Someone else is paying your way. Who cares? Just don't need that anymore. Just toss it. You'd ask yourself this, if you find yourself wasting a lot? Or are you the kind of lazy person that you don't see your job all the way through? Because if you do one, you probably do the other. And, and that's what we're learning here from this verse, we need to make sure that we're diligent, we're hard workers, the Bible is very clear about, you know, a Christian, a good Christian attitude is one that's going to be a hard worker, and is diligent and is an example to other people to be a hard worker. There's like the Apostle Paul said, you know, that, that they could have received food, they could have received blessing from the people that they were going out and preaching to. But he says, you know what, we worked with our hands day and night, and we preached the gospel and we labored so that we could be an example unto you, that we could show you that you can still work a full time job and be in the ministry and soul win and go to church and do all the things. He says, we did it. He's a hard worker. He's trying to say, you know, the Bible also says that if any man would not work, neither should he eat. You know, these are biblical principles that we need to take to heart. We ought not to be just like, you know, if the rest of the world is lazy, let them be lazy. That's not going to be us. We're going to work hard. We're going to make sure that we can get as much done in this life as we possibly can to be a good example and especially for the Lord. Look at verse number 10, the Bible reads that the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it and is safe. The rich man's wealth is his strong city. And as in high wall in his own conceit, before destruction the heart of man is haughty and before honor is humility. So here we see in verse 10 that the, you know, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. God is where we need to be finding our refuge. He is our strength. He is our shield. He is who we can go to in our time of need and we can be safe. We can be protected and have that type of a faith versus the rich man's wealth, right? His strong city. What he puts his confidence in is his money. It's his high, it's as in high wall in his own conceit. Thinking how good he is, right? Someone who's conceited thinks a lot of themselves. They're lifted up and boast in themselves. And that's the attitude. That's a foolish attitude and that's why it's followed both of those verses. The good, the good following, you know, running to the Lord and trusting in him versus the wicked, you know, trusting in your own wealth and in your own conceit is followed up with before destruction the heart of man is haughty and before honor is humility. We need to keep ourselves humble. You know, trusting in somebody else, trusting in God requires humility. It means I can't do this by myself and I need to recognize that and acknowledge that and say, you know what, okay, ultimately God, I know I'm weak, so I'm just going to trust in you. I'm going to rely on your strength. I know that you're almighty. I know that you're all powerful and I am going to completely rest in you to help take care of me. As opposed to the person that says, I don't need God. I don't need you. I don't need anyone else. I'll work this myself. I'm going to build my own tower. I'm going to build my own walls. I'm going to get my own horses. I'm going to build my own army and I don't have to worry about anything because I've done it all myself. And the person like that, watch out because there's a fall coming. Turn if you would to Psalm 18. Keep your finger here in Proverbs 18 or a bookmark. We're going to read quite a bit from Psalm 18. There's a, we never want to forget the power and the might of our Lord and the comfort and the solace that we could get by resting in him. We deal with, we have stressful lives, you know, there's oftentimes a lot of things going on and maybe you're not facing persecution right now, but it, but it will come. The day will come. If you're going to live godly in Christ Jesus, you shall suffer persecution and we need to keep our faith in the Lord and be able to remember these great scriptures of other people have gone through hard times and we're able to just rest in the comfort and the peace that we get from our Lord and our Heavenly Father. Look at Proverbs, excuse me, Psalm 18 verse 1. The Bible reads, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength and whom I will trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high tower. All of these things are attributes of things that are just very strong, very defensive, unmovable, unshakable, something that you could run to and be completely at peace with, that you are protected, you are safe and nothing's going to happen to you. A buckler is just a shield, right? A high tower was something that's looked at as very highly defensive in a city. You know, the horn of my salvation, my strength and whom I will trust. Look at verse number 3. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from mine enemies. The sorrows of death compassed me and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about. The snares of death prevented me. Talk about being in a time of being depressed, of having things going against you, of all this wickedness surrounding you and just not being able to deal with it, not knowing what's going on. Verse number 6. In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of His temple and my cry came before Him, even to His ears. We have a God that's ready to hear. We get in times like this, we get in times of trouble, we need to be able to call out unto God. He's there for us. He's there to protect us and you need to know you're not just speaking out into the air. Look at verse number 7. Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken because He was wroth. There went up a smoke out of His nostrils and fire out of His mouth devoured. Coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down and darkness was under His feet. And He rode upon a cherub and did fly. Yea, He did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness His secret place, His pavilion round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the sky. I mean think about how cool that is. This is explaining this great immense power of the Almighty God then coming down because He heard the cry of one of His children. I don't know about you, when I was growing up I had older brothers and how nice it was to be able to have some sort of comfort. If I ever was messed with, which happened from time to time, not very often but there was a couple times I could think of where older kids came and started just beating me up or messing with me and I could just run home and then my older brother would come out and that sense of security I had and that sense of being able to trust in Him to kind of look over and watch after me was great. How much better to have that sense with an almighty, all powerful God that loves you that when He comes down the earth shook and trembled. And He comes down and is like, watch out now. Don't mess with one of God's children. We have that hope. We have that strength. We have that comfort. We have the knowledge that God is with us and that we can trust in Him. Look at verse 12, and at the brightness that was before Him, His thick clouds passed, hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the highest gave His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. Yea, He sent out His arrows and scattered them and He shot out lightnings and discomforted them. Then the channels of waters were seen and the foundations of the world were discovered at Thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils. He sent from above. He took me. He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them which hated me, for they were too strong for me. God's salvation, God coming in and swooping up and picking you out of that and making everything right. Verse 18, and you know what, and this is also why, just a completely side note, not completely side note, but why we don't have to take matters into our own hands. We don't have to get vengeance. We don't have to exact the judgment on the wicked people that God will do that for us. We could trust in Him. We just make sure we stay steadfast in doing what's right, doing what He told us to do. Hey, if the enemy camps around about your house, the enemy is there waiting to get you and it's too much for you and they're too strong for you, guess what, they're not too strong for God. And we could trust in that. And God can deliver you out of that calamity. Verse 18, they prevented me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth also into a large place. He delivered me because He delighted in me. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands, that He recompensed me. Now we see the importance of righteous living. It's funny when we talk to people out, you know, knocking on doors and they say, you know, they just can't understand. Well, why would you listen to anything God says? I mean, if salvation is just a free gift, if you could just do whatever you want and you're still saved, then why would you ever even just listen to what He has to say? As if avoiding hell is the only thing in the world that you would ever want to be avoiding. Well, how about I want God to hear me and I want to be righteous before Him so that when I do come into trouble, He's going to be right there because I've been listening to Him. I've been obeying Him. I've been doing what He wants to do and now He's right here to come in and to protect me. I think that's a pretty good motivation for wanting to keep His laws and to listen to what He has to say and do what He has for me to do. It's not just all about avoiding hell. Actually, that has nothing to do with it. That's what Christ came for. That's why I received the free gift. Verse 21, for I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God, for all His judgments were before me and I did not put away His statutes from me. I was also upright before Him and I kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore, hath the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands and His eyesight. With the merciful, Thou wilt show Thyself merciful. With an upright man, Thou wilt show Thyself upright. With the pure, Thou wilt show Thyself pure and with the froward, Thou wilt show Thyself froward. For Thou wilt save the afflicted people but will bring down high looks. For Thou wilt light my candle. The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. For by Thee I have run through a troop and by my God have I leaped over a wall. As for God, His way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried. He is a buckler to all those that trust in Him. Let's keep our faith and our trust in God and never forget how mighty and how powerful He is in that no matter what is going on in our lives, there's nothing too difficult for us to go through that God can't save us out of. Even when you think there's no way out, God always has a way out. Let's go back to Proverbs, Proverbs 18. Proverbs 18 verse 13. This is a verse that comes to my mind very frequently out soul winning. The Bible reads, He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. Every time someone opened a knock on a door, they say not interested and they shut the door. This verse always comes to my mind. He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. Why? We were bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're bringing a free gift. We're bringing eternal salvation to somebody's house. They don't even give you a chance to say one word and just don't want to hear it, stopping their ears. Now, it's easy to say, yeah, those people are fools. But let's apply this to ourselves, too. We need to be making sure that we don't just answer matters before we hear them just because we think we know everything, right? When you're just so quick to say, Oh, no, no, no, no. Hear it out. Now, obviously, there's a level of foolishness that people can have that you're not expected just to listen to every single foolish thing that comes out of a person's mouth. That's not what we're talking about here. That's not what the Bible is talking about. This is talking about someone who has a legitimate matter to speak of, right? I mean, there's a lot of people who are saved in general, right? I mean, we know that it's few, but of the people who are saved, there's a lot of people who believe some different things, right? Different doctrines, different beliefs, different understandings of scripture. Let's make sure that we never get to the point to where we can't be corrected, to where we can't be told that we're wrong, where we can't learn something, or that we're just so quick to answer a matter without even just hearing the reasoning. So many people, I was talking to a guy on the phone a couple about a week or two ago who is in like Kentucky or Tennessee, somewhere out that way, and he's real rural. And he had stumbled across, somehow he had heard about the post-Trib rapture, and he heard about these things, and he was honestly interested in it. So he heard these things, and he's like, wow, that actually sounds correct, but he's been taught a certain way for so long that he's questioning it. So he goes to his church, he goes to some of the people in the church, and he starts asking them questions. Because oftentimes, especially if you see after the tribulation, it's going to bring up some questions that you might not have the answers to, that you've never heard brought up before, and you're going to say, well, this makes a good point. Maybe this is true, let me go and see what other people have to say about it. It's a good reaction to have, right? Bouncing off some other people, hey, do you have an answer for this? And what they did, what he was telling me is that they basically just started treating him like a heretic. Like they didn't have any answers, but then just shut them down, and it was just like, oh, what do you believe? And he wasn't even saying that he believed it, he's just looking for the truth. He's just kind of interested in saying, well, this is interesting, this looks like it might actually be true, I don't know, I'm trying to figure it out, can you give me some answers? And they're just like, no, you're a heretic. And now he's like, looked differently at his church and stuff, and for what? Because he's interested in the truth. Because he's not answering a matter before he hears it. He's hearing it out and studying it out to see if those things are so, as opposed to people who just want to cling to whatever it is they've been taught and not be able to have it challenged whatsoever. The Bible says in James 1.19, wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. We ought to be able to hear things and hear things that maybe are contradictory to what you believe right now, but to be able to analyze it and interpret it and see if it lines up with Scripture. I mean, you don't have to accept everything that's told to you. But hear it out. Don't just answer it before the argument's been fully presented. We need to be open to correction. It's an attitude that we ought to have. And I mentioned in the announcements I was going to be going into this because there's someone, I believe, who's not very open to correction, and I almost always stay out of things that are other men's matters and other men's affairs, and I don't like, you know, talking about other people and what they're doing and really getting involved in other people's business that doesn't have much to do with our church. The only reason I'm even bringing this up is because, I'm talking about Kent Hovind, because he's a figure that a lot of people look up to, a lot of people learn from. I've learned from him. He's a saved man. He's a man of God. He's done some great work in his life. But the biggest problem I have right now is that we've been praying for him because he'd been going through, he just got out of jail. He was wrongly imprisoned. He had family problems. His wife divorced him. Okay, and we've been praying for him all the way up until this week because, you know, that's a horrible thing for him to go through. He's been persecuted. But what he's doing now, and the reason why we're taking him off our prayer request is because he's now engaged to be married in a few weeks or something to another woman, and he was considering this within like a month of the divorce just being finalized. I don't know all the details, but it doesn't really matter because what bothers me more than any of that, I could understand a person wanting to be married. I could understand when people sin. I could understand some, you know, I'm not saying it's right, but I could understand it. But what gets me angry about this is that he's not only doing it, and the reason why I'm even bringing it up is because he's promoting it. He's actually saying that this can be something that other people could look to, and he's promoting this divorce and remarriage, and he's promoting that what he's doing is actually like of God. And that is wicked. That is wicked as hell. And we're going to look at some scripture to prove this without a shadow of a doubt because I want to bring this up tonight. We need to be open to correction. I don't care how long you've been in the ministry. I don't care how long you've been teaching and preaching. You ought to be subject to God's Word in all things. Turn, if you would, to Matthew, Chapter 5. We're going to look at Matthew, Chapter 5. We're going to look at a parallel teaching in Luke 16. Out of the words of Jesus Christ, we're going to be looking at divorce and we're looking at remarriage because that's what's going on here. Because what he is doing, what Canova is doing by getting married to another lady, which they're both divorced, so the woman that he's looking to get married to is already divorced from her husband. He's divorced from his wife. And what he's doing is he's causing his ex-wife to commit adultery. He's going to be committing adultery and he's going to cause his future wife to be committing adultery. Now it hasn't happened yet. He has space to repent. And I doubt he's going to be listening to anything that I have to say. But again, the reason why I'm preaching is because if you're following him, if you listen to this, people get swayed because, hey, here's a great man of God and now all of a sudden he's teaching something like this, you might be tempted to say, oh, well, if he's teaching it, then maybe that's right. Even though you've heard and believed differently, as soon as you start seeing other people going one way, a little leavened, leavened at the whole lump. And I don't want this creeping in to our church at all. I want to make sure we have a perfectly clear understanding of why what he's doing is wicked and why I'm calling it out as such. Look at Matthew chapter 5 verse 31. Bob reads, It hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, comitteth adultery. Now I saw his little video where he's trying to answer for himself and justify his own sins for doing it. This is pretty clear. This is what Jesus Christ is saying. And he goes to, well, look at what happened to the woman taken in adultery. And he starts saying, oh, well, if you've ever lusted after, looked at a woman with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery in your heart. So basically he's saying that nobody can judge on anything and on him committing this sin because you've all committed adultery by looking at someone with lust in your heart. Which, is that true? Yeah, that's true. Jesus Christ said that also. If you look at a woman with lust, you know, and lust ever in her heart, you've committed adultery with her already in your heart. But is that the same as actually committing adultery with somebody? Are those two equivalent? No. Committing adultery in your heart is a sin? Yes. It's wicked. You shouldn't do it. But is that exactly quite as bad as actually committing the act and laying down in bed and cheating on your spouse absolutely not. That's insanity to say that those are equivalent sins. They are not. And there are greater sins. Read the Bible. As we were talking about earlier today when we're talking about Jesus answering Pilate saying that he that hath delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. There are greater sins. There are sins that are worse than other sins, which is why you see all throughout the Bible different punishments for different sins because some are worse than others. Taking somebody's life is worse than stealing a bottle of water. Okay? Is stealing a sin? Absolutely. But is it really just as bad as killing another person? No it's not. And what he's saying is, oh, well you shouldn't judge then. You can't judge. It's like saying that what you've all told lies before so nobody could stand up and say you're a liar because we've all done it before. That's ridiculous. And besides, we're getting this from God's Word. It's God's judgment ultimately. Jesus Christ says that if you put away your wife, there's one caveat in the law, it's for the cause of fornication which is not adultery. Something that took place prior to the marriage when a person and we're going to get to that in a minute. Turn if you go to Luke 16. He says, you cause her to commit adultery and if you marry someone that's divorced, you committed adultery. Luke 16. Luke 16 verse 15. The Bible reads, and he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts. When you get into sin, don't try to justify yourself before men because that's exactly what this man is doing. He's getting up on his video, he's trying to justify himself before men but you know what? God knows his heart and I think that he knows that it's wrong. There's some of the ways that he's been acting, I think he knows it. And it would be way better for him to have just kept his mouth shut to just say, you know what? I'm weak, I'm a man, I'm a sinner, I've been in prison for a long time, I'm lonely, I want to have a wife. Look, I can understand that. It's still a sin. I'm still going to say that it's wrong. But to go out then and to say that, hey, see, God can still use you and God wants you to get married and I've seen you, I prayed and fasted about this and I saw a counsel and I told it was good and go ahead and get married. And maybe I could be an encouragement to all of you other people who divorce out there. That's wickedness. Because now not only is he committing his own sin, but he's trying to get other people involved with it. Luke 16, 15, and he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts. For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God is preached and every man presseth into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail. This is the teaching of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, my friends. He did not come to destroy the law. It's not why he came. He came and brought salvation. He brought grace. Amen. He freed us from the curse of the law. But the law is not null and void. If the law were null and void, then there would be no sin. Because sin is the transgression of the law. You have to have the law in order to have sin. The law is not gone. He says in verse 18, Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, comitteth adultery. And whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, comitteth adultery. There are no caveats there. It doesn't say unless, if they were put away for this reason. It says if you marry her that's put away from her husband, you're committing adultery. Let's look at the law in this turn. If you would, Deuteronomy 24. Because this is the law that Jesus was talking about. Jesus is preaching and he's quoting from the law. The law we find in Deuteronomy 24 regarding divorce and remarriage. Deuteronomy 24 verse number 1. The Bible reads, When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her. And the uncleanness is talking about as a result of her fornication. Something that happened before they were married. He finds out, oh, you're not really a virgin. Because that's what's been taught anyways is you're supposed to remain pure until marriage. And that's the way people did it for a long time is that, you know, unless you're a whore or a whoremonger you're going to keep yourself pure until your wedding day. Deuteronomy 24, look at verse number 1. It says, Because he hath found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house. So if he found her in a way that was not the way that she was presented to be, maybe it's a disease. Maybe it's because she's with child. You know, something that he finds, wait a minute, I've taken this wife. And see, the difference here too is that you can take someone to be a wife and not have consummated the marriage by coming together and becoming one in flesh. Which was, again, something that was way more common in older days than it is now. Now the marriage is consummated pretty much right away. But back then the marriage was, you know, you could be a spouse to a husband as was the case with Mary and Joseph. They were a spouse to each other. They were married. It was Joseph's wife. But they had not yet come together because she was still a virgin. And then she was found with child and Joseph was minded to put her away privileged, to divorce her. Because he's like, whoa, I thought she was a virgin. And apparently she's pregnant. Right? That would be, this is where that falls into the law. And that's why Jesus said accept it be for fornication. That was the part of the law that allowed for a divorce. Look at verse number two. And when she is departed of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. This is the instance, one where divorce was acceptable and where then the remarriage would have been acceptable in this situation, in this case. Verse three, and if the latter husband hate her and write her a bill of divorcement and giveth in her hand and senteth her out of his house, or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife, her former husband which sent her away may not take her again to be his wife. After that she is defiled for that is abomination before the Lord and thou shalt not cause a land of sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. Now, here is another problem that I have with him just getting remarried, especially right away. I mean, they just got divorced this year, just like a few months ago. He claims I didn't want to get divorced with her. She did it, you know, I didn't see any evidence of him fighting for it. But you know, I'm not even going to get into this into all the drama or whatever, whatever he was doing. Because his actions right now is preventing him from ever reconciling with his wife. It's impossible now, once he gets married, because once he gets married to another woman, even if he gets divorced, they can never come back together again, because that's an abomination. She can't go you can't go back to your first husband is what this verse what this chat what this law is stating here. Say once you go and be another man's husband, even if he dies, even if you're freed from that marriage, because he's died, you can't go back to your first husband, because it's you're defiled. God says it's an abomination in his eyes. So instead of saying, well, maybe I could still reconcile with my wife, you'll even know we're divorced. Yes, it was wrong, even if he's completely innocent in all this, and she is all to blame 100% did everything wrong, got the divorce, he said he didn't want it, I'll believe him, but yet he's now just just willing to just boom, get married again, as opposed to maybe we could reconcile, maybe it'll take a little bit more time, maybe I could put some more effort into this, maybe I could get my ex wife to reconcile with me. But as soon as you go and marry someone else, you can't do that. You've just completely removed that option. Unless if you do, it's an abomination. Turn if you want to first Corinthians seven, because this is the last place I'm gonna have you turn in regards to this subject. First Corinthians seven, because this is a place where people want to go to, to teach that, oh, yeah, you see, here's where you could get divorced, and it's fine. And even though that's not what the law said, and even though it's not what Jesus said, we're going to turn to first Corinthians seven, and you're gonna say, See, look here, you could get divorced. Pay attention to the to the wording here, though, we're sorry in verse number 10. First Corinthians 7, 10 says, and unto the married, I command yet not I but the Lord, let not the wife depart from her husband. So you're saying this is a commandment, don't leave your husband, don't get a divorce, but and if she depart, but if it happens, he's saying the commandment is don't leave, don't get divorced, but if it happens, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband and let not the husband put away his wife. You know what that applies to the husband as well. Okay, well, whoever is doing the divorcing, I think back then it was only the men putting away the wife, I don't think you ever saw a woman putting away her husband. Just because of the gender roles and now we're at, you know, with the women's living stuff, you kind of got it going, going in both directions. But it would still apply. Remain unmarried. Look, if it happens, if the divorce happens, remain unmarried. Because if you don't, you're committing adultery. Because the vow before God and man was until death do us part. And when you commit that, when you when you break that vow, and you and you and you get divorced, there's still, it's that's still your husband, it's still your wife, and you shouldn't be getting remarried until your spouse dies. Look at verse number 12, though. And this is where I said, it's important to look at the words. What's he talking about here? In verse 10, he said, unto the married I command. And this is what we're supposed to do. Look at verse 12, but to the rest speak I, not the Lord, if any brother is a believer, right, if any brother hath a wife, that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. So now what are we talking about? Now we're talking about a saved person who has an unsaved spouse, a saved man, but he's married to a woman who's not saved. This is the circumstance we're looking at. Verse number 13. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. He's saying, look, if you guys are getting along, great. Because what could happen when you've got a believer and an unbeliever that are married to each other? It can cause major problems in your marriage, especially if the, I mean, if the unbelievers are, you know, usually when you get saved, you're going to start doing things for God. I mean, you're going to be living different. There's going to be, you know, you have different priorities. You got a different standard now. And it can, and your religious beliefs can cause a lot of problems with your spouse, which happens. And he's saying, if that's the case, if you're married to an unbeliever, he's saying, first of all, if things are going great, don't, I mean, don't get divorced from them. He said, don't put them away just because they're an unbeliever. Still stay together. Still stay married. Verse 13. And the woman which, you know, or verse 14. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy. But then verse 15 says, but if the unbelieving depart, let them depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God hath called us to peace. So he's saying, look, if they leave you, he never says it's okay for you to leave them. All he says is that if the unbelieving person, you know, just ups and leaves you, and they're the ones that are divorcing you and stuff, then just let them go. And the implication is, if they're not an unbeliever and they want to leave, you should be not letting them go. You should be fighting to keep that marriage together. But if they're an unbeliever, go ahead and let them go. But in this case that we're talking about, they're both believers. They're both professing believers. This does not apply to them at all. And as I mentioned, I think the worst part is the justifying himself and even calling it God's will. And like I said, I hate going into other people's business and stuff, but this was completely made public, and he's got a big following, and a lot of people are going to be deceived by this. So I think it needs to be nailed down from Scripture and just shown why this is the truth and why, you know what, God hates divorce. God hates putting away, as it says in Malachi, God hates it. Jesus Christ said, you know, when the Pharisees asked him, hey, can a man divorce his wife for any reason? And he says, no. And they said, well, what about Moses? You know, he let us get divorced. And he says, for the hardness of your heart, that that was written. He says, but from the beginning it was not so. God never gave you any reason to get divorced. He says, you know, God made them male and female for this reason. They should leave father and mother and cleave unto their wife, and they too shall become one flesh. So when God instituted marriage, it's two becoming one flesh and becoming in several ways. So he said, therefore, what God had joined together, let not man divide us under. God brought you together. And we're going to see that later in Proverbs 18. Actually, I'll just read it for you right now. It says, whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing and obtaineth favor of the Lord. It's a good thing to find a wife and for God to bring you together and to make you one person. Don't divide that asunder. Don't get divorced. And, you know, the teaching is not to get a divorce, but he's saying there is a circumstance where I will allow it to happen. But it's not what God wants you to do. It's just acceptable and not a sin. Big difference there. And that is one specific case. It's not for any reason like the Pharisees wanted it to be. The Bible says in Matthew 5 17, think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. What a waste to have a great ministry. What a waste to do a lot of things for God in your life. But then to go out and break even the least of these commandments and go out and teach men, hey, this is okay. Hey, go ahead and you do this too. You're going to be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Don't throw away a lifetime of ministry over your sin that you're going to start promoting and teaching that it's okay. So there's a big difference between someone committing a sin and someone getting weak and someone, you know, backsliding or whatever and being humble about it and just, you know, and again, I would say it's wrong but it's way different than going out and teaching people, no, this is actually right. No, this is actually good. No, there's nothing wrong with this. Yeah, if you're divorced, go ahead and just get remarried. Two divorced people getting married, again, and their spouses are both still alive. It's wickedness. And to teach men that that's from God, that's not from God. Go back if you would to Proverbs 18. We're going to finish up this chapter. Look at verse 14, Proverbs 18, 14, the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity but a wounded spirit who can bear it. Our spirit and the well-being of our spirit is so important. You know, that's why we ought to be walking in the spirit as often as possible because here it says the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity. So when you get sick, when you get wounded, when you have a problem, your spirit can get you through that and carry you through to make it through those hard times if your spirit's good. You know, it gives you the endurance and the stamina to just make it through those hard times. He says, but a wounded spirit who can bear because that's where your hope is, right? You get your hope from your spirit. And when your spirit's down, when your spirit's wounded, that's a lot more difficult to deal with. How can you bear that, right? So we need to keep a good guard on our spirit and make sure we're doing things to be walking in the spirit of God daily so that we could have that strength, that inner strength, the spiritual strength that we need to get us through the other things that are going on that could be hard times. Look at verse 16. A man's gift maketh room for him and bringeth him before great men. This is another good nugget of wisdom here. It says here that basically it's telling us that, you know, bringing a gift to someone will allow you to be in their presence. You know, it's talking about a great man, right? A great man. So someone who's widely known or whatever, if you want to get to be able to talk to someone who's maybe famous or someone who's a ruler, someone who's important, someone who's a great man, well then here, bring a gift, right? The person that's bringing the gifts is going to be seen by that person because it's just a wise thing to do. You're going to be heard of that person then and it's going to allow you into their company when you're bearing gifts. I remember in the book of 1 Samuel, when they would go and see the seer, they said they would always bring a gift. So when Saul and his servant, they were looking for the asses way, way, way early on before Saul was anointed king or anything and they were looking for the seer, they were looking for Samuel and they brought it. They were like, well, what are we going to bring to him, right? Because Samuel was a great man. He was a judge. He was a judge of Israel. He was a priest. So they're like, well, what are we going to bring? How can we go and be seen of Samuel unless we bring a gift, right? And that's just something that they did and it's just a little piece of wisdom. So if you have some important meeting or someone important that you want to get a hold of, throw a gift their way and they'll be more likely to give you their time. Look at verse 17. He that is first in his own cause seemeth just, but his neighbor cometh and searcheth him. Verse 18, the lot causeth contentions to cease and parteth between the mighty. A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. This is talking about keeping good relations with your brother, with your brother in Christ or even with your physical brother. You know what I want to say? It says here when you offend your brother, that can be harder to be won because your brother should be long suffering, right? So when they finally get him to the point to where they're offended, it says they can be harder to be won back over to you, to be in good standing with each other again than a strong city and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. It can be really difficult to repair the damage that you do to your relationships with a brother. And we need to be careful about this and that's why it says in verse 18, the lot causeth contentions to cease. Now I wanted to go a little bit more into detail about this, but I'm going to try to do it pretty quickly. The Bible talks a lot about casting lots. Remember people cast lots. The Roman soldiers cast lots for Jesus' garment, right? And you're going to see that phrase used in a few different ways. I don't think it's always consistent exactly the way that it's done throughout the Bible because I see a couple different meanings that you could get from casting lots. But what we're seeing here is that the lot causeth contentions to cease and parteth between the mighty. So what this is, what I believe this is talking about is a way of solving a conflict where, let's say both parties are equal or have equal standing and want the same thing or whatever, where you could cast lots and just kind of let it go to chance almost and just settle the dispute that way in a fair, just equal way where there's no prejudice involved towards one person or another. Leviticus 16, I'm going to read this for you, you don't have to turn it. Leviticus 16 verse 7, talking about the sacrifices, it says, and he shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation and Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat and Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell and offer him for a sin offering. So they're bringing up two goats. One of them was going to be used as a sacrifice, he's going to have a burnt sacrifice. The other one is the scapegoat and the scapegoat was going to be let free out into the wilderness and left off to Rome and they were both obviously pictures of sin and so I'm not going to get into all the reasoning about that but what's said here is they cast lots upon them. So basically you have two goats. Both of them are meat to be a burnt sacrifice. Both of them are just as good as the other. You can look at them and say, yeah, one's not better than the other one. So he says what you're going to do is you're going to cast lots. So you're just going to have to choose basically one of them over the other one in kind of like a random way, right? Whether it be the roll of a die or whatever, like just say, okay, a coin toss, right? That would be similar here to what he did for casting lots on the goats. Okay, well, your lot is to be sacrificed. Your lot is to go be the scapegoat, right? And we see a similar thing when they divided up the land to the children of Israel. In Joshua 18 verse 9 the Bible reads, and the men went and passed through the land and described it by cities into seven parts in a book and came again to Joshua to the host at Shiloh and Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the Lord and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions. So you think about all the tribes of the children of Israel, a lot of people, right? And what if they all wanted like the best place, right? You scope out the whole land and there's like five of the tribes are like, we want this area. Well, how are you going to settle that dispute? I mean, they all will have like equal claim to it. Not one of them is any better than the other one. So what you have to do is come up with a way to kind of make it fair and just make it random, right? And that's what it's talking about here. The lot causes contentions to cease. You know, you settle your disputes, just come up with a way where you can just let it up to chance and just be done with it so that you're not causing more problems by fighting over something that you both want. Let's continue back here in Proverbs. Proverbs 18, verse 22, we just read that, who so findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, and obtaineth the favor of the Lord. Getting married is a great thing and it's a blessing from God to find a good wife. Verse 23, the Bible reads, the poor useth entreaties, but the rich answereth roughly. And this is a real interesting verse too, because for one, it's a factual statement. It's just, it's kind of stating truth. The poor useth entreaty. What's an entreaty? Where you're kind of asking for things, right? You're entreating someone and talking to them in a way where you're asking them for things as opposed to, it says, but the rich answer is roughly, where you're not asking them, you're telling them, right? And kind of treating them a little bit roughly. And when I look at this, there's two ways that you could look at this. And what this verse is saying, it's not even saying that this is the way that things should be, it's just kind of the way things are, right? You could look at this and see, okay, well, with the poor, there's humility. You know, poor people tend to be a lot more humble and will entreat and not think highly of themselves. And the rich person will tend to be more proud and just kind of deal roughly with people because they don't care, because they have this haughty attitude. But I think you could also get some wisdom here in the ways of the world in that the rich are typically in charge of things or kind of bosses and running things, and the poor are not. The poor are more the servants, right? So you could learn from this, at least from being a boss, because a boss isn't going to be asking people, like, entreating for them. Like, if you're a boss at work, if you have people working for you, you're not going to say, you know, this job really needs to be, could you please just, like, you know, if it's not too much trouble, would you mind working on this job for a little while? You're not going to be a good boss that way, right? You're going to say, hey, you know, you need to go and do this, and you direct people and you can be a boss. Now, you don't have to be a jerk about it, but you're also not entreating them to do something that they're supposed to do anyway. So I think you could get kind of a little bit of wisdom both ways with that. Now, you know, we should never just be jerks, but if you're going to be a good leader, you know, you need to be able to speak with that type of confidence and commandment as well, and not just be entreating all the time. I think there's a time and a place for both. And then verse 24, a man that hath friends must show himself friendly, and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. I've heard this taught more often than not, that if you want to have friends, then you need to be friendly to other people, but that's not really what this verse is saying. It says a man that hath friends. So you have friends already. If you have friends, it says you must show yourself friendly. If you have friends right now, if you have people you consider to be your friends, you need to be friendly. You need to be friendly to them. Don't just use them and count on them to be friendly to you. You make sure that you're being friendly to them. That's what the Bible is teaching here. It says, and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Having a good friend, having a good relationship with a friend is a great thing to have because you can make bonds and relationships with people and friendships where people will be there for you in your worst situation, even closer than family would, where people can do a lot for you. That's a type of friendship you think of Jonathan and David had a great friendship where they cared about each other, they loved each other and did things for each other and looked out for one another no matter what was going on. Jonathan had more of a connection with David as his friend than even his own father because they were good friends and they stuck closer than brothers. That's a good thing to have. In order to have that type of relationship, you need to make sure you're showing yourself friendly and doing things for others and be more concerned about how you could be a good friend and how others could be a good friend to you. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for the great wisdom that we receive from your word every week, dear Lord. I pray that you would please help all these words to sink down. Lord, help us to identify the areas of our life that are wanting, dear Lord. Help us to identify them and also to find then the verses where we can memorize and keep with us throughout our week, throughout our days, dear Lord, and help us to work on the areas individually that we all are struggling with, dear God. Give us more wisdom, increase our knowledge, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.