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

Alright, so chapter 29 has got a lot of things that we've covered in the past, so I'm going to be focusing in on just kind of a few of the verses. We're going to go through everything. We're going to read every verse again tonight. I'm going to do some, maybe some minor expounding on some of the verses. But a lot of it, I mean, when you get to chapter 29 out of 31 in the book of Proverbs, there is a lot of repetitiveness. We know this. And some of it is repetitive, but I'm still going to go in a little bit more in depth on the way that the verses are phrased and what we can learn from the individual verses. But there's a few things. I'm going to spend a lot of time just kind of explaining this very first verse. So look at 29, verse number 1. The Bible reads, He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed in that without remedy. So real basically, when you're being reproved, it means you're told that you're wrong. When you're being given wisdom, when someone's saying, hey, this is the way that it is, what you're doing is wrong. This is the right way. This is what God's word says, being reproved. But you harden your neck. You don't want to listen to it. You're stuck and say, nope, no, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear what God's word says. No, I'm right. No, what I'm doing is not wrong. And you're not able to receive the correction. You harden your neck. It says if you're often reproved, in other words, it doesn't happen the first time you're reproved. But if people just come at you and you're wrong about something and you're being reproved, you're told, no, look, this is what it says. And here's what the Bible says. Over and over again, you're being reproved and you're not hearing it. You're not hearing it. It says, well, guess what? Suddenly you're going to be destroyed. All of a sudden, boom, it's going to come and you're going to be destroyed. That's what the Bible is saying here. And it says in that without remedy. What's a remedy? It's a cure. Without some other solution, without some other way out. It says when that comes, when you are being told, when God is sending people to you, when you are getting a messenger over and over and over again and you don't want to hear it and you're not humbling yourself and you're not listening to that ear, it says the destruction is going to come swift and you're going to have no hope. There's going to be no way out for this. Now, there's a couple of applications that we're going to make with this verse. First of all, if you would, please turn to Jeremiah chapter 25. Keep your finger in Proverbs. We're going to turn to Jeremiah chapter 25. Jeremiah, I believe, throughout the entire book does a very good job of describing this concept as it applies to a nation, the nation of Israel. What's really interesting, the more you study the Bible, you start to read and realize when all of these things are taking place. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel are all taking place in a relatively short period of time, roughly about the time of a life span. Because it's covering the lives of about four or five kings and it's the time frame right before, leading up to and during the captivity of the children of Israel into Babylon, when Babylon comes and finally invades and destroys and takes them captive. What's interesting is that you read Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel and these were prophets to the people of that time. Can you imagine living in a time where Isaiah is preaching, Jeremiah is preaching, Ezekiel is preaching. These guys have some of the biggest, these are called the major prophets in the Bible. I mean, God's word just being poured out, just being delivered, just, thus saith the Lord. This is what's happening. And what he's doing is, he's warning them and warning them and warning them. And what else is interesting too, is during this time frame, there's about three out of four of the kings are good kings, recorded as being good kings in the Bible, yet the punishment still comes. Why? Because even though some of the kings were good, the people were still wicked. Which just goes to show you, the leaders, they can cause bad things to happen, they can help out, they can do some good things, but at the end of the day, the leader still isn't going to make or break the nation, it's the people. It is the whole, it's the group, it's how is the society, how is the general public. Now, leaders have been known to be able to help stay off some of God's wrath for a short time being, and they've also been able to bring God's wrath, as we see with Manasseh, right, did all kinds of things that provoked the Lord to anger. But at the end of the day, who is God speaking to? It's the people, right? The kings have importance, I'm not saying they don't, but we see over and over again, you're in chapter 25, look at verse number three, we're just going to start reading here, kind of a summary in Jeremiah 25, look at verse number three, listen to this now, from the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah. And Josiah was a really righteous king, he's actually one of the ones that helped stay off the judgment just for a short period of time because of how good he was, because of all the things that he tried to get the people's heart back to serving the Lord. From the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, even unto this day, that is the three and twentieth year, ten years, just in this one time frame, and this isn't going back for the whole time frame of all the warnings and stuff, he's just saying for the past ten years, the word of the Lord hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking, but ye have not hearkened, say for the past ten years, I've been getting up, getting up early, and preaching God's word to you, but you're not listening. Verse four, and the Lord hath sent unto you all his servants, the prophets, rising early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened nor inclined your ear to hear. So you say, it's not even just me, all of his servants, I mean there's a lot of preachers going out and preaching and preaching and preaching the right word, but you don't want to listen. Verse five, they said, turn ye again now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord hath given unto you and your fathers forever and ever, and go not after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands, and I will do you no hurt. Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the Lord, that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt. And the warning's been coming, I've been telling you not to go after other gods, I've been telling you, repent, do what's right, get your works right before the Lord. But you don't want to have anything to do with it. Not listening. Verse eight, therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, because ye have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadreza the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them in astonishment and in hissing and perpetual desolations. Moreover, I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle, and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon. Excuse me, 70 years. There was no fix for that. There was no cure. He says, this is what's going to happen. Look, I've been trying to get your attention over and over and over again. My people have been sent to you, and you don't want to listen. Turn, if you would, to Jeremiah chapter seven. Go back to chapter number seven. We'll make another point regarding the same exact topic. Now, again, this is referring to a group of people. It's just talking about a nation. That's why it's talking about them repenting of their evil works. That's why it talks about them, you know, not doing so wickedly, right, and not sinning in all these various ways, because the judgment that comes on a nation is based on their works. It's based on the things that you do. The salvation of a soul, of an individual soul, is based solely on faith in the Lord, solely faith in Jesus Christ. That's what saves our soul. But what saves a nation is their works. Every single time you go through the Bible, you see, every time a nation is going to be judged, they need to get rid of their wicked ways. They need to start doing what's right. They need to get rid of all the garbage and filth and sin and disgusting things, abominations that are going on in the land. They need to get rid of that stuff, if you want God not to destroy the land and the people of the land. Look at verse number 13 of Jeremiah chapter seven. And now, because you have done all these works at the Lord. And I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not. And I called you, but ye answered not. Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust. And unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. Look at verse number 16. Therefore, pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me, for I will not hear thee. They have gotten to a point to where God said, I'm done with them. There's no more remedy for this. Don't even pray for them. You know, people say all the time, pray for everybody, right? Just pray for everybody all over the place, no matter what conditioner, just pray for everybody. You have to pray for everybody. No, there's some people that God even says, don't pray for them. When they get so far gone, now look, again, this is what we're going to be covering soon is this reprobate doctrine. This is a nation that has gone reprobate. This is a nation that has gone so far that God just said, all right, I've given you chance after chance after chance after chance. You've had these opportunities. I love you. I cared about you. I've sent people to preach to you. You've had enough truth. You've had enough preaching. You've had enough time to get right. And you're just not doing it. You've made your choice. Now, as he's talking to righteous Isaiah, don't pray for this people. Don't even do it. You know why? Because I'm not even going to hear you. I don't want to hear any of it. The judgment's coming. They've made their choice. There is no remedy. Turning forward to Proverbs chapter one, because this same concept that we see very clearly laid out in Jeremiah, and you can read through the whole book. I mean, you could see when the judgment's just being prophesied and he's saying, this is coming and it's not going to stop. There are people where there is no more hope for them. You hear it taught. I've heard it said that, you know, it's never too late for a person to get saved. We're all the way up until the day that you die, you can get saved. And you know, it would be nice if that was true, but that's just simply not the case. It's not true. Not with everybody. Now, I'll say this. For probably most people, that is the case. For the majority of people, I would say, yeah, they probably do have an opportunity to get saved all the way up until the day they die. But for some people, that's not the case. For some people, when they hear God's Word, and they're being often reproved, and they're being told, when they get to the point to where they've just, they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, they become vain in their own imaginations, and they worship to serve the creature more than creator, who's blessed forever, amen? That's when God gives them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. And that's when they become, reprobate, your Proverbs chapter 1. We went over this a little bit. I'm not going to go too in depth on this one. We did Proverbs 1, but that was already months ago at this point. These are portions of the Bible that aren't covered very often because they're not very pleasing. They're not something that makes you feel very good to think about this. But this is the Word of God, my friends, and this is part of wisdom and truth and understanding, and we need to know this, which makes it all the more important and all the more urgent to preach the Gospel today, and not put it off, not put it off for a family member. I mean, first of all, you don't know the day that anybody's going to die. Nobody knows that day. Second of all, you don't know if someone might end up just completely rejecting God and going reprobate. I mean, we don't know that. We need to make sure that you hear it and hear a good representation of Jesus Christ and a good explanation of the Gospel. Look at Proverbs 1, verse 24. Same scenario, and you see, the scenario what we're seeing here is you've been given the truth. This isn't your person in Africa that's never heard about Jesus. That's not who we're talking about here. We're talking about people that have heard. I mean, you have no excuse. You've heard, verse 24, because I have called and ye refused. The call was there and you heard it. In order to refuse it, you have to hear it. Right? You can't just refuse it without even hearing it. I called and you refused. I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded. But ye have said it not on my counsel and would none of my, look at that, reproof. Same thing we saw in Proverbs 29. He had being often reproved hardeneth his neck. You would none of my reproof. You didn't want to be told that you were wrong. Look at verse 26. This is God's response to that. Because I told you, hey, you're wrong. Because I send people to you. Because I've tried to get through to you. I've reached out my hand. I tried to help you. I wanted to save you. You didn't want to have anything to do with it. So here's what's going to happen. Verse 26. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. This is an aspect of God that a lot of people don't even realize exists. That they just think that, and look, God is love. He is. Praise the Lord for his mercy endureth forever. Amen and amen. And we love that aspect of God, but that is not all God is. That's not the complete definition of God. We have to understand that there is a point where you can push things too far with God. There's a point where if you do not want to hear what he has to say, he says fine. Have it your way. And when your calamity comes, when everything starts going wrong in your life, you've been so proud and you don't need God and you don't want to hear about God, and everything's going great for you, and then when your whole world starts to come apart, he says guess what? You're going to call on me then and you know what? I'm going to laugh. Ha ha ha. You didn't want to hear me before. And mock. This is what the Bible is saying that God is going to do. Verse 27. When your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer. They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. Does this jive with the people who say anybody at any time, just as soon as you call on God, he's going to be there for you and ready to hear you? No. No. Now look, again, I want to reiterate, because as we cover this doctrine, you say, well, who does this apply to? This is not talking about just your average every day, excuse me, sinner. Someone who doesn't know that much about the Bible, doesn't know, you know. This is talking about people who have been told, they've understood, they've heard it, completely got it, and completely rejected it. Okay? That gets the point. That's why the Bible says to seek the Lord while he may be found. Because you don't want that to get to the point to where God can't be found anymore. Because you've made your choice. Look at verse 29. For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counsel, they despised all my reproof. Again, the biggest problem is the people that don't want to be told that they're wrong, that what they're doing is a sin. We see this in the people who hate God today. It's one of their attributes of the reprobate is that they're haters of God and that they don't want to be told that they're wrong. I mean, just take regular experience. Maybe you've encountered this yourself or maybe you've seen it on YouTube. The flaming sodomites that hate God, they never want to be told that what they're doing is wrong. In fact, we just had an experience with one, was it last Wednesday? Was it last week when we went soul winning? Brother Robert? Tuesday? I wasn't there, but I heard the story and I heard part of the voicemail that was left on the church phone as the sodomite was complaining. And in the voicemail, the little bit that I heard before I just hung up, because I didn't care, was that he was saying that you have people here and they told me that I'm going to hell and you shouldn't be judging people and all this other stuff, right? I talked to Brother Robert. He says, I never told him he's going to hell. He never used the word hell once. He didn't even get to that point because the guy started flipping out that he was at his door and just thought that he's there to just rail on him. He's there to preach the gospel. But why is it? First of all, he had a guilty mind because he knows that what he's doing is filthy and disgusting and a sin and he's going to hell. He already knows that. But what's interesting is that he didn't even have to say it. And he hates God that much. He doesn't want to be told that what he's doing is wrong. He doesn't want to hear that. I'm sure he's been often reproved before he even got to that point. Before he ever got to that point, he was reproved and didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to have anything to do with it. You know, what's really interesting, we were talking about this too, concerning just the reprobates in general, people who have just rejected God and have become rejected themselves. I brought this up, I believe in the past. I used to study. I used to really idolize musicians in some of my favorite groups I read books on. And it's interesting how I didn't realize it at the time because I wasn't saved and I just didn't even think anything of it. I read books on Metallica. I read books on the doors. Both of James Hetfield and Jim Morrison both had religious upbringings. One of them, I believe, is James Hetfield. His dad was like a pastor, a Baptist pastor. It's no surprise to me that these total reprobates, that hate God, that sing about it, that promote filth, that promote everything that's wicked and wrong, had a chance. They grew up. They heard it. They heard it and heard it and heard it and heard it and heard it and rejected it. And then they became rejected. And you know, those are some famous examples. But you see preachers' kids, sometimes you think, wow, that's a really great man of God. Right? How can their child turn out so completely wicked? How could that happen? Well, we all have a choice individually in this world when it comes to your salvation and putting your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You have a much better chance of getting saved when you're coming into a family, whether you're being raised the right way. Much better chance. But at the end of the day, you still have that choice to make. The choice is an individual choice. No one can make you do it. And if you as an individual choose, I don't like being told that I'm wrong. I don't want to go to church. And you start getting this attitude, the ones that are brought up with it and they've learned all about Christ and all about salvation and how free it is, and they don't want anything to do with it, they end up getting rejected. And that's when they turn into these monsters and these animals, these God haters that do all kinds of wickedness. It happens. It's evident. And the Bible explains why. And they get to this point to where, yeah, then all of a sudden you have problems and you want to call on that God that you heard about when you were younger and that you learned all about and everything else, and now you want to have a part of Him. And He says, sorry. Verse 31, Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Turn with you to John chapter 12. I just want to show you this real briefly. I'm not going to spend the entire time on this point, but it's a really important doctrine that we need to not let slip by, and a lot of people haven't heard it before, so I want to show you at least enough scripture to show you where we're coming from with this. John chapter 12. There are people who have been brought up with this, and they've been reproved many times, but they became vain in their own imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. And the foolish heart becomes darkened, and God hardens their heart. Because here's the problem that so many people don't understand, that it doesn't quite click with people. You say, well, how can a person be rejected or be reprobate? Because isn't all you have to do is put your faith in Jesus to be saved? Say yes. Amen. That's true. It's absolutely true. You say, well, what happens then if a person who has been rejected believes on Jesus? What happens? Well, if that were possible, that person would be saved. But here's the thing, and this is what I'm going to show you in John chapter 12. They can't believe, because once God hardens their heart, once they've been rejected, they're going to be saved. God hardens their heart to make it impossible for them to put their faith on Christ. It's the same way when you do put your faith in Christ, and God seals you. You're sealed. You're secure. You're saved. You have eternal life. God has bought you. Boom, you're sealed. He's given you the Holy Spirit, a promise. Done deal. Can't be changed. The hardening of the heart is the same scenario on the opposite end of the spectrum. Instead of receiving, you've rejected, and God ends up sealing your heart, but not for the better, for the worse, so that you're at the point where you cannot believe on Jesus. It's done. You've made your choice, and he says, okay, if you would have chosen this way, I would have sealed you up for me. You've chosen that way. Now you're sealed for that and hardened. John chapter 12, look at verse number 37. Speaking about Jesus, but though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believe not on him. And he explains, I mean, because think about that. Jesus Christ is doing all of these miracles. Imagine being in the presence of Jesus Christ when he's walking around on this earth, and he's literally going up to people that were born crippled, that couldn't walk their entire life. No doctors can help them. There's no surgery that can fix that. He goes up to them, and he heals them, and they instantly get right up. They're jumping up for joy. They're healing people. The woman had an issue of blood. Boom, cleansed, healed, and story after story after story after story, I mean, people who were blind their whole life, they were born blind. All of a sudden they can see, doing things completely outside of the medical human knowledge spectrum of being able to heal people, complete miracles, and people were witnessing this. The word was getting out. I mean, he couldn't even go into cities because of the fame of Jesus that was spread abroad and his healing power. You say, how could anybody see those things and be around those things and not believe that this is the Son of God? How can that happen? He explains it here. He explains it from scripture, from a prophecy, from Isaiah. But though they had done, though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him, that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Verse 39, therefore, they could not believe because as Esaias said again, he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart and be converted and I should heal them. They've been hardened so that they cannot believe. If they could believe, yeah, they would be saved because that's the requirement for salvation. But once God has made their heart hardened like stone, they can't believe. It's impossible. It's done. And look, it's a sad state that it happens to anybody. But those are the people that we don't need to bother praying for because once God's heart, what are we going to do? Those are the same people and you want to know who I'm talking about, read Romans chapter 1. It gives you all of the attributes of those people. It gives you all of them. There's a lot of indicators. And look, some of the things on that list, someone who is not rejected might do, okay? Someone who is disobedient to parents or whatever. There's some things in there that one person say, well they do this. The difference is that list, reprobates have all of those attributes. All of those things define that person. Not just one. All of those things. Proverbs 29. Let's go back to Proverbs 29. I need to get a cough drop here. It's an important doctrine to get ahold of and get a grasp of. People try to claim, oh you believe in a workspace or salvation because we believe that homosexuals are already sodomites, they're already given up, they're rejected. And the reason being is you look at Romans chapter 1 and it's talking about the very people that have rejected God and been rejected and God gave them over and that is a result of them becoming reprobate, is them getting into all that weird stuff. We say the homosexuality is an indicator that they've been given up and given over because they wouldn't be that way unless God gave them over to be that way. Whereas some people will falsely state that we believe, oh well you say the homosexuality is some sin that's an unforgivable sin. No. That's not what we're saying at all. We're saying is that's just a sign that shows us outwardly that that person's already been rejected because they've been given over to do those things. So don't put the one before the other. It's not an unforgivable sin. It's not that Jesus didn't pay for all of our sins and that we believe in some workspace salvation of you need to keep this law. No. No. It's not it at all. It's the fact that you're doing those things just shows us that God's already given you over. It has nothing to do with a sin that can't be forgiven, which we know that the sin that can't be forgiven is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. We know that there are sins that can't be forgiven. We know that if you add to or remove from God's Holy Word that you can't be saved then either. We know that if you take the mark of the beast, you can't be saved then either. I'll acknowledge all those things, but we're not saying that homosexuality is a similar sin. What it is, it just shows you that they're already given up on. So anyways, let's go back to Proverbs 29. I want to get through this. Verse number 2. We're going to jump around a little bit now. We're going to deal with the topic of rulers and wicked people. Proverbs 29 verse 2. When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn. Verse number 12. I'm not going to get into that. I've been dealing with all the politics and stuff going on enough. Verse 12. If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked. As soon as you get a ruler, someone in power who listens to liars, who listens to these wicked people and will allow them in to his counsel and to his presence and will hear from them. It's like the doors are open, the floodgates are open for all these wicked people. Oh wow, he's listening to this guy. I'm going to make sure I get in there then too because if he's listening to him, he'll listen to me. The righteous ruler is going to be like, get out of here. I don't want anything to do with any of you clowns. Get this wickedness out of here. But as soon as they start listening, then all of a sudden it attracts all the most wicked. This made me think of like Sodom Bucks. You go to a Starbucks. Are there any Starbucks that exist that don't have queers working for them? I mean seriously, I stopped shopping there a long time ago now, but when I would go in, it's just like, doesn't matter where I was, there'd be at least one flaming guy that's taken an order. Or Target, you know, a trans target. What happens is, what I believe happens is, is that these corporations, these businesses start hiring. Because honestly, who wants to hire a fag? I don't. Who wants to work with them? No normal person wants to. But when they find an end in a business as someone who's sympathetic to their cause and people who have sodomites in charge, then all of a sudden that's all they work. They're all going there. All their servants are wicked. Look at verse number 26. Many seek the ruler's favor, but every man's judgment cometh from the Lord. Jump back up to verse 14. The king that faithfully judgeth the poor, his throne shall be established forever. Someone in power, looking out for the poor people and honestly looking out for the poor people. Not just giving lip service to them and creating programs to further enslave them, but actually caring about them and judging righteously and not just respecting persons and respecting money and the people who want to throw all these people out on the street or whatever to make more money because this guy's going to grease you up a little bit and give you a little kickback in your judgment. But if the king that can actually faithfully judge and judge righteously, he says your throne shall be established forever. God likes that and he will establish your throne. Verse number 4. The king by judgment establisheth the land, but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it. That's exactly what I was talking about, getting bribes. You have to judge righteously and you'll be established. Verse 16. When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth, but the righteous shall see their fall. So you know what the more wicked people there multiply, sin is going to abound, but their fall is going to come and the righteous are going to see it. So we can look at that as the righteous and say even when sin is abounding don't be discouraged, just know the judgment is going to come and we're going to do our best to try to stop it, try to stay it, work against it, but we can at least take the comfort in the fact that God is going to judge it one day. I mean this stuff isn't just all going to be happening with no consequences. All the wickedness, all the sin, all the hurt and the things that people do in this world that are just wrong, it's all going to be corrected. Verse number 10. The bloodthirsty hate the upright, but the just seek his soul. And then verse 27. An unjust man is an abomination to the just and he that is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked. We ought to be abominations to each other. On the one hand you have the really wicked people, they hate the people that live righteously. They're an abomination unto them, they can't stand just like they couldn't stand Jesus. The wicked rulers, the wicked people at that time, they hated him. They want nothing else but to put him to death. But see it says here an unjust man is an abomination to the just. We need to keep that in mind. Not that we want to kill them, but they ought to be an abomination to us that they're doing so wickedly. That that's not just okay, that we don't just tolerate that wickedness. And again, if you've been here coming for any length of time you know that when the book of Proverbs we're talking about wicked people, it's talking about really wicked people. It's not talking about your average sinner. I mean it's just talking about people who don't sleep at night unless they're devising to do something evil to somebody. I mean, really wicked people. Jump up to verse number three. Whoso loveth wisdom rejoiceth his father, but he that keepeth company with harlots spendeth his substance. Let's go down to verse number five. We've got a few more points that I want to make. A man that flattereth his neighbor spreadeth a net for his feet. Watch out for flattery. It's usually just a trap. Somebody just overdoes it on how great you are and how good you are. It's a trap. Watch out for it. Verse number six. In the transgression of an evil man there is a snare, but the righteous doth sing and rejoice. Look at verse number seven. The righteous considerth the cause of the poor, but the wicked regardeth not to know it. And again, God's care for the poor, for the people who don't have much, the righteous considerth the cause of the poor. The righteous care enough, and notice what this is saying too, because keep this in mind when you might want to give alms or give some money to somebody who's poor. The righteous is going to consider it the cause of the poor. What is their cause and what is the cause that they're poor? Both. What is their purpose? What are they going towards? Which way are they headed? And why are they in that condition? And this is the standard that we keep here in this church. If people, if their cause is to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, we will help for all these things to be added unto them, meaning food and clothing. So when they're in a point of need, but they're seeking God. And it's a priority. They're coming to church. They want to learn. But they're struggling through these hard times. We help them out. But we're also going to consider the cause of, well, are you poor because you're an alcoholic? Are you poor because you're doing drugs? Are you poor because you've just got all these, you're just flushing your money down the toilet and you're just indulging in sin? If that's the reason why you're poor, you need to get right. And the thing is, the righteous considers all of these things because we truly want to help that person. When you continue to give and to help the person who's just in blatant sin and is unrepentant, you don't help them at all by giving them money. You don't help the alcoholic by giving them money or food when you know they're just going to continue to drink and drink and drink. You don't help them. There's a time even when I would say, you know what, I'm not going to give money to these people because I don't want them sitting on alcohol, but I'm going to give them food. And, you know, if you do that, fine, whatever. I'm telling you, the course of action where I've kind of changed my life, if I know that they're not drinking alcohol then I might help them out. But if I suspect, like if the person's drunk, I'm not going to feed them even. Unless they're talking about getting right and finding Jesus and getting in church, okay. But otherwise, no. I've seen people holding up signs that says need money for beer. You know, they think it's real cute and they think it's real funny and people are going, oh hey brother, yeah, I need some beer too, here you go. I'm not going to help that out. And the people that give that guy money hates that person. They hate him. They think it's kind of funny and they're cool and they're helping the guy out. You're not helping them out at all. You're actually bringing them further into the bondage of alcoholism. That's all you're doing. The righteous considerth the cause of the poor. Think about these things. And don't just blindly give money to people. I mean, if you do that whatever, but at least just, you know, consider the cause. Consider their condition, maybe why they got there and which way are they headed. What's their cause? The wicked regard us not to know it. They don't care at all about the poor one way or the other. Verse number eight, scornful men bring a city into a snare, but wise men turn away wrath. And I think, you know, one thing that stood out to me about this verse, it says scornful men bring a city into a snare. It doesn't take, you know, sometimes to tell, you know, scornful men can really have a big impact on an entire city. That type of a sin can really do a lot of damage. A little 11, 11 at the whole lump. I mean, there's sin as a way of spreading and being a scorner, a scornful man, it says here it brings a city into a snare. And I kind of preached on the scorning about a month ago. But it says here, but wise men turn away wrath. So the more wise men you can have out there and being wise and reproving and speaking wisdom can help stay off the wrath that's coming. Verse number nine, if a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest. And I covered that in dealing with foolish people in the past. Look at verse number 11. A fool uttereth all his mind, but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards. This is the last verse of verse 11. I'm going to touch on it real briefly, but there's some thoughts that you have that are better left unsaid. If you're one of these people that with everything that pops into your mind, you're just going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the multitude of words there wanteth not sin. But we've covered that already in Proverbs and the Bible says a fool uttereth all. And that's what it means. When you utter all of your mind, it's everything that comes into your mind you're uttering and it's coming out your mouth. We need to have a filter, folks. Because look, the thought of foolishness is sin. Just the thought. Don't add to that by just proclaiming the foolish thought that you have. And look, I have foolish thoughts. A lot. And I don't want you to know how often I have foolish thoughts. I'm not going to be proclaiming it all the time. The person, the fool that can keep his mouth shut, he's going to be perceived as wise. Just by keeping his mouth shut, just by not saying the things that's coming into his head, just by being quiet, people think, wow, this person's pretty wise. Because they're not hearing all the stupid things that's coming into your mind. Let's keep the filter. The tongue, you know, isn't unruly evil. It's a little member, but it can cause great destruction. There's a little fire. Look how great damage a little fire kindleth. And we need to make sure that we're taking thought to the things that we say. Words cause a lot of damage. Once you say things, you can't take them back. When you say things to someone out of spite or out of anger, it's already said. It's out in the open. And you can do a lot of damage to people. Relationships are broken. People get into positions where they don't ever want to speak to each other again over words, over the things that come out of our mouth. Sometimes certain words need to be said, but we ought to weigh our words and use rational thought before we speak them and not act on impulse and on emotion. We don't always need to utter all of our mind, and it's something that we all need to work at, but just try to remember these things. Get some wisdom. Verse number 20 says, Seeest thou a man that is hasty in his words? Someone who is quick to speak. It says there is more hope of a fool than of him. It's very foolish to just be hasty, to have to say something right away. I mean, sometimes people, oh man, they burned you, they cut you down or whatever. You don't need to say something back right away. You don't have to be hasty. That's fine. And the only thing that's going to hurt maybe is pride. If you can't come back with that snappy comeback to really get them back, who cares? Why do you care that much about yourself if someone's reviling you and speaking evil against you? The Bible says if people are speaking evil against you falsely, especially if it's for the name of Jesus, for the cause of Christ, be happy about it. Actually, you can rejoice about it. It doesn't say, we'll study up so you can get them back next time they come at you and get them real good. The Bible says, vengeance belongeth unto me, saith the Lord, I will repay. God sees what happens. He sees you being ridiculed and being mocked and being persecuted and whatever else, and people just using their words like a whip to try to discourage you. You don't need to fight back. But just make sure that your way is found in righteousness so that you are being reproved for the cause of Christ and not just for something that you did because you did someone else wrong and now they're coming and attacking you. There's going to be no honor or glory or respect from that. That's just reaping what you sown. Jump up to verse number 13, the poor and the deceitful man meet together. The Lord lighteneth both their eyes. Now we're going to look into one last subject here of raising a child. Look at verse number 15. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. Spanking the kids with the rod and telling them that they're wrong and instructing them, it gives them wisdom. I mean, this is the way that we raise our children. We want them to be wise. But look at this. It says, but a child left to himself, right? The child that's, get away from me. I want nothing to do with you. Just go off. A child left to himself, just bringeth his mother to shame. Why does it say anything about his father? Well, it says there's his mother because the father has to go out and work. So in that sense, they're going to be left to themselves for a significant portion of the day, which is why it's the mother's job to care for the children. And if a child left to themselves, that's the mother's fault. Don't just have your children just left off completely to themselves to get into whatever kind of trouble. In this context, what it was really referring to, it's not just referring to the kids being outside and playing. It's referring to them being left to themselves and not being corrected, not being disciplined, not being paid enough attention to, to correct them when they've done wrong. That's what it's talking about. It's not just to go outside and play for a while. It's the fact of you're monitoring them enough to say, hey, I told you not to do that. Do it right. Verse 17, correct thy son and he shall give thee rest. Yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul. As a parent, I understand this, and I mentioned this before, correcting your children. It's not a pleasant thing. It's not a fun thing because there's a crying involved. There's the you getting up, you changing what you're doing. You know, we live busy lives. My wife and I both, we're both always working. We're both always doing things. If you have to stop what you're doing because one of the kids is being bad because they're not paying attention to what you've said, to listening to your rules and not doing what you told them to do, it could be frustrating, it could be irritating, it could even be overwhelming to have to stop everything and go and take care of disciplining them. But the Bible says that that's exactly what you need to do and if you do that, they'll give you rest. If you take the time out when they need it, they will end up giving you rest. Children could be overwhelming. You might feel like you're going to lose it when they don't listen and they're making all these messes and the house is just like a tornado blew through it. It happens sometimes on a daily basis and it can feel very overwhelming. And then you tell the kids, well kids, look, you made this big mess, you got to clean it up. And then you're going off and you're working on something else. And you're doing this other thing and you come back and say, kids, you didn't do this. And you could start to really wear on you and become overwhelming. If you don't correct your child, that's going to continue to happen and make you more and more and more nuts. And you won't have rest. But if you take the time out as much as you have going on and say, well, they need a correction, they need some discipline, this needs to be enforced. It will go a long ways to giving you the rest to where then you could start saying things and they'll do it because they know if they don't, they'll be corrected. And no one wants to be corrected when you're a kid, not in that way. It could be burdensome, but the correction can provide you actually help later on and rest to where, hey, things are actually going really well and things could be less burdensome. So it is very serious. Make sure you're correcting your children, especially when they're young. Correct them betimes early on. Look at verse number 19. So that was kind of raising children, those two verses. Now we're looking at a couple verses about ruling a servant, right? So if you're like in a boss, in an employee type of relationship. Verse number 19, a servant will not be corrected by words, for though we understand, he will not answer. So as many times with an employee, with a servant, you need to go beyond just a verbal reprimand. A lot of times people don't just say, yeah, whatever. They get blown off. And you might need to take more action. And now I'm not suggesting in our culture, our society today, unfortunately it might be illegal, but sometimes when you have a servant that's being foolish and they deserve a rod to the back, when they do something bad enough, the Bible says that that's a way that a fool will receive that type of correction. But not just that though. That's not the only course of action or recourse you have. Obviously we're not going to be doing that to people today, especially with our laws and the way things are going. But you could be corrected with pay cuts and other benefits and other things being taken away where they can actually feel the impact other than just don't do that. Because I've seen this too many times where even writing someone up like, oh, you're going to write me up again? There was an employee that got written up all the time and it was just like, it's no big deal. What are you going to do? You're going to write it on a piece of paper? Who cares? But if you actually impacted, okay, well you were making $15 an hour, now you're making $12 because you're just not listening. You're doing some work, but you're just not doing all the work that I'm telling you to do, so that's going to cost you. They'll feel that. And I'll tell you what, that'll have much more impact than just correcting them by words. And again, we do have to understand the servants here in the Bible because transportation and the way that we live today is really so much different than it was back then. And I'm not saying in order to understand the Bible you have to understand all the cultural aspects, but when we talk about having a servant, typically servants, you know, people who are poor would be indentured servants, they would sell themselves and become a servant for someone else for extended periods, I mean for long periods of time. And because you're not like driving your car to this guy's house and going back home again, if you're a servant, you're working somebody's land, someone who's got some wealth and needs help and has got people working for them, you're going to be staying there. Oftentimes, you know, poor people, their families will be there then and you kind of grow up in that. And what this is saying is that for the master that has servants that has these people helping out and doing stuff, you delicately bring up a servant from a child. You know, you're not just harsh with them all the time and just, you know, treating them poorly. But if you treat them well, you know, you treat them with some respect, you bring them up delicately, he says they'll become your son at the length. Where you have this much better relationship with them than just, you know, treating them bad. That's why I don't think any boss you try to apply it to today should just be the mean, yelling, just, you know, like, and not treating people with respect, not treating your employees with respect. When you can lead and be a boss and treat people like they're adults, like they have a brain, that you're not just berating them all the time, they'll end up having more of a respect for you and will actually do you more, do more work for you because they're going to think, okay, yeah, this guy, they have your respect. I mean, when people respect you, they'll do things, they'll work harder for you than if they're just like, oh, here's this loudmouth again. They'll just, when you act like that, they'll just do enough work to make sure that they just don't get the, you know, they'll work more like a, like an eye pleaser, right, as a man pleaser, where as soon as you're looking, they'll be doing the work, but they don't really care about it because they don't have the respect for you. So there's a little bit of application on how you can apply that today. Verse number 18, where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the law happy as he. Strong statement where there's no vision, the people perish, the people die. We need to have a vision. We need to have a what is the future hold? Where am I going in my life? What are my goals? Do you have a vision for your own life? Where are you headed? What do you want to do? If you just go day to day and you have no vision, you have no goal, you have nothing driving, you have nowhere you want to go, you're going to end up nowhere because the people are going to perish. What about our church? Do you have a goal for our church? How about this town? What is your vision? I've got a vision off into the future of where I want to see this church. I have a vision, believe it or not, for you individually, for every member of this church. I've got vision for people. I can see things. Hopefully they come to pass. I don't know, but I see the way the things that I would like to see things going. And when you have the vision, it's basically a goal. You work towards that. You do things to make it happen. When you've got no goals, when you've got no visions, when you've got nothing at all, you haven't taken any time to consider, what am I doing in this life? It's not going to do you any good. The people perish. But notice this, he that keepeth the law, happy is he. Notice how there's a tie-in of not having a vision in them that keep the law. But let's keep reading, we're almost done. Verse number 22, an angry man stirs up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression. Verse 23, a man's pride shall bring him low, but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit. Whoso is partner with a thief, hateth his own soul, he heareth cursing, and beareth it not. Verse 25, the fear of man bringeth a snare, but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord, shall be safe. Spot rights have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for these great words of wisdom. Lord, I pray that you would please help us to gain some more knowledge and understanding from your words. Help us to retain the knowledge that we received tonight, and we pray for your continual outpouring of wisdom unto us dear Lord as we read your word. Help us to make, to understand these words and be able to apply them in our life, and to make this wisdom be the foundation of all of our decision making and help it to guide us in our life dear Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.