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

The part of the chapter that I want to focus on is verse 30 where the Bible reads, Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feared the Lord, she shall be praised. And the title of my sermon this evening is this, Beauty is Vain. Beauty is vain. Now, when we talk about vain or something that's vanity, what do we mean by that? What does the Bible mean by that? It means something that's pointless. It means something that has no value. It's useless. In and of itself, it's meaningless. There's no real point to it. And what the Bible emphasizes and teaches here is that a woman's beauty, while in the world today may be seen as the most important attribute she has or something that's really noteworthy, according to the Bible, it has no point. There's no point in being beautiful. In fact, it has no real value to your life. Beauty, in fact, is as favor is deceitful, meaning a lot of times people that have a lot of physical beauty or they have a lot of natural favor that comes to them could often cause them to stumble or to fall or to be led astray because of their beauty. It could cause them to be very prideful because of their beauty. And really, beauty, in and of itself, does not have any virtue. There's nothing virtuous about being beautiful necessarily. And when we read this passage of Scripture, and it's a very famous passage of Scripture, there's this one thing that I really thought about that was kind of interesting is this. We have no idea what the virtuous woman looks like. Isn't it the Proverbs 31 woman here, the virtuous woman that we're describing here? It's giving all these different attributes about her, but we have no idea what she looks like. She could have been ugly. She could be beautiful. It doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, you really can't affect how good-looking you are. Your beauty is just kind of something you're born with. You're either born a certain way or just not. Obviously, you could disfigure yourself, but people that are born unfortunate looking, there's not really anything you can do about it. And I know they do plastic surgery, but you didn't get better looking, all right, Michael Jackson? And some people would say, well, I think that white skin is more beautiful than black skin. And then Michael Jackson spends millions on changing his skin color. He looks worse. Hey, you are a lot better looking black dude than you are a weird white pedophile Guy Fawkes looking thing or whatever. The way God made you is the best way that you're going to look. You're not going to improve upon God's design for you. But no matter how beautiful or not beautiful you are, it doesn't matter. It's vanity. Yet so many people are chasing after physical beauty today, but the Bible says that beauty is vain. So really when it comes to what we should be striving for, what we should really putting our effort and energy in should not be something that's vain, but rather something of substance. And the latter portion of this verse says that a woman that fear at the Lord, she shall be praised. So from God's perspective, a beautiful woman is not how we look at a woman is based on our works. It's based on what she does. Cause when we read Proverbs 31, every woman could do this. Every woman could do these things, but you know what? A woman couldn't magically make herself beautiful necessarily from a physical perspective, but you know what? She could be beautiful in God's perspective. And we notice here, what is she? She's working hard. She's doing good under a husband. She's doing good under a children. And you know, a lot of these attributes, I mean, the only physical attributes that I could find, and I tried to research, like read this really carefully as this verse 17, notice this, it says in strengthen of their arms. So you know what? She has strong arms, but you know why she has strong arms because she's holding her kids all day and working hard. That's why her arms are so strong. Now it does talk about her clothing. It says in verse 22, she wears silk and she wears purple. Okay. So apparently she likes purple, you know, and you know, a lot of women like the color purple. I guess you're like the virtuous woman now. Okay. Purple is your favorite color. Congratulations. But you know, at the end of the day, every person could put on purple, right? She could put on the silk. She could make her own clothing. She could do all these things. And you know, praise the Lord that we serve a God that no matter where you start in life, you still have the same opportunity to serve God. It's not like, well, I wasn't born beautiful, so I can't be pleasing to God. No, he doesn't care how physically attractive you are. He cares about your heart. He cares about internally what you're like, and he cares about you doing the works of God. And unfortunately, mankind is only obsessed with and concerned with the physical today. They only can care about someone's physical beauty. They don't care about what's on the inside or someone's character. But you know what? We should concern ourselves with the things that God is saying have value, not beauty because it's vanity. Beauty is vanity. Yet most women today, they're concerned with one thing and that's their looks. Let's be honest. You know, I looked up some different articles and everything like that. It said that the average woman spends $313 every month on their physical appearance. $313 a month. That is $3,756 a year or $225,000 a lifetime. Almost a quarter million dollars is spent by the average woman on her appearance. And I mean, look, obviously there's so much stuff, I couldn't even come up with all of it. I was thinking like there's creams, there's makeup, there's eyeliner, there's makeup remover because you got to put it on, you got to get it off. There's curling irons, there's straighteners because you know, you can't be content with any look that you have. There's hairsprays, there's gels, there's conditioners, there's highlights. There's this weird thing called contouring where they have to shape all the makeup on the woman's face to have a specific design and all the different aspects of how their face is supposed to look. Or there's highlighting when it comes to makeup. They have to have the exact right red and yellow and green. I don't know what's going on. There's more than I could ever learn about when it comes to this subject and this topic and I'm not that interested, frankly speaking. You go to the mall and in the middle they have these weird eyebrow things that they're doing. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? They have these like, it looks like they're using dental floss and they're like doing this weird thing to the person's eyebrows and they're like shaping them. You know, there's certain people, they shave off their eyebrows and they paint them on and I'm thinking like whatever eyebrows you had were better looking, okay? Just keep the ones that you had but let's be honest, you know, women are obsessed with their physical looks and the Bible says that it's vanity. It's meaningless. There's not really any value to it. Now go to second kings, chapter nine, second kings, chapter nine. Now I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not saying that beauty is sinful. I'm not saying that caring about your appearance is sinful. I'm not even saying if you spend time working on your appearance that it's sinful but it's vanity but it's pointless but it's meaningless, you know, and why would you want to waste so much time, effort, energy on something that doesn't really matter and really where it becomes a sin in my opinion is when you're taking things that you should be doing and replacing them with vanity, replacing them with things that don't really end up mattering. That's when it becomes a sin. Just like, hey, is taking a nap sinful? No, but what if I instead of going to church take naps or instead of going soul winning I take naps? Well, now all of a sudden it's a sin not because the nap's so sinful but because I'm replacing something of value with something that's meaningless, something that's vanity and, you know, there's a lot of women where they're basically all their interest, focus, and attention is on vanity. Well, they need to get their focus on the things of God and when we look at things like makeup, okay, makeup in my opinion is not a sin because first of all sin is a transgression of the law and I don't know where you're going to find a commandment that says you can't put makeup on, okay, but if you're going to study this topic in the Bible, the people that put makeup on, not really your best of the best, okay. Let's look at 2 Kings chapter 9 verse number 30. Let's find someone that put on makeup and when Gio has come to Jezreel, Jezebel, oh yeah I remember her, heard of it and she painted her face and tired her head and looked out a window. So here's a mention of someone painting her face, you know, putting on the decoration of her face but Jezebel is one of the worst women in the entire Bible, okay. Now does this prove that it's a sin? No, but it proves that, you know, that's probably not necessarily a good attribute. Why would she care about her physical appearance because that's all she's got. Her personality, kind of a downer, all right, but maybe she was a looker, you know, I don't know, but at the end of the day, you know, beauty's vain. It doesn't really matter and in God's eyes, it doesn't matter if you're, you know, Miss America or Miss Universe, you know what, you might be despicable and abominable and ugly in God's sight because he judges the heart. He judges what's on the inside, not on the outward appearance and, you know, in high school, guys, they pretty much only care about one thing and it's the outward appearance, but shame on them because that doesn't really matter. It's vanity too. Go to Jeremiah chapter 4. Let me show you another example of this. Jeremiah chapter 4. What's the title of the sermon? Beauty is vain and honestly, this is my opinion on makeup. It's 100% vanity. Is it sinful? No. Is it, you know, should people do it? Well, it's up to your own discretion, but at the end of the day, you know, I don't want my wife to cover her face with makeup or a mask, okay? I like to see her face. I like to see how God made her and there's nothing that she needs to make up, you know? I like exactly how it is and it's weird how only one gender wears makeup, right? I mean, how many men in the room wear makeup? Don't raise your hand. I mean, I have worn it just because whenever I was in high school and you do like a musical or you do like an acting performance, they make all the actors wear stage makeup because with all the bright lights, your face will just be like glowing or whatever, so they'll just put like some kind of a dark line or something on your chin just so you have a separation and everything like that. You know, I hated it, all right? And if I could go back, I would say, you know, maybe I just shouldn't even do that, but at the end of the day, I'm not going to go around and put on makeup to try and look, you know, different. You know, you put on makeup in a play because you have to be like an old character or something. I had to play the Russian, okay? I had to play the Russian theater guy who was older, so, you know, Vater, where's the Vater? You know, I had to go around and pretend like I'm this Russian guy or whatever, but, you know, women aren't going around in a constant play, so why is it they're doing this? Well, they're being tricked, they're being deceived by the world into thinking that physical beauty somehow matters, it has some kind of place, and so they feel like they have to make something up or they have to put on a show or they have to pretend to be something that they're not. You know, I personally think my wife looks the best without any. Now, you know, if you like something different, that's your own prerogative, that's your own family's decision, you do whatever your husband says, but I'm just showing you what the Bible actually says in this, and look what it says in Jeremiah chapter 4, let's get another mention here. Jeremiah chapter number 4, look at verse 29. The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen, they should go into thickets and climb up upon the rocks, every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein. And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou closest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair, thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life. Now, what's being communicated in Jeremiah chapter 4? Well, God is warning the inhabitants of Jerusalem that, hey, you know, whenever you come, whenever the enemies come and you, you know, leave the city or whatever, even though you decorate yourself and you look really beautiful on the outside, they're still not going to care. No one's going to save you. Your lovers are still going to despise you. It's saying you're decorating yourself in vain. Now, the main context here is the fact that they're so forsaken and they're so despised that no matter how beautiful they look on the outside, they're not going to care. They're not going to really rescue them. But notice the wording that it has in the King James Bible. It says, though thou rentest thy face with painting. Now, that's a weird phrasing because a rent is like a tear. A rent is like to do some kind of a damage or to try to hurt. Now, it's saying that they're renting their face with painting. Now, the context is to make themselves look better, but it's saying it's like damaging their face or something is basically how the phrase is. And let me tell you this, when you put makeup on, you're damaging your face. And you have to put all these chemicals to take the makeup off. And you know what it causes? It causes all kinds of pimples, and it causes all kinds of other pores to be infected and get all kinds of problems. God didn't make your face to just put a bunch of chemicals on it. He says to wash your face. He doesn't necessarily put all this stuff. It's vanity. Now, again, if a woman puts on makeup, that's her own prerogative. People do all kinds of different things. People want to put lipstick or put on blush. That's your own discretion. But what I am saying is vain. There's no real point to it. Go to the first Timothy chapter number two. First Timothy chapter number two. And why would I concern myself with something that doesn't really matter? What if I spent three hours getting dressed every morning? I don't even know what I'd be doing, frankly. But that doesn't really make any sense. It doesn't make any sense for me to just be spending all this time on my physical appearance. Because frankly speaking, no one is in this room here because of my physical appearance. No one is just like, I just really like to look at Pastor Shelley while he's preaching. It's just, man, is that a sight. And it's probably because you can tell I don't spend any time on my appearance. But at the end of the day, that doesn't really matter. It's not something that matters at all. And frankly speaking, you're all going to get old and it doesn't really matter at that point. You're going to look old and old people look about the same. They all got the white hair. They all got the wrinkles. I don't care how much of that anti-aging, anti-wrinkling formula you put on your face. It's going to wrinkle. That's a snake oil salesman that's giving you that stuff. And in fact, the more chemical you put on your face, you're probably getting there sooner. You're probably getting closer to that destination rather than washing it and just keeping it pure of chemicals. But first let me, chapter number two, look at verse number eight. I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting, in like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with broided hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but with cometh women professing godliness with good works. So the Bible is telling us that if a woman wants to be adorned to where God is going to find her a beautiful, it's not with the special hair. It's not with all the cool hairdos and all the special braiding and all the special things that they can do. And there's a lot. It's not putting on gold. It's not the pearls. It's not having really fancy clothing. What is it? It's good works. And again, when we read in Proverbs 31 about this virtuous woman, about the Proverbs 31 woman, about the idyllic woman, it's not emphasizing her due. It's not emphasizing her threads. It's not emphasizing how she's dressed. It's not emphasizing all these things because beauty is vain. It doesn't matter. And frankly speaking, when you come to church, God doesn't care about all the fancy gold and silver and the hairdo and the clothing. He cares about what's inside of your heart. He cares about your character. He cares about the good works that you have. And as much as you care about your physical appearance is how much you should care about how God views you. The question is, how much do you fear God? Because some women would never be caught coming to church dressed in just normal clothes without makeup on and not doing their hair. They would think like, I could never go out in public like that. But they don't care internally. They're a whore and they're wicked and they don't read the Bible and they're rebellious to their husband. But you know what? That's what God, when God looks at that person, he's like, why are you here? What are you doing? It's backwards. But the question is, where is your fear? Is your fear of man or is your fear of God? And the reality is, is the woman that fears the Lord, she's more concerned coming to church being right with God than looking pretty for all the men in the room or pretty for all the other women in the room to notice her and think like, oh, she just got that hairdo girl. Oh, man, look at that. Look at that skirt. Look at that dress. Oh, you looking so fly, you thing. You hot stuff. Did you see that? Oh, everything's just matching so perfect. And you got the matching purse and all the gold and the silver. Like that doesn't matter. It does not matter. And in fact, it's a trap. It's a trap because it's meaningless. It's pointless. It's vanity. It's never going to do anything for you. It's just a distraction from things that actually matter. You should actually consider how you're dressed according to God, which according to him, it's with good works. It's not the physical appearance. It's not the clothes that you have on. You know, godliness is good works, not how you look. And it's frustrating because there's so many different things in this world that are focused on only one thing and that's looks, fashion show. Do they even care if these women could read or write? Can they even spell? I mean, when you watch the Miss America pageants and stuff, and they have to do some answering of questions, it's a little bit dicey. You know, it's like, uh, just peace for everyone. Could you point to Texas on a map? Uh, is it an only Texas map? Then maybe, you know, it's like, they're not being congratulated on how intelligent they are and how articulate they are. It's a show. It's just their looks. And you know what? You shouldn't want this weird trophy wife where you can't even have a conversation with her. No, you should want a woman that fears God. You should want a woman that has good works and isn't going to be so obsessed with their looks. You know, the beauty pageants and all the magazines. And you know, what does this look like in our current culture? Selfies. Just the constant need to have a selfie of yourself on you all the time. It's just like every day, every moment. I mean, there is women that I don't know exactly what they're thinking, but this is what it seems like they do. They wake up in the morning and they obsess over what clothes they're going to wear. And I mean, it's like a couple hours, like they're trying on different outfits and seeing how it looks and they do their hair or whatever. And all they're doing is waiting. So then they can snap that selfie and put it on Instagram for the morning. And that's all they care about is just positioning it all right. And usually it's like fake because they'll take like 20 and they're like, that one's bad. That one's bad. That one put this filter on, you know, and do this and do the contouring of the makeup. And then they just put it out there. And it's like, look, it's vain. Why would you want to spend your entire life chasing the wind, doing something that has no value? Look, selfies are vanity. Are you saying pastor Shelly, a selfie is a sin? No, I'm saying it's vain. So I'd rather spend less time on vain things and more time on good things. And you know what, look, me and my wife, when we go on a date, it's an anniversary, we might take a selfie and you might take pictures of your kids. I'm not saying that pictures are sinful here. What I am saying is there are people that are obsessed with themselves and they have to constantly take pictures of themselves every single moment. And look, it's vanity. It's vanity. It has no point. And you know, it doesn't really matter. Why don't you do your self-examination on how you are doing with the Lord? You know, physical appearance has its place, but the emphasis should be on godliness. You know, I also don't want you to think, well, I can just let myself go now. That's not what I'm teaching. What I am teaching is this, that beauty is vain. You know, the only person you should try to be attractive for is your spouse or your future spouse. So if you're single, hey, you might be kind of constantly working on that, right? But after you get married, you shouldn't be like, all right, good now. But here's the thing. You should dress and appear the way your spouse wants you to. Not the way the world wants you to, not the way that you think you want to, not the way you're going to get the most likes on social media or whatever, but rather you should dress in a way that's pleasing under your spouse, not pleasing under the world. You know, if your husband wants you to dress more modestly, dress modestly. Well, then no one's going to think, you know, look at me and whatever. It's like, good. No, I don't want my wife to flaunt her stuff in front of everybody. That's not what I'm looking for. You know, that's for me at home. Okay. That's not for her to be put on display. I'm not going to advertise all my goods out there or I want my spouse to do so or my children or my daughter. You really think that I want my daughter to just be going around advertising her body and advertising all these things? You know what kind of guy she's going to attract? A vain, shallow guy that's interested in one thing. You know, I'd rather my wife or my daughters be like a rapt present and you want to find out what's on the inside and that's what really matters. Not going around and flaunting off their bodies to the world today, it's vanity. You know, I'd rather my wife have read the Bible than have a fancy hairdo for the day. If I came home and she's like, man, I spent five hours on this hairdo. Isn't it awesome? It's like, I'd rather say, man, I read the entire New Testament. You know, I don't know if that's possible, but I read the book of Matthew. You know, I'd rather that personally. You know, and again, I like it when my wife does her hair. She does a really good job and she'll do it fancy and I'm not saying that you can't look attractive, but what I am saying is why would I want to elevate something that doesn't even matter? Why would I want to elevate something that has no significance? Beauty is vain. Character is something that we should strive for. Character is something that we should look to. Go to 1 Peter chapter number 3. 1 Peter chapter number 3. How do you adorn yourself? Do you adorn yourself physically or do you adorn yourself spiritually? Do you adorn yourself with character, with good works, doing things that are pleasing in God's sight? Look at 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 1. Likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wise. While the behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear, who's adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold or of putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart and that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price. So notice what God's elevating. He's elevating a woman who fears her husband, a woman who obeys her husband, a woman who is doing good works. She's not going around dressed so great, but inwardly is rebellious, inwardly is stubborn, inwardly is loud and not really caring what her husband says or not really obedient to her husband or not calling him sir or not being respectful. Look, I would rather my wife have done zero on her physical appearance when I come home. She's been thinking about me and she's respectful. If she's still in her pajamas, if she still hasn't done her hair, she's got bed head, but you know what? She's like, I'm so glad you're here. Here's dinner. Love you, honey. What do you want me to do? Yes, sir. That's way better than her looking so great just dressed to the nines and she's got her hair done all special and she's like, where have you been? Why don't you take me out? You never take me out. Look how good I look. Take me out now. And it's like, where do you want to go? I don't know. No, seriously. You just say you want to go out. Where do you want to go? I don't know. You know, well, do you want to go to the steakhouse? No, like, I don't know what you want. I was coming home when I was going to get dinner. You know, look at the end of the day, when it comes to a man's opinion, you know, they just want their wise to be obedient. They just want their wise to love and care about them and respect them. They're not looking for a show. They're not looking for these outward things. And look, God isn't either. God says, you know what's great in my sight? A woman who fears the Lord by fearing her husband. You evidence how you fear God by how much you obey your husband. And just as despicable as it would be for me to just start ripping pages out of this King James Bible right now, just ripping one out would be for a wife to be disrespectful to her husband. If you say, oh, that would offend me. Well, that's how it is when a wife just disrespects her husband, just ripping pages out. Just saying, I don't care. I don't fear the Lord. You know, you show your fear by who you submit to, you know, and that's the same for men at the job. If you don't are respectful to your boss, you aren't respectful to your parents, you are respectful to the authorities in your life. You know, it shows you really don't have any fear of God is what that ultimately shows. And one, one thing to note about verse number three is people that are like Pharisees or like people like Adam Fanon. They like to take weird, you know, extremities in these verses. And they would say like, you should never wear gold. But if you apply that to this whole verse, it would get weird. Cause notice it says putting out of apparel. Obviously this is not saying you can't put on clothes. Okay. Or gold or even doing your hair. What it's saying is that should not be the emphasis. It's saying that's not what you should really care about. You should care about adorning yourself with good works. Okay. Go if you would to Proverbs chapter 11, Proverbs chapter number 11. You know, let me say this. What you call your husband is how you're going to treat him. You know, the tone and the words that you use to talk to your husband, you know, the title or whatever it is and the way you speak to your husband is how you're going to treat them. It'd be the same when it comes to being a pastor. You know, whenever I was first becoming a pastor, it's really hard for me to want to just say like pastor Jonathan Shelley. I'm just like, Hey, I'm Jonathan or whatever. But if I just let everybody just call me just whatever they want. Hey, John boy. Hey, Johnny, dude. Hey, Johnny man. Hey, Jay dog. You know, or whatever. You know what happened? They start treating me like that too. They start treating me without respect and with disdain. That's why it's important for me to say, Hey, it's pastor Jonathan Shelley. Just because whenever you say that you're going to ultimately give that person more respect because the way you speak about someone is the way you're going to respect them. And you know, if a wife doesn't show respect to her husband verbally, she's not going to do interactions either. So it's important how you speak to people. That's why, uh, Sarah, it says, even as Sarah abate Abraham calling him Lord whose daughters he are, as long as you do well and are not afraid with any amazement, she called her husband Lord and our modern vernacular. That would be saying, yes, sir. You know, having respect, having an attitude of adoration or fear towards your spouse. And I'm not saying you have to do that. What I am saying is if you speak to your husband in a respectful way, you'll probably be more respectful towards them. If you speak in a condescending or a negative way, you'll probably be condescending and negative in your actions toward him. And at the end of the day, when it comes to a woman, you can dress up that pig, however you want. But if it's a pig, it's a pig. It doesn't matter how much gold you put on it. You know, in the Bible, I can just look at Proverbs chapter 11 verse 22 as a jewel of gold in a swine snout. So as a fair woman, which is without discretion in the Bible, use the word fair is synonymous with beauty or beautiful. And so it's saying a beautiful woman. There's a very gorgeous woman, a woman that has a very good looking, but doesn't have discretion is like putting gold on a pig, putting lipstick on that pig. Look, you can dress up a pig all day long it's a pig. It's gross. No one wants it inside. No one wants to be around it. It's obnoxious. That's what a woman without discretion is like. It's embarrassing. It's annoying. You're like, what is this? You know, why would you have a woman like that around? And you know what, there are women literally who they're physically attractive, but their personality is so disgusting that they become instantly unattractive. You know, it's just like, you know, or their voice is annoying, like Fran Drescher or something, you know. It's like, it's just like, yeah, I just don't, you know, and at the end of the day, what's discretion? Discretion is holding things in. A woman that just blabs about every single opinion that she has, you know, it doesn't matter how beautiful she is. It starts becoming annoying. It's like, I don't know, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It's like, man, you need to keep that mouth shut. Everything you say just makes you look so stupid. I mean, you're like a literal pig with lipstick on it. That's what the Bible said. The Bible is saying, hey, she's like a pig with gold on it. And I don't care if she's elected official. I don't care how much gold she puts on or how much fancy clothes. You know what, she's a woman without discretion, and you know what, it's just as ugly as lipstick on a pig. And you know what, we should not desire the physical beauty because it's meaningless. What is this? This is like women who post inappropriate photos of themselves online. Blinding off their nakedness. Blinding off and exposing parts of their body that they shouldn't. It's just like a pig with lipstick on it. You know? Or how about this one? This is just me preaching what I think, okay? But I just get a little bit annoyed with all the constant harassment of people posting pictures of all the food they made. It's annoying. It's like, okay, what's your job? Okay, your job is to clean the house and to make meals and do whatever, and it's like they have to constantly, hey, I made this meal and I made this meal. Well, what if I did that at my job? Hey, here's Pastor Shelly reading the Bible. I want to take some snapshots. Oh, here's Pastor Shelly writing a sermon. I mean, and look, a meal is kind of like the ultimate achievement, right, of what you're doing. What if I, you know, whenever I get my paycheck, I took a picture of it and put it on social media. Wouldn't that be really cool? No, it'd make me look like an idiot, wouldn't it? But at the end of the day, like, who are you making the meal for? The online community? We can't even eat it. Stop making me look at all this good food I can't eat. This should be a rule. If you're going to post really good-looking food, you have to give me some. Then I'll be less angry about it. But at the end of the day, look, what do you do? What about the women that didn't make this like five-course star, five-star meal that evening? Are you shaming them? What if I got a really big bonus check and I just post, hey, look at this big bonus that I got. What am I doing? I'm kind of like shaming all the men that didn't get one. And look, I'm not trying to take that to an extremity because obviously anything positive could have an inverse react, but I'm like, what's the goal here? What's the goal of me posting, me doing all these positive things in my job and going around and blowing a trumpet and look at me, woo. You know, let another man praise thee. Not thine own mouth, a stranger, not thine own lips. Here's another thing, let another man post pictures of you and not your own phone, you know, a stranger's phone and not thine own Instagram account. I'm just trying to help you. Look, beauty's vain at the end of the day and there's people that just want to put this online persona out there of how beautiful they are and how attractive they are. Why? Because there's women in this world today that their emotional status is tied to their social media account and the only way they can feel good about themselves is to post some picture of themselves scantily clad, post a picture of the meal that they made, post a picture of them cleaning their house or whatever it is so that all these women can be like, oh, you're so amazing. Oh, I wish I was such a good cook like you are and you're just the best wifey ever and oh, man, you're so amazing. And it's like, you know the only person you should be trying to impress? Your husband and God. And it doesn't, I don't care. I don't care how many likes and thumbs up my wife got on her meals or whatever. I get to eat it and I'll say thank you afterwards. You know, my wife makes all kinds of incredible meals. You know, our Thanksgiving meal was incredible. She didn't have to go around bragging about it. Look, her roles are to die for, okay? I love her roles. She sometimes makes meals for the kids and she has these like cute little trays and she cuts everything up and it's like diced up perfectly and it looks like just this most magnificent meal I've ever seen but she's not gonna go on bragging about it. She's not gonna go around posting all these pictures of herself doing all these fancy things because why? Because she's not trying to impress you. You know, she's trying to impress God and her husband, the only people that matter. And you know what? I don't remember the Proverbs 31 woman taking selfies in the middle of all her works. Well, that's because there wasn't cell phones, Pastor Shelley, but she would totally, I mean, she would have a YouTube account and all these things and just post all these pictures. It's like, no. She's too busy working. She's too busy trying to impress God and at the end of the day, you can't impress both. You know what it takes to impress God and not man? Faith. It takes faith. Say, hey, is my day to day, am I gonna try and impress God or am I gonna trust man? Well, here's the thing, physical beauty can only please man because God doesn't care about your physical beauty. Beauty is vain. What's the point in that? You know, my wife's also an incredible singer but she's not going around posting all these little snippets of her singing all day. Because here's the question, if I post these little snippets of me singing, am I really singing to God or am I singing to put something online and get the praise of men? And usually the people that post little snippets of their singing suck at singing, okay? And then people are like, oh, that's so amazing. You should do American Idol and I'm just thinking like, yeah, to be made fun of. You're like the first round where they make fun of all the people that are tone deaf. You're not the person that's good at singing. But again, what's the purpose? This is my question. When it comes to social media and interaction, when it comes to coming to church, what's the purpose of your actions? Is your purpose to be seen of men? Is your purpose for everybody to look how wonderful you are and all the great things you have going? Or are you there to serve God? Are you there to be pleasing unto the Lord? You know, are you dressing for the women in the room or are you dressing for your husband? Because sometimes they have different opinions of what they want you to dress like, of how they want you to look, of the time and effort they want you to put into it. And I know I'm kind of picking on the women here. Let's pick on the men for a second. Go to 2 Samuel, all right? 2 Samuel. They got a little bit of heat this morning. Their wives had to tell them how bad the sermon was. 2 Samuel chapter 14. You know, men can do this too. And it's way worse when a man is concerned with beauty than a woman, because it's natural for a woman. It's just constantly a threat or it's constantly the world's pushing this upon them. But men today that are obsessed with how they look, it's gross, it's effeminate, it's faggoty. You know what really cares about their looks? It's men faggots. That's why they're so involved in the fashion industry and they're hairstylists or whatever. It's gross. It's disgusting. Look, men should not really care. If you care about your physical appearance, you need to man up, all right? But here's your man that really loves how he looks. 2 Samuel chapter 14, look at verse 25. But in all Israel, there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty. From the sole of his foot, even to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him. And when he pulled his head, for it was at every year's end that he pulled it because the hair was heavy on him, therefore he pulled it, he weighed the hair of his head at 200 shekels after the king's weight. So here's your first Fabio. You know, he's got the long hair and he's just so good looking or whatever. Only once a year did he actually look like a man when he finally got a haircut. But what kind of a faggoty queer is gonna let his hair grow out for a whole year? Can you imagine how long your hair would be? Like a normal dude that lets his hair grow for a whole year. I don't even know how long that is. It's saying it was so much hair, it was 200 shekels after the king's weight. This guy should have gotten a haircut, okay? Now, is it Absalom's fault that he's good-looking? No. But you know what? He really likes himself. He's really obsessed with himself. And you know why? Because he's attractive. Look at chapter 18, look at verse 18. Chapter 18, Absalom loves himself, he's obsessed with himself, and he pictures a couple different people in the Bible. One would be the Antichrist. Absalom is an Antichrist. Not only that, the devil. Okay, but look at 2 Samuel chapter 18, look at verse 18. Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king's dale, for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance. And he called the pillar after his own name, as it is called in this day, Absalom's place. This guy's so obsessed with himself, he had to literally put up a shrine unto himself and call it after himself just because he wants people to remember him. Makes me kind of think of the Antichrist putting up his image and all kinds of other descriptions. You know, I'll admit in high school, you know, I definitely concerned myself with my looks more than I should have. You know, I cared about how I looked and I thought that it really mattered, but you know what I should have really been concerned with? Building character, learning the Bible, getting skills in order to work hard. Because you know what? Women can look past looks. Hey, if you make good money, they can look really past bad looks, okay? You say, how do you know that? Well, some of you are living proof, okay? But when looks is all that you got, that's what you're going to attract. When looks is all that you have, that's all you're going to attract. Whether it be in a spouse, whether it be in friends, whether it be in any area of your life, you're going to attract shallow, vein-like persons who have no character, no intellect. They themselves, though, are physically attractive as well. This is Hollywood. People with no character, no intellect, nothing to offer, but they all look physically attractive, don't they? There's no benefit in that. And ultimately, the person that's the most attractive, the most attractive creation of God in and of itself is the most wicked of all his creations. Go to Ezekiel chapter 28. Let me prove this to you. Ezekiel 28. Beauty is vain. You say, is this sinful? No. But you know what? It's a danger. And if you are ugly, you know, that might be better for you. You don't have to worry about it. You know, if you're a little bit more physically attractive, this might be something you have to worry about, at least think about, and say, you know what? I need to not care about my looks. I need to not allow that to creep up and cause pride in my heart because of my physical appearance, because in God's sight, it's meaningless. There's not going to be like the attractive section in heaven. You know, well, I was attractive, you know. And look, there was plenty of godly people that were attractive. David was attractive. Bathsheba was attractive. Abraham was attractive. Sarah was attractive. Hey, Sarah was one of the most beautiful women on the planet. Yet, when God praises her in 1 Peter chapter 3, he doesn't mention her physical beauty. He mentions the fact that she called her husband Lord. He mentions the fact of how well she feared her husband. That's what made Sarah attractive in God's sight, even though in the physical, she was so attractive that 90 years old guys are trying to get her to wear her. I mean, that's incredible. I don't understand that, all right. Someone ought to explain that to me later. Ezekiel 28, look at verse 12. Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus and say in him, Thus saith the Lord God, Thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom and perfect and beauty. Do you know what he's talking about? The devil. The Bible says that the devil, when created, was perfect in beauty. Oh, I wonder why the most satanic people are concerned with one thing, beauty, because the devil's obsessed with beauty. The devil's also obsessed with himself. The devil loves himself. The devil just thinks, oh, how great he is. You know, no one can affect how you were created. You are who you are. But you know what? Praise the Lord that beauty's vain, because if you were born attractive, you can still be the greatest looking person in God's sight, because beauty's vain. But the devil, his heart got lifted up. Look at verse 13. Thou's been in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the barrel, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold. The workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou was created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have set thee so. Thou was upon the holy mountain of God. Thou was walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. That was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise, they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou sin. Therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God, and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up, notice this, because of thy beauty. Notice beauty was a stumbling block unto the devil because he was so beautiful, it caused him to be prideful. It caused him to think that he was better than other people. This is the homecoming king, the homecoming queen, the most attractive, you know, in the class. They just feel like they're better than other people because they're attractive, when physical attraction means nothing. You know, in our world today it's very hard to look past looks. You don't want to be nice to the ugly duckling. You don't want to be nice to the people that are less fortunate looking. You know what, in God's sight, he doesn't look on the outward appearance, he looks at the heart. And beauty is vain. And in fact, some of the most wicked, evil people are the most beautiful people on this planet. Often there's a correlation. You want to find the most prideful and most despicable looking people on the inside? Usually they're the most attractive. It's a sad reality. You know, and if you happen to be physically attractive, you need to be careful that you don't get lifted up in pride based on your physical beauty. And unfortunately for the devil it's all in vain, and it ends up profiting him nothing. What does beauty of profit the devil in this case? It doesn't. You know, I believe you should be attractive for your spouse, but you should be more concerned by being adorned with godliness. You know, godliness is profitable in all things is what the Bible says. Go over to James chapter 1. I'm almost finished. James chapter 1 in your Bible. 1 Timothy 4 says in verse 8, for bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. The Bible says, look, being healthy, looking healthy, being attractive. You know what? Hey, it has a little profit. You know what has a lot of profit? Godliness. And at the end of the day, beauty is vain anyways. James chapter number 1, look at verse number 9. Here's the worst thing about beauty is it will eventually leave you. You will eventually lose it. No matter how beautiful you are, it's eventually going to be completely taken away from you. So it doesn't make any sense to constantly worry about that and care about that because you're going to eventually lose it. It's going to eventually not be a part of you anymore. James chapter 1, look at verse number 9. Let the brother of low degree to rejoice in that he's exalted, but the rich in that he's made low, because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. So also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Now the Bible is telling us here in verse 11 that the flower is going to eventually die, and it's saying the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. Your physical beauty will perish. Whether you get old or whether you die, it will eventually leave you, and it has no benefit. It has no barring on your life. Don't chase things that are vain. Don't worry about things that are vain. You should worry on being attractive in God's sight. You should worry about being someone that is pleasing to the Lord. All your favor and all your beauty and all your riches will eventually fade away. It doesn't matter. Go if you would to 1 Corinthians 3. Last place I'll have you turn. If I'm going to lose those things, if they don't matter, then why spend time on them? A rhetorical question. You shouldn't. Why? It doesn't matter. What's the point of the sermon? I just want you to realize how vain beauty is. It doesn't have any meaning. As men, we should not care. As women, we should not care. Obviously, it's harder for women to not care than men because of the world that we live in, because of the culture, because of what people will say, but you should care how you look in God's eyes. That's what you should really care about. I'm going to read a few verses before we get there, but it says this. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he had done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. There will be a day when every single person in this room that's saved will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, which I believe is most everyone in here, and I hope so. You will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and you know who's not going to be there? Anybody else? To be on your behalf. You will have to take account for the things done in your body, whether good or bad, and I don't want you to stand before Jesus Christ and say, well, I spent all this time on my physical appearance. He's like, why? Beauty is vain. It didn't benefit you anything. Well, I took all these pictures of me on Facebook. Did you see them? Yeah, you have your reward. All those thumbs up. God is going to measure your works one day, so why don't you do works to be seen of him and not of men? Let me tell you what, physical beauty is only them, not of God. God doesn't care about that physical beauty, and knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. I wouldn't want to stand before my boss and he say, all right, tell me what you accomplished today. Nothing, but I did post a bunch of selfies on Facebook. I mean, who in here, your boss will be pleased with how many selfies you put on social media, yet you think Jesus is going to care? You think Jesus is going to care? I mean, how many men in this room, their boss cares about how long you took to get dressed in the morning and how your hair looks. I mean, unless you work in a service industry, they usually don't care at all what you look like. I mean, you might have to dress according to their dress code, like you might have to wear, you know, cover your body or whatever, but outside of that, I mean, they don't really care. And you know what? Jesus Christ is not, I mean, John the Baptist was wearing leather clothes, camel skin. It wasn't a fashion statement. You know why? He didn't care. It didn't matter. First Corinthians chapter three, look at verse number 11. Brother foundation can no man lay, then is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire. And the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereon, he shall receive reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire. You know, there's going to be people that literally stand at the judgment seat of Christ and on the good and bad, it's all bad. It's all wood. It's all hay. It's all stubble. It's all Maybelline. You know, just burned up. Maybe it's Maybelline. I don't know. You know what? It's not the gold, silver, and precious stone of good works. You know, they, oh, I got this diamond ring. Burn up. Oh, I got the soul saved. Gold. Hey, I was loving my husband. Hey, I was fearing my husband. I was calling him Lord at home. Gold. Hey, I was raising a godly family. Gold. Hey, I was trying to be attractive by following your commandments. Gold. Here's the question. Who do you fear today? Do you fear man or do you fear God? Will we be able to tell by your works? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for your commandments. Thank you for giving us the option to live by faith and not by sight. Thank you that no matter how we start in life, we always have the same opportunity to serve you. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to follow your commandments and to earn great rewards in heaven. I pray that we'd be heavenly minded and not focused on the world. Having the love of the world and the lust thereof and all the deceitfulness of riches and all the vanity that exists in this planet, it's all going to pass away. It's all going to be burned up. And knowing that, I pray that you would just work in men and women's hearts today to motivate us to worry about the things that are eternal and not temporal. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.