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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2020 7:12:56 GMT -6
“He that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favour than he that flattereth with the tongue. Whoso robbeth his father or his mother, and saith, It is no transgression; the same is the companion of a destroyer. He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife: but he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat. He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse. When the wicked rise, men hide themselves: but when they perish, the righteous increase” (Proverbs 28:23-28).
After a man has sinned, if you rebuke, afterward you will find favor. If a man receives and accepts that rebuke, you'll find favor with that man, and that man will appreciate you more than someone that flatters him, when he knows he deserves it. That goes back to verse 4, where “they that forsake the law praise the wicked,” You know when those salesmen are just patting you on the back to make a kill, that's all they are doing, and you know that. You don't appreciate that. What you really appreciate is somebody telling you the truth, to help you out.
“Whoso robbeth his father or his mother, and saith, It is no transgression; the same is the companion of a destroyer.”
There is a New Testament example of this, where they Pharisees had the thing rigged where a boy could bring a gift to the temple; and where he should have been taking care of his mother and father, he could bring money to the priest and he would absolve him of the responsibility.
“For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition” (Matthew 15:4-6).
Of course, the priest would also get a cut, and the kid would get some; and that way the kid didn't have to take care of the parents, like he was supposed to do. and he would get out of that responsibility; so, he would rob his father and mother was doing.
The Bible says to honor your parents. To honor them means to take care of them when they are old and they can’t take care of themselves, but the Pharisees had come up with a deal where they didn't have to do it.
“He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife,” here again, this is the person that starts trouble, “but he that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat.”
“He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool,” notice the contrast, “trust in the Lord,” made fat; “trusteth in his own heart,” a fool. There's a good contrast there. Don’t trust what you think! You and I, we’re fools if we do that.
“. . . but whoso walketh wisely,” trust in the Lord, “shall be delivered.”
“He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack,” that matches Proverbs 11:24 where it says that “there is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.”
Give to the poor, and you will not lack; but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse. This is another example of reaping and sowing.
“When the wicked rise, men hide themselves: but when they perish, the righteous increase.”
This is a restatement of verse 12 and is like verse 15.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 29, 2020 7:01:41 GMT -6
“The poor and the deceitful man meet together: the LORD lighteneth both their eyes” (Proverbs 29:13).
Proverbs 22:2 is a similar passage: “The rich and poor meet together: the LORD is the maker of them all.”
The rich and poor meet together. They meet together in death, judgment, sickness, health. We all have similar problems. And we meet together in the highways and byways. I mean, you don't know who you're rubbing shoulders with down at Kmart and Wal-Mart and those places. There are rich people that go to those places to get a bargain.
There's some things they wouldn't buy in those places, and there's some things I know that it's better to spend more money to get to get a lasting product then it is to get a cheap product that will fall apart after wearing it more than three times. I have given up on Kmart dress shirts. They just don't last. But then, what do you expect from a shirt for $12? It’s better to spend $30 and get a shirt that will last. It’s cheaper in the long run.
“The poor and the deceitful man meet together,” along life’s highways and byways, and here and there and everywhere. I’ll tell you another place where they meet together. They meet together under a tent at a healing meeting. You know what the problem is? Poor folk can't afford insurance and the doctors and nurses haven't done them any good, and probably that's the reason they're poor. They spent most of their money like the one woman in the Bible that had wasted all her substance on doctors, and got nowhere, and is none the better.
It's amazing how these healers always appeal to that class of people; poor folks. That's where they meet together: the rich faith healers and the poor sick folks.
“The LORD lighteneth both their eyes,” is a general statement. God is no respecter of persons. He gives everybody the same amount of light.
“The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:7-9).
The Bible says that God lights every man that comes into this world. Every man has the same measure of light. He can know he's a sinner, he can know there's a God, he can know there's a hell. He gets the same amount of light. Now, what he does with that light will determine whether he gets the gospel.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2020 7:31:05 GMT -6
“A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings” (Proverbs 1:5-6 KJV).
“A wise man will hear,” there’s a whole lot of things that take place because of hearing. He “will increase learning,” the more our mouth is shut, the more we will learn.
“A man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels,” he will listen to those that are wise. When they are in a Bible class, they will attain to it. Now that’s not just hearing it, but to attain means that they will seek after it. You’ll go where you have to go to get it. They will seek out wise counselors.
“To understand a proverb,” when we hear the words of wisdom, they will help us to understand a proverb. Then, “the interpretation,” the meaning, and “the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.”
If you’ll listen to wise counselors—biblical, scriptural, spiritual counsel—then you’ll attain to wise counsels, you’ll be a man of understanding, you’ll be able to understand the proverbs, and its interpretation, and dark sayings. Now, there are a lot of “dark sayings” in the Bible. Things that are dark to a lot of people. The reason is people don’t want to hear—they are just too quick to come and go—they come to church on Sunday at 10:45 and they want to leave by 12:00. They will not attain to hearing; they are too busy going. And those are the people that are having problems with their kids, having problems with their spouse, having problems with their finances, having problems with the lives—and they want to come to the preacher and have him solve all their problems in 15 minutes. Boy, that makes a preacher mad. They want the preacher to give them some kind of instant pill to straighten everything out.
It takes a long time of not being faithful to the Lord to get into the mess they got themselves into, but they want it all fixed in 15 minutes or less.
“To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.”
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2020 7:23:18 GMT -6
“For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding" (Proverbs 2:6).
Do you believe that? That the Lord gives wisdom?
“Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding" (Daniel 2:20-21).
Notice how this is worded. There's something that's kind of hidden there unless you really take note of it, do you know who God gives wisdom to? He gives wisdom to the wise, and it says that he gives knowledge to them that already know something. Thankfully, we have a biblical illustration of this in Matthew 13, and it’s a great lesson.
It relates to “line upon line, precept on precept, here a little there a little.” It means that you take the little bit that God gives you the start, and you have to do the right thing with what the Lord gives you to start with. For instance, the Lord presents His son, the Lord Jesus Christ; the perfect spotless lamb without blemish, and there was no blame in him. There is no sin in him. God presents that Saviour to the world, and the world rejects him. He dies on the Cross, and he rises from the dead and He ascends back up to heaven. Well, the Lord shows up on a dark hour at a man’s sick bed and shows him that the Lord Jesus Christ is his answer; not his religion, not his good works, not his crosses, and not his prayers, and not his this and that or his other. And then he shows him that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life and that all he needs is Him—not a religion; and he says, “No.” Well, the Lord has nothing more that he's going to trust him with. If a man can't accept that and is not going to start there, God’s not going to skip that step and give him something more.
We see this in action in Matthew chapter 13, starting with verse 4:
“And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Matthew 13:4-9).
And then notice what his disciples asked:
“And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given" (Matthew 13:10-11).
You have to acknowledge the fact that the Lord spake in parables; and He didn’t do it to deceive people. It was so people would have to make an effort to understand truth. There has to be some effort put into understanding the things of God. God gives the wisdom, but you do need to want it enough to seek it out.
Jesus continues the thought: “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given,” hath what? Knowledge and wisdom [assumed from verse 11], because “it is given unto you to know.”
“For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not" (Matthew 13:12-13).
Those folks stood right there and saw the Lord Jesus Christ. They saw what he did. They saw that he had raised the dead, healed the lepers, saw Him feed the 4000, and then the 5000, and they are still standing around, a bunch of lawyers trying to catch something out of his mouth they can exploit Him with.
So, what they knew about him they weren't good stewards with, and so he took away the rest of it from them and so that's why he says what he says in verse 13, “Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not.”
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2020 8:48:14 GMT -6
“Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17).
“The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens,” God knew that people were going to reject Him, and reject the Bible, and reject the wisdom from above. Paul writes: “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God [They knew God, they knew the things of God, but refused to glorify Him as God], neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (Romans 1:19-23 KJV).
Man began to worship man, humanism, evolution, all that business. God knew they were going to do that, so He set a little trap for them. The Bible says He created the earth by Wisdom: “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man [Act like a man, quit whimpering, Job]; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me” (Job 38:1-3 KJV).
Job had been accusing God of unrighteousness through this thing, and God is straightening the record.
“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding” (Job 38:4 KJV). “The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth,” and when He did, when He laid the foundations of this earth, and created it out of nothing, He created it with a history that it did not have, in order to completely throw the scientists a curve. That is very important. When He created man, he created him full grown, when He created trees, and everything else, He created them with the appearance of age—with a history that they did not have—to confound the scientists.
So, all the strata, and everything beneath it, ten minutes after He created it you would think it had been there a million years to look at it. He created it that way because He knew that man would be crooked in his heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jeremiah 17:9-10 KJV).
When a man wants to reject God and His revelation, God will give them the means to do it! God will give him a lie. God created this world in such a way that if a man wants to reject God and refuse His truth, he can find a so-called proof of evolution. Now he can’t find it universally, but he can find little pieces of evidence here and there, God left just enough just to mess them up. “The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.”
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2020 8:12:32 GMT -6
“For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence” (Proverbs 4:16-17 KJV).
“For they sleep not, except they have done mischief,” they are so twisted, and so perverted, and so warped that they do not enjoy life until they are messing somebody else up. They are so messed up themselves and perverted that they have to hurt people. Now, that is a pervert. Do you know how people get to be like that? People don’t start out like that; they get like that with sin and wickedness and reaping it. They just get so mad at life and at themselves that they just take it out on people. And then that’s the only joy they get. Do you know what the final joy of the Devil is? All the souls he has damned to hell. The book of Ezekiel says that he just laughs over the multitudes that he has damned. These people described in verse 16 are just like their father the Devil.
If a man allows sin to pull him in and drag him down, he’ll get to the point where he can’t enjoy right things. The only thing that he will enjoy in this life is misery. He’ll enjoy misery and he’ll enjoy making other people miserable. “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Romans 1:32 KJV).
That is the end of a person, when they just allow themselves to indulge in the path of the wicked and the way of sin—they get to the point where they just can’t live without it. They are so tainted, and so wicked, that they can’t sleep, except they are doing mischief.
“. . . and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall,” their consciousnesses are seared of righteousness. “Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (I Timothy 4:2 KJV).
They thrive on it. They get so wicked that that is all they live for. From one moment to the next, they live to hurt somebody. They want to do somebody in, to hurt somebody.
“For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.” Some people, it seems, like to feed off of sin and off of violence at times. You know that that's one side of it, but in verse 17 there's a little bit more there and we remind you that so often in the word of God there is a kind of a “on the surface,” devotional, plain practical aspect of things; and then when you start digging a little deeper and digging a little further you find out that there's something more there. For instance, here in verse 17, “For they eat the bread of wickedness.” We would understand it to mean that bread is not actually wicked, and they don't actually eat wicked bread; but what happens if there “is” something like wicked bread?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2020 8:32:50 GMT -6
“Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel” (Proverbs 5:8-9 KJV).
People say, “Well, I think?” Who cares what you think? And what does it matter anyway? What does Paul say about that? “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise” (I Corinthians 3:18 KJV).
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jeremiah 17:9-10 KJV).
We need to learn from Scripture. Get it in our heart and write it in there with a pen of iron and a point of diamond. Otherwise the heart will deceive you. It will make you think you need things that you really don’t need and want things you really don’t want. When you find yourself starting to want things—look out! God is in there looking around, he searches the corners to find out what is in it. If we think that the thoughts of our heart are secret, we are crazy! God knows them, and us, completely.
“I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins,” in other words, God says “Whoa! Horse!” and you say, “No, I’m keeping on going.” “. . . even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings,” God will give you what you want.
You want a lie? God will give it to you.
“And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (II Thessalonians 2:10-12 KJV).
We need to learn the danger of sin. The ability to deceive comes from doing wrong. Doing wrong blinds you from doing right. Why do people perish? Because they are deceived. Why are they deceived? Because that is what they want. They did wrong. “. . . they received not the love of the truth,” a specific love—a specific truth. The Holy Spirit will give you a love for the truth.
It also works the other way around. If you want to do right, if you want to live for God, God will give you what you want and you’ll lose what you had—bad habits, bad ways, a filthy mouth, a bad attitude—now those are good things to lose.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2020 8:00:54 GMT -6
“My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life” (Proverbs 6:20-23 KJV).
Solomon dealt with negative instruction from verse 16-19, now he shifts to positive reinforcement.
“Bind them continually upon thine heart,” hide them in your heart. It is more than just rote memory; it is applying them to your life and then the memorization will come easy. Otherwise it is easy in, easy out of your mind. The mind is not the place to store God’s Word. The heart is. The heart, as we have seen, is the source of wickedness—buttress the heart with a rich repository of God’s Word.
“. . . and tie them about thy neck,” the Old Testament Jew had what was called phylacteries This was a leather pouch with a piece of paper with Scripture written on it. He hung that around his neck or around the wrist or palm of the hand, and they would continually look at those verses.
“When thou goest, it shall lead thee,” verse 21 through 23 go together. “As thou goest,” or walk through life, “it” (the commandments) shall lead you right, and “when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee,” you’ll have a good, restful sleep. “. . . and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee,” the word you meditated on will speak with you. It is as if the Holy Spirit is having a conversation with you about the verse you carried with you throughout the day—a divine commentary—if you will.
“For the commandment is a lamp (a lamp will lead you); and the law is light (a light will keep you); and reproofs of instruction are the way of life,” they will talk to you along the way. Some might call it our conscience. Maybe so, but a conscience filled with the Word of God is a powerful tool of God in the lives of His saints. By itself, our conscience is nothing more than worldly wisdom. How many times has a verse from Scripture popped up in your mind when at a crossroads? Well, only what is in there can come out of there. Fill you mind with worldly things; you’ll get worldly advice. How much better is a “thus saith the Lord?”
If what you love is God, then you are going to love His commandments and His word. If you are just following the Ten Commandments because the church said you should, and you don’t really love God, you don’t stand a chance. And then you get to verse 22, “When thou goest, it shall lead thee.” That command, that law, is the word of God. That commandment, that word of God, it shall lead thee. It’ll lead thee, it’ll keep thee, it will talk to thee.
I’m suggesting that verse 21 is maybe talking about you making sure; just as the word of God tells us in the greatest commandment to love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and thy whole soul, all thy strength, and all thy might, so it is humanly speaking that we are love our mother and our father. If you love them, you will keep their rules. And if you are just keeping their rules because you are supposed to keep their rules, eventually you’ll depart from them when you are on your own.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2020 8:27:01 GMT -6
“She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner" (Proverbs 7:11-12).
This woman is “loud and stubborn; and her feet abide not in her house,” she's not taking care of business where she ought to be taking care of business. “Her feet abide not in her house,” when? Verse 9, “in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night.” She doesn't need to be then. Where is she? She is out on the street, it says there. So, she's known as a streetwalker.
Verse 11, “She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house. Now she is without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.” She’s not out there for no reason at all. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's out there. She's lying in wait. There are folks that lie in wait: “The words of the wicked are to lie in wait for blood: but the mouth of the upright shall deliver them" (Proverbs 12:6).
We see this type of woman in Matthew. She leavens three loaves with her leaven. We could apply that as the three branches of Christendom, and they are all leavened with her doctrine. Do you know what those three loaves are? The Roman Catholic church, the Greek Orthodox church, and the Protestant church.
By the way, did you know that Baptists are not protestants? Bible believers are not Protestants. We didn't come from the Protestant church which came from the Catholic Church.
But that Roman Catholic leaven is throughout those other three lumps of bread, and that woman in Matthew goes out there and she lies in wait with her words as we read in Proverbs 12:6 above. He’s killing people, “. . . but the mouth of the upright shall deliver them.” Millions have been rescued out of utter darkness by a believer with a copy of the word of God.
Paul warned us that these people would exist throughout the church age: “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive" (Ephesians 4:14).
That is a good sentiment to have. Don't be a big baby anymore. Don’t be somebody that every time somebody comes the door and says something contrary to your beliefs, it shakes your faith to pieces. It's normal enough for a while, but there needs to come a time that Jehovah's witness can't shake you. These cultists, whatever they call themselves, have squirrelly, goofy, unbiblical doctrine anyway.
Notice, “that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”
That’s what a lot of doctrine is, folks; if you're not careful, depending on who's wielding it. Much of it is nothing more than just lying in wait: laying an ambush of words and doctrine to corner you and get you to fall for it and get you trapped in something. The prosperity gospel gets people hopelessly trapped in a loop of things where they just keep going around and round like a gerbil in a cage, and if they're not careful they never break it. If you've ever gone to a Mormon Bible study, or a Jehovah’s witness Bible study, or a Roman Catholic Bible study, or a charismatic Bible study they go around in circles. They use a sequence of 10 to 20 verses and if you try to get him out of that cycle and show them something else that's not in their cycle they just about freak out or they don't acknowledge it at all because it's outside their cycle.
No, what God wants are men that know where they stand.
“That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:17).
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2020 7:32:07 GMT -6
“I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions” (Proverbs 8:12 KJV).
Prudence is just good judgment. To be prudent is to be careful about things—to judge things rightly (see devotion for 2/9/2019 for further discussion on the word) according to the Word of God, according to how it really is. It is calling a spade a spade, and so forth.
“. . . and find out knowledge of witty inventions,” God sees what is going on, He knows what’s behind of the inventions. He knows the motives behind all the things that people are trying to peddle to you. “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Ecclesiastes 7:29 KJV).
“For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen; Whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth” (Acts 19:24-25 KJV).
The idol makers, or Shriners, invented these statues to make people to worship them, and then they created a market where they sell these idols to the people. Here they made statues of Diana, a false goddess. That is, they make her a fake deity and then they make these little action figures so that they can tell the people that they need these to go to heaven. They tell them that they need to pray to these figures, and burn candles to them, and have them in their house. Now, we wouldn’t know anyone like this in our day and age, right? Some group today having a female goddess that they call the “Queen of Heaven.” Anyway, this lucrative business “brought no small gain unto the craftsmen,” it brought a big gain. By these statues the craft had their wealth.
Paul had been preaching against this stuff and telling them that Jesus saves, and that they didn’t need all this junk and candles, and bangles, and beads, and priests, and candles and altars to get to heaven and to be right with God. Paul basically bankrupted them and put their business in jeopardy. God knew all about their “witty inventions.”
Inventions in the Bible usually are in a bad context. “Thou answeredst them, O LORD our God: thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions” (Psalms 99:8 KJV). This was in context of the Baal worship, and then with God haters in Romans 1, “Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents” (Romans 1:30 KJV).
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2020 8:32:41 GMT -6
“For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, To call passengers who go right on their ways: Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Proverbs 9:14-17 KJV).
This woman is posted up in the high places, to call out to passers-by. She is a harlot. We might call her a high-class harlot.
“Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither,” here is someone that is just as dumb as she is. Maybe she is a little smarter than them, seeing that she is the temptress. They are stupid enough to fall for her wares.
“and as for him that wanteth understanding,” here the people are not “wanting” to understand in the sense that they desire it as the wise man earlier in our chapter. These are those that are “lacking” understanding. Here the word “wanting” is to be see in the light of one absent of any common sense. When someone “wants for” something, it means that they don’t have it.
“and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant,” that describes the “pleasures of sin,” but they “are but for a season.”
Perhaps if a man has waxed his conscience sin might be sweet. There is always the thought of being able to get away with something, the challenge of sin, can you do it without getting caught? All sin is built around the lie that they Devil tells, “You can get away with it.” Some people steal compulsively. Some people lie because they enjoy doing it or are able to profit from it. They have just trained themselves over the years to habitually lie, cheat, steal, or whatever. They have learned to enjoy the things that are wrong, because “stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
No doubt, this is exactly what the passer-by wanted to hear. He is looking for something exciting and exhilarating. The problem with it is, it doesn’t end up too good.
Satan lied about sin in Eden. He told Eve she would not die, and the forbidden fruit would make her like God. As she foolishly looked at the tree, forgetting the precious tree of life, she saw the forbidden fruit as good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and likely to make one wise. She bought the lie! Her choice was horrible! The taste was bitter in seconds!
Sin is so perverse that if something is put off-limits to the natural man, a sinful craving for that thing becomes a cruel monster that demands satisfaction. Test this by leaving cookies on a counter and telling your children they cannot have one.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2020 7:06:47 GMT -6
“The labour of the righteous tendeth to life: the fruit of the wicked to sin” (Proverbs 10:16 KJV).
“The labour of the righteous tendeth to life,” that is the tendency of the labor of the righteous. You labor to win souls and that brings forth eternal life to the new Christians. God’s commentary for the Christian on this issue is found in Galatians: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:7-9 KJV).
“. . . he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting,” You put money into missions and you will see people getting saved, you put money into tracts and you will see people get saved, you put money in the church and you will see people get saved, you put time in visitation and you will see people get saved. Same thing if you put time and effort into prayer. Producing life and rewards not only for himself and his family but for others around him. Labor! What did our Lord Jesus Christ ask? “Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38 KJV).
“. . . the fruit of the wicked to sin,” the best they can do always comes out the same—it is bad. Why? Because they are wicked. That is why God said this about an unsaved man: “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8 KJV). Why? Because they are born wicked, they have a wicked constitution, a wicked character, a wicked creature and the best that they can do tends to sin.
Man gets religious. What does that do? It tends to sin. It deifies man, it does away with any need for God. It tramples underfoot the Blood of Christ, it creates a religion of works for salvation, and replaces it with humanistic values and philosophies. Even the best fall short of God’s standard for righteousness, which is absolute perfection. The only way a wicked man can bare godly fruit is to change his character or add the new nature, and then he can bear fruit acceptable to God. Christ said that a tree is what it is. A tree bears its own fruit. If the tree is bad, the fruit is bad.
Proverbs is hard on us, isn’t it? It doesn’t pull any punches.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2020 4:41:01 GMT -6
“The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them” (Proverbs 11:3 KJV).
“The integrity of the upright shall guide them,” integrity is a quality of uprightness, doing right, honesty, sincerity. Having the right motives. A person that can be trusted. A person that has integrity means that when they tell you something, they mean it. Integrity means that if a guy tells you that he will pay you back $20.00 on Friday, you can set your clock that you’ll have your money on Friday. They will do what they say. It’s hard to find that kind of character today. It used to be that a man could borrow money on a handshake. Now you have to have $20K worth of collateral to borrow $10K.
Why? Because people don’t have the character they used to have. They don’t follow through on their word, they have no integrity. So, the banks cannot trust them, therefore they have to come up with collateral because the banks figure that sooner or later they are going to have to go after them to collect the hard way.
If you have collateral, why do you need to borrow money for? There was a time when a man could borrow money on his name or with a handshake. Those times are gone.
“The integrity of the upright shall guide them,” good character and right motives will keep them out of trouble. When a man is tempted to do wrong, the fact that he has an established moral compass will keep him from making the wrong decision.
“. . . but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them,” they are just crooked. They are always out for an easy buck and an easy way of getting it. Their lives are filled with shortcuts and most of the time they simply do not allow the law to stand in their way.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2020 4:20:09 GMT -6
“He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding” (Proverbs 12:11).
This is a great verse that the welfare state misses. There is a dual promise here and part of the promise is if you work hard the Lord will make provision for your belly, but “if any would not work, neither should he eat” (II Thessalonians 3:10). God will provide for the diligent soul, “And having food and raiment let us be therewith content” (I Timothy 6:8).
Well, there is another application of this that is important; and this is what the welfare state misses, “He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread.” A hard-working man comes home and he's ready to eat. Even if its only bread. Somebody that works hard will tend to be satisfied with less then somebody who's laying around lazy all the time.
“Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread” (Proverbs 20:13).
Again, the idea is that bread may not be the most luscious meal in the world, but somebody that's labored and doing right will tend to be satisfied with less than somebody that's doing nothing: “The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour” (Proverbs 21:25).
We now have a generation in our country, and not just one particular ethnic class, but multiple ethnic classes including some poor white trash that have been born and reared to basically live off the welfare state. That's the bunch that put the former president in office because he promised to continue to give them free stuff. Half of our country has a welfare mentality, and they are so stupid that they think that the government can spend all this money to make them wealthy, as if they have money to spend. We are trillions of dollars in debt due to the spending of the former party in charge of the country. The money that they spend is our money, but our verse says, “He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread.”
“He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough” (Proverbs 28:19).
Again, there is a dual application. If a man will work, the Lord will reward his work. He may not give you T-bone steaks, and He may not give you rib eyes, but I believe that He'll give you your bread. Somebody who works hard, he'll be satisfied with less.
“He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding.”
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2020 7:21:05 GMT -6
“A righteous man hateth lying: but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame” (Proverbs 13:5).
“A righteous man hateth lying,” it is disgusting to him.
“. . . but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame,” the word “loathsome” is an old English word for “repulsive.” The final shame for a liar is that he ends up in hell, according to Revelation 21:8 because his chief lie is that he can find some other way into heaven other than through the Lord Jesus Christ: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1).
There is nothing more repulsive than a man that wears clerical garb and teaches his congregation that human works are a worthy substitute for the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Even far worse is it that that preacher is calling the Lord a liar: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Paul added to this thought when he wrote: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5).
It’s hard to preach on shame anymore because it’s hard to get anyone to feel ashamed. You look on just about any crowd of people gathered whether it be out on a beach or at a sports stadium or music concert—one of the things you’ll find missing in any degree is shame. This country is so jaded with sin that it is just hard to shame anybody anymore. When was the last time any of us ever saw a woman blush? We are exposed to so much wickedness and so much ungodliness that nothing shocks us anymore. Americans have become desensitized to sin.
We live in a country today where people believe that only a large screen plasma TV, and a big computer, and all that kind of stuff will satisfy them. What we have learned is that nobody's ever satisfied with those things. Somewhere along the way, real satisfaction has to come from what a man is doing from spiritual things. From what a man is and less from material things. If the Lord gives you a plasma TV, well and good and dandy. If the Lord gives you an Escalade, well good for you; but that thing is never going to satisfy you. In the end, if there is one thing that's been proven in life, it is just like sin; things can’t satisfy. Men just think they will.
Whether we are talking about love, or companionship, or anything else; more is not better and the likelihood is that when someone start thinking, “If I can just get a little more of something; you know, my next wife will satisfy me more than this one, the next church will satisfy me better than the one I go to now. What is more likely to happen is that he will wind up in this vortex where he just keeps feeding on some empty hope that just a little more and more and more will make him happy, but it never satisfies.
We need to learn to be satisfied with the simple things in life, which is what the Lord intended anyway. Adam and Eve were not born into a four-bedroom house with a three-car garage and all that kind of stuff. They were created naked and they were put in the garden with a bunch of trees and fruit and animals. That was a pretty simple life
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2020 6:50:26 GMT -6
“In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride: but the lips of the wise shall preserve them” (Proverbs 14:3).
“In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride,” people that are proud will beat you senseless with words. They put others down with their words. They’ll use words as a stick to beat you with. A proud man is a fool. He thinks more of himself then what is really true.
“Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise” (I Corinthians 3:18).
A proud man knows it all, he’s got it all figured out and no man can tell him otherwise. He believes that he deserves your attention—he is looking for your attention. He simply cannot understand why folks don’t pay no more attention to them than they do. He feels like he is a little bit better than anyone else and deserves all the attention he can get. He is a fool, and he will reprimand others for not yielding to his whims and ways.
“. . . but the lips of the wise shall preserve them,” first of all, with the lips they profess salvation: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9). This will preserve you throughout all eternity.
The lips of the wise will also preserve them in this life, they’ll keep you out of all sorts of trouble. Nobody really likes proud people that are always boasting and talking up about themselves. We’ve all been around these kind of people and they make us sick. If a man is wise, he won’t be making the kind of statements that the prideful make.
The proud with his words often backs himself into a corner with claims that he cannot meet. This is the type of fellow that the cowboys call, “all hat and no cattle.”
“Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?” (Ecclesiastes 5:5-6).
A proud man gets himself into situations that he thinks he can handle, and he makes commitments that he can’t keep. You and I deal with people that tell us all the time that they are going to do something, or be somewhere, and they constantly let us down. A humble man will at least be honest enough to say if the Lord is willing, they’ll do this or that.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2020 6:42:52 GMT -6
“A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit” (Proverbs 15:4).
“A wholesome tongue is a tree of life,” a wholesome tongue is a healthy, moral tongue. “For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matthew 12:37). “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach” (Romans 10:8). That’s how we get saved, by the confession of the mouth. By calling on the name of the Lord.
“A wholesome tongue is a tree of life,” not only for yourself, but for others. With the tongue you witness to other people.
“. . . but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit,” in 16:32 we find that man has a spirit: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32). That is the spirit that is being addressed here in 15:4. It’s not talking about the Holy Spirit, or the regenerated spirit of a Christian, but the spirit of a man as spoken of in First Corinthians: “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (2:11).
A man, whether he is saved or unsaved, has a spirit. It is our physical, carnal nature. Again, it is not the new man, but it is the old nature. It is what makes you, you.
“. . . but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit,” you, your personality, your character has a flaw in it. That perversity is a breach. A breach in a wall is a break in a wall. When an army set to attack a city protected by a wall, they would breach the wall, and enter into the city. It was a place to get through, a weak or a low spot. It is how the forces of Persia entered into Babylon to take it in one day.
What the Devil does is look for the weak place in your character. That is a breach in your spirit, and he will attack at that point. This is where perverseness is found where the world or the Devil can get to you. As the verse is speaking of the tongue, either a wholesome tongue or a perverse tongue, it is the place where the mouth speaks: “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2020 5:58:29 GMT -6
“A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).
“A man’s heart,” seventy-eight times the word heart is mentioned in the Book of Proverbs. Proverbs deals with wisdom and God’s dealing with a man’s heart.
“A man’s heart,” now this is what a man desires, and that will determine his direction in life. We observe two things from this verse. This is the solution to the problem of Calvinism.
“A man’s heart deviseth his way,” there is free will. A man determines for himself through his own heart whether he will choose life, which is from above, or whether he will choose the way of sin and destruction which leads to hell beneath. Every man determines that way for himself. If he follows the desires of the flesh and the lusts of the heart, then down he goes. Not only can the heart lead a man astray, but within the heart are the walls of life. God’s Word says that the Law is written in the heart. The conscience bears witness to the right and the wrong. If a man will submit to that Law in the heart, realize that he has done wrong and has sinned, and try to find a payment for that sin, God will direct his steps to a payment.
First, we have the free will of man, and secondly, the sovereignty of God. They are both right there in the same passage. They are not in conflict. What you do with your will determines where God will lead you.
Do you know where it led Pharaoh? It led right into the deep depth of the Red Sea where he was drowned and went to hell. That is where God’s will led him. Do you know where God directed Moses? He led him into the promised land, and then took him home to glory. Do you know why? Moses chose the reproaches of Christ better than the riches of Egypt. He chose to do right, and then reaped the reward of his choice later on. There is no problem with the free will of man and the sovereignty of God. They are both in harmony.
“A man’s heart deviseth his way,” what a man allows his heart to do—if he allows his heart to deceive him and fulfill its own lusts—if a man wants evil, then God will give it to him. If the heart of a man wants righteousness and wants truth, then God will direct your steps. God directed Cornelius’ steps into the step of Peter’s. He directed Ahab into another direction. He directed Pharaoh’s steps into another direction. When a man hates the truth, God sends him strong delusion to believe a lie (II Thessalonians 2:10). What a man does in his heart using his own free will, that determines how God will direct his steps.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2020 6:59:43 GMT -6
“The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts” (Proverbs 17:3).
“The fining pot is for silver,” we would say ‘refining,’ which is where the dross is taken out.
“That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:7). God will try our faith in order to purify it.
“And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness” (Malachi 3:3). The Christian is tried the same way and to much the same purpose—to serve the living and true God. God puts us through trials.
We can go back and see how God tried the faith of Abraham. The Bible says that God tempted Abraham. Now I know that our King James Bible says in James 1 that God tempts no man. Let’s see what it says: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13). God tempts no man with evil. God will tempt us with good, with a purpose, to strengthen our faith. Biblical context will always correct unsound theology. Abraham would never have become the man that he ultimately became without God testing him, allowing him to fail, and then test him again, until he got it right.
God will tempt us as a test to do right. In that sense God will tempt us. In this respect, God does tempt us to see if our faith is strong and settled in the Lord. That is the trial of faith that is “much more precious than of gold.”
Gold and silver cannot buy good character in God, and gold and silver cannot buy faith in God, and they cannot buy the rewards that a person gets for faithful service to God. Another thing that gold and silver cannot buy, they cannot buy wisdom for making the right decisions in life—this is where God’s refining process of tests and trials make the man what God wants him to be.
Faith in God and trust in God is being tried and being purged of the weaker elements and the bad parts of our character make us to where we can get to the point where we can make good decisions and cleave to the right and avoid the wrong.
“. . . but the LORD trieth the hearts,” as we read in Jeremiah: “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jeremiah 17:10). The reins on a horse are there for the rider to stop him or to guide Him.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2020 7:52:40 GMT -6
“Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom. A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself” (Proverbs 18:2 KJV).
In verse 1, we read, “Through desire.” It is a fleshly want to justify flesh, or comfort the flesh, or to feed the flesh. “. . . having separated himself, seeketh” What is he seeking? We see the answer to that here in verse 2. He is trying to discover his innate potentialities—his self-realization. In other words, he wants to know how he can perfect that sin in his life.
“A fool hath no delight in understanding,” our heart is said to be wicked and evil above all things (Jeremiah 17:9), and it brings forth evil thoughts and actions as in Matthew 15. If a man wants to seek out what his heart is really like, this is what it is really like. You go up to these kids in college and ask them what they are there for, they’ll say, “Oh, I’m trying to discover myself, I am trying to find out who I really am.” Well, what they are is a sinner bound for hell. It doesn’t need to cost a student $15-20,000 and four years of study to find that out. You can find that out with a single reading of the Book of Romans.
But fools have no delight in understanding the truth, because for them ignorance is truly bliss. But what does he have delight in? He delights in that his heart might discover itself. Is he interested in discovering God? Nope, no way. What does he need to discover? Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” He needs to discover that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ” (Romans 6:23). He really needs to discover that “God commended his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
But he is not interested in those things. The rich man was sure enough interested in them when he found himself in the pit. He was interested enough to beg Abraham to send some soul-winning preacher to his brothers’ house to tell them how to escape that place, but what did Abraham tell him? “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:29-31).
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