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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2020 7:04:05 GMT -6
“The righteous considereth the cause of the poor: but the wicked regardeth not to know it … If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest” (Proverbs 29:7, 9).
“The righteous considered the cause of the poor,” he considers it. He considers that some poor people have really had a tough run. It's not a matter of them not working, or not wanting to work, as a matter that they would if they could, but it's just a bad scene, a bad situation, bad circumstances like devastation of a country, or just a bad time.
“The righteous considered the cause of the poor,” why? The guy is poor. Some folks in America are poor because they deserve it, and they just won't work.
“. . . but the wicked regardeth not to know it.” He doesn’t do anything about it, he doesn’t even want to know anything about it. I guess that's why when they send you these tear-jerking letters; and they are. They always got some little kid starving to death on the front of it. Now, if the person is righteous, you consider the cause of that little child. Even her mommy and daddy has done wrong, it's a shame that the kid has to go through that. But there again, God knows what he's doing. God doesn't make any mistakes, but that kind of thing just grabs your heart. It really does tug at your heart. It really does almost make you want to send $25. Except that about $24.00 of that money is going into somebody’s pocket. They call it, ahem, overhead expenses.
“If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest.”
What he is saying is, don't argue with a fool. You're a bigger fool if you argue with one. Now, the doctrinal application is in Titus chapter 3.
“But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself” (Titus 3:9-11).
His problem isn’t his heresies, his problems are his personal sins, you’ll have a hard time getting to that. You won’t be able to straighten him out on his heresy until they get him straightened out on his personal problems. His personal sin with God, so you just wasting your time to contend with a foolish man.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2020 6:43:56 GMT -6
“There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer; The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks; The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces” (Proverbs 30:24-28).
Verses 24-28 are highly instructive.
“The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.” There are some things about the aunt that every person needs to realize. Even though the ant is little and weak, yet they do think ahead. That's prudence. To be prudent is to be concerned about the future. Not only that, the ant is weak, and he knows it. The ant works with what he has. That is a really good point, the ant works with what he has. And it does a pretty good job. Not only that, but he takes care of what he has. I like that about the ant. He takes care of his young. He takes care of his nest; he takes care of what he has. He doesn't have a whole lot, but he takes care of it. Christian ought to do that. Take care of what you got.
The ant prepares ahead for his needs. I guess every Christian should do that. I mean one day is the judgment seat of Christ for you and me. We will need to stand before Him, and I pray you're doing something that you will not show up empty-handed.
Secondly, the conies. The coney is the hare, or rabbit, of Leviticus 11:5 and Deuteronomy 14:7. “The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.” You don't see a rabbit standing in the middle of a field, you know, shaking their fist at the world.
The coney is feeble, and he knows it. He doesn't go out and boast and brag above what he is able. Not only that, he hides in the rock. He knows his existence is dependent upon the rock, so he hides in the Rock. Well, the Rock is the Lord of our Salvation. Not only that, but he hides his precious things, and puts all the precious things that he has in the rock. His children are in the rock. His possessions are in the rock.
So, it is safe for the rabbit. You say, “Well, rabbit stew,” yeah, but I'll tell you what. The rabbit in some respects has more brains than some Christian.
“The locusts have no King, yet go they forth all of them by bands,” now, that's a good application. One thing you can say about the locust, there are united. and secondly, which you can say about him is that they may not have a king, but they do go forth. They do something with what they have. Now, Locusts all by themselves isn’t nothing but a little old bug, but I guarantee you, get an army of those rascals and they'll devour a field in no time flat.
And they can produce tremendous results, even though they are small. They are a picture of the church and the Christians. If we will all work together, it's amazing what we can get done. The problem is that sometimes we think we're working all by ourselves and we just don't want to get in on it.
“The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings palaces.” Spiders just aren't the most popular things around. I've never met anybody that made a friend out of a spider, especially women. They just don't like spiders. A spider has no friends, and a lot of Christians are like that when they get saved. They live for God; they just learn that most people in this world don't want to live for God.
Not only that, but a spider has no help. She works by herself. No one encourages her. You never see anybody on the sidelines, flies and insects, yelling, “Yea spider! Go ahead and put that web together!” There's no encouragement.
Not only that, but she never complains. She spent the whole night building that web, and some bird will fly through that thing the next morning and wipe it out. You don't hear a complaint, or any hollering, crying, or having an emotional breakdown, she is just out there the next night building that web again. She just keeps right on going on. She doesn't quit. She never quits.
There are four things that are small, little, yet exceeding wise. We could learn a great deal from these things.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2020 7:16:20 GMT -6
Through parables Jesus bought taught His disciples by comparing heavenly truths with earthly examples, and he confounded those that would entrap Him. Sometimes His followers struggled to understand His meanings: “His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb” (John 16:29 KJV).
TODAY’S VERSE:
“To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings” (Proverbs 1:6 KJV).
When we need to define a word, or a phrase, in the King James Bible we should first try to discover how the Bible itself defines it, if possible, before going to Webster’s 1828. In this case the mysterious phrase is “dark sayings.” Often, a word will be used, and it will define itself either in the same verse or in the near context. In this instance we find that Solomon is speaking of “parables.” These are something hidden from the world, but transparent to eyes of faith and discernment.
“I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old” (Psalms 78:2 KJV), “I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp” (Psalms 49:4 KJV).
Well, the Proverbs are not simple truths placed on the bottom shelf for easy picking. They often require some thought, and the always require the One sent down from heaven to be our teacher—the Holy Spirit.
“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (I Corinthians 2:12-13 KJV).
It is not a simpler, easier-to-understand Bible that we need, but more of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Without the Holy Spirit, even John 3:16 is a closed verse to the unsaved mind. It is the Holy Spirit that opens our minds, enlightens our understanding, and reveals the truth contained in the Book of which He is the Author.
The lessons of Proverbs are often obscure. They must be interpreted and applied, or you will miss the lesson buried under the surface of the pithy saying. The mother lode of wisdom is waiting for those who will diligently mine Solomon’s proverbs.
Why did God inspire dark sayings that are hard to understand? Because success, truth, and wisdom are not rights. They are privileges by God’s grace for those humble enough to study them diligently. Wisdom mocks those who are not fervently earnest. But wisdom offers herself freely to the passionate.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2020 7:24:33 GMT -6
When you understood the fear of the Lord, and you find the knowledge of God; then God begins to take care of you and protect you—to be a buckler or a shield like He said over in Song of Solomon 4:4. And then, “shalt thou understand righteousness.”
TODAY’S VERSE:
“Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path” (Proverbs 2:9 KJV).
Notice in verse 5, when you do those things listed in verses 1-4, then verses 5, 6, 7, and 8 happens. Then also verse 9 happens. Not only will you get wisdom, sound wisdom; then you will understand righteousness.
The first thing you learned was to understand the “fear of the Lord,” things ‘not’ to do, that’s negative. Then, secondly, God will show you what you ought to do— ‘righteousness,’ that’s positive. He shows you what to avoid, and then He’ll give you wisdom on what to do.
There are people that have been saved over a decade and are just now figuring out what to do—some have been saved fifty years, and still haven’t a clue. The difference is in being in the Book since the day they were saved, or not. It isn’t how many times we have been through the Bible, but how many times that Bible has been through us. You learn first of all what not to do—don’t let your hair grow long—that was just the beginning. You learn where not to go to church, and then you learn gradually what to do, line upon line, precept upon precept.
Some preachers believe that it takes twenty years for a man to really preach a message, because it takes twenty years for God to make a man, and once that man is made—his messages are him. They are not something that he has borrowed from somebody else. There is nothing wrong with preaching another person’s material when you don’t have anything of your own. The Word of God is not bound, and chances are some messages are preached by many men over time.
Stick with the Book! Just stay with it, keep searching, keep crying after knowledge, keep seeking her as for silver, and you’ll find it.
“Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path,” equity is fairness. Equity is that balance. And balance is the secret to the Christian life. Everything must be balanced. Not going overboard to the right, not going overboard to the left, not studying too much, equity, fairness, right division of time. Where you do it because the Lord wants you to do it, and you are following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. You know when He wants you to pray, you know when He wants you to study your Bible, and you get that balance. “equity; yea, every good path.”
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2020 6:52:23 GMT -6
Okay, this one is a long one because there just wasn’t anywhere to cut it short. “By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew” (Proverbs 3:20 KJV). “In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights” (Genesis 7:11-12 KJV). God controls the rain. “By his knowledge the depths are broken up,” what did He know? “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5 KJV). That is what God knew, that man was evil continually. And because God knew that about man, he drowned them out. “. . . the depths are broken up,” someone will say that that was the depths of the sea, but it’s going to take more water than what was in the sea to do what God did—to cover the mountain tops with water—a lot more water than the ocean has to offer. There had to be water from outside the earth’s sphere to accomplish the flood. Where did that water come from? “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven . . .” (Genesis 1:6-8 KJV). Notice, He divides the waters from the waters, and in the midst of the waters is heaven. “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2 KJV). “. . . the face of the deep,” now that’s some kind of water! When you get up to the third heaven, and you walk into the throne room, as Revelation chapter 4 describes it, before the throne is a “sea of glass,” crystal. Frozen, absolute ice. That thing is just a frozen solid body of water as big at one time as the universe. When He divided the waters from the waters, in the center of that or in the midst of that He put a firmament, and that firmament he called heaven. If you have time, listen to this study on cosmology that Dr. Estep did which can be found here: www.goodpreachin.com/ESTEP/estep.htmIt will help you to understand what the earth was in the beginning and it’s change and its relationship now to the universe. When it started out, when the earth was first you had this great deep, or huge body of water, and the earth was standing in the water and out of the water according to II Peter chapter 3. You read that very carefully and you’ll see that that flood he is talking about is not Noah’s flood, despite what many thinks. It is talking about the promise of the coming, and man’s view on uniformitarianism in verse 4, or the idea that all things continue now as at the beginning of the creation—which is not true. “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water” (II Peter 3:5 KJV). Now, in Noah’s flood the earth did not stand in the water or out of the water, the earth was submerged under the water. It did not float on the water, as the ark did, it was under the water. “Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now . . .” (II Peter 3:6-7 KJV). “which are now . . .,” the heaven and earth we have now is the same one that was before the flood of Noah. So he can’t be talking about Noah’s flood. He is talking about a heaven and an earth that was before a flood that was before Noah’s flood. So when you go back to Genesis chapter 1, there was a world that then was. What does the word, “world” generally refer to? An organized system. We are told of a “world to come,” in the Millennium, or a new system which man will no longer rule it, but God will rule it. Even though God drowned out millions of people the same world system that was then is still in effect now. The things that were happening before the flood are still happening now. There was a world system on this earth before man ever got on it. It is described in Job 38 and Ezekiel 28 as an angelic-type race that lived on this earth, or inhabited this earth, that was connected with Lucifer. They are called the “sons of God” in Job 38:7 and they were the first inhabitants of this earth. The ‘sons of God’ in the Old Testament, according to Psalm 82 are angels, they are not men. There is only one man in the Old Testament that is said to be the “Son of God,” and that is Adam, no one else. Israel, corporately, is called the “son of God” but no one else. There aren’t any real sons of God until Jesus Christ shows up and is born of the Holy Spirit, and then after He is born of the Holy Spirit, others are born of Him as well. He is said to be “the firstborn among many brethren.” There isn’t anybody in the Old Testament that was “born again.” Don’t believe all that doctrine that you hear that says that people were born again in the Old Testament—that is not biblical. Psalm 82 talks about the sons of the mighty one, the sons of God, an angelic host up before the third heaven—boy, this is getting so deep, I’m getting myself in deeper and deeper—it’s going to take forever to go through this. When you notice Lucifer in the original creation, the Bible describes him as a geologic being, not a botanical being. You and I are botanical beings, in other words, we are used to flowers, we like things soft—the earth is soft. We are used to soft habitation. The original earth wasn’t like that, it was geological—rocks, diamonds, rubies, pearls—everything was gorgeous, everything was pure, everything was pure, that wasn’t any dirt. So, when you read the description of Lucifer, it is one of a being that is made up of jewels. He fits his environment. After the destruction of that earth, and its recreation, God gives it a soft environment for people. The shreds of evidence for that previous creation are down under the ground. That is where you find the diamonds and the rubies. They are still there. So, you have the sons of God down there. They rebel. That is all described in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. What that happens, that world that then was perishes, being overflowed with water. How would you overflow this world in the position it is in? What would it have to do? It would have to sink down into the great deep. That body of water that is above the universe. I just read to you in 1:6-8 that when God recreated everything, He separated the waters from the waters and in the center of the water he placed heaven. There are waters above the heaven and waters below. Some of you are looking at me like this is something new. It’s been in your Bible for years, the problem is that you haven’t been in your Bible for years! I mean, I just believe it like it is written. “Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens” (Psalms 148:1-4 KJV). “. . . praise him, all ye stars of light,” the context is of creation—outer space. “Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens,” there is water up there. And you get so far up there where God is, you can see in the book of Job and the book of Psalms that when you get up there in heaven with no molecular activity or no time going one way or the other—it is absolute north. God’s breath genders ice and snow. It’s perfect for them, not for us. Our core temperature is 98.6. Look at fish, fish love cold temperatures. Their body temperature is around 32 degrees. They are not bothered by the cold at all. They are cold-blooded beings. There is water above the heavens, so the earth sinks down into heaven and stays there, and that is where it is without form and void in Genesis 1:2 and then God comes along and recreates it, and when He recreates it and moves all that water. Now, what do you have when you have water in an area and you move water—what do you have in that area? –a vacuum. He did this by wisdom, by knowledge, and by understanding. The world by wisdom does not know God. The world is so smart, you try to tell them anything. One of these days when they have a telescope that can see all the way to the end of the universe, they are going to see the reflection of ice. Einstein says that all parallel lines meet together in infinity. The book of Hebrews says that the universe is shaped like a pyramid. The whole structure of the universe is in the Bible—the whole things. From the inside of the earth all the way to the throne room. The whole thing is laid out. Anyway, when God needed some water to flood the earth, He didn’t have to go very far. It was all right there in the fountains of the deep. What does it say in Genesis 7:11? It says, “the windows of heaven.” Well, how are you going to get that off the earth? Where are you going to get enough clouds to form enough water to overflow Mount Everest so that the whole thing is covered with water? This will all fit like a glove if you just sit down and read the Word of God. And not only that, before the flood there was no rain whatsoever for a mist came up from the ground to water the earth. The system was so tight that there was only one weather system throughout the whole earth—a greenhouse effect—but after the flood, suddenly there are seasons. What happens when you bring water from outside of our system, enough water to fill Mount Everest? Everest is 29,000 feet up or 5.5 miles above sea level. You force the atmosphere out. From that point on the whole system is changed. If you want more than this it is in that study on cosmology linked to above.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2020 7:04:05 GMT -6
“Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding” (Proverbs 4:1 KJV).
A continuation of the theme to “sons,” again, an application of the father to his son. It can be applied in three different ways.
1. God, to the children of Israel—they are His children—His sons corporately. He called them that. There were no individual Old Testament Jews that were “born again.”
We must realize that the new birth is not possible until after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, regardless of what any other preacher might say. The Bible is very clear about it. “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1Pe 1:2-3 KJV). [Notice that election is through sanctification, so a man is not elect until he is sanctified] God has begotten us: that is the new birth. You are born of God (Joh 1:12-13, 3:7-8, I Cor 4:15 [Paul says “I have begotten you the gospel”]; 1Joh 3:8-9 [you are born of the Spirit and you cannot sin]. The medium of the new birth is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so there is no one that is born again before the resurrection.
Was it possible for Nicodemus in John chapter 3? Even though Jesus Christ said “Ye must be born again,” he couldn’t be born again at that time. We see this in Joh 7, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified)” (Joh 7:38-39 KJV) He had not yet gone to the cross or rose up from the grave. Nicodemus could have believed all he wanted to, but he would not have been born again at that time. The New Birth does not take place until after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom 8:29 KJV). Jesus Christ was the first man to be born of the Spirit—so that eliminates everybody in the Old Testament, and John 7 and 1 Peter 1 eliminates everybody up to the crucifixion and resurrection.
And remember that the Bible tells us to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2Ti 2:15, KJV). There’s a division there, between the salvation experience of what you and I have, as compared to an Old Testament saint. Now, that ought to tell you something. Every heretic walking that teaches that a man can lose his salvation will go to a pre-crucifixion passage to prove it. Why? Because an Old Testament saint was not born again, because the Old Testament saint was not sealed with the Holy Spirit, because the Old Testament saint was not baptized by the Holy Spirit. So it is possible then to find passages where the Holy Spirit leaves a man, but he’ll never find that in the Pauline epistles.
Because after the New Testament [death of the Testator] is instituted, and after Jesus Christ sends the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2, He said when the “Holy Spirit is come He will abide with you forever!” It is eternal!
All right then, to Israel as a corporate nation. God is never going to cast Israel off as a nation. They are His son in the Old Testament. It was corporate. But as to the individual Jews, if they did not keep the covenants of Israel, they died and went to hell.
2. God, to you and I. Proverbs is written to the children of God, so you and I get something from it. “Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father.” God’s the Father, He inspired the words, so we can learn a great deal from it.
3. Solomon’s own children. I assume he must have had plenty, he had 1,000 wives. I imagine he had a house full of kids. “Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.” Well, pay attention, attend to it. Kids have a short attention span. It’s kind of hard to get them to attend to the right things. Kids in America are attending a lot of things except for the things they ought to be attending. They attend entertainment events, they attend pleasure events, and Solomon tells us what they ought to be doing, “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better” (Ecc 7:2-3 KJV). It might not do anything for your flesh, but it’ll do something for your heart. Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, wrote this.
There is nothing like trouble, and grief, and sadness, and sorrow, to bring you back to reality. And to what life really means, and what life really is. It’s hard to really get a grip on reality while you are watching a situation comedy or some other funny show. Americans think that unless they are having “fun,” it isn’t worth the time or the money. “Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.” “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth” (Ecclesiastes 7:4 KJV).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2020 7:23:46 GMT -6
The strange woman staggers down a crooked trail and doesn’t even realize where it leads. Her ways are never established. Our verse says such a woman never knows this way: she is “unstable”, undependable, and has nothing that she can hold onto.
TODAY’S VERSE:
“Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them” (Proverbs 5:6 KJV).
When my wife and I were in Bible college we befriended a lady, whose relatives lived up in the Ozark mountains. Every once in a while, we would give her a ride up those hills to see her family. I didn’t have any, but I think I would have gladly swallowed a bottle of Dramamine, because by the time we got to where we were going, we were all as carsick as a person can get. Winding roads going up, up, up . . . and then, after a couple hours, we went back down. I don’t know which one was worse. Man likes level ways to travel (they are so much easier than to be going up and going down hills), but the strange woman in our passage knows nothing of the good, narrow road of life. And yet, she is just as healthy today as she ever was.
“Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established” (Proverbs 4:26 KJV).
“Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life,” provides the reader with a choice. At this point, he still has a chance to consider a way to get out of her hands and ways, and escape death, and obtain eternal life. This is the young man standing at a crossroads. To the left is a broad way, to the right is the narrow way. Salvation is free and available to all, but a choice must be made. It is a choice between a horrible pit, in the miry clay and a solid foundation—a rock. Otherwise man is on the slippery slope facing a chasm from which no man can return.
“. . . her ways are moveable,” she appears in different shapes; changes her dress and habitation; makes use of a thousand arts to ensnare men, to entangle their affections, and retain them in her nets; she first puts them upon one thing, and then on another; she leads them into various mazes and labyrinths of sin, till they have lost all sense of religion, and sight of the path of life. Truly, sin is a chameleon.
“. . . that thou canst not know them,” he knows about her, at least as much as she is willing to reveal about herself; but of her strategies, gimmicks, and tricks he is totally ignorant. To escape her clutches requires effort which he just doesn’t feel inclined to spend. He is not only foolish, but Solomon tells us in other places, he is lazy. To free oneself of her hold requires much soul-searching and an honest examination of one’s life. It is required that the man calculate the future results of his present predicament. But all he can see is what his starry eyes see—lust falsely renamed love—he believes that this woman has his best interests at heart, and his mind is clouded to the degree that he cannot see the whole trap being set.
PONDER this chapter—you that know not the poison and corruption of fleshly lusts. Such is the picture of sin. Its pleasure is but for a season; and its wages are death eternal. The result is a loss of honor, and quite possibly an immediate death, should the family or spouse of the woman seek their rightful duty, and certainly eternal damnation if one remains a traveler on the broad path which leads to destruction and rejects God's provision for salvation.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2020 6:37:00 GMT -6
When the Lord comes back, what you have to think of is a is a husband that has been dishonored and cheated on for 4,000 years. It’s not going to be pretty.
TODAY’S VERSE:
“For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts” (Proverbs 6:34-35 KJV).
“For jealousy is the rage of a man,” this is speaking of the husband, and in the Old Testament he was allowed to bring vengeance upon the adultery and the adulteress, “. . . therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance,” one may read material on the avenger in Numbers, chapter 25.
Notice the rage. The husband’s pride has been attacked; his honor is at stake. The sanctity of his marriage has been violated by another man. Regardless of their relationship, he is still the woman’s husband. Another thing, it doesn’t matter what kind of husband he has been, God is still on his side.
Verse 34 kind of takes this another step deeper, “For jealousy is the rage of a man,” to this point it's kind of talking about how damaging it is to somebody; but now there's another, broader application to it, because “jealousy is the rage of a man.” Now, remember that this is talking about going unto your neighbor’s wife. Well, now you have to deal with the neighbor; and jealousy is a powerful thing. It’s akin to envy and this jealous man “will not spare in the day of vengeance.”
If you really want to insult a man, there it is, right? There have been and are women that have been forced to file for divorce, and there is a reproach and a vulnerability that can never quite be covered again from that thing. Well, in the same respect; a man is dishonored, and there's a wound there borne that's very difficult to heal.
“For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.” You can’t buy him off. You know, you can’t buy the Devil off. You can’t buy the death angel off. So, the best advice is don’t play around with sin! You’ll get burnt.
But there is good news in all of this, because there is One that will regard a ransom. No matter what you or I have ever done, if we are saved, we are ransomed from sin.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2020 6:45:07 GMT -6
Proverbs chapter seven is not the easiest chapter to find devotional material. Generally, when one thinks of a devotion, they think of it as a reminder that God loves us and is good to us all the time. They are a light that shines out of the darkness to encourage us. Generally, it uses a verse or two that can be used for meditation throughout the day.
TODAY’S VERSE:
“That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words” (Proverbs 7:5 KJV).
Practically every verse in chapter seven does not provide a cheery promise, but rather dire warnings on a rather vulgar subject—irresponsible and promiscuous sexual activity. Yet, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (II Timothy 3:16-17 KJV).
The word adultery originates not from “adult”, as is commonly thought, but from the Late Latin word for “to alter, corrupt”: adulterare. Adulterare in turn is formed by the combination of ad (“towards”), and alter (“other”), together with the infinitive form are (making it a verb).
In God’s Word, the subject of adultery and fornication can be viewed either literally or figuratively. In the figurative sense we can understand these sins as religious compromise of the truth. The Old Testament Book of Hosea is rather a parable using the true experience of Hosea and his wife Gomer, a prostitute. God uses their infidelity to display Israel’s infidelity to Him.
Jeremiah calls upon Israel of repent of her sin of “spiritual adultery.”
“The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot. And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 3:6-10 KJV).
So, not only is there a physical sense of the world, “adultery,” but there is also a spiritual sense. This entails those that have made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ (and it may well be real), yet he loves the things of the world. This Christian compromises his convictions with the world and embraces the things that Satan offers. “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?” (James 4:4-5 KJV).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2020 6:38:32 GMT -6
“Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors” (Proverbs 8:30-34 KJV).
“Then I was by him,” Christ is involved in the creation—we should know this—John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:17. Christ is involved in the creation, He was not only brought forth before the creation, but He was a crucial part of the creation.
“Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men,” now, we are getting down to a place where it has to be after the creation, and after the creation of man. It has to occur after Genesis 2:7.
“Now therefore hearken unto me,” He’s been around a very long time. Usually we think that someone that has been around awhile knows something, well, He’s been here since before the beginning.
“. . . for blessed are they that keep my ways,” that’s a promise. Keep the ways of righteousness, keep the ways of wisdom, and the ways of God.
“Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not,” so, be willing. Notice the outline here.
1. Be willing. “And herein I give my advice: for this is expedient for you, who have begun before, not only to do, but also to be forward a year ago. Now therefore perform the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which ye have. For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not” (II Corinthians 8:10-12 KJV).
“Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates,”
2. Be watching. Where are the gates of wisdom? Every morning that you open the Bible and study, you open up the door of wisdom. Don’t keep the gates closed. Walk into wisdom. Open that Book!
“waiting at the posts of my doors.”
3. Be waiting. Open the Bible daily and wait on God for a blessing.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2020 6:37:25 GMT -6
Throughout the book of Proverbs, it shows that the godly man is a man who takes an interest in all those things going on about him, he takes the trouble to know his way about, he plans his course of actions realistically.
TODAY’S VERSE:
“Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars” (Proverbs 9:1 KJV).
We need to turn back to chapter 8 to see what these seven pillars are:
“I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength” (Proverbs 8:12-14 KJV).
Today, we will consider knowledge and discretion.
Webster’s 1828 says the following about the words:
KNOWL'EDGE, n. nol'lej.
1. A clear and certain perception of that which exists, or of truth and fact; the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of our ideas.
We can have no knowledge of that which does not exist. God has a perfect knowledge of all his works. Human knowledge is very limited and is mostly gained by observation and experience.
2. Learning; illumination of mind.
Ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
DISCRETION, n. [L, a separating. See Discreet.]
1. Prudence, or knowledge and prudence; that discernment which enables a person to judge critically of what is correct and proper, united with caution; nice discernment and judgment, directed by circumspection, and primarily regarding ones own conduct.
A good man--will guide his affairs with discretion. Psa 112.
My son, keep sound wisdom and discretion. Prov 3.
2. Liberty or power of acting without other control than one’s own judgment; as, the management of affairs was left to the discretion of the prince; he is left to his own discretion. Hence,
To surrender at discretion, is to surrender without stipulation or terms, and commit one’s self entirely to the power of the conqueror.
Put simply it is someone who looks ahead and then plans his action. “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished” (Proverbs 22:3 KJV).
What this verse is telling us is that there is a great deal of difference between faith and blind optimism. In fact, those with blind optimism are seen as fools. God does not want us to put ourselves in dangerous situations and then expect Him to rescue us. An example of this might be driving our cars at high speeds well over the speed limit. That is exactly what this proverb is about. Part of wisdom involves knowing how to avoid danger. “The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going. A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident” (Proverbs 14:15-16 KJV).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2020 7:46:13 GMT -6
“As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him” (Proverbs 10:26 KJV).
Now, this smoke to the eyes is a burning sensation. You ever watch a fellow smoking a cigarette, that thing dangling on his lips, but then the smoke comes back and gets him in the eye. It burns! The eyes are watering and turning red, but he is standing there trying to look cool. Well, similarly, if you send a sluggard to do a job for you, he’ll burn you. You send him to do a job and it won’t get done, or it’ll only be half done, and he’ll burn you. You send him to go to the desire of a customer, and your business is to make money, and it ends up costing you more to fix what he broke than you would even have profited in the first place.
A lot of businesses depend on their delivery men. A pizza shop could not survive without their delivery drivers. A sluggard will take his time and the pizza will be cold as ice by the time he gets to the door of the customer. The angry customer calls and you end up baking them another pie to make up for the bad service.
It isn’t always the best thing for the business to hire a relative. Where they might work hard for a stranger, they feel entitled to lollygag when working for family.
You put vinegar in your tooth, and it hurts. So, either way, the sluggard is going to bring a painful experience to whomever depends upon them. Don’t trust a sluggard to get the job done.
“As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes,” so God's eyes are watering. Seriously. “so is the sluggard to them that send him.” You may be asking, “Huh? When did God ever send me anywhere?” The answer is clearly in the application of this verse: “Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21). We can even imply it from God’s commission to Isaiah: “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me” (Isaiah 6:8). An even clearer verse is found in Corinthians: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2020 6:07:54 GMT -6
“Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished: but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered” (Proverbs 11:21 KJV).
This is the united front. That is the United Nations. That is the ecumenical movement. This is the crowd that erected the tower of Babel: “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4 KJV).
God dealt with that crowd in short order, just as He will one day quash another rebellion with fire that proceeds out of His mouth: “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:6-9 KJV).
If every modernist in the America says that there is no hell, all is well, that means nothing.
“Though hand join in hand,” and it will. In Psalm 2 the heathen get together and say let us break their bands asunder. It won’t do them any good. God’s response: “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision” (Psalms 2:4 KJV).
It’s a joke to Him. All the weapons in the world, all the armaments and the nukes, God will simply glance and blow them up with them.
“Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished,” the biggest revelation of this is the Antichrist. He gets all the nations of the world together to make a final stand against God—God will wipe them out and punish him. Sends them directly to hell. The Antichrist goes in, the false prophet goes in, the Beast goes in, Satan goes in. They all go in. They not only get destroyed physically with that devouring fire, but then He throws them into eternal fire.
“. . . but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered,” the Righteous One is Jesus Christ and we that are saved are His seed. We are going to be delivered. We have been delivered from the wages of sin, we are being delivered from the power of sin, and one day we will be delivered from the very presence of sin. Amen!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2020 6:19:34 GMT -6
“Favor,” it should be apparent, is a synonym for “grace.” It is Noah’s grace, it is Joseph’s grace, it is Daniel’s grace, and it is more than any of us will ever deserve. It is equal to the goodness of the saint. God’s grace is sufficient to every occasion and even more so when the vessel is attuned to the will of God.
TODAY’S VERSE:
“A good man obtaineth favour of the LORD: but a man of wicked devices will he condemn” (Proverbs 12:2 KJV).
“A good man obtaineth favour of the LORD,” for the Lord knows the heart of every man and knows which of His creatures are desiring to walk in the light of His Word. The story is told by a missionary of a native that could not bring himself to worship the sun, the moon, and the stars as was the custom of his village. Instead he would look up to heaven and say, “I wish to worship and serve the One that put those bodies in space for I know that He which hung those things my people worship is greater than those things. Because one man was seeking to know the truth, God obligated Himself to send the Gospel to that man. The missionary that told this story is the man that God sent to that tribe. The missionary found favor of God through his obedience, and the native found favor of God through desire, and his village rejoiced in God’s favor because of their tribesman.
“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6:45 KJV).
Wherever good is in abundance, good is the product. Think on the good qualities that Paul describes to us in Philippians 4: Things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praise and God’s favor will be apparent both with the “peace of God” (vs. 7) and the “God of peace” (vs. 9) presence.
“For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield” (Psalms 5:12 KJV).
Paul instructs us to bear the shield of faith, but not a weak, anemic faith—but rather the strong, vibrant faith which can only be owned when one is facing the enemy of our souls with the “captain of the Lord’s host” (Joshua 5:14). It is a true favor of the Lord to know that he is with us always, and at every occasion.
“Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man” (Proverbs 3:3-4 KJV).
“Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:33-36 KJV).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2020 5:47:56 GMT -6
“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Proverbs 13:20).
“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise,” the Bible says that “he that winneth souls is wise” (Proverbs 11:30), you ought to spend your time with soul-winners. People that are concerned about people, people that care about people, people that pray for people, people that are interested in people—not just people that are interested in their own selves.
“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise,” that’s a promise! “but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” That is just good wisdom there.
There are some New Testament passages that talk about being around the right people.
“Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (I Corinthians 15:33).
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (II Corinthians 6:14-18).
“Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits” (Romans 12:16).
Get around the right people, people that are interested in the right things.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2020 6:16:20 GMT -6
“Do they not err that devise evil? but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good” (Proverbs 14:22).
Someone that lays around devising evil against another sooner or later will do it. You sit around thinking about wrong things long enough and pretty soon you’ll be doing it.
“. . . but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good,” this tells us in no uncertain terms that we have a free will, and we reap exactly what we sow. Devise good and you’ll reap mercy and truth but devise evil and you’ll reap evil. It isn’t predestination and election, and foreordination and God’s sovereign determination to make you do something against your will—it is you getting what you deserve because of your willful acts—for good or for evil.
If we devise evil—we err, “. . . but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good.” Don’t stand around waiting for the sovereignty of God to act in your life—you have a free will—exercise it. “Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34-35). Do right! There is no excuse not to.
Some people claim, “I have problems because of the environment I cam out of.” There are plenty of other people that came out of that same mess that did right. Another might say, “Well, it’s the education that I got.” Well, what about all the people that didn’t even have an education yet did right in their life and succeeded. Many didn’t have a good background, even some that came out of orphanages—but they did right. Don’t make excuses.
We have a free will. We know the difference between right and wrong. Do right! Our consciences bear witness to what is right: “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness” (Romans 2:14-15).
People are not saved because they hang around all day looking for excuses. They don’t want to believe that they are going to hell so along comes Charlie Preacher that tells they there isn’t any hell, “Well, that sounds good enough for me!” They don’t want to get right so God sends along someone to tell them exactly what they want to hear. They just want excuses, so God gives them someone to give them the excuse they want.
So, devise good and you’ll have mercy and truth.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2020 16:19:44 GMT -6
“A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish man despiseth his mother” (Proverbs 15:20).
“A wise son maketh a glad father,” the wisest son around is in Second Timothy, chapter 3: “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (II Timothy 3:15).
Timothy had gotten saved as a young man. A young son, who believes in Jesus Christ, makes a glad father. Your boy may never be president of the United States, he may never be a doctor or a lawyer, or an Indian chief—but if he gets saved—that’s pretty good. Thank God for that. Do the best you can to give him some discipline and character, so that they will have the potential to find success in the physical arena of life, but bless God if they are saved, they could do a whole lot worse.
“. . . but a foolish man despiseth his mother,” he should honor her, according to Ephesians 6:1, 2. He is to honor his father and his mother, but the foolish man does not. God in Exodus 20 promised long life to those that honored their parents, but a fool is oblivious to God’s promises. He doesn’t care. The man that dishonored his mother, or despises her, as in this verse is only shortening his own life.
A wise man will have a long life, and will have a chance at the Gospel, he’ll reap righteousness in life. Peter tells Cornelius the reason why God had mercy on him, “but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:35). Those things didn’t save him, but when it came around to it, God made sure that he heard the Gospel.
Some might ask, “Why don’t the heathen in Africa hear the Gospel?” They don’t have to. They already rejected the light that they had so God isn’t under any obligation to give it to them again. Now some might think differently, and they are free to do so—but there are multitudes of people all over the world that have never heard the Gospel, died, and went to hell. And God is as just with them as He is with all the people in America that die and go to hell. We need to get it out of our mind that God is obligated to give the Gospel to any man. He will, if a man is willing to hear it.
Does God know if a man will hear it or not? Of course He does. He knows what you will do with it. He is no fool. Cornelius worked righteousness, and feared God by faith, and Hebrews says that “without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
A man has got to believe in God and believe that if he seeks God, God will reward him. If that heathen gets to seeking God and gets sorrowful for his sins and his conscience smote him, and his heart convicts him; if he submits to that conviction and light—God will get him the Gospel. If he won’t submit to that that, he won’t submit to any light.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2020 5:36:43 GMT -6
“In the light of the king's countenance is life; and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain” (Proverbs 16:15).
“In the light of the king's countenance is life,” when a king has a bright, cherry countenance he is going to promote life—he is not going to bring death—that is the same of God. Jesus Christ said, “I am the light of the world.” When a man accepts Jesus Christ as his Saviour, he gets life . . . eternal life. “In the light of the king's countenance is life.”
When a man accepts the Laws of the king and he follows them, that delights the king and makes him happy. The result is that the man will live.
“. . . and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain,” when a man obtains favor from God, he gets that rain. “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified)” (John 7:38-39).
There were two rains that God gave Israel to prosper them during the harvest season. The former rain and the latter rain. It was kind of like two rainy seasons where God gave them an abundance of rain two times a year, and as a result blessed them with real good crops. One day in the future, God is going to give Israel in one month—in the book of Joel—and that is connected with the second coming of Jesus Christ. His second coming is like the latter rains, because down from heaven will come the armies of heaven. What are the armies of heaven going to do? They are going to purge and cleanse the earth. It will wash away all the filth.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2020 5:53:03 GMT -6
“A reproof entereth more into a wise man than an hundred stripes into a fool . . . Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly” (Proverbs 17:10, 12).
Some people you can tell them over and over and over and over again until you tongue grows numb, and it doesn’t do them any good. You are flat out just wasting your breath. Just telling a wise man what he did wrong once will do more good than getting a rod out and beating a fool a hundred times with it. The wise man appreciates reproof, while the fool rejects it. Now, we can’t beat the fool as the illustration suggests, but sometimes we sure want to. A fool just never learns.
There are two ways for God to deal with a man.
The first is to reprove him, which is generally the best way to deal with a wise man, a man that is sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit in his life. I mean, none of us are perfect even after we are saved, for we are only sinners saved by grace. We are still sinners, just forgiven. We still mess up, and we still need occasional correction.
The second method is chastisement, which God will sometimes do. It is one of the proofs that we are God’s children when He occasionally takes us out to the spiritual woodshed and gives us a scourging.
“Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.”
At least the bear has a reason for what she does to someone that is threatening her cubs. A fool never has a good reason for whatever damage he causes.
“I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them” (Hosea 13:8).
“For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field: and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people” (2 Samuel 17:8).
Consider the fool and his folly of an evolutionists. No telling how much people the communists have destroyed with their notion of Marxism and evolution applied to politics. You would be better off meeting any sort of danger than a drunk behind the wheel of a car speeding down the road. You’d probably have a better chance of living.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2020 6:29:52 GMT -6
Situational ethics and personal preferences rule the world these days – do whatever you want; just be honest with your own heart; do not criticize others for their thoughts, because we are all entitled to our own opinions.
TODAY’S VERSE:
“A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself” (Proverbs 18:2 KJV).
“A fool hath no delight in understanding,” a New Testament verse that seems to capture the thought of this Proverbs is: “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (II Timothy 3:7 KJV).
Paul the Apostle ran into this crowd when he missionary journey sent him to Athens, Greece. There he met with the so-called intelligentsia that knew a lot but were completely ignorant of what really mattered.
“Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you” (Acts 17:18-23 KJV).
“Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious,” with the idea that superstitious speaks of being overly scrupulous and rigid in religious observances; full of idle fancies and scruples. That is, beliefs based upon tradition and the views of men, but not founded on the “Thus saith the Lord” of Scripture. As our Proverb for today is speaking of the “fool,” Paul understood these men to be professors of wisdom but not possessors of truth. He mentioned that in Romans: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22).
“. . . but that his heart may discover itself,” this fool is more enamored by his own opinions than any kind of truth. “Oh, that’s just your opinion,” or “The Bible is man’s opinion and mine is just as good as anyone else’s.” These people are easily recognizable because all of their thoughts regarding some religious issue is prefaced with, “I think, I think, I think,” because they possess no final authority to base their beliefs upon. This man’s gravest error is that he rejects God’s view of the human 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).
Because this has become the norm in our country, we “have sown the wind, and shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7), moral absolutes are gone; truth has vanished.
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