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

James chapter 3, the part of the chapter that I'd like to focus on is beginning there in verse number 13 where the Bible reads, Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion in every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. And what I want to preach on this morning are those three words at the end of verse 15, earthly, sensual, devilish. The Bible says that the wisdom that is not from above is earthly, sensual, and devilish. I'm not going to go into what those three words mean, but first of all, let me start out by just talking about what the term wisdom means, okay? Just looking up wisdom in the dictionary, this is what the dictionary says that wisdom means. It says, having the power of discerning and judging properly as to what is true or right, possessing discernment, judgment, or discretion. Secondly, it says, possessed of or characterized by scholarly knowledge or learning. And then thirdly, it says, having knowledge or information as to facts, circumstances, etc. So according to the Bible, there is a worldly wisdom, and it makes sense to go to a worldly dictionary to figure out what wisdom means unto this world. You know, we look up wisdom in the world's dictionary and they say, hey, this is the ability to judge properly what's right and wrong, judgment, discernment, knowledge, knowing what to do in a given situation. And the world has its own wisdom, and then God has his wisdom, and these two are diametrically opposed to one to the other. God's wisdom is the wisdom that comes from above, and then the world's wisdom is the wisdom that's not from above. And that wisdom of this world, according to the Bible, is earthly, sensual, and devilish. Now go to 1 Corinthians 2 just to find out more about the wisdom of the world. The wisdom of the world. Now if you speak unto the people of this world, they think they're pretty wise, and there are institutions of higher learning that are supposedly great centers of wisdom and knowledge and erudition and learning and scholarship, but the Bible tells us that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. There is a choice this morning. Will you follow in the path of the wisdom of this world, or will you follow in the path of the wisdom of God? Now notice the Bible doesn't say the stupidity of the world. The Bible says the wisdom of the world. This is what the world is going to lift up as being intelligent. They're going to lift it up as being sensible and right and it just makes sense and everybody agrees on it, just shut up and go along with it. That is the wisdom of the world. Then there's the wisdom of God that did not come from this world. It is not earthly. It is not sensual, and it is definitely not devilish. It comes from the Lord from heaven. But look at 1 Corinthians 2 verse 6, it says, how be it we speak wisdom, talking about those of us who are preaching the word of God. He said we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world that come to naught. He's saying the wisdom we speak is not what the world would respect or consider wise, and especially not the princes of this world. What does it mean to be prince? Prince means first. It's one who is lifted up as being a role model or a leader or someone important, and God says that they come to nothing, and that the wisdom that we speak is not the wisdom of the world. And by the way, when the world loves a certain preaching, it's the wrong preaching. Because that means that that preaching is characterized by the wisdom of the world, that's why they love it. Look, Jesus said if you were of the world, the world would love his own, but now you're not of the world, therefore the world has hated you as it has hated me. But the Bible says in verse 7, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory. And I want to point out that the wisdom of God is a mystery unto this world, and it has been hidden from the world today. They can't understand it. It will never make sense to them. Why? Well, keep reading and the Bible will tell us. It says in verse 8, which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Jump down to verse 13, 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. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Why is the wisdom of God hidden unto this world? Why is it a mystery to them? It doesn't make any sense to them. They listen to Bible preaching and they're scratching their heads, saying, what in the world? They open the Bible and read it, and I've had so many unsaved people tell me, well, I tried to read the Bible. It's total nonsense, because it cannot be received of the natural man. It is foolishness unto the world, because it's spiritually discerned. But we as Christians, when we look at the world's wisdom, it ought to be foolishness unto us. Because the Bible does say that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God. And if it's foolishness with God, it ought to be foolishness with us. We shouldn't respect it. We shouldn't look to it as an oracle to guide our lives. No. We need to stick with the wisdom that is from God and let the wisdom of this world perish with the users of it. And the world is not going to respect our wisdom, and we're not going to respect their wisdom. It's two different wisdoms. It's two different types of wisdom. They're diametrically opposed to one another. They cannot both coexist and become synthesized into just a kind of an all-around wisdom that everybody's going to respect. It doesn't work that way. You must choose what path you will take. And the decisions of your life are being guided by wisdom. Unless you're just going through life and just randomly making different decisions and doing things, no, wisdom guides your life. But the question is, is it the wisdom of the world that's guiding your life, or is it the wisdom that comes from God that's guiding your life? And it's going to change how you live your life. Now, look, if you would, at Ephesians chapter number 2, Ephesians chapter number 2. Because remember, we talked about the fact that according to the Bible, the wisdom that is of the world is earthly, sensual, and devilish. It's interesting because in Ephesians 2, we find those same three elements of earthly, sensual, and devilish. Look at Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1. It says, and you hath he quickened. And quickened means brought to life, because quick means alive. It's an old word for alive. You heard the term, the quick and the dead, means the alive and the dead. So it says, and you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world. He's talking about how you live your life was according to the way that this world tells you to live your life. In the past, you walked according to the course of this world. And he says, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. So when he talks about the way that the Ephesians had walked in the past, he said, it's according to this world. That's your earthly. And then he says, it's according to the prince of the power of the air. That's of the devil. That's the devilish aspect. And then you say, well, where's the sensual? Look at the next verse, in verse 3 it says, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh. That's the sensuality right there. In the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Go to Jude, just to get a little more insight on the word sensual. You say, what does it mean, earthly, sensual, devilish? Well earthly could also be stated as worldly. Because another term for the earth is the world. Earth and world are synonymous. So when God says earthly, what does he mean? Worldly. Same thing. Those words are used interchangeably in the Bible. When he says sensual, what he's saying is someone who lives according to the appetites of their flesh. Sensuality refers to the five senses, you know, hear, see, smell, taste, feel. It's talking about the fact that some people are governed by their physical fleshly appetites, as opposed to being governed by spiritual things. It's just all about gratifying the flesh. That's what it means to be sensual. And then of course devilish means it's satanic. You know, it's of the wicked one, it's of the devil. I mean that's a pretty simple word to understand. Look at Jude, verse 18, the Bible reads, how that they told you that there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. So who are these people who walk after their own ungodly lusts? These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the spirit. So notice, sensual is in opposition with walking according to the spirit. It's the flesh, it's the appetites of the flesh. And notice it's ungodly lusts at the end of verse 18. You say, well why are they mockers? Because the world always mocks the wisdom of God because the wisdom of God is foolishness unto them. So it makes sense that the sensual person, the worldly person, the devilish person is going to mock righteousness because the wisdom of God is foolishness unto men. And then we look at the world and it's foolishness unto us. There's got to be a difference between these two things. Now let's first talk about the earthly aspect. Go to Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter number 2 is a place where we actually find the word worldly, the exact word worldly. And this word has fallen out of fashion. It used to be when you talked about worldliness, people kind of just knew what you're talking about. Nowadays, worldly, what do you mean worldly? Worldliness? What's that supposed to mean? Well, here's the thing. If it's in the Bible, it must have some profound meaning to us or it wouldn't be in the Bible. So it's kind of silly to make a mockery of something that is, oh yeah, mockers would come. That's right. But it says in verse 11, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Reaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no man despise thee. And in this passage, we get a great definition of what it means to be worldly, worldliness. What is it to be worldly? First of all, it's worldly lusts. It's the envy and desire and covetousness of that which this world has to offer, which is not available to us as Christians. You know, God tells us that there are certain things that we're allowed to have and allowed to do and then there are certain things that we're not allowed to have and that we're not allowed to do. This goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when he put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and he said, of all the trees of the garden, thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, thou shalt not eat thereof, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. So notice there are certain things that are off limits unto man. God gives us a lot of options, what to do with our lives and what to do with our time, but there are certain things that are off limits. And lust or envy, covetousness, these words all mean the same thing, have to do with desiring that which is off limits to us, wanting something that doesn't belong to us. You know, the Bible says, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. You have your wife, covetousness is when you desire your neighbor's wife or you desire a car that you can't afford or you desire a house that you can't afford or you just desire things that don't belong to you or you want to go out and commit sins that God has told you not to commit. This is what the Bible means when it says lust or covetousness, desire, envy, these words all go together. So he says it's worldly lusts and he says in verse 13, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Also we see that worldliness has to do with being focused and fixated upon the things of this world and not having our mind on the things of God. The Bible says, set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. So the one that is earthly, their affection, their love, what they think about and care about is all on this world. It is that which is temporal as opposed to that which is eternal. So worldliness is when we are caught up in the pursuits and lusts of the things of this world not having our affection on the things of God, on heaven, on the Lord Jesus Christ and his return. That's what the Bible is saying. And if we keep going it says in verse 14, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. What does he mean by a peculiar people? A people that is different than those around them. So another aspect of worldliness that we find in this passage is being patterned after or conformed with this world system. So we see three different things here that God is defining worldliness as. It's lust and desire and envy because that's what the world is all about. That's what the unsaved man's mind is consumed with. The eyes of man are never satisfied. Lust and desire and envy and covetousness characterizes the world we live in. What's worldliness? Well not only is it that, but it's just being so focused on the things of the world as opposed to the things of God. What's worldliness? It's when you are patterned after, conformed with, and act like the world around you and there's no difference. There's no difference between the way that you live your life and the way that the world is living their life. But if we follow God there should be a big difference between our life and the lives of the people around us. God wants to purify us into a peculiar people, zealous of good works. That means that the world is impure. It means that the world is unclean. They live a dirty life. And not only that, but they are not zealous of good works. They're apathetic of doing anything good or doing anything righteous for God. They don't have zeal and passion to do something great in this world, but rather are just apathetic and just want to gratify the flesh. Go to Colossians 3, Colossians chapter number 3, just a few pages back to the left in your Bible. Colossians chapter 3. What's the sermon about? The sermon is about the wisdom of this world. The wisdom that is not from above. What is it? It's earthly, it's sensual, and it's devilish. And your life is going to be guided by wisdom. I mean unless you're just a complete imbecile that just goes through life and you're just a fool and an idiot, but you wouldn't be here if you were an idiot. Right? I mean unless somebody dragged you here. Just the fact that you're here shows that you're not stupid. But let me say this. It doesn't mean that your life is being governed by the wisdom of God because there are many intelligent Christian people who start to follow the wisdom of this world. I'm not saying that they're stupid, but they're following the wrong wisdom. They're following intelligent thought patterns of the world. Earthly intelligence, earthly, sensual, devilish, but it's not the wisdom of God. Oh it makes sense, it's logical unto them, but not according to this book. And so look at Colossians chapter 3 verse 1, it says, If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you're dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God, when Christ who is our life shall appear. Then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. For which things sake, the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience, in the which ye also walked sometime when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Look the children of disobedience, these are the things that characterize their lives. God says set your affection on things above, not on the lust and concupiscence and envy and covetousness of this world. That's what it means to be worldly. That's what it means to be earthly. And then of course the famous passage, you don't have to turn there, but if you would you can turn to Galatians chapter 5, but the famous passage in 1 John chapter 2 that says, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Again whenever we look up these scriptures on the world and worldliness and earthly lust, it's always lust that comes up. It's always envy that comes up. It's always covetousness and desire that comes up. Those are the things that are just always over, to the point of ridiculousness, to the point where if I were to preach all of it this morning it would be so redundant. I mean it's always preparing this sermon, it's just passage after passage, and they all say envy, they all say covet, they all say lust, you know when it has to do with the world that we live in. And today those aspects of worldliness have been so harnessed by advertising, and so harnessed by TV and magazine and so forth, and these mediums by people who know the worldly lustful mind, and they use it to manipulate us into thinking that we need to buy stuff that we don't need, and making us desire things that we never would have previously desired. They know how to harness this, and this is what we need to avoid, this programming of the world that wants to get us, that wants to tap into that fleshly lustful mind that dwells in all of us. Just because you're saved does not mean that you don't live in the flesh. You see when we got saved, God quickened our spirit and created in us a brand new creature in Christ, but the flesh is not a new creature. The flesh is the same old flesh, and if you walk in the flesh, you will fulfill the lust of the flesh. You're not above this just because you're saved, no, we as Christians need these admonitions, that's why half the New Testament is just telling us over and over and over again to get these type of things out of our lives. If it were automatic the moment we got saved, he wouldn't have to keep telling us to avoid these things, because it would just be automatic. We're saved now, fixed, no problem. Look at Galatians chapter 5 verse 13, it says, for brethren you've been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say then, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you're led of the spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before, as I told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Of course, a lot of people will take that verse and misunderstand it to think, hey, if you do any of those sins, you're not going to go to heaven, but actually the Bible makes it real clear, even all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. We all deserve to go to hell because of our sins, but that's what salvation is for, to forgive all that just by believing in Jesus. But here we see this list of all these sins. Now I want to jog your memory back to where we started. Go to James 3, back to where we started, because in this passage we see that the flesh and the spirit are contrary to each other, they're at war with each other. And he says if we walk in the spirit, we won't fulfill the lusts of flesh, but if we walk in the flesh, we are going to fulfill those lusts of sensuality. And then the Bible talks about the fact that the works of the flesh, that the works that are going to manifest in our lives, if we live according to the flesh, are all those horrible sins that he lists there. And on that list of sins, he actually brought up strife and he actually brought up envy. You know, those were in that list, you know, buried amongst the witchcraft and fornication and adultery and everything else. But back in James 3 where we started, look what it says in verse 13. Who is a wise man? What are we talking about? Wisdom aren't we? Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. You see, the wisdom that comes from God is a meek and humble wisdom. What's the opposite of humility? So the wisdom that's not from above, that which is earthly, sensual and devilish, is of pride. And the Bible says here in verse 14, but if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. So notice, the wisdom that comes not from above, the wisdom that is earthly, sensual and devilish, that wisdom leads to envy, which of course, good night, it's in every passage a million times, lust, covetousness, desire, envy, envy, and it says, it leads also to strife. And he says, then it will also lead to every evil, confusion and every evil work. So envying, strife, confusion, and every evil work. These are the things that characterize the world that we live in. Think about our world. Our world is a world of envy. Nobody's happy with what they have. They're not content with it. They just want more, more, more. They lust and have not. And he goes into this in the next chapter. A few verses later, I mean, you're in chapter three, just go a few verses later to chapter four, and he continues in the same thought. From whence come wars and fighting among you, does that sound like strife? From whence come wars and fighting among you, come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members, you lust and have not, you kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, you fight in war, yet you have not because you ask not, you ask and receive not because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts. What do we see? Envy, lust, strife, war, fighting, and he says this, you adulterers and adulteresses, verse four. Show ye not that the friendship of the world, there's the worldliness, there's the earthly, is enmity with God. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us, lust at the envy, but he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisted the proud, but giveth grace to the humble, we come full circle to the meekness of wisdom. Look, the Bible is so consistent, and the Bible is painting the same picture in James three and four as it painted in Colossians three, as it painted in Titus, as it painted in Ephesians two, we saw it in Jude, we see it in first John chapter two, we saw it in Galatians five, over and over again, God is drilling this into us, he's driving this into us and saying, look, the wisdom of this world, it doesn't work. It's going to lead you into a life of envy. What does that mean? You'll never be satisfied. Do you want to go through life just never satisfied? Just unhappy, just discontented, just always wishing you had something you don't have, then follow the wisdom of this world. That's how they live their life. If you want to have strife and friction and be at war with the people with whom you should be getting along, then just follow the wisdom of this world. And they have all kinds of fighting and strife and battling in this world, don't they? And whether we talk about a marriage, or whether we talk about nations, or whether we talk about, you know, at the workplace, we know that the wisdom of this world leads to strife and wars and fightings. Because that's where earthly, sensual, devilish takes you. That's where, where does the war and fighting come from? From the lust that war in your members? And the Bible is teaching us that this worldly wisdom is going to lead you into confusion. And look how the people in our world today are so confused. I mean, that word is probably the most relevant word I could think of just to describe our nation today. I mean, if there's one word in the whole Bible that I could just put on our nation, just describe America today in one word. Describe the culture to confusion. It's confusion. People are so confused today. They don't know what to do. They don't know how to live their life. They don't know which way is up. They don't even know the difference between male and female. It's confusion today. They have no foundation. They don't have the rock of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so they're tossed to and fro in a world of confusion today. And Christians today are confused. And you know why they're confused? It's not the wisdom of God that confused them. It's not the Bible that confused them. It's the wisdom of the world that's confusing people. They're getting confused. You know, they don't know what to do. They don't know what's right. Look, what is wisdom? According to the dictionary, the dictionary said, hey, it's being able to judge properly and decide what's right and wrong in a given situation. You know what? The world's confused today about what's right and wrong. Christians are confused today about what's right and wrong. There's a lot of confusion because that is the fruit of the wisdom of the world. And then he said, not only that, he said, you know, it's going to be envying. It's going to be strife. It's going to be confusion. And it's just going to lead to every evil work. And think about what the Bible said, the love of money is the root of all evil. And what is the love of money if it's not envy and lust and desire for that which does not belong to you? That's what the love of money is. And then it leads to all evil. It's the root of all evil. And the Bible says that this wisdom that is not from above, it says it will lead to every evil work. Same teaching, same consistency from cover to cover in the Bible. We keep seeing it over and over and over again, the same thing being hammered home with us that the wisdom of this world is going to lead us to a bad place that we don't want to be. I mean, that's what the Bible is teaching. But yet Christians today have often come under the influence of the wisdom of this world. And they follow the wisdom of this world in their lives. You know, just to think about some examples, and I'm not going off notes or anything. Just in my own mind, as I just kind of think about what would characterize the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of this world, you have to stop and think about what areas of life exist where there's a conflict between what the world would tell you is an intelligent, sensible, wise decision, and what the Bible would tell you is an intelligent, sensible, and wise decision in any given area of life. Then that's going to show you where the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God are divergent because, you know, just where is that conflict? Where does it exist? The biggest difference of opinion between what the world is saying is right and between what the Bible is saying is right. And here's the thing. If you follow what God says, you follow what the Bible says, you're going to lead to... Well, what's the result? Are you still in James 3? Look down at the Bible there and see the result of following the wisdom that is from above. It says in verse 17, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable. And by the way, get that order right. It's not first peaceable, then pure. The wisdom that's from above never sacrifices purity for the sake of peace. Hey, let's sacrifice some purity in order to get along. That's not the wisdom of God because the wisdom that is from above is first pure, but then it is peaceable. It's first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy. So these are all good things that we want to have in our lives as opposed to the dark place that the wisdom of the world is going to take us. You know, just to come up with some examples, you know, I think about when it comes to having kids. I mean, what's the wisdom of the world when it comes to having kids? Just two. Us four, no more is the wisdom of the world. The world's going to tell you, you know what? You need to just use some wisdom, brother. And you'll hear this even from Christians who've come under the influence of the wisdom of the world. Hey, hey, you just need to use a little bit of common sense and you need to use wisdom and you need to make a sensible decision about your family, planet, you know, that's what the wisdom of the world is going to tell you. And notice how that example fits perfectly with everything that's been taught over the last few minutes from the Bible. Because what's it based on? A lot of it's based on envy, covetousness, and lust. Why? Because it says, hey, we can have more money and nicer house and nicer car and nicer things if we just limit our children, you know, to just, you know, just a wise number. Just a sensible, reasonable number. You know, what everybody would agree is just normal and just makes sense. That's what the wisdom of the world is going to tell you, right? And you know what a lot of that leads to too? Envying and strife. Because the eyes of man are never satisfied. He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, the Bible says. You know, when you desire to just have that perfect little cookie cutter life with the white picket fence, the two children, and one of them is in soccer and one of them is in ballet and the house is perfectly manicured and the lawn is manicured and everybody looks perfect like they're peeled out of an egg all the time and everything's great and everything's wonderful. You know, you're not going to be satisfied because you got to keep up with the Joneses and you got to take it to the next level and so on because it becomes a life of self. You know what I mean? Whereas, what's the wisdom of God saying? Be fruitful and multiply. Children are a blessing. Happy is the man that hath this quiver full of them. And you say, well, how does it lead to strife? How does it lead to strife to just follow the wisdom of the world in this area? Well, you know what? The most common time for people to get divorced is the first two years of marriage or the first two years after the last child leaves the home. That's why we just keep having kids and never going to get divorced because that last child just never leaves the home practically and I just keep having more. But why? Because of the fact that when people become self-absorbed and selfish, well, there's going to be strife because myself is not always going to be compatible with yourself and so on. And it becomes all about me, me, me and so on and so forth. And so, you know, there's envy, there's strife, there's confusion, there's every evil work. You know, that's just an easy example of the world's wisdom. Throw some examples at me of the world's wisdom coming into conflict with the wisdom of God. I gave an example. What? Schooling. Schooling. Schooling. Because what is the world's wisdom going to tell you? Hey, you need to go to Devil State University, you know, this place down here in downtown Tempe that has the devil as its logo with Satan and the Pitchfork and you need to go down there and you need, look, it's just sensible. It just makes sense. It's just a wise thing to do to just get that liberal arts degree from Devil State and Satan U because then you can make money and then you can succeed financially and prosper. Isn't that what the wisdom of the world's going to tell you? But what does the wisdom of God tell you? It says, cease my son to hear the instruction that causes you to err, you know, from the path of wisdom. And I'm probably getting that verse a couple words off there. But you get the idea. What does the Bible say? The Bible says, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night. The Bible says that if I meditate in the word of God day and night, God will make my way prosperous and I will have good success. The Bible says that if I seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, that all these things will be added unto me, meaning food, drink, raiment. I'll have what I need. I'll be able to succeed. And you know what? If you know how to work hard in this world and go to the job and give it 110 percent, you will succeed in this world with or without a degree from Satan University. Period. Oh, you're against education. I'm not against education. I'm against the state university because it's a den of iniquity and it's run by atheists. All right, what's the next example? What's that? Vaccines. Yeah, vaccines. Yeah, vaccines. Yeah. Yeah. Inject yourself with these fecal matter and poison and viruses that were, you know, breed it on the back of aborted fetuses and this will keep you healthy. And then you have all the rise of the autism, the neurological disorders, the heavy metal toxicity. You know, the world, look, I don't see that wisdom in the Bible. You know, and that's why a lot of doctors and a lot of people who know about these things don't even vaccinate their kids, by the way, with this junk that they're putting in. You know, but the way, look, the medical industry has always been governed by the wisdom of the world because they go to be trained in an atheist school that believes that there's no God. And, you know, you're going to approach science differently and you're going to approach the human body and wellness differently if you believe in God and specifically in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Bible. Here's a good statement from the Bible. They that behold need not a physician, but they that are sick. You know, that's the principle that governs my life. That's foolishness. You're unwise, says the world. When I listen to the words of Jesus Christ and take them literally, when he says they that behold need not a physician, but they that are sick. Oh, you're against that? No, I'll go to the doctor when I'm sick. But when I'm well, I won't because they that behold need not a physician. The world today and their wisdom, you know, is governed by the lust of money, which is the root of all evil. Look, every evil in this world, somebody's making money. Big Pharma. There's a pharmaceutical industry that wants you sick and wants to make money off your sick carcass. And there are people out there that want to get you addicted to the worst kinds of foods and the worst kinds of drinks and to teach you to be sedentary and lazy and slothful and to eat junk and then to be reliant upon their medical system to prop up your dying, sickly, unhealthy cadaver. What's the next one? Somebody hit me. Hit me. Yeah, spanking. Yeah. What's the world going to tell you about spanking? Yeah, burial. Yeah. We talked about that. Yeah. Spanking. Spanking your kids. What's the world's wisdom going to tell you? Oh, no, no, no. The timeouts. And by the way, our whole stinking country is putting millions of people in timeout called prison. It's a big timeout. Seriously. You say, what in the world? Prison? What's wrong with prison? Prison should not exist. The world's wisdom says lock people in a cage when they do wrong. If they own, you know, if they smoke pot or if they do something with drugs or commit a crime, steal, whatever, you know, lock them in a cage. That's what the world's system teaches, don't they? Isn't that what the wisdom of the world is? Of course you put people in prison when they're criminals. You're a fool if you don't believe. Right. Says the world that I'm a fool when I follow the wisdom of God. You know, God laid out a whole criminal punishment system in the Bible and you know what's conspicuously absent from God's criminal justice system? Prison. Why? Because prison is a fraud. Because prison is a privatized industry that makes people, look, it's always the money that's behind it. And you know who makes money off the prison industry? The people who provide the meals, the people who provide the buildings and they construct the buildings, the people who provide the security. And by the way, in our own city here, in our county with Sheriff Joe, the Roman Catholic animal worshiper who thinks that animals are more important than human beings, he treats his prisoners like animals. And then he's always this animal rights activist as he treats his prisoners like animals and puts them in pink underwear and makes them eat bologna sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oh, that's great. He's tough on crime. No, he's ruining people's lives. He's destroying people's lives. You say, oh, now anybody who goes to jail is a bad person. Yeah, sort of like Peter and James and John and Jesus and Stephen, right? Anybody who goes to jail. Look, my friend went to Sheriff Joe's jail for two days and two nights because he was fishing without a license. He actually caught one of the king's, actually he didn't even catch anything. He was trying to catch one of the king's fish in Sherwood Forest and the Sheriff of Nottingham threw him in tent city for two days and two nights and put him in pink underwear and made him eat bologna sandwiches. You know, oh, he's tough on crime. No, he's ruining people's lives. He's hurting people. And you know what, when you put somebody in a cage for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days or even worse, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, you destroy their life. Because you know what, people who get sentenced to a prison sentence, 80% or so of their wives will leave them. You just destroyed a marriage right there because 80% of the wives are leaving them. Not only that, you're pretty much going to lose your job. Not only that, you carry around this criminal felony record for the rest of your life that prevents you from being a productive and you know, a good godly citizen and so forth. It's hard for you to pick up and start again and turn over a new leaf. Look, the wisdom of this world has such a great system of just locking people up in a cage and they say that God's punishments are cruel and unusual. No, it's cruel and unusual to lock someone in a cage, especially in solitary confinement. And by the way, virtually every person who is put in solitary confinement for long term goes insane and completely loses their mind. Did you know that? Go to the supermax prison of Florence, Colorado in the United States of America and virtually every inmate there is a complete lunatic. Because the human mind cannot handle solitary confinement for months and years on end. What does the wisdom of God say? The wisdom of God says that there are basically, you know, just to kind of oversimplify the whole mosaic law, pretty much gives three punishments for crimes. You know, crimes that are really bad are punished by death. Things like murder, rape, adultery, kidnapping, things like that, just really bad stuff is punishable by death. And by the way, it's only first degree murder. It's punishable by death. Then and sodomy, thank you. How can I forget? I forget because I know someone will remind me. But then we have secondly, crimes that are lesser crimes. And guess what they're punished with? A beating. Oh, it's horrible, it's cruel. But yet, if we went up and down the prisons of the United States of America and asked every inmate, would you take a beating right now? Would you take 20 lashes or 30 lashes, because remember, God put a limit of 40 lashes. Would you take 30 lashes right now to be released? They'd all take it. And if you ask criminals, if they're put in front of the judge and the judge says, okay, you know, I find you guilty, or better yet, the jury, because the Sixth Amendment says that every criminal trial supposedly gets a jury. You know, if the jury says guilty, then the judge would say, okay, if he asked them, would you rather go to prison for X amount of months or years, or would you rather take X amount of just stripes, just receive the beating and it's over and there's no criminal record? What do you think the prisoners would take? 99.9% of them would say, I'll take the beating, I'll take the flogging. And yet, if we flogged anyone today, they would say it's cruel and unusual punishment. What's cruel? Ruining a marriage? Ruining someone's record? Ruining someone's life? Locking them up in a cage? Look, man desires freedom. Man desires to be outside. I mean, we like to go where we want to go and do what we want to do and enjoy the sky and the sun and the trees and have freedom. That's how God made us. He doesn't make us be locked in a concrete box. That is cruel to put someone in prison. But the wisdom of God says death, a beating, or if it's a financial matter, if it has to do with stealing, you pay back the money that you stole fourfold. You pay back, you steal $100, you pay back $400. And here's the thing. If someone stole from me, I'd rather that they gave me four times as much as they stole from me than that they went and got locked in a cage somewhere. And nowadays when our government finds anybody, they keep the money. But in the Bible, the fine goes to the victim, you know? And I mean, you could steal from me all you want if I'm getting four times as much even if they only catch half the criminals. I'm still doubling my money every time. It just makes sense. Oh, that's foolishness. Yeah, you're brainwashed by the world if you think what I'm saying. It's Bible. It's the wisdom of God. It comes from above. It didn't come from the world. It didn't come from your flesh. It didn't come from the devil. It came from God. It came from the Bible. But the world's wisdom did come from the devil and the world and the sinful flesh of man. Anyway, the judges are supposed to be the one that has to observe the beating. Bible's real clear that they lay down on their stomach in front of the judge and the beating is administered. Because right now the judge just says guilty and then goes home to his comfortable house and doesn't even see the carnage that he's caused. Five years. See, you never hear from you again, never see from you again. He doesn't have to see the tears and the pain and the children. What about the children in these homes where dad is put in prison? Oh, they're going to turn out great in that home with no father in the home. Oh, but he smoked pot. But you know what, though? All of sin comes short of the glory of God. So what? And you know what? I'm not condoning of drugs. I've never taken any drugs in my life. I don't drink. I don't chew. I don't go with girls who do. I have not even tasted a beer in my life. But you know what, though? You can't just sit there and destroy people's lives because they make these mistakes. If it's not worthy of death, according to the Bible, then you don't have the right to destroy life. You know, give them the beating and it's done and it's over and you move on with your life and no criminal record. Criminal record is unbiblical and worldly wisdom. No one should have a criminal record. When you're punished, it's supposed to be forgiven and forgotten when you're punished. But the wisdom of the world says, well, we have to have a criminal record. Shut up. You know, we ought to have the background check. You know, make sure there's no pedophiles. Pedophiles should all be dead. You don't have to do a background check. You say, well, but if somebody stole in the past, you know, we need to know that. No, you don't. Let him that stole steal no more. But let him work that which is good in the sight of God with his own hands. Look, you've got to give people another chance to start over. The world's wisdom says, well, if he stole, I want to know about that 20 years later so I know if I can trust him. God's wisdom says if he's been punished for stealing, it's never mentioned to him again. We never talk about it again. You know, I'm not going to ask for a raise of hand of who has stolen something, but probably a lot of hands would go up. You want to live that down or you want to hang that over your head for the rest of your life? It isn't right. What's next? This is interact. Yeah, fornication. Exactly. This is interactive preaching. All right. There we go. This brings up fornication. What does the world tell you is wisdom. Hey, look, it's just wise. It's just intelligent. It just makes sense, you know, not to marry someone unless you've already been with them first, you know, in bed. That's what they did. Isn't that what the world will tell you? You got to make sure you're compatible. Hey, listen, if you're male and she's female, you're compatible in the bedroom. You know, insert slot A into tab B, my friend, because it's that simple, okay? It's, oh, you got to make sure you're compatible. That's what the world will tell you. And you know what? It's a fact. Look at the statistics. People who live together before they're married are more likely to get divorced. Oh, but they tried it out first. Yeah, funny how the world's wisdom ends in strife and confusion and failure. God's wisdom that says that you keep yourself pure and virgin and then get married, that's what works. And amazingly, men and women turn out to be compatible across all, you know, I mean, good night. Just, oh, you know what? We, we, we tried to do it and turned out we weren't compatible. That doesn't happen. It's bogus. Couldn't figure it out. You know what? It's nonsense. But you know what? The wisdom of the world's total foolishness on all fronts. God's wisdom says stay pure. Yeah, because you know what? The world's wisdom makes so much sense. Yeah, go out and fornicate and be with all these people. Yeah, that's not going to give you trouble in your marriage later. No, actually, you're going to wish when you're married that that's the only person that you've been with if you go out and do those things. And you say, well, everybody does it. No, they don't. There are people that are virgin and pure when they, by the way, I was a virgin when I got married. And by the way, lots of people that are Christian people have that same testimony. It's not as rare as you think. But the world wants to get you to think, hey, everybody does it. Everybody's out there doing it. No, they're not. No, they are not. Because people still follow the Bible and it still works. What else? Age of the earth. What is it? Age of the earth. The age of the earth, yeah. The world's got their own facts, don't they? Their own intelligence, their own wisdom, how everything came from nothing. And if you don't believe it, you're crazy because of course everything came from nothing. What does the Bible say? In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. What else? Retirement. Yeah. Yeah, what's the world tell you about retirement? You need to have at least a million. You need to at least have a million dollars in the bank in order to retire. And it's all this retirement, retirement. You want to know about God's retirement plan? God's got a retirement plan. Number one, it's called having kids and they take care of you. Number two, it's called if you don't have kids, then the church will take care of you. Number three, it's called work until you die. You know, but if you get to where you can't, you got family and you've got the church and you've got the Lord to fall back on and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. And when you have these three things to fall back on, hey, I've got my family and hey, I've got the local church and hey, I've got the Lord himself that are going to take care of me, then, you know, that's way more secure than any 401k, than any retirement plan, any IRA or Roth IRA or whatever it is, you know, any stock market portfolio. You say, well, you got to diversify your assets. Yeah, I know. That's why I have eight kids. Diversify the portfolio. Got some boys, got some girls, you know, got church, got it. But here's the thing. People don't want to invest in family. People don't want to invest in church. People don't want to invest in the Lord. So what do they do? Well, then you got to invest in Pepsi and Apple and oil companies. You know, you got to invest in the world's, you know, Jewish banking system. There, I said it. You know, you got to invest in the usury and wickedness of Wall Street. Why? Because you don't want to invest in what God told you to invest in. God said invest in your family. God said invest in the local church. Say I don't have family. Well, do you have a church? Invest in church. I'm talking about with your love and affection and your time and your energy and your friendship. Look, if you have that network of family and you have that network of church and then you have the Lord and his promises that say, my God shall supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus and that if you seek first the kingdom of God, all these things will be added under you. Look, you're going to be fine, but when you don't want to do that, when you just want to have the one kid or the two kids or whatever and then when you want to sit there and abstain from church and go out and, well, that's just my one day off, you know, to do what I really want to do. Well, you know, if you don't want to invest in what God told you to invest in, then yeah, you got to have all the world's investments and lay up treasures upon the earth where moth and rust is corrupt and where thieves break through and steal instead of laying up treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal. And guess what? Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. I don't want my heart to be in the Wall Street Journal. I don't want to wake up in the morning and say, where's the Wall Street Journal? You know, where's my phone? I got to check my investments. You know, I got to see where, you know, Wall Street's at. I got to see where my investments are. I got to see what the price of a Bitcoin is this morning, you know. I got to figure out where my investments are today. And by the way, I have 25 cents of Bitcoin. And I checked it and it went up to 26. And then I checked again, went back down to 25. But you know, there's a very small part of my heart in that investment because it's only 25 cents, you know. But you know what? I've got a huge investment in my family. I've got a huge investment in church and in the work of God. That's the retirement plan that God has ordained. What else? Hit me. Music, yeah, the world's attitude toward music is basically to tell you that it's going to soothe you and fix all your problems. You know, there was a guy who tried that in the Bible. His name was Saul. Oh, music will fix you up. Next thing you know, he's trying to murder David while he's listening to the music that's supposedly going to fix everything. You know, we need to look to God to be our spiritual comforter. And the Bible says to speak to ourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts of the Lord. By the way, when you sing songs of the Lord, it'll change your spirit. It'll change your attitude. It'll lift your spirit and make you feel a lot more encouraged and so forth than basically the world's music is going to do for you. What else have we got? The police? Yeah. Man, we're getting political this morning. The police, yeah. Yeah, the world's wisdom is, of course we got to have the police. But in the Bible, it was the citizen police force. I mean, if you actually study the Bible, it was the citizens are armed, the citizens protect themselves. And you know, we're not talking about just a total vigilante justice because there were the judges there to make sure that everything was done properly. But all citizens are armed and protect themselves. You know, and even today, we have the vestiges of that with the citizen's arrest. I mean, still to this day, it's legal to do a citizen's arrest if there is a crime in progress or if a felony is about to be committed, you can do a citizen's arrest. And by the way, the police are not even required to protect you anyway. All kinds of courts have found that that's not their job to protect you. They can't keep you safe. You got to keep yourself safe. And again, that's a study of the Mosaic law that's going to show you that that's what the wisdom of God teaches. Anything else? Diet? OK, well, what's the world's diet that we need to stay away from? That's not even the wisdom of the world. Not even the wisdom of the world's going to tell you to go to McDonald's, OK? That's the foolishness. That's the... Yeah. But you know what? OK, I got something for you. All right. You know, I don't want to disappoint anybody here this morning. You know, with the wisdom of the world on diet, paleo diet. It's getting a little quiet in here. But let me say this. Paleo diet? Like we're all a bunch of stinking chimpanzees or something. I mean, isn't that what the paleo diet teaches? Oh, we didn't evolve to eat grain and we didn't evolve, you know, we need to eat the way that our caveman ancestors ate and so forth, right? The reason it's called paleo diet is because it's going back to the paleolithic era, you know, back millions and millions of years ago and we have not properly evolved yet to eat grain. Well, let's see, I think the Bible said something like, give us this day our daily bread. And then, OK, here's another. Now look, a lot of the bread that we eat today is total junk. That's the problem. Bread's not the problem. It's the type of bread that we're eating that's the problem. Because if you eat the sprouted grains and the sourdoughs and the things that are actually made from, you know, grain that's been prepared properly, it actually can be very nutritious and good for you. It's just that, you know, there's a lot of nutritionless bread out there and so forth. But, you know, another thing when it comes to diet is this idea of, hey, we need to all go vegan. That didn't come from the Bible. I mean, you know who was the first vegan? Cane. Cane was the first vegan. All right. Now, this veganism, and a lot of Christians will try to say, oh, well, you know, the Garden of Eden. Look, we're not in the Garden of Eden, buddy. And look, the meat by the skin, OK, after they sinned, you know, that animal was killed in the skins. And look, Abel wasn't a keeper of the sheep for his health. He was keeping the sheep for the meat and the dairy, OK? But the thing is, when we study the Bible on diet, the Bible teaches the eating of meat all throughout the Bible. The Levitical priesthood was commanded to eat meat. Aaron was chewed out by Moses when he skipped a meaty meal, OK, in the book of Leviticus. And here's what the Bible says in the New Testament. One believeth that he may eat all things. Another who is weak eateth herbs. Ouch. And you know what? That's why a lot of these vegans look like they're really undernutrition or malnourished. They look like they're from a concentration camp sometimes. Now look, are there exceptions? Well, I know this big, muscular vegan dude. Well, you know what, the exception proves the rule. But you and I both know there are a lot of vegans that are way underweight. And a lot of men who are fitting into those skinny jeans way too well because of a vegan diet, OK? You know, I don't want to be that weak dude that eats herbs. You know, I want to eat all things. Amen? Amen. Yeah. So you say the Bible, you know, milk is good. And by the way, there's not a person on this planet who's been a lifelong vegan or they'd be dead right now. Because you know, an infant must eat that animal product according to them, right? Because they think we're all animals. You know, the wisdom of this world teaches that we're an animal. You know, every single vegan started out with a Genghis Khan type diet of just all milk, milk and meat and dairy, you know? I mean, look, nobody's been a vegan their whole life. And in fact, a woman tried to give her baby a vegan diet from birth. And the baby died. And she was brought up on criminal charges. Oh, I just don't want to eat anything that's not vegan. You know, and the kid died because a baby has to drink milk. Or you know, there's formula, which is just trying to synthesize and imitate that which is milk. OK. So you know, this whole trendy diet of oh, the paleo, oh, the vegan. You know, I always test any dietary advice with scripture. You know, when I hear about the latest nutritional kick, I like to go to scripture and see, OK, you know, does this jive with the wisdom of God? And I'm into nutrition. You know, I'm into eating healthy. But I always make sure that it jives with the wisdom of God. And you know, I've known people of people who were really, really fit and really healthy and you know, no grain, no bread, you know what? But then sometimes they don't live a long time. And then you look at it and you're kind of like, well, was that good for the long run to just abstain from all grains lifelong or for decades or whatever? You know, I'm sorry. I'm not going to get caught up in the trends of this world. The Bible says meat. The Bible says bread. And by the way, margarine is not found in scripture. It's butter. Butter is found in scripture. And by the way, the Bible says salt is good. And how many times you hear, oh, salt's bad for you. And then they're like, oh, wait a minute. We just figured out it's not bad for you. Yeah, we already knew that. And by the way, give eggs a break, OK? Eggs are good for you. You know, it says the world and their trends and the paleo and the veganism and the vegetarianism and everything like that. You know, I'd rather go with the wisdom of God. And this sermon has gotten way off topic, you know. This is the last time I'm going to let you guys control the sermon. No, I'm just kidding. Wait, man, good night. Where did we get off on this? You know, we start out with talking about major life decisions. You know, how many kids are you going to have? You know, what are you going to do with your life? What are you going to be educated? What are you going to do for a living? And then it just degenerates to like, hmm, I'm sure to think about lunch. You know, it's 1145. What's the Bible say about food? What's it say about diet, you know? Is that a hint, like we need to get out of here or what? All right, well, let's close in prayer and be done with it. All right, Father, we thank you so much for the service, Lord. And God, help us not to be bamboozled by the world, Lord. We saw so much scripture that just put together such a complete picture of what the world's wisdom is like, where it comes from, what the source of it is, what the end of it's going to lead to, Lord, just the bad fruit it's going to bear in our life, Lord. Help us to just quit listening to the world. Quit listening to unbelievers and the ungodly princes of this world that seem to have all these answers for us, Lord, and help us to open the Bible every single day and find the answer. Help us to sit in a church and hear the Word of God preached to get the answer and then go home and search the scriptures daily, whether these things are so. Help us to follow and to walk according to the wisdom that is from above, not the wisdom of this world. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen. All right, let's sing another song before we go. All right, we broke the record. How many do we have? 144. 144, so our old Sunday morning record was 141. And today we're at 144. That means we all get ice cream after the service. What?