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

the power of the Holy Ghost so that we, your children, would grow more and more in your word. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Man, Proverbs chapter number 16 is probably the chapter in Proverbs that contains the most difficult verses or certain verses that are hard to understand and seem to be a little bit counterintuitive or right on the surface, their meaning is kind of dark. And so I'm gonna try to illuminate this as much as I can tonight. And as we go through this, it's important to remember a few just basic principles of studying the Bible. First of all, number one, we need to know what genre we're reading. When we're reading the book of Proverbs, we're often dealing in generalities, things that are generally true. If you honor your parents, you're gonna live long on the earth. And if you don't listen to advice, you're gonna be poor. Obviously you can find exceptions to these things, but the exception proves the rule. In general, that's the way the world works, okay? But secondly, it's always important that when we're reading the Bible, we take every statement in the context, the greater context of the entire Bible. So if we're reading a verse and it seems to contradict something that is said elsewhere, we need to make sure that we come to an understanding where both can be true or where all of the scripture is brought into alignment. So I'll put it this way. If I have a hundred verses telling me that salvation is by faith, and then I have one verse that seems to be saying that salvation is by works, which one do you think I'm misunderstanding? You think I'm misunderstanding the hundred clear statements about salvation being by faith or the one that seems to be indicating that it's by works, right? So that's kind of a way that we wanna approach the Bible is just making sure that it doesn't contradict anything that's taught somewhere else and that whatever understanding we walk away with, everything jives at the end of the day. So the Bible says here in verse number one of chapter 16, the preparations of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. And this first verse is already kind of a difficult verse. What is he saying here? The preparations of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. I mean, is every single person who speaks and gives an answer did that answer come from the Lord? Because a lot of people give a lot of stupid answers and say a lot of dumb things. And so obviously that can't be what the Bible means here. Now, there are people out there that have just these extreme predestination, deterministic views that just believe that every single thing that happens is God's will and God's controlling everything and making everything happen. But this is a false doctrine, okay? We know that to be a false doctrine because of the fact that scripture in many places demonstrates to us that God's will is not always happening. For example, the Bible says, God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Question, do any perish? Yes, do all come to repentance? No, so for someone to say, well, God's will always happens. Well, no, it doesn't because God's not willing that any should perish. God would have all men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of the truth, yet we don't see that happening, do we? Because man has free will and God has set before us life and death, a blessing and a curse, and he tells us choose life. Now, if God tells us choose life, oh, just kidding, you don't actually have a choice. Wouldn't that be kind of disingenuous of God to tell us to pick? And he's like, oh, I already picked. That's nonsense, it's wrong. The Bible talks about many things that happen that are not God's will. Kings that did things that were not of God and where God says, that didn't even come into my mind. I never commanded that. Neither did that even come into my mind. And so God is not the author of confusion and yet confusion abounds in our world. People say things that cause confusion. And so we don't want to just read a verse like this and just come to some radical conclusion that, well, you know, everything that anybody says is from the Lord. I think there are two truths at a minimum. I'm sure there are many wonderful truths that we could pull from this verse because the Bible's so deep. But I think a couple of truths that we can pull from this verse is that, number one, you know, we could look at it as prescriptive instead of descriptive. Basically that the preparation of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue, you know, that basically that that should be from the Lord or that it's good when it's from the Lord, okay? For example, the Bible talks about in the New Testament that when we are arrested for preaching the gospel and we're brought before kings and governors to take no thought how or what we should speak because it will be given us in that same hour what we shall speak. And we know that as New Testament Christians, the Holy Spirit of God leads us and guides us. And many times we will be led as far as what to say in a certain situation. And the Holy Spirit will bring God's word to our remembrance. And so the preparation of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Being ready always to give an answer to every man that ask of us concerning the hope that is in us. That's from the Lord. You know, the wisdom that I preach as a preacher, anything good about my preaching is from the Lord. It's not something that I'm just so wise and creative. No, anything good about my preaching is derived from the Bible. If I preach something that's wrong, I came up with that myself, thank you very much. And so the point is that this verse could be looked at as prescriptive in that way. Another way of looking at it is just in general about human beings in general, that the preparations of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. God has created human beings with the ability to reason and think and speak in general. And so the ability to even prepare something in your heart and answer with your tongue comes from the Lord because the animals have not been given that. But that God has created us with that ability to reason. So that, you know, those are a couple of other truths that we could pull from this verse. But what we don't wanna do is walk away with this wrong idea that everybody that says anything at any time, you know, that was God's idea or something, because that's really an absurd way of reading this verse. And there are some other verses later in the chapter that are gonna tie in with that. And that's why I'm kind of stopping and taking a little time on this first verse, because it's gonna come in to play a little bit later as well. So look at verse number two. All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth the spirits. So most people think that they're right, don't they? Most people think that the way that they're living their life is the right way. And all the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth the spirits. What the Bible is saying there is that, you know, we're not the judges of whether we're good or whether we're living right. At the end of the day, God's the one who makes that judgment, okay? And God looks inside, He can weigh the spirits, and He will find out our flaws and our sins, and He knows our weaknesses. You know, when we go out soul winning, we talk to so many people whose ways are clean in their own eyes. I mean, just today alone, you know, we're just out soul winning, and how many people told us live a good life? You know, of course, we were talking to a lot of people in Spanish, so their way to heaven is portarse bien, you know? That's just what they say. I've heard that a million times. Portarse bien is like just do good, right? Just behave correctly, live right. I mean, that's what they, and they say, I'm going to heaven because I live right. But of course, God weighs that spirit, and it's sort of like the handwriting on the wall. You're going to be weighed in the balances and found wanting because you are not as right as you think you are because we're all, we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, no, not one. So God weighs the spirit. God can look inside, and He knows what's inside of us. And just because our ways are clean in our own eyes, God sees through that, and He knows our sinfulness as humans. He says in verse number three, commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. This is a great verse because obviously our minds and our hearts have wrong things in them. We think stupid things all the time. And the Bible even says the thought of foolishness is sin. That's why it's crazy when people say that they don't sin, because even just thinking something stupid is a sin. And I'll be honest with you, I think all kinds of stupid things. I have all kinds of thoughts come into my head that are unwelcome thoughts, ungodly thoughts that come into my mind. And obviously we want to have a clean mind. We want to have a pure mind. We want to have a righteous mind, but yet as human beings in this sinful flesh, we have unwelcome thoughts come into our mind and temptations and just foolishness and just wrong emotions that we feel. And how do we fix our mind? How do we fix our brain? Especially if you have spent a lot of time out in the world before you got saved, you probably filled your mind with a bunch of garbage, just from going a lot of bad places, hanging around with a lot of weird people, consuming a lot of bad media. And so you just get a lot of junk in your mind. How do you get rid of that stuff? And you know, one of the best things that we can do to get our mind right is to get our actions right. Now, this is kind of a circle because obviously our mind is controlling our actions. And if our heart is good, then that's gonna lead to good works. And if we have a bad heart, it's gonna lead to bad actions. But also the reverse is true, that if we start doing good actions, that can actually help us have better thoughts. And so the Bible says, if we commit our works unto the Lord, then our thoughts will be established. So by reading my Bible, going out soul winning, working hard at my job, by doing the right things, I'm kind of reprogramming my mind to think in the right way, just as going out and doing bad things is programming my mind wrongly. And you know, the Bible says, keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. And so we need to guard our heart and keep our heart with all diligence. And the things that we do in life, in many ways are programming our brains one way or another. And so doing sinful things is programming you to be worse next time. It's like the more sins you commit, the more sins you're going to commit, because it's this cyclical relationship of your actions, programming your mind wrong, and your mind causes you to act wrong, and it's a vicious circle. Or you can turn that thing around and start doing good and thinking in a more godly, righteous way. So if you commit your works to the Lord, your thoughts will be established. It says in verse four, the Lord has made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. And again, this is a verse that we don't want to misunderstand. We don't want to take this hardcore predestination view that says that, you know, God just created people, and he just created them specifically just to damn them. And they never had a chance. I don't believe that for one second. I believe that Jesus Christ tasted death for every man, that he will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, that he gave himself a ransom for all, that God so loved the world, God didn't so love whosoever believeth, God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believeth in him would not perish, but have everlasting life. But that's two different groups. There's the world and whosoever believeth. The world is who he died for. Whosoever believeth is who's going to heaven. That payment is effective for whosoever believeth. So I don't believe that this is saying that God just made a specific person to damn them. I think what it's saying is that God created the wicked in general for his purposes, not deciding who is going to be saved and who is going to be unsaved, but deciding there are gonna be righteous people and there are gonna be wicked people, there are gonna be saved people, there are gonna be unsaved people. God has predestinated that those who believe on Christ will be conformed to the image of his son. He predestinated those of us who are saved to be conformed to the image of his son, to be glorified, to someday rule and reign with him. We have this destiny that's predetermined as saved Christians, but here's what God did not do. God did not, in eternity past, just be like, Stephen Anderson, yes. And then somebody else, who's somebody who's, you know, Joe Biden, no, he's going to hell. God didn't just pick that specific people. He decided in general that, okay, there are gonna be wicked people and he's going to allow those wicked people to exist, even though he knows that they're not gonna get saved, even though he knows they're gonna end up going to hell, he still has created them and allowed them to exist because God could have just, you know, started to create the world and started to create humans and then just all of a sudden just like saw the future about everything and just been like, whoa, this is a bad idea. There's all these wicked people. But God created those wicked people for himself. Everything ultimately brings him glory. And so even the wicked have been created for the day of evil. And so there is gonna be a day when God just destroys a bunch of wicked people on this earth. There's gonna be a day at that great white throne of judgment when all kinds of people are cast in the lake of fire. And ultimately that glorifies God, but it's not that God picked which people would be there. That's the error of Calvinism. It's that God has made wicked people in general, but you decide which group you wanna be in. And again, what did God tell us? Choose. I've said before you this day, life and death, choose life, okay? You can choose life or you can choose death. It's up to you. But most people are going to hell. Broad is the way that leads to destruction. Many there be which going there at because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. But you individually personally probably already have decided because obviously most of us are already saved. Then you've already decided which side of that equation you're gonna be on. And so you're saved and going to heaven because you chose life, okay? But everyone out there has that same opportunity to choose. Jesus died for Joe Biden and he could have chosen to be saved and listen a little more carefully to what the Palmist wrote and actually got salvation at some point. But he didn't. He decided to be what, a Roman Catholic? Is that what he is? So he decided to be a pagan idolater instead. And he doesn't believe in justification by faith, right? Because that's not what the Catholics believe. They believe in justification by works. And so one day he will be judged by his works and he's gonna be found wanting. And so the Lord had made all things for himself gay, even the wicked for the day of evil. God has given us free will fully knowing that all these wicked people are gonna exist, but those wicked people ultimately bring him glory because he's ultimately glorified by their damnation, okay? And maybe that's hard for us to fully grasp or understand, but it's true. The Bible says in verse five, everyone that is proud and hard is an abomination to the Lord. Though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished. So God hates pride. We need to be careful not to let that particular sin creep into our lives. By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged and by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. We need preachers to preach on the fear of God because it causes men to depart from evil. We don't want preaching that strengthens the hands of the evil doers by making it seem like God is not going to punish or that God's not going to judge. Now, obviously heaven and hell are the big ones, right? When it comes to believing on Christ and going to heaven or rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ and going to hell. But even our actions on this earth though, have consequences in the here and now, don't they? And so we need to fear God, even though we're saved and we can never lose our salvation because we have everlasting life. God has other ways of hurting us. And so we need to live our lives with fear and trembling, realizing that God can really punish us severely on this earth. And so that fear of the Lord caused us to depart from evil. I mean, think about it. We're all human beings. We all have human nature. Ideally, the love of Christ would just cause us to do all the right things. But I'll be honest with you, I'm 41 years old. I've been saved for 35 years. And over the last 35 years, there were some times that I wanted to do something wrong and I didn't do it because I was scared of what God would do to punish me if I did it. Who would say, yeah, that's me too. There's stuff that I wanna do. And I'm like, I'm not gonna do that. I mean, think about when I was a teenager, there were all these temptations and it's like, yeah, I loved Christ, but you know, if I just thought there were no consequences, you know, in my wickedness as a sinful human being, because we, look, what did the Apostle Paul say? He said, in me, that is in my flesh, dwell with no good thing. So even though you're saved and you have the new man and the spiritual man and you delight in the law of God after the inward man, what about the flesh? Sometimes the flesh is like, hey, let's go do X, Y, and Z. But the fear of God is like, no way, not worth it, because God will judge. And so the fear of the Lord keeps us living right when the love of God is not first and foremost in our mind. Ideally, we move from fear to love to where we're mainly motivated by our love for Christ and we're not really thinking as much about the fear of God. But let's face it, we're human. The love of Christ is not always at the very front of our mind. And so this is like a safety net where the fear of God is like, you know, it's like, son, would you do this because you love me? And he's like, no. Well, do it because if you don't, I'm gonna give you a spanking. Now all of a sudden he's gonna do it. You see what I'm saying? Now I would like to just say to my son, like, son, would you get me a glass of milk? Sure, dad. You know, and that's the way it usually goes. But it's like, no. Okay, give me a glass of milk or else. Now all of a sudden the milk shows up. Okay, and this is how it works with God too. We're his children, right? And so ideally, his wish would be our command and that whatever he wants, we would just do it because we just love God and wanna be helpful and wanna do the things that please him. But let's face it, sometimes he has to, you know, give us a little bit more stick and less carrot. And so by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged. And by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. You know, hopefully in our lives, we're constantly being purged, purified, cleaning up our lives, right? God's mercy and God's truth, the goodness of God leadeth us to repentance. And that, you know, God's goodness and his mercy and the truths of God's word will purge our iniquity. And by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil, right? So there are a few different things that work in our lives that are helping us clean up our lives. God's mercy, God's truth, the love of God, and also just, hey, I'm scared to do something stupid because God's gonna kick my butt. That matters too. And so there are too few churches preaching that, unfortunately, when it's so important. Look at verse seven. When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. This is another generality, right? And by the way, let me just emphasize to you that his enemies are not necessarily the same as God's enemies. Okay? There are people out there that are just sons of Belial, reprobates, haters of God, enemies of the Lord. These people you're probably never gonna get along with because they're just so froward and evil and wicked and variant. They're everybody's enemy because they're enemies of the Lord. But you know, our personal enemies are typically not reprobates. They're typically people who've just done us wrong. They've harmed us or wronged us in some way. You know, let's say you're at work and some guy lies about you at work, gets you in trouble at work, or just talks bad about you to the boss. And let's say that you have a neighbor and they're being too loud and then you tell them to quiet down and then some feud ensues and then they start tormenting you. And that's your enemy, right? People that are causing you problems, harming you, lying about you, criticizing you, gossiping about you, whatever, just they want to hurt you, they're out to get you. And how does the Bible say that we should deal with people who are out to get us? The Bible says we should love our enemies. You know, the last few days in my personal Bible reading, I've been reading about David fleeing from King Saul. And he's such a great example of this because Saul is his enemy. I mean, Saul wants to kill him. Saul threw a javelin at him. Saul's hunting him with 3,000 troops and he's out there hunting him and trying to kill David. But is Saul a reprobate? No, I mean, Saul's the Lord's anointed. And so we see David loving his enemies because when David's enemy Saul dies, how does David react to that? David is sincerely sad about that. He's sorrowing, he's mourning, and he's lamenting the deaths of both Saul and Jonathan. And so he loved his enemies. I believe he truly did love King Saul in his heart. And it really just hurt him that Saul hated him so much. But I get it because I've been in situations like that in life where somebody hated me or persecuted me in some way, but I love them. And, you know, it can be heartbreaking when someone you love turns on you and hurts you that way. But here's the thing about that. That's him loving his enemies. We're in situations like that too, where we have people wrong us. Even if they're not saved, it doesn't mean that they're a reprobate or a hater of God. And so we're to love our enemies. And that's the type of person, the same person that he's talking about when he says love your enemies is the same thing he's talking about when he says, when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. So God will basically protect us from our enemies. And a lot of times he will allow us to turn our enemies into friends, okay. And this happened with David, although Saul continued to persecute David multiple times. You know, there are some situations where David speaks to Saul and says, you know, I had the opportunity to kill you and I didn't kill you because I'm not gonna put forth my hand and touch the Lord's anointed. I don't hate you. I'm not your enemy. I haven't done anything wrong. And then Saul says, oh, you're blessed David. And I'm sorry. And I shouldn't be doing this and right. So that's kind of the Lord making his, even his enemy to be at peace with him in a sense that at least Saul listened to reason. Maybe it was too late, or maybe it was just because he almost got killed a minute ago, but he still at least listened to reason, you know, or you could say it's the exception that proves the rule. But the Bible says that we should try to overcome evil with good, right? So if we have, you know, we had a neighbor years ago that was tormenting us and my wife baked her some treats and then the woman treated us really well after that. You know, and sometimes you just, just a little gesture can really go a long way. And by the way, here's just some life wisdom for you. Don't ever go to war with your neighbors ever for any reason because you have to live there and they are gonna live there. It's just not worth it, okay? Even if your neighbors are complete idiots, don't go to war with them. Try your hardest to have peace in the neighborhood, especially if you own your home. I mean, you might be there for the next 30 years or something. You don't wanna have the Hatfields and the McCoys going on on your street, okay? So, you know, use this advice. Hopefully if your neighbors are your enemies, hopefully God can make your enemies to be at peace with you because your ways please him. Hopefully you can overcome evil with good. If your enemy hungers, feed him. If he thirsts, give him to drink. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. This is the advice that God gives us. He says in verse eight, better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right. A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. Now again, verse nine. This is kind of a theme in this chapter where we have to kind of give some caveats here so that we don't misunderstand this chapter. A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. Is the Lord directing the steps of every single person on this earth? No, okay? And again, I already quoted a bunch of scripture debunking that faulty line of thinking. But what does the Bible say in the book of Psalms? It says that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, okay? So a lot of the things in this chapter are an ideal view. Like I said, prescriptive as opposed to descriptive that God is saying the way that it should be or the way that it is when you're living for God, right? When your ways please the Lord, he makes your enemies to be at peace with you. A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. Now, God can potentially direct anyone's steps. God does sometimes direct other people so that ultimately his will can take place so that he can cause all things to work together for good to those that love God. He can definitely direct people's steps. He definitely directs the steps of a good man. They're definitely ordered by the Lord. If you're living for God, he's definitely directing your steps. But to say that he's directing every single person's steps would be to say that he's leading all kinds of people to do all kinds of horrific things. And we know that that isn't true from other scripture, okay? And so we wanna take this in the context of the rest of the Bible. So with that in mind, what is this verse saying? A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. You know, we sometimes we plan out our life a certain way and we say, hey, on Friday I'm gonna do this and then I'm gonna go here and then I'm gonna do that. And a lot of times God has other plans. And so the way that we chart out our life is not always what God has in mind and God ends up directing our steps. Even though we planned it out, we're gonna do this and that and the other, God's like, no, it's gonna go a little differently than you think. But ultimately God's way is better and ultimately all things work together for good for those that love God. But sometimes we view life as more of a straight line, don't we? Whereas God sometimes takes us on the scenic route and we have to learn patience because we wanna have everything right now. We wanna go straight to the destination. And a lot of times God will cause us to wander a little bit and take a little longer for whatever purpose. Like for example, you know, the children of Israel, they left Egypt. They didn't just go straight to the promised land, did they? No, they could have literally gotten there if they would have just went at the fastest possible, they could have got there in 11 days or something, but they ended up taking like six months to get there. And God had them stop a few times along the way. And then God said, well, I don't want them to go through the land of the Philistines, even though it's a straight shot, I don't want them to see war and repent. So I'm gonna take them the scenic route. And so God took them on a route and had them stop at Mount Sinai and everything. And it ended up taking six months for them to get to the edge of the promised land. God had a reason why he took them this longer route and they didn't necessarily like that route. They didn't like the fact that they're in the middle of the desert. And sometimes they had to go without food and water at times and God wasn't gonna let them starve. God wasn't gonna let them die of thirst, but he's testing them and kind of pushing them to their limits a little bit, making them go without a little bit, suffering them to hunger a little bit so that they would know that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. And so he took them on this circuitous route for a reason. And our lives are the same way. We have a certain promised land that we wanna go to. And a lot of times God is gonna take us a different way than we think. We devise the way in our heart, but the Lord directs our steps. And so it's not always gonna be the way that we think. Then of course, once they got there six months later, they blew it and spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness, but that's another story. So, but even just getting there initially took six months when it really didn't have to take six months, but that was what God planned. Now here's probably the, you know, along the lines of this chapter containing some difficult statements that need to be explained and that kind of need a caveat. I would say verse 10 is probably the big one. A divine sentence is in the lips of the king. His mouth transgresseth not in judgment. So just in case you think I've been blowing smoke at you for the last half hour or whatever that I've been preaching, I think you must agree that my interpretation is correct here because surely you don't believe that no king ever transgresses when he judges and that every king never transgresses in any judgments. Anybody actually believe that? I mean, that would be pretty absurd to believe that. I mean, all the kings in this world, they're just getting it right every time. That's what I'm saying. And so that's why we've been having these caveats and kind of stopping and thinking about what the Bible's actually saying. This is again an ideal view. Obviously, if a divine sentence is in the lips of the king, then he's not going to transgress in judgment and that's the way that it should be. That's the way that we want it to be, right? That the king would have a divine sentence in his lips and his mouth would not transgress in judgment. Now, another way we could look at this is that this is being written by a king because this is King Solomon himself. And so obviously when he is divinely inspired here and he's giving these sentences, they are divine and therefore everything about them is right. And so I think the thing that we can walk away from in verse 10 is that God is right about everything that he says all the time. And so if a divine sentence is in the lips of the king, then he's not earning a judgment if he's quoting scripture, if he's giving something that's from the mouth of God. Also, we could think of Jesus as the king of kings. And of course we know that a divine sentence is in his lips and that he doesn't earn judgment, but human kings, not so much. The Bible says in verse 11, adjust weight and balance or the Lord's all the weights of the bag or his work. Look at verse 12, it is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness for the throne is established by righteousness. Think about that last phrase, the throne is established by righteousness. Although it seems like a descriptive statement, it's not saying that every throne everywhere is always established by righteousness. That's not what it's saying. When it says the throne is established by righteousness, it's saying that that's what should happen. That basically, if you have the righteousness, your throne gets established. And if you understand how to read that statement, it kind of helps you understand maybe some of these other statements in the chapter that are a little bit hard to understand. It's an abomination to kings to commit wickedness for the throne is established by righteousness. It'd be like, I'm trying to think of a good way to explain this, like, you know, companies, if I said like, you know, companies get a good reputation by making a good product. You know, I'm not necessarily talking about a reality. I'm not actually necessarily talking about an actual situation. I'm just saying in general, that companies get a good reputation by having a good product. So if they have a good product, they're gonna have a good reputation. So what the Bible is saying here is the throne is established by righteousness, meaning that if righteousness is there, that establishes the throne. If there's a divine sentence in the lips of the king, then his mouth doesn't err in judgment. Okay, so that's kind of what's going on here with how this works. It's prescribing something, not describing an actual reality in our world. Not necessarily, obviously, sometimes it is reality, thank God. Righteous lips are the delight of kings, and they love him that speaketh right. Again, this is in a perfect world. This is ideally, this is an idealized view, because there are gonna be some kings that love lies, because later in this same book, this is what the Bible says, if a ruler harken to lies, all his servants are wicked. So is it possible for a king to harken to lies? Absolutely, but the way that it should be is that righteous lips would be the delight of kings, and they love him that speaketh right. So all these verses in a row in this chapter are kind of following the same pattern, where they're giving an ideal of the way things should be, and we don't wanna misread it as that's the way things always are. A divine sentence is in the lips of the king, he earthen not in judgment. So no matter what any earthly king says, you just shut up and believe it, because he said so. Is that what the Bible's saying? Like he's the pope or something, and he speaks ex cathedra, and it's just, he doesn't make a mistake. That's not what the Bible's saying. So we wanna make sure we don't misunderstand that. It says, righteous lips are the delight of kings, they love him that speaketh right. The wrath of a king is as messengers of death, but a wise man will pacify it. Okay, so don't make the king mad, because he can hurt you. Don't fight city hall. In the light of the king's countenance is life, and his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain, right? You want to stay on the king's good side, if at all possible. Now we don't have a king obviously in the United States, but we have other authority figures in our life. This could be your parent, this could be the husband of a wife, this could be the boss at work, whoever is in authority in our lives. How much better is it, verse 16, to get wisdom than gold, and to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver. The highway of the upright is to depart from evil. He that keepeth his way preserveth his soul. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. He that handleth the matter wisely shall find good, and whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he. The wise in heart shall be called prudent, and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning. Here's a lot of great truth in this chapter. Obviously I only have so much time tonight, and there's so many different subjects being addressed here. Obviously it's important for us to stay humble, not to be prideful. The Bible emphasizes that again and again. But I like what it says at the end of verse 21, the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning. You learn more when you're enjoying what you're learning. When the person who's teaching you is a sweet person, and when they're being nice to you, and when you're enjoying the process, you're gonna learn a lot more. Obviously if you have bad feelings about the person who's teaching you, or if you're bored, angry, frustrated, if you don't care, if you don't wanna learn, if you hate the subject, you're not gonna learn as much. One of the keys to learning is to want to learn, right? And we've all been in school and taken classes on subjects that we cared nothing about. And we kinda just ground out the assignments, and we walked away and we didn't really learn much, did we? Because we kinda just passed the test and then just take all that knowledge and throw it in the trash because we never really cared in the first place. Whereas when you wanna learn, you learn a lot. And so everybody that took Spanish one and two in high school and they don't speak a word of Spanish. And then other people, they really wanna learn Spanish and they go out and learn it, right? So the sweetness of the lips increase with learning because it makes the learning process more enjoyable. And when you enjoy something, when you like something, you end up learning more that way, okay? And so obviously as parents, we wanna teach our children and we wanna make the process pleasant for them so that we would teach them to enjoy learning. We don't want them to hate learning because we ruined it for them. So how could we ruin education for someone? Acting like they're an idiot all the time, just biting their head off when they make a mistake, just making it a drudgery by being rude, angry, impatient. We need to be gentle as teachers and we need to be patient with people and understanding. And even as a pastor, I'm a teacher in a sense, right? Because I'm teaching the Word of God and I have to realize that people are at different levels of understanding. And so what I don't wanna do is just act like people are stupid. Like somebody comes up to me and says something, just like, oh, you're such an idiot. Like, do you know anything about the Bible? Obviously that could discourage someone where they don't even want to learn anymore, right? So the sweetness of my lips is gonna increase learning. So I should strive to make my sermons enjoyable to listen to where people would enjoy the sermon. And a lot of people would maybe criticize preaching for including humor or entertainment value. And they'll say, oh, you're just up there being entertaining and that's not right. But for me, I try to make my preaching as entertaining as possible because the spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. And it doesn't matter how good my sermon is, if nobody listens to it, then it's not helping anyone, is it? And so I could get up and speak all kinds of truth and all kinds of wisdom, but if nobody's listening, what's the point? So I try to bring in maybe some stories and some humor and try to be interesting and try to keep it exciting because I want people to listen to my preaching because if they listen, then they're gonna learn stuff. But if I'm up here just being super monotone and boring, then what if people don't listen? And then I have five downloads and then it's like, well, that's great for those five people, but I don't want five, I want 5,000, 50,000. And so the sweetness of the lips increase at learning, wanna make sure that when we teach, when we speak truth, we make it enjoyable for the listener, that we're kind, that we're entertaining, that we try to make things as pleasant as possible. And when we're out-soul-winning, we wanna make sure that we are a sweet person out-soul-winning and that we are pleasant and nice to people and kind. And especially when we're out-soul-winning, we could run into people with very little knowledge, very little understanding. They might know nothing about the things of God, or they might even be developmentally disabled and just struggle to even understand our words. And so wanna be patient and kind, not act like they're a burden to us, right? And act like people are stupid. Don't treat people like they're stupid out there. Be nice, be patient, be gentle. The sweetness of the lips increase at learning. You're gonna be a better teacher if you're nice to the student. And that goes for any area of teaching. Understanding is a wellspring of life on him that hath it, but the instruction of fools is folly. The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, and addeth learning to his lips. Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones, right? Again, being nice, being kind is a better way to teach and enlighten people about the word of God. There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. He that labereth, labereth for himself, for his mouth craveth it of him. An ungodly man diggeth up evil, and in his lips there is as a burning fire, right? So wicked people, they love to get all the dirt and they dig up all the evil and the scuttlebutt so that they can talk about it and gossip and just they delight in bad things instead of good things. A froward man soweth strife and a whisperer separated chief friends. That goes right along with that burning lip that we see in verse 27 of people digging up evil and whispering and gossiping. And I think what it means when it says in his lips, there is as a burning fire, it's sort of like when God's word was like a fire in Jeremiah, he just couldn't contain it. He had to speak God's word. He just had to preach. These people like, they just have to tell gossip. Like they just have to talk bad about other people. They just have to spread the latest scuttlebutt. And they sow strife and a whisperer separated chief friends. You say, well, it's true though. You know, that so-and-so said this about so-and-so, but here's the thing. We don't wanna go around repeating what someone said about so-and-so because everybody says something stupid from time to time that they don't really mean or that they should have not said. You know, it's like the Bible says, when you hear about somebody cursing you, don't freak out. This is a paraphrase. Obviously the Bible doesn't word it that way. You freak not out, my son. You know, when you hear someone talk and smack about you, this is a direct quote, no, I'm just kidding, it's not. When you hear somebody talking bad about you, don't freak out because remember that you've talked smack about other people too. And every once in a while, you're in the wrong mood and you end up blurting out something about someone else or saying something stupid, right? I mean, we've all said a little too much when we should have just kept our mouth shut because you know, the fool utters all his heart. You know, the wise man keeps it in and doesn't just blurt out everything that comes to his mind, okay? He has a filter. And so we've all done it though, where we said something and after we're like, oh, I should not have said that. I shouldn't have repeated that. I shouldn't have said, you know, everybody makes that mistake. And so here's the thing. If you hear someone say something negative about someone else, you don't necessarily need to just start spreading that around or just go tell that person right away. If it's not a big deal, learn to let things go. You know, sometimes people say something stupid, just kind of drop it. Don't feel like, oh man, now I can really stir the pot and I can repeat this and I can start some drama. And there are some people that it's just like burning in them, they've just got these burning lips and they just wanna start drama and they dig up evil and they go looking for ways to turn people against each other. And they'll try to, they'll go to you and tell you something that somebody said about you and then they'll go to that person and try to turn, they'll try to pit you against each other and this is wicked. Sowing strife, separating cheap friends. Verse 29, a violent man enticeth his neighbor and leadeth him into the way that is not good. He shutteth his eyes to devise forward things, moving his lips, he bringeth evil to pass. The hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness. Being old doesn't automatically make you reverend and respected and honorable, does it? No, but it should. Hoary head's a crown of glory. You know, that's why I'm not gonna dye my hair when it turns gray. Okay, now right now my beard is already turning gray. Most of my hair is not gray, but you know, I'm starting to get actually some gray hairs on my head. But the way things are going 10, 20, 30 years from now, if God allows me to still live and be here on this earth, you know, my hair's probably gonna be totally gray. It's probably gonna be totally white. You know, my sister-in-law was playing around with one of those apps and she aged me. So I got to see what I would look like when I was like 80 years old or whatever. She sent a picture like that of an ancient version of me. And you know, when my hair's gray, I'm not gonna dye it because it's a crown of glory, right? So I'll be proud to have that white hair or gray hair, the hoary head, but it's only a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness because there's no fool like an old fool. There are some old people that are dumber than they've ever been in their whole life. You can't just automatically think that age equals wisdom because it's like, you're either learning more and getting smarter throughout life or you're getting dumber throughout life because there are literally people who will be dumber five years from now than they are right now. Seriously, they're just getting dumber and dumber. We should be gaining wisdom. You know, I hope that 20 years from now, I'm a lot wiser, smarter, more intelligent than I am right now. I hope that I'm not gonna, you know, and I definitely believe that I'm a lot wiser than I was when I started this church, okay? I feel like I've learned a lot in the last 17 years. So I wanna continue that trajectory. I don't wanna start moving in retrograde, okay? Or just getting backslidden and living an unrighteous life, then my gray head just means nothing at that point, right? The hoary head's a crown of glory among righteous people, right, if it be found in the way of righteousness. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh the city. Right, it's more important and more honorable and more valuable to be able to control yourself than to be able to control external things, external circumstances. A lot of those things are out of our control, but we can always control ourself, or at least we should strive to control ourselves. The law does cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. Again, this is a verse that should be taken like the other verses earlier in the chapter with a grain of salt. Obviously everything in the Bible is true, but we need to make sure that we interpret it correctly because again, if you take a verse in isolation and ignore the rest of the Bible, you can end up with false doctrine. You could take some of these verses and just come up with this hyper Calvinistic extreme view of predestination that just everything, God's just controlling everything. That if I roll the dice, God's controlling the outcome 100% of the time. I don't believe that for one second. Because if this were true, then we should just live our lives with a magic eight ball and just be like, okay, God, do I go to church this morning? Ask again later, you know? Do I go to church this morning? Yes. Oh, now I'm going to be late. You know, because it said to ask later. So I waited and now I'm late, you know? I mean, here's the thing. Obviously, otherwise we would just carry a coin with us everywhere we go. And it's like, oh, I'm trying to decide whether I should marry this young lady. Well, let me just flip this coin. Because I mean, the lot falls into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. If I just cast lots, if I just flip a coin, then heads I marry her and tails I don't. Do you think that that's the best way to make a decision like that? I mean, otherwise I could literally just doctrinal things. You know, is it just start just flipping a coin? It's just always, it's like, I just kept, you know, because I mean, we know that the Trinity is right and that oneness is heresy. So I just, you know, is the Trinity right? Heads if it's right, heads. And I flipped it 700 times and it kept saying heads because the Trinity is right. It's never going to come up tails because oneness is garbage. We're not Muslims, amen? Muslims are oneness, Jews are oneness, Hindus are oneness. We're Christians, believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Three persons, one God. Okay, but here's the thing. Should I flip a coin about life decisions, doctrines? Who am I going to marry? Where am I going to work? What state should I live in? Flip a coin, roll the dice, right? Okay, I have six options. Perfect, raid the monopoly game, roll a die. And I got six options, just write it down beforehand. And so do you see how this kind of a verse could be abused? Okay, so again, we don't want to just take a verse like this and interpret it in isolation because the lot is cast in the lap but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. Obviously, God does influence these things but that's not to say that He always influences these things and it's not to say that this is how we should make decisions. Do you think that at some point God has basically caused someone to win the lottery because He wanted to destroy them or because He had some other reason? Obviously, yeah, I mean, God could cause you, like I could go down to the casino tonight and just plop down a bunch of money and then God would just cause me to lose as a punishment. I mean, think about this. If you go to the casino, which if you go to the casino, you're an idiot, let's just get that out of the way. If you go to the casino, the odds are slightly in the house's favor, right? So you have like, depending on the game but let's just be oversimplifying things. Maybe you have like a 48% chance of winning and like a 52% chance of losing and it's just that little bit of odds in the house's favor that caused them to make money. That's why the building's so fancy. You know, the building's not fancy because they give away money. It's because they're taking your money. That's how the building is so nice, okay? So if I go in there as a born again child of God, if you go in there as a born again child of God, do you think that your odds of winning are 48%? Because I think your odds are a lot lower than that because I think God's just gonna be like making you lose just to punish you or if he's really mad at you, maybe he'll even let you win just so that he can really destroy you by letting you win a few times so that you bet a lot and then he can really just take you down. But I do believe that God can and does influence those types of things. That if a born again Christian went and did stuff like that that God is not gonna bless them and that God could manipulate the game either for or against them depending on what his will is, but it's gonna be negative because it is not God's will that you go down there. And I've done sermons on this. I believe that it is a sinful place. It's a sinful activity. Gambling is sin. It is wrong. I've done a whole sermon on it. I'm not gonna re-preach that sermon, but you can justify it, why you think it's okay to gamble, but it's wrong. Don't do it. And you can download my sermon on gambling and decide whether I'm right or not, but I believe it is a sin. And I do believe that even though technically there's a certain odds of that dice or that card game or whatever the games they play down there, that God could manipulate those things according to his will. And that maybe people do flip a coin to make a decision and then God would influence that coin toss. Or sometimes people would make a decision this way. They take their Bible and say like, okay, I'm just gonna flip open the Bible and just put my finger down, whatever it says. And then that's what I'm gonna do. That's gonna give me the answer to my quandary, whatever I'm worried about. So it's like, I'm thinking about, should I marry this woman? And then I go there, I flip open the Bible and it's like, oh, he that finds the wife finds the good thing. Oh, this is it. Or it's like, I put my finger down, it's like a foolish woman is clamorous and her feet abide on her. I was like, ah, you know, obviously God could, you know, cause you to hit a certain verse. I mean, I remember one time I was really discouraged and I was really frustrated. I was upset and I was on my knees praying. And I was just like, I just flipped open my Bible. And it was like, I just flipped up my Bible randomly in the book of Isaiah, just Old Testament, big old book of Isaiah. And it was just like the perfect verse that just spoke to me right then and there. You know, yeah, okay, something like that. But is that how I'm gonna make decisions? Just flipping open the Bible and you say, well, people in the Bible did that or whatever. Everything in the Bible that people did is not necessarily what we should be doing necessarily. Cause people did a lot of stuff in the Bible. Okay, that isn't what we should do. So just a caveat that yes, God does often or sometimes, or we don't know exactly how much he does, manipulate things that are supposedly random, right? He has the ability to do that. He could do that. There are times in the Bible when he manipulated, you know, the casting of lots and so forth. But is that saying that every single time the lot is cast in the lap at the whole disposing of the Lord. Again, this is just talking about a situation that happens that God will, things that we think are random. Let's just put it this way. There are things in this world, here's what I take from this final verse, okay? There are things in this world that we think are coincidental and random, but God is actually behind them. That's what the verse is saying. The verse isn't saying every time you roll a dice. So, you know, you have a bad risk, Gabe. That's God messing with you. You know, I don't believe that. I mean, I think that if I sit down to play risk, you know, a lot of that's just chance. And the Bible does teach that chance exists, you know? And so time and chance happeneth to them all. And so I'm not thinking that every time I roll the dice, you know, my guardian angel is just manipulating those numbers. I don't believe that for one second. I think that most of the time it's just random, but that God could and does sometimes work in situations that we think are random. I hope that that helps you a little bit because this chapter contains some tough verses. It's a little difficult for us to understand sometimes what God's saying, but I believe that that is the correct way to look at these verses. Let's bow our heads in the word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and pray that you would just help us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, to be that good man so that you would order our paths and order our steps, or that you said the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. So Lord, please help us to be good and to follow your word and to do right. And Lord, help us to be wise about the way that we deal with other people so that even our enemies could be at peace with us and so that we don't anger the powers that be. Lord, help us to be able to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. And Lord, help us to teach all nations. Help us to preach the gospel to every creature and help us to do it sweetly and kindly. And Lord, help us to have as much success as possible for the sake of Christ. And it's in his name we pray, amen.