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you for this church and thank you for the book of Proverbs. I pray that you please bless Pastor Ampson with the fullness and the power of the Holy Ghost as he preaches your word and help us, our children, get better and better at your word so that we can be better servants of you. In Jesus name I pray, amen. Man, Proverbs chapter 21, the Bible reads in verse number one, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water he turneth it whithersoever he will. And verses like this are one of the reasons why I personally don't really worry too much about politics or think too much about getting involved in who's getting elected or who's running or campaigning and these different things. In the past I've been involved in those things and and been excited about those things and we're taught in America that those things matter and that they're important but the older that I get the more I've gravitated toward spiritual things and away from worrying about that kind of stuff because what I've decided from reading scripture and from just understanding the way the world works is that what's really important is the godliness of a nation and if our nation is right with God, if my people which are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek God's face and turn from their wicked ways, God will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. And so I just believe that if we can get more people saved and teach more saved Christians to actually do all things that Christ commanded us and to do the whole great commission, I just believe that that is going to have such a bigger impact on our quality of life in America and on keeping our freedom in America because of this verse. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water he turneth it whithersoever he will. God can cause leaders to do stuff that we like, stuff that benefits us. You know I've just noticed anecdotally here in Arizona in the 17 years of our church's existence things just get better and better here in Arizona as far as the laws and the government are concerned. I mean there have been all kinds of laws that I could point to over the last 17 years where with respect to having a big family, homeschooling, you name it, things have gotten better and better for us over the last 17 years because I believe that God is blessing the massive amount of soul winning that our church is doing. And there are other godly Christians in Arizona in other good churches. I'm not saying we're the only ones that are doing it but let's face it we're doing a lot of soul winning. I mean we have hundreds of people out there on a weekly basis knocking beaucoup doors and obviously we have made an impact spiritually not necessarily culturally you know broad's the way that leads to destruction that's always going to be how it is but we've just won a lot of people to Christ. We've just gotten a lot of people saved and I believe God is blessing that by causing the laws in Arizona for the most part to go our way over the last 17 years and so I'm trusting God that if we continue to do good works for God the laws are probably just going to get better and better and I'm more worried about just how spiritual we can be as a church, how many people we can win to Christ, how many people we can turn to righteous living after they're saved. I'm just a lot more concerned with that than who's in office because at the end of the day God can manipulate the people that are in office to his purposes even you know a king like Cyrus the king of Persia when he made that decree to build the house of God and to bring back the children of Israel to the promised land and to build the temple I mean was that just something that he wanted to do? Absolutely not because that was something that God had already prophesied would happen that after 70 years they would come back and it was all God's plan to put them in exile and to bring them back. He didn't want the nation to be destroyed at that time because that nation still needed to give us Jesus Christ and Jesus needed to be born of a woman born under the law you know born in Bethlehem and living in Galilee and preaching in Jerusalem and dying in Jerusalem all of that had to happen a certain way and it was God's plan so God put it in the heart of Cyrus build this temple and Cyrus did that. Now you say well does that violate free will? It doesn't violate free will because you don't want to just believe in kind of an unchecked free will it's not you could take any right belief to an unbiblical extreme couldn't you you can take good doctrine you can take it too far so of course we believe in free will okay in general yeah free will you know I believe that God sets before every man a blessing and a curse he sets before every man life and death and he says choose life when it comes to the gospel the gospel call is put out to all men and whosoever will may come okay that's free will every day I wake up in the morning and I can put on the new man I can walk in the spirit or I can walk in the flesh right I'm constantly faced with these binary decisions of doing the right thing versus doing the wrong thing and I have that decision but God can still turn someone's heart to do something because it's his will he can change hearts and and and I can pray for my boss to make a certain decision at work and and he'll make that decision because God wants to bless me in that way okay I can pray that our leaders will make a certain decision and God can turn their hearts so that I can be blessed in some way so God does sometimes manipulate people's thoughts and minds and hearts and decisions but that doesn't mean that we don't have free will or that God's some puppet master controlling everybody okay but God does have the ability to make things go our way by working in the hearts of key people and kings and rulers and governors and things so that they will make decisions that will benefit us if we're praying and if we're serving God then God's going to bless us in that way and so we don't want to take free will too far to the point where we say well God can never intervene in the hearts and minds of men they only do what they want to do that's an unbiblical extreme and this verse is an example of why that kind of thinking is overboard okay but of course the lack of you know God manipulating people can go overboard where you get this idea where people start preaching that you know every single leader that we have is the exact leader that God picked and they're doing exactly what God's making them do and they're all fulfilling God's will in every minutia that's an unbiblical extreme in the other direction and so I want to make sure that we have a holistic biblical view and not go to these extremes but rather just try to take everything that the Bible says and put it all together and believe all of it and get a balanced view of the way the world works and so the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord so when he wants to he can give it a little squeeze he can give it a little twist and like the rivers of water he turneth it whithersoever he will now the Bible says in verse two every way of man is right in his own eyes but the Lord pondereth the hearts now if you stop and think about the difference between the way and the heart what's harder to have your way be right or to have your heart be right if you think about it we look at our way as human beings and the Bible says every way of man is right in his own eyes you know typically people they look at the stuff that they do and they think yeah I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing the way I live my life is the right way to live your life the way I do it's the right way that's how most people think right but the Lord ponder the hearts now even somebody whose way meaning like their lifestyle the stuff that they do the way that they live their life even if somebody's way is pretty good I'll bet you their heart has some wrong things about it because if you think about it you know the Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it and this is why the doctrine of sinless perfection is so foolish because we have the flesh still with us and the heart is still deceitful above all things and desperately wicked with respect to our flesh and the flesh lusted 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 and so we have this battle going on between the new man and the old man flesh versus spirit and when we're talking about the flesh we're also talking about the carnal mind a carnal heart we're talking about wrong thoughts wrong desires wrong motivations I mean there are all kinds of things that go with our sinful flesh it's not just our skin and bone and muscle but it's also the carnal mind okay so let's say I were to just decide right now okay I'm done sinning I'm done I mean I'm just gonna I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning and I'm just gonna do everything perfect you know what I mean I'm gonna wake up I'm gonna read my Bible I'm gonna pray I'm gonna go soul winning I'm gonna treat everyone exactly the way I want to be treated spend my day doing good works not gonna lie not gonna steal not gonna kill not gonna commit adultery not gonna you know I mean a lot of that's pretty easy like it's pretty easy to go through the day without killing anyone it's pretty easy to go through the day without committing adultery pretty easy to go through the day without stealing anything right I mean those are actually pretty easy to do okay so let's say I just said you know what man I'm just gonna I'm gonna obey every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake I mean I'm gonna follow all of God's rules I'm gonna follow all of the laws of the city I'm just gonna do everything I'm gonna go to my work every policy I'm gonna follow it I'm gonna be on time if they want me to tuck in my shirt I'm gonna tuck in my shirt I mean everything I'm gonna do perfect from now on just no more mistakes no more I'm just I'm done sinning okay now stop and think about that for a second okay let's say I did that probably with with a lot of effort I could probably like keep that going for for a while you know what I mean like if I just put forth a ton of effort just just and to just do everything right you know yeah I could probably keep that going for a while not indefinitely because eventually you're gonna screw up but guess what even though I could keep kind of the macro going indefinitely or maybe the outside or the external or the the way I guarantee the first day I'm think I'm gonna think something stupid the first day so I don't even think that you can even probably go a single day seamlessly perfect if you include the heart if you include the thought here's the and you're like no no pastor answered man I got my thoughts under control I got my thoughts under control right you you probably you you'll go to bed and dream about something stupid you know what I mean like you're you're gonna think something stupid some thought's gonna pop up you're gonna look at something you're gonna think about something you're gonna have a weird motive about something you know what I mean like or you'll probably just get prideful thinking about how great you're doing so I mean this isn't gonna happen it isn't gonna work now I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to do our best to be godly to be righteous obviously yeah we should strive for perfection but we need to know that sinless perfection is not possible this side of heaven and hopefully that thought will not cause you to just throw in the towel and say well I'm not even gonna try to serve God no of course we should try to serve God try to clean up our life try to be holy do what we can mortify the flesh put on the new man every day die to self deny self take up the cross every of course we should try to do that okay but at least for me the thought that I'm not sinlessly perfect and that I'm gonna make mistakes this doesn't depress me or cause me to want to throw in the towel what it actually does is it keeps me humble because I'm constantly realizing wow you know I'm not worthy I'm not on the level of God whereas if I was walking around sinlessly perfect I could probably start feeling like God or something because I have that sinful flesh that's gonna find it's gonna find a way in it's gonna find a way to nail me if I start doing everything perfect it's just gonna find a way to think something stupid or get prideful or whatever so honestly the fact that we're not sinlessly perfect should just keep us humble where we think you know what thank God for his grace thank God that he loves us and that he forgives us and we're not Jesus walking around here we're just his humble servants and you know we're sinners saved by grace and we still are in the flesh now look someday when we die or if we're alive and remain under the coming of the Lord then we will be sinlessly perfect when we get to heaven but until we are free from the body of this death we are not going to be sinlessly perfect and you know if you want to try that for an experiment being perfect for the next few days you know hey go for it it's not going to hurt anything to just strive for total perfection but you know what you're going to find out you're going to come short I'm just warning you I'm just predicting some kind of a shortcoming some kind of a mistake it's not going to be perfect and when I run into these people who tell me that they're sinlessly perfect I question their sanity like is that am I dealing with an insane person because it seems like we should all be self-aware enough to realize that we think stupid stuff do stupid stuff and you say well that's just you Pastor Anderson because you're just kind of a rotten person but here's the thing about that though is that you know uh some people will try to convince you of that like well you just don't get it because you're kind of rotten and I'm just on this other level and whatever but you know spend some time around those people and you'll notice stuff that's wrong with them and then that illusion will be gone that facade will be gone uh follow around these sinless perfection types you know it's it's funny I whenever I talk to one of these sinless perfection types which isn't very often because 99.9 percent of people out there are smart enough to know that they're a sinner it's kind of a special kind of stupid to think that you're sinlessly perfect but whenever I'm this is what I always do let me just confess to you what I do whenever I'm at a door and someone starts preaching me the sinless perfection I'm the first thing I do is I'm like looking over their shoulder their living room trying to find sin seriously like I start looking for sin and I always find it I'm just look I just look for stuff that's sinful and you know you can find you can find something wrong with anybody sometimes I just look at the way they're dressed I just I look at stuff on their porch I look but I'm like I'm looking for sin now buddy you you know and look I don't go around looking for sin but when somebody tells me they're sinlessly perfect it's like all right time to pull out the the the sin finder and it's like every time I always find something wrong with them you know and I don't I'm not like that I'm not a critical person that picks people apart but when someone says they're sinlessly perfect like I'm on a mission to find something wrong with them and I always do and it's always easy okay because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves that the truth is not in us and if the apostle Paul has sin and if John has sin you better believe that we all deal with the flesh on a daily basis so every way of man is right in his own eyes you know man looks at his way and says hey you know I'm going to work I'm a good citizen I'm a good neighbor I'm doing pretty well but then God ponders the hearts and sees all kinds of junk in there that doesn't belong and all kinds of wrong things God sees right through that it says in verse three to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice this is an interesting verse because this is one of the very rare mentions of sacrifice in the book of Proverbs you know you don't really think about it until you get to a verse like this that the book of Proverbs isn't really talking about the ceremonial law and the things that they would go through in the Old Testament as far as animal sacrifices and all the meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances is that a big thing in Proverbs you know you go chapter after chapter without reading a lot now there are of course mentions of it you know the the strange woman says hey I've got peace offerings I mean there are mentions and this is a mention but they're relatively rare aren't they and I think part of the reason is so that Proverbs can be a book that sort of transcends Old Testament versus New Testament it still ends up being super relevant in the New Testament obviously everything's relevant but you know what I mean as far as just on the surface just as it is it's just this book of wisdom that sort of transcends testament because it doesn't really talk about uh in detail mosaic law specific law specific stuff virtually everything in the book of Proverbs just comes right over into the New Testament without any change because what does the Bible say you know the priesthood being changed there is a necessity a change also of the law but again since Proverbs isn't really a much of a priesthood type book it really all just comes over that's why a lot of times you get like a New Testament plus Psalms and Proverbs because those are two books that just they just roll right over and there's of course a little bit about the sacrificial system but not a lot is there so when it's mentioned it almost jumps out at you but even a verse like this to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice doesn't even necessarily have to be referring to an animal sacrifice although it would of course apply to that as well but it could just be the sacrifices that we make in a metaphorical sense like you know I'm really sacrificing by coming to church on Wednesday night or I'm sacrificing by putting the gas in my tank to drive across town to go to Faithful Word Baptist Church right or I'm sacrificing time I'm sacrificing to give to the church I'm giving sacrificially you know you hear that kind of language too and so what the Bible saying here is that to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice look it's great when we sacrifice something for the Lord when we give up something for the Lord in that metaphorical sense right when we uh put the Lord first and and other things suffer or other things take a back seat but you know what's even more important than that is just to make sure that we just obey God you know before we start doing extra and giving extra it's more important to make sure that we do justice and judgment that we just do the right thing in our life and just be a good person and be righteous that's more important than some huge gift that we give to the church or some huge sacrifice of our time or whatever you know so so you know if I'm just breaking a bunch of God's laws and just not really following the the way that Christ taught us to live but then I just give some huge financial gift you know what would God prefer God would prefer that I kept my money and did what I was supposed to do now you know ideally you could do both right you know you could do justice and judgment and then make a sacrifice to the Lord but God's saying look what's more important obedience to the Lord is number one look at Ananias and Sapphira they gave a big financial gift to the church in Acts chapter 5 they're making a sacrifice because they could have kept that money for themselves but yet God struck them dead because of their wickedness because they lied about it so by lying about the money that they're giving that negates the sacrifice because God would rather see justice and judgment than sacrifice to obey is better than sacrifice Samuel told King Saul obeying the voice of the Lord God has more delight in that than in sacrifices of sheep and oxen and cattle and and and Samuel gave that speech to Saul and said you know rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry and here's the thing Samuel is rebuking Saul because Saul was supposed to do the battle a certain way and kill certain people he didn't obey the voice of the Lord but then he gave a big gift of sacrifices oh we're making sacrifices to the Lord but that doesn't make up for it you know God would rather that he had just obeyed and kept all the cows that he wanted to keep because obedience is the big thing justice and judgment is more acceptable Lord than sacrifice so what we see here in chapter 21 verse 3 is consistent with what Samuel said to Saul verse 4 an high look and a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked is sin that's pretty easy to understand how a high look is sin and this goes back to what we were saying earlier about sinless perfection right even if your way is right just a proud look a high look a heart can be wrong but the third one is interesting because not only does it say an high look and a proud heart but then it says and the plowing of the wicked is sin now why would the plowing of the wicked be sin i mean plow what's plowing plowing is when you you know drag a plow through your field to kind of tear up the ground because you're going to plant seeds in it right so plowing the field is to kind of turn over the earth and get it ready for farming now especially within the context of proverbs this is a virtue because God's constantly talking about man you go by the field of the slothful man and his fields all grown over with weeds it's not being used it's allowed to just go wild and it's all overgrown and unkempt so why would plowing be sin when the rest of the book of proverbs is telling you plow that field do your work plant the seeds you're going to have the harvest you're going to have what you need to feed yourself and others well i believe that what he's saying here with the plowing of the wicked is sin is that basically everything that a wicked person does is sin even the simple act of plowing just their work they go and they do work nothing that the wicked do can please god and the bible says they that are in the flesh cannot please god the new testament says they that are in the flesh cannot please god how about this verse without faith it's impossible to please him so if it's totally impossible to please god without faith you know even the plowing of the wicked is sin and this is why when all those people come to jesus and say lord lord have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name of cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works then while i profess in them i never knew you depart from me that work iniquity their wonderful works in the eyes of god are works of iniquity because the plowing of the wicked is sin everything that they do is wrong nothing that they do can please god they're not going to get to uh judgment day and god's not going to say to them well you didn't believe in christ but you did a lot of good works and so we're going to put you in a cold spot in hell okay we're going to put you in the coolest area because of the fact that you did all these good deeds now i do believe that some people's hell will be worse than others the bible talks about certain people getting a greater damnation okay but these are the levels of hell bad worse and the worst there's no cool spot there's no place where it's it's actually okay you know it's kind of okay it's not going to be fun for anybody it's going to be painful some people are going to have it worse than others but you're here here's the interesting thing okay saved versus unsaved right so when i'm saved and i stand before god at the judgment seat of christ i'm going to be rewarded by christ and my sins will not be mentioned unto me okay so basically these are the choices at the judgment seat of christ it's either a zero or positive because the one who has all their work as woodhay and stubble according to first corinthians three all their works are burned woodhay and stubble it says they shall that he shall suffer loss yet he himself shall be saved yet so is by fire so if one gets to judgment seat of christ and all of his works are woodhay and stubble he doesn't have anything good to show for it he's still saved but he suffers loss does he suffer beatings punishment torture no no he suffers loss the worst thing that you have to fear at the judgment seat of christ is a loss of reward worst case scenario if you're saved worst case you get there and god's just like everything you did was unacceptable you know even when you did some good stuff you did it for the wrong reason and you screwed up and you were you just weren't serving god you believed on christ so you're here but you didn't do jack that earned an eternal reward and so sorry buddy you know that's the worst thing that could happen that's a worst case scenario for the saved christian and then in the millennium you know basically instead of ruling and reigning you're you know you're sweeping the floor somewhere but hey you know what blessed is he that eateth and drinketh in the kingdom of heaven you know hey i'd gladly sweep the floor you know for all eternity in heaven and in the new earth and in paradise you know hey whatever is the most humble job i'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of god than to dwell in the tents of wickedness okay so so here's the thing when i get the judgment seat of christ here's all we're going to talk about we're only going to talk about the good stuff that i did and whether it gets me any rewards or not and i'll be rewarded for the good stuff god's not going to bring up the sins that i've committed those i get punished for on this earth okay we get chastened and chastised on this earth but once we get to heaven and we've shed the old man god's not going to bring that stuff up it's not even relevant anymore because uh paul said that the this when i do that i would not it's no longer i that do it but sin that dwells within me so why would god punish the new man for stuff the old man did the old man's not going to heaven the old man dies the new man goes to heaven so if god said to me hey why did you do this i'll be like that wasn't me that was the old stephen ayer said he's not even here why don't you take that up with him i'm the new stephen ayer so i don't do stuff like that let's talk about the good stuff i did you know and and and hopefully i've got some stuff okay but here's the thing it's either zero or it's positive okay the great white throne is the exact opposite god's not going to be bringing up good stuff that you did if you're unsaved he's not going to be saying well you were unsaved but man you you gave to charity you know you gave uh cold water unto the soul winners when they came to your door and you rejected the gospel but you gave at least you gave them something to drink you know god's not going to bring up anything good it's all negative okay so judgment seat of christ is all positive and it's either in heaven with no rewards or in heaven with lots of rewards or somewhere in between okay hell is bad because everybody's got sins here's the difference judgment seat of christ some people kind of have nothing because it all burns up and it's like okay you got nothing you get a zero but you're you're still saved yet he himself shall be saved the bible says whereas the people in hell nobody's gonna be like well you didn't get saved but you didn't really do anything bad either because this is not the way life works everybody's gonna have some bad stuff come up at that white throne of judgment that's gonna be thrown at them and so everybody's gonna be punished in hell who's unsaved everybody's gonna be suffering and it's just gonna be a matter of how much bad stuff did you do and also those who knew the lord's will and did it not will be punished more than those who did not know so you know somebody grows up in a church like ours and doesn't get saved you're totally screwed like if you're sitting here right now and you're not saved you are so screwed on judgment day it's not even funny like wow you're going to the hot spot all right because you're getting all this knowledge you're getting all this exposure to the gospel being at faith for it so i really hope that every single person here is saved because you you better be because you've got so much exposure to the gospel because we're constantly talking about salvation at our church and we're constantly talking about soul winning and then that you know brings up the subject of the gospel and so we're always we're always hammering salvation and getting saved and believing on christ and calling upon the name of the lord you know we we hammer that so you better be saved or else okay so everything that the wicked do is wrong so god's not going to compliment them on the good things that they did on the great white throne it's all bad it's only negative okay like remember in the seven churches he's like you know oh man you did all this bad stuff but you know yet thou hatest the needs the deeds of the nicoleatons which i also hate you know as long as you're reading a king james some of the new versions take out the hate there but um you don't want to be hateful now but you know he says yeah hey this thou hast that thou hatest the deeds of the nicoleatons you know hey you know i have somewhat against thee but at least you're doing this right that's not how that's because those people are saved that's a that's his children that's a church that's not the heathen the heathen it's all bad because even the plowing of the wicked is sin everything they do is sin all their wonderful works are works of iniquity they can't do anything that pleases god without faith it's impossible to please him they they're in the flesh cannot please god and so that's why i believe that the plowing of the wicked is sin but then the bible follows this up in verse five lest we get the wrong idea it says in verse five the thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness but of everyone that is hasty only to want so what's he saying he's saying look it's not that i don't want you to plow because obviously yeah you should be diligent you should be working hard and thinking thoughts of plenteousness but don't be wicked because the plowing of the wicked is sin but if you're not wicked then you should be out there working hard plow in the field go into your job monday tuesday wednesday and and and uh you know grinding out as much work as possible and notice the bible says the thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness and and just quickly diligent versus hasty is what the diligent man is not in a hurry to be done with work to where he starts cutting corners the diligent man stays on point stays on task works hard and gets it done and does real quality work with integrity now maybe he's fast right hopefully you get fast at your job but you're diligent meaning you're not just in a hurry to just quickly do it and just get out of there just kind of do a sloppy job just just because it's all about getting done all about getting out of there that's the hasty man okay so the thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness so the diligent man why do his thoughts tend toward plenteousness he assumes that he's going to have enough money he assumes that he's going to have enough food he thinks about all the wheat that's going to be in the barn because it's going to be in the barn because he planted it and plowed and worked and watered and he did all that so he's expecting bounty and so his thoughts tend to plenteousness because of the fact that he knows that he put in the work so he's expecting to pay i mean if you work hard at your job you expect to get paid you don't think oh i don't know if i'm getting paid maybe i'll get fired tomorrow you're not really thinking that way you're thinking about plenteousness because you put in the work but if everyone that is hasty only to want so the hasty man he's constantly thinking about where am i going to get the money i need you know how am i going to get more i don't have enough i need more stuff i need more money where am i going to get it how am i going to make it how am i going to pay for all this because he's not putting in the work okay and again let's never lose sight of the fact that we're reading proverbs we're speaking in generalities okay in general those who are diligent will be rewarded with plenty those who are hasty will want and suffer need and not have enough obviously there are cases when lazy people can end up having plenteousness and where diligent people can end up running out of supplies okay obviously there are exceptions these things but in general if we go out and and and are diligent in our labor we will be blessed by god and not only will we be blessed by god sometimes good works have their own built-in reward no divine intervention needed if you go to work and work hard you make more money than the guy who's in a hurry to get home every every day so he can sit on his butt and watch tv or play video games or something okay so obviously there's just a natural element to a lot of this that you do it and you get a result you push the button the light bulb comes on you work hard you get paid but then there's also a supernatural element that we don't want to lose sight of that god does look down and reward hard work and there's plenty of evidence for this look at jacob and laban jacob worked hard god rewarded jacob and transferred the wealth from laban to jacob that was a divine intervention because jacob was constantly getting ripped off by laban ephesis chapter 6 says servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh and singleness of heart with good will doing service as the lord not to men you know servants of christ with good will doing service as the lord not to men and then it says knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth the same shall you receive of the lord whether he be bond or free meaning that god looks down and if he sees you diligent let's say your boss rips you off doesn't pay you well god will look down and find another way to bless you i've told a story many times i had a job where they were constantly ripping me off and reneging on things that they said they would do and i ended up not making as much money as i was entitled to at that job but god ended up blessing me big time because everything i learned on that job i was able to transfer the next job that paid me really well and so the next job i was making lots of money and it was thanks to my diligence of the first job so even though that boss didn't take care of me even though laban didn't take care of me god worked it out to where then i ended up with a boss that did take care of me and so god sees god's looking down and god can direct you to a job and so you know don't worry about it i'm not all angry and bitter about that first job because at the end of the day i can see how that first job worked to my benefit because god was was at work you know he knew that i needed to learn the stuff at that job so i can make money somewhere else in the future and and you know the the job that paid me well was the job that i was working when i founded faith word baptist church and obviously it took money to move out here buy my house and you know at age 24 years old start a church from scratch you know i took some financial uh input on my part so i had to have a good enough job to pay my bills and get the church off the ground and be able to do all that and it's like god had a plan and jesus led me all the way so there's a natural element of work hard get paid and then there's a supernatural element of work hard god likes it god makes sure you get paid both of those things are typically going to be at work the bible says in verse 6 the getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death you know if you're seeking dishonest gain you're fudging your time sheet you're lying to your boss you're lying to the customer you can make money in the short term but it's a vanity that is just kind of flippantly engaged in of them that seek death now obviously these people wouldn't tell you hey i'm just trying to get killed you know as soon as i can what does it mean when it says that they seek death it's basically what it's saying is that they don't realize it but they are by their actions saying hey i want to die now they don't actually want to die but they're seeking it'd be like if i if i walked in somewhere and just started talking a bunch of smack to a bunch of guys that are bigger than me right i started talking a bunch of smack you know uh what might they tell me that i seem to be looking for trouble now i might not go in there saying hey all right i'm i'm looking to get my butt kicked right no maybe i'm just stupid and just blowing off my mouth and being prideful or something but they might say to me no no you're looking to get your butt kicked you see what i'm saying because because the stuff that you're saying that's what it leads to when you start just mouthing off to people and be rude to strangers eventually you're going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person they're going to hurt you so you must be looking to get hurt you know if i see somebody and they're driving real crazy and taking all these chances and flying around some blind corner at high speeds and stuff you know i might say hey you are seeking death here even though they might not characterize it that way and so what the bible is saying is that if you get treasures by a lying tongue basically you're looking to end up dead because of a couple reasons number one somebody might just get mad at you and kill you because you lied to them and deceived them and ripped them up you know think about it people who do big time dishonest business practices do you think that they could ever get killed for doing that i mean stop and think about like big time bankers and you know i don't know um bernie madoff types and stuff like that you know would you be surprised if someone like that just ended up dead somebody who's like stealing millions of dollars from people or ripping people off for millions of dollars you know somebody might just get mad and just hire somebody to just go kill him because they they're just so mad so that could be a natural way of looking at this and then there's of course the supernatural of just god can just end people's lives because they displease him and so the getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity it's empty it's meaningless it's it's not valid and it's a vanity tossed to and fro which is like you know flip it's flippantly engaged in something they they just kind of throw around these ideas of dishonest gain and lying to customers or lying to the boss or whatever of them that seek death and people that seek death are basically people who through their lifestyle of wickedness are basically saying that they want to get killed they want god to just wipe them out because they're doing so much sin that must be what they want so i hope that that helps you understand that verse a little bit it says the robbery of the wicked shall destroy them and again that reiterates what we just saw in verse six doesn't it the robbery of the wicked shall destroy them because they refuse to do judgment it's like they they don't know how to deal fairly they don't do what's right they don't do that which is fair and equal they refuse to do judgment the way of man is froward and strange but as for the pure his work is right so what does this mean well the first half of the verse is talking about human beings in general right the way of man in general this is sort of like when it says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked right this is talking about mankind in general okay so the way of man in general is forward and strange human beings do not tend to be good and fair and right and wanting to do what's godly and right all the time you know human beings have a sinful nature wherefore is by one man sin in and in the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned and so the way of man in general is forward and strange froward meaning uh that we basically deviate from god's commands and and we we go astray from the right path strange meaning uh i don't think it necessarily means strange as in like weird okay but strange in the bible typically means foreign and probably what this means is that it's something that we can't really grasp or understand fully because what did the bible say in jeremiah 79 the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked that's the way of man is froward but then it goes on and says what it says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it who can know it so isn't that the same as it's strange right it's foreign we can't quite grasp we can't fully understand human nature the way that god understands human nature god sees through the heart god's word is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart god knows the hearts of all men who can know it who can know the heart only god okay and so the way of man in general is froward meaning that it tends towards sin and it's strange meaning that we can't as human beings fully grasp it only god can fully grasp the sinful condition that we're in as human beings and the tendency of man to do wrong and so it says the way of man is froward and strange but as for the pure his work is right and what the bible is saying is that the pure man is the exception to the rule because in general people's way is wrong the way that most people are living in 2023 is wrong the way the most americans are living is wrong the way that most people in other countries are living is even more wrong because at least in our country we have a lot of christianity which cause a lot of people to do a lot of right things but that's changing isn't it because you would say hey the right the right way to live your life is to uh have a family versus just being a womanizer right and just just sleeping around or just living with your girlfriend and living with a different girlfriend right the right way to do is to get married not to just engage in fornication engage in fornication or adultery amen i mean that's pretty obvious right that's the right way okay but yet if we look at america now you know you have a majority of people now engaging in fornication adultery and getting away from a traditional nuclear family okay and so we could go down the list of other things of uh you know where people do it wrong you know if i just walk around uh the city are most women dressed in a way that would please god or not okay because you know just the ways of man are forward right people tend to disobey god in their lives and the pure man whose work is right is the exception he's a minority so we should not seek to blend in or conform to 2023 american society as the standard and say well i just want to live my life like joe six-pack 2023 american just your average guy if we just find the guy who's average in every way and you know okay well what what's the average number of women that he's going to fornicate with you know according to statistics right because the right number is zero that's the only right answer from god's point of view is to fornicate with zero women that's what god's will is for our lives this is the will of god even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication so zero how many extramarital adulterous relationships zero but what's the average something else okay because the way of man is forward and strange but the way of the as for the pure his work is right and then it says in verse nine and we're not going to get to the end of the chapter i'm just preaching stuff until i run out of time and then i'm just going to say let's pray that's how this sermon works okay because i i gave up several weeks ago on trying to to figure out how to preach through the book of proverbs because it turns out it's impossible so at least for me it's impossible i have come short so i'm just preaching stuff and then it's going to end okay so that's how this sermon works so all right just full disclosure um so it'd be kind of a shame to pass over verse nine though wouldn't it you know what i mean it's it's kind of a it's kind of a classic all right so you know it's better to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house right that's a pretty important verse because you know as a woman you don't want to be like that and in fact let's jump down to verse 19 and see it again it's better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman so if your husband's constantly camping you know you may want to do a little self-check i'm not saying that you're a contentious and angry woman i'm not saying that you're brawling but you might be okay but let's let's kind of compare these two verses this is the last thing that we'll look at tonight let's just kind of compare these two verses because they're both in the same chapter and they're kind of similar to one another but they're a little different the first one says it's better to dwell in a corner of the housetop here's what this is saying you're not in the master bedroom you're not a spacious room in the house you're basically like in the attic like a little loft in the attic like corner of the housetop like like the one where if you stand up too quickly a nail stabs you in the head because of all those roofing nails coming down and it's kind of slanted and the bible's saying like you'd rather just be alone in kind of a cell of a bad dwelling just to be by yourself and just get away from the brawling woman right so it's you know as opposed to having a big nice room big nice house you know but you you got the brawling woman there with you you know you'd rather be by yourself in some tiny little shack of a place in an attic somewhere than to be in the wide spacious house with the brawling woman then if we look at verse number 19 it says it's better to dwell in the wilderness so now he's saying you know forget having like a little cot up in the attic you know now it's just you're just sleeping outside i mean you're just out in the wilderness you're in the jungle you're like robinson corsair you'd rather be robinson crusoe with nobody out by yourself a hermit than to be with a contentious and an angry woman now let's stop and talk so we understand the places you'd rather be out in the wilderness by yourself you know living a primitive life in the jungle okay or just in the worst possible urban dwelling you can think of in the corner of a house top some attic loft messed up you know room for rent or whatever but now let's talk about the woman who sends you to these places what is she like what are her attributes because if we can think about what kind of a woman would drive you to these extremes well women should look at this and say hey i don't want to be that monster that's being described in verses 9 and 19 why would you want to be the monster that sends your husband screaming for the woods screaming for just any uh you know rough dwelling well we have three words to describe her brawling contentious and angry okay these are so these are the abcs of being a monster angry brawling contentious okay now we could add a whole rest of the alphabet if you want but let's start with the abcs all right angry no one wants their wife to be an angry person now here's the thing about this anger can sometimes be righteous there's a time for anger there were times when jesus was angry but the bible tells us not to be an angry person you don't want to there's difference between getting angry and being an angry person you know i'm preaching i get angry but anybody who knows me can testify to the fact that i am not an angry person people who live with me know i don't go through life angry i'm rarely angry most of my angry minutes per week are are usually in some face ripping sermon and you know i don't just wake up angry angry at noon angry in the afternoon but you know there are some women who can have problems with this where they're just seething in anger now obviously men can be like this too man i worked with this guy one time this guy was mad all the time every day he's angry it was just i just wanted to get away from the guy because he was so angry all the time right obviously men can be guilty of this as well but here's the thing about women is that women tend to hold a grudge a little bit so they could tend to get bitter a little bit and then that could cause them to be angry because they are harboring bitterness in their heart they cause them to be angry okay so that's the a of the abc's of being a woman that drives your husband so insane that he just wants to uh become he's hoping that his plane crashes so that he can go to that island you know he wants to be cast away at sea okay he you know he's not even gonna do a single sos when he gets there because of the the the woman that's waiting at home okay so angry is number one number two brawling now what is brawling brawling is fighting right so the woman who is constantly trying to pick a fight with her husband is the brawling betty right and she wants to get in a fight with her husband she's spoiling for a fight she's looking for a reason to argue and to start yelling and and you can see how the anger feeds into the brawling right because the bitterness and the anger gives rise to looking for a fight spoiling for a fight ready to get nasty and ugly and angry and fight right and then c is contentious right now again you can see how these are all very connected and the b is almost the bridge between the a and the c because of the fact that you know when i hear brawling it's like angry contention that's brawling right it's like ah you know berserk kind of fighting okay so you got the anger you got the brawling spoiling for a fight and then the contention you say what you know what's the difference between the contention and the brawling well you know the brawling is the knockdown drag out fight the contention is just arguing with everything that you say maybe not throwing anything maybe not screaming maybe not a knockdown drag out fight but just constantly just arguing with what you say just constantly arguing instead of submitting to her husband instead of obeying her husband instead of following her husband's lead referencing her husband just everything he says she argues just argues every little minutia every little thing that she perceives is wrong every decision he makes and and just argumentative right so angry brawling contentious so for you guys that are out there this is the kind of woman that you would like to avoid marrying and for those of you that are women this is the type of woman that you want to avoid being okay for those of you that are married to a woman like this you know you can just pray for shipwreck or something you know because then you'll be better off in the wilderness let's pray dear lord thank you so much for your word lord thank you for the book of proverbs please help us to apply these truths to our life lord i pray that something in tonight's sermon would help someone draw closer to you and be a better christian and live a more successful prosperous christian life and in jesus name we pray amen