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All right, Proverbs chapter 19, we've got a lot to cover tonight, there's a lot of great wisdom and knowledge here bound up in chapter 19, and so let's just dig right in here. Verse number one, Proverbs 19, it reads, Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool. Also that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good. And he that hasteth with his feet sinneth. We're going to cover here, especially in the next few verses that come, the difference between being wealthy and being poor. And we've covered this in many of the other, in Proverbs in the past, in the past weeks we've been going over this, on the importance of having wealth versus the importance of doing what's right and having wisdom and having knowledge. Obviously the main theme throughout all of the Proverbs is the wisdom, is the instruction, is getting that. This is the primary focus and we see it come up in literally, I think, virtually every single chapter of the book of Proverbs. There are references to getting wisdom, getting understanding, getting instruction. And even here in the very first verse it says, Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity than he that is perverse in his lips and is a fool. It's better to be poor. I mean, you know, a lot of people put a lot of stock into having riches and spend their life chasing after riches and devote all their time to make a lot of money. But the Bible is saying, you know what, it's way better to be poor and to walk in your integrity. Integrity, have honesty, believe in something and walk that way. You know, not just talk the talk, but walk the walk also. Have the integrity to stand behind something, to stand behind the truth. You know, not everything is about making a buck. Some people think it is. Some people are willing to sacrifice their integrity in order to gain wealth. They're able to cut corners, they're able to cheat people. They don't care about doing what's right necessarily. They're willing to give up their views on what's true and what's right in order to get some financial gain. The Bible is saying here, if you want wisdom, it's better to be poor and still just maintain walking in your integrity than it is to get riches. Than it is to be perverse in your lips, to speak perverted things, to speak things that are not true, to speak things that are twisted from the truth and be a fool. And then verse number two says, also that the soul be without knowledge is not good. It's not good. God doesn't want us to be dumb. God wants us to have knowledge. God wants us to be smart. It's not good to not have knowledge. It says, and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth. Being swift with your feet, being quick to run to judgment. I believe this is talking about being, you know, going off half cocked, right? It's not wise to just go off and get involved with something without really considering everything, without knowing all the facts and just run off and start making judgments and making decisions without knowing all the costs, without knowing all the facts. You need to be able to understand what you're doing before you go and take action. Now we don't want to just sit around forever and not make any decisions because you're always waiting and always trying to learn. You still need to be able to move forward, but you don't want to be so snap judgment and quick to action that before you even realize what you're doing and what's going on. The Bible says if you're a-hasting with your feet, then you're sinning. You're going to be real easy to get into sin without analyzing and knowing and getting the knowledge, the knowing what's going on before you actually take that action. Look at verse number three. The Bible says, the foolishness of man perverted his way and his heart fretted against the Lord. Verse four, now we're getting into some of the wealth topics versus being poor. Both maketh many friends, but the poor is separated from his neighbor. Now again, a lot of times in the Proverbs we're going to see statements that are just completely 100% factual. Whether or not it's necessarily the way things should be or ideally that's not always the case. When the statements are made, these are factual statements. Now most of the time it's going to be this is what you should be doing and this is what you should not be doing and if you do this you're wise, if you do this you're a fool. But sometimes we're going to see statements here that it's not necessarily good or bad, it is what it is. And it's important to understand the way the world operates too and to have the wisdom of just this is the way things go, this is the way the world works which will help you in your life even having that understanding. So the Bible says, wealth maketh many friends. That's a true statement. Now you say, well should it be that way? It doesn't matter. I mean it's the truth. When you are wealthy you're going to end up finding yourself having a lot more friends. Why? Because there's a lot of people that are looking to gain off of the wealth that you have. It's one of the reasons. There will be many reasons. It says, but the poor is separated from his neighbor. Look at verse 6. We jumped out of verse 6 real quick. The Bible reads, many will entreat the favor of the prince and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts. So you want to get friends real quick? Just start giving stuff away. Everyone loves a guy that gives stuff away. You want to be around that person and again, that's just part of human nature. That's a fact of life. There's two bosses at the job that I work at. One of them is a very generous person. He gives a lot of gifts and you know what? Everybody loves when he shows up at the office because he's not always at the office. He's been known to just give you a hundred bucks. He's been known to just bring in food, bring in steak, bring in shrimp, just hey, it's on me. He's a guy that everybody loves to be around and it's a fact, you know, and there's nothing wrong with being generous. There's nothing wrong with doing those types of things, but it's going to gain you a lot of friends. Now you might not, they might not always be the best friends, but it's a true statement. Every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts. And verse 7 says, all the brethren of the poor do hate him. How much more do his friends go far from him? He pursueth them with words, yet they are wanting to him. Now I think as we're reading a bunch of these verses and we're seeing a context because they go together here, wealth maketh many friends, the poor is separated from his neighbor. We're going to see, we're seeing a truth being taught here. I started to think, well, why is that? Why are all the brethren, the brothers of the poor hate him? That's not right. Why should they hate him? Well, I think the reason why that happens is because people who are poor are usually in need. They usually need something and the more you are needy, the more that you're asking people for stuff and just kind of constantly in need, the less people are going to want to be around you. And again, I'm not saying this is good or right, it's the way things are. This is the way that the world works and this is a factual statement that all the brethren of the poor do hate him. How much more do his friends go far from him? He pursueth them with his words, yet they are wanting to him. People get frustrated sometimes with helping others. Whether it's right or wrong, it's the truth. We all have our own lives to live and we have our own struggles and we have a lot of things that we have to do ourselves. We know that we ought to be helping people, we ought to be good to them, but when you have a person that, and I think more often than not is the reason why people get into those situations ends up being the reason why people don't want to be around them. More often than not, you're going to find the person who's poor, the person who's in poverty is not just there through bad circumstances of just not their own fault at all. The vast majority of the time you're going to find out it's because of their own mistakes, their own causes, their own reasons. Now look, are there people who are poor and really didn't, they didn't bring it on themselves? Sure. But that's not the majority of the people who are in that situation. It's just the way it is. People get into situations with drugs, people get into situations with alcohol, people put things above what they should have priorities as, like working and supporting themselves and supporting their family and doing things that are good and right and staying away from all this sin and wickedness, but the sin brings them down and will bring them down to poverty. And that's the case in many people's case. Now I'm not saying you could just know that absolutely for everyone, but who here hasn't ever had the person or the friend that's always saying, oh man, can I have 20 bucks? Oh, can I do this? You know, into drinking and smoking and whatever. I know I've had plenty of people like that in my life before. Never ever had any money, always looking for stuff, and you know what? I never wanted to be around those people. Now if I had a friend that falls on hard times and is in need, I got no problem helping that person out and it's not like, oh, I don't want to be around them. Hey, you know, yeah, here, I'll help you out, you know, whatever, because I know that you're a hard worker. I know that you're going to get things done, that you're not just going to be forever on the teat, as it were, just always needing help, always needing to be coddled, always needing to be babied, and needing something from someone else. And we should look at this and we ought to not let our, you know, it's better to be poor and have integrity, but it's also, you don't want to just be needing other people's help all the time either, especially if you're able. Look, if you're disabled, if you have a problem, if you can't go to work, if you're a man and you're physically incapable of doing a good job or doing work in order to support yourself, okay, I mean that's legitimate, there's a reason why you have a need then, but I'm sick of these people that just, especially these days in our culture, our society, just looking to the government and looking for the free handouts and just looking for all this help when it's like, get off your rear end and go to work and do something productive. And no one likes to be around those people that just, that can't support themselves. Again, unless there's like some legitimate reason for being in that situation, no one would want to want to be around the person like that. Look at verse number 22, jump down to verse number 22. The Bible says, the desire of a man is his kindness, and a poor man is better than a liar. I have compassion on people, especially, you know, that are poor, and again, especially the people who aren't just making all these bad decisions. And I'll tell you this much, you know, as far as giving it to people and giving alms and things like that, it could be a tricky situation, and I haven't really heard a whole lot of sermons preach on this, I think I should probably do one real soon, because there's a difference between helping people who are poor and enabling people to stay in their situation and continue to actually maybe even get worse by financially supporting them. You know, we as a church do not just give money to everyone that asks of us. And I'll tell you what, there have been a lot of people that call up on the phone that go through the phone book, calling out on a list, looking for money, looking for handouts. It's very rare when I actually will give something and give to people in a situation, because when you give money, think about this, the alcoholic, the drunk on the street, who's drinking all the time, that booze isn't free. They're supporting their habit, and you say, yeah, but I'm going to give them money for food. Okay, when you give them that money for food, then they just have more money to buy alcohol with. They need to learn the lesson of being down and out and not getting any help for the, you know, financially to just provide and to feed their addiction, to just give them that next drink, to give them that next bottle. That's not going to help them at all. And the more you can continue to sustain their lifestyle of just going out and buying booze and saying, hey, I'm just going to go out and beg some more and someone's going to give me some money, I'm going to go out and get drunk again. That doesn't help them. You might feel bad. You might say, well, man, this guy's, you know, because I used to even go to people like that and not give them money, but say, well, I'm going to buy them a meal. But even that, if they're just at this point and they're not repentant and they don't want to change their life and they're just going to continue to go off and just be a drunk, they got to be able to make that change. They got to get to the point where they decide, you know what, I'm going to do something different. Now, if someone's repentant and struggling, okay, I could still help that person. But if they're just unrepentant and, nope, I'm going to be a drunk, then I'm not going to support that in any way, shape or form. And I think that's a biblical concept that we need to remember. But again, being poor, there's nothing wrong with being poor. And you can look at this also from the understanding of, hey, if you're poor, don't be surprised if you don't have a lot of friends because the Bible is saying right here, you know, all the brothers of the poor do hate him. But I think there's more to it than just the fact of not having a lot of money. I think you could still have a lot of friends. I think what we've been reading has more to do with the cause of the poverty than it actually has to do with the literal lack of any type of wealth. Look at verse number 15 because we're going to see here a common cause of poverty, which is tied in with this chapter. Proverbs 19 verse 15, slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep and an idle soul shall suffer hunger. And this is what I was talking about. People who are slothful, what does that mean? They're lazy. It's based off of the animal, the sloth, right? The sloth moves extremely slow. And people who are just casteth into a deep sleep, always sleeping, always napping. You know, I've gone out sowing so many times and there's people in the poor neighborhoods that it's the middle of the afternoon and they're just sleeping, they're sleeping on the couch. And it's not because they just worked all night, right? You get people who have a night shift and they have to sleep during the day, but there's so many people who just walk up and knock on the door and it's like, you know, just real lazy, real just sleeping in the daytime. They don't have a job. They're there in the middle of the afternoon. They're not working at night. If anything, maybe they're going out and drinking at night or whatever. And you live a life like that, the Bible says an idle soul shall suffer hunger. You're going to get hungry. You're going to be poor. It's going to come upon you. You have to keep yourself busy. You have to stay and go to work. And like I said, anyone who does work and anyone who does have any type of wealth because they've worked doesn't want to be around the people who are always in need because they're always wasting what they have and not able to work for themselves. That's why the Bible says an idle soul shall suffer a hunger. Look at verse number 24. The Bible says, a slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again. A slothful person is someone, again, who's lazy. Someone who's not willing to work. It says he hides his hand in his bosom and it's too much for him even to bring his hand out again. You know, even to just bring his hand up to his mouth because he's so lazy. Look at, turn if you would to Psalm chapter 37. Psalm 37. There's not a problem with being poor, but God doesn't want us lazy either. Okay, if you're working hard and doing your best, then great. You know, that's what God wants of you. He doesn't want you just to be this lazy person, though, that's just poor because you're not willing to work. You could be poor, but you're never going to go hungry if you're doing what's right in God's eyes. And this is proven here in Psalm 37. Look at verse number 23. Psalm 37 verse 23 reads, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delighteth in his way. The steps of a good man. God orders your steps in good. What does that mean? You're listening to what he has to say. You're following him. Now again, none of us is perfect, but if you're pretty much trying to follow God's commandments, he's going to order your steps and delight in your way. Verse 24, though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand. I have been young and now I'm old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful and lendeth and his seed is blessed. This is the psalmist, this is David speaking in Psalm 37 saying, look, I've been young and now I'm old. I've lived a pretty full lifetime and in all of those years, I've never seen the righteous forsaken. And again, the righteous, you know, people who are doing righteously, who are living godly, who are doing and have received the instruction from God's wisdom. I've never seen them forsaken nor his seed begging bread. If you're doing what's right, God's going to take care of you. Okay? I mean, think about this. The disciples who Jesus called away from their job of being fishermen, of doing their other jobs, of being a publican, being whatever it was that their job was, and he called them away from that to do the work for him, they weren't earning any money. But did they have to beg for bread? Not one time. They didn't have to beg. Now did people provide for them? Sure. Did they receive of other people? Absolutely. But they did not have to resort to begging for their bread because they're already being taken care of. Why? Because they're in God's will, they're doing what's right. If you are seeking God first and doing what he has for you, even if you're not in a position of making physical money, God can make sure that you're taken care of. Even if you're at a point where maybe you are physically disabled. Maybe you are handicapped. But I mean, think about, God has even designed that in for the widows. Right? Think about a widowed woman who relied on her husband all of her life and her husband's dead. She has the church to rely on. God has made that provision for her. But what are the requirements? If she had been known to wash the saint's feet, if she has been godly, if she has been the husband of one man, the wife of one man, if she has all these requirements of being righteous, then she's going to be taken care of. And that's what the Bible teaches. And you can look at that in 1 Timothy chapter 5, I think. I believe 1 Timothy 5 talks about the widows. And you don't have to turn around. You want to look it up later. You can see all the requirements that are laid forth for the widow getting aid from the church. And there's an example of someone, well they can't work, but they can do work for the Lord. Right? They don't necessarily have a job. They don't necessarily have any skills. No one's going to hire them to do any work for themselves. But God's going to make sure that they're taken care of. They may be poor, but they're not going to be begging bread. And if we're doing what's right, we have that promise of God. That God will take care of us. God will make sure that we're fed and He'll make sure that we're clothed, but we have to be doing what's right. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. If we're seeking Him first, God will make sure we're taken care of. And He doesn't say we're going to be real rich in this world with wealth and physical money and goods, but He will take care of us to the point to where we don't have to beg for bread. So you know what this tells me? The people who are begging bread, they're not living righteously. I mean, it's a fact. It says, He is ever merciful and lendeth and His seed is blessed. Turn back if you go to Proverbs 19, because this fits in perfectly with that last verse there in Psalm 37, 26, He is ever merciful. God is merciful and lendeth and His seed is blessed. Look at Proverbs 19, verse number 17. Verse 17, Elizabeth, sit down. The Bible reads, He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord, and that which he hath given will he pay him again. So here we get to a verse where, you know, there's different reasons why people become poor or whatever, but if you're lending and you have pity on the poor, when you give to someone who's in a position where they're poor, they don't have a lot of money, and you know, they're not just some alcoholic that's going to go wasted on whatever, and you decide to give to them out of your heart and you want to help them out, that's a good thing to do. Okay? And then we're going to turn, if you would, to Matthew 6, because we're going to see that too. There's a time and a place for helping people out, and we ought to have a heart to help people. We just need to be wise in the way that we give to people and who we give to, okay? We need to be able to discriminate who we're giving our money to, because we don't want to just give it to people who's going to drink it away. We don't want to give it to someone who's going to shoot it up into their arm. We don't want to get, you know, that's not going to help them at all. But people who are truly poor and just truly in need in general, yeah, we ought to be able to give them. And the Bible says that if you have pity on the poor and you lend, you're not lending unto them, you're lending unto the Lord. It's like you're doing good unto God. You know, when Jesus Christ said, you know, if you, you know, oh, I forgot what that is in the Gospels, where he said that if you've done it to the least of these, you've done it unto me. We say, you know, when did we see you poor? When did we see you naked? When did we see you, you know, in prison? And when did we, you know, when did we see you do these things? He said, if you've done it unto the least of these, you've done it unto me. You know, he's talking about feeding, feeding the poor, clothing, clothing the naked, you know, visiting those that are in prison and doing all these good things to those that are down and out and those that are in need. He says when you do that unto them, you do it unto me. And when you, when you give to someone who's in need and who's in poor, you're actually lending to the Lord. You're actually giving money to the Lord. And why is it lending? Because God's going to repay you. We're ought to be able to give to those in need and not expect anything back from them. It ought to be a free gift. You ought not to, you know, the Bible talks about usury being wicked and, you know, making money off of people who are already poor and in need and charging them interest on stuff. You know, that's wickedness. But we ought to be able to lend to the Lord, we ought to be able to give, lend to the Lord, give to the poor and just say, there you go, it's a free gift and give it unto them and God will pay it again. And it says in that, that which he hath given will he pay him again. Not the person who gave to you, but the Lord. The Lord will give it to you again. And this is taught in Matthew chapter six by Jesus Christ, look at verse number one of Matthew six, the Bible reads, take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise ye have no reward of your father, which is in heaven. Now real briefly, that's why I let you know, alms is not the same as a tie they're offering. Alms is something that's given to the poor, like directly. When you're giving alms to someone, there's a story where there's the man sitting at the, at the gate of the temple and he was asking alms, right? He was asking people for money as, as just direct charity to him. It wasn't going through the church. It wasn't the church, you know, taking care of needs of some people who had need. It's an individual person receiving alms. And that's why Jesus is saying here, and then see a lot of times people who want to teach against tithing and teaches other stuff, they, they, they throw it all into one group. Giving alms is not the same as giving a tie. They're two different things. But when you give alms to someone, he's saying, don't do it before men. When you're going to help somebody out, when you're going to offer somebody that's poor and then do something nice for them and give them a gift or give them some money, give them some food, he says, make sure you're not just doing it in front of a bunch of people. Why? Because everyone's going to see that and be like, oh, wow, you're such a nice person. You're like, oh, he gives all this money and you're going to receive all that praise of men. And that's going to end up being your reward. Now look at what it says in verse two, because he keeps on going, he says, therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. God will reward you for doing those good works. And he's saying, don't even let your left hand know what your right hand, you know, put your hand in your pocket, just, here you go, you know, whatever you're giving, have it be that secret enough to where you're practically keeping it from yourself, you know. You do those good works, he says, God sees that, no one else ever has to know about the good things that you do for someone else. Because God sees those things. And you know, honestly, when you start to do that, it gets to your head. And the Pharisees and these people that, because there's a lot of people these days that sound a trumpet before they give. It's like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it's like all these other, you know, these organizations and these really rich people who want to call themselves philanthropists, the Jimmy Buffetts or the, you know, all these people in the world that just have all this money, and they want to sound the trumpet and say, hey, let's hold a press conference, let's get all the TVs here, let's get everyone see how much money, yeah, give me the scissors on the ribbon and the, you know, let's make sure everybody sees what I'm doing here and how much money I gave. And the reason why they do that is because they want, it's a public relations thing, they want everyone to look at them and say, oh wow, this person's so nice, they give so much money here, I'm going to buy their stuff. I'm going to buy Microsoft products now, because Bill Gates is such a great guy. Oh, look at how nice he is, oh, he helps all these other people, what a great person. Jesus is saying, don't do that. You know what, a godly man, a godly man who is real wealthy would be able to donate all that money and just give it away and not have anybody know about it. Just give the money anonymously and do it, because you know what, God will see that and he'll reward the, and he'll reward the opening. And I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have God deciding what's a righteous recompense for me, how is he going to reward me, knowing how great and loving God is and how awesome God is, I'd much rather look forward to a reward that I don't even know what it is from him, but like, you know, it's here, you could get the praise of men or what's in this mystery box, right? If the mystery box is from God, I want what's in the mystery box. I don't care about the praise of men, you know, that's just vanity anyways. I'm going to take what God has for me. And when we give, because it is good to give, let's go back to Proverbs 19. It is good to give to the poor, it is good to help out people who are in need. Don't sound a trumpet though. Just be able to do it and do it subtly, do it just, you know, under the radar. Don't go around, don't post it on Facebook, oh man, I saw this person today, I gave him a hundred, you know, don't do that. If you do, well, you got your reward, you know, I mean, go ahead if you really love the praise of men, but that's not, that's not what the Bible teaches us to do, it's not wise, because you actually earn yourselves rewards by helping people out and doing merciful things and kind acts to people that God sees. Let's continue on here. Back up to verse five, we skipped over this. The Bible reads, a false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape. Now look at verse number nine. A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish. Almost the exact same statement listed twice there. And again, when you start seeing things repeated in the Bible, pay attention to that. That means it's a little bit more important. I mean, everything in the scripture is important, but when you start seeing things repeated over and over again, take note of that. A false witness shall not be unpunished. You might think you could get away with things. You might think, well, I'm the only one that knows the truth about this, and I could tell a lie, and no one will know. And no one except for God. God knows everything. You can't get away with anything. He's saying, you know what? You won't be unpunished. You might have the perfect lie in your mind. No one would ever know. That's not true, because God knows. And he says, you should not be unpunished. He that speaketh lies shall not escape. He that speaketh lies shall perish. And if you remember back in Proverbs chapter 6, again, this concept of lying, bearing a false witness, was brought up in Proverbs 6. I did a whole series on that. These six things that the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him, things God really, really, really hates. And what does he do? He lists lying in there twice. He says, a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. This is a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. Six things the Lord hates, yea, seven are an abomination. Two of those seven is lying, is bearing a false witness, saying something that's not true. I was just showing someone, you know, preaching the Gospel today, Revelation 21, 8, right? I mean, telling a lie is bad enough to deserve the lake of fire. And we live, again, it's easier in a society or in a culture, or not even just in a culture, in general being a human being, having a sin nature to tell a lie. And because of the fact that so many people do it, we have a tendency to think it's not that big of a deal. When you're surrounded by everybody and everyone's doing the same sins, you have a tendency to just think, well, I mean, everyone's doing it. It becomes not as bad, not as big of a deal. But we have to keep the same filter that God uses of holiness. When God says, no, this is actually really bad. I don't care if everyone in the whole world is doing it, when you're sinning against the Lord, when you're breaking his commandments, it's a big deal. It's a very big deal. And we shouldn't just be lax about it or not care about it. And I'm always trying, especially with the lying thing, I try to get that across to people at the door because the vast majority of people, probably in the whole world but definitely in the United States, when you talk to them about salvation, everyone that thinks they're going to heaven thinks they're going to heaven because they're a good person. I talked to two people like that today. One guy was a Catholic guy, an older gentleman, been Catholic all his life. I asked him if he knew he was going to heaven, and he says, yeah, I think so. And the reason why he thought he was good, he was going to heaven, is because, yeah, he hasn't really hurt anybody, he's never killed anybody, he's never been to jail, he told me. You know, pretty good guy. And you know what, by the world standards, he probably is a pretty good guy. He looked like a nice guy, I don't know his history. But when you compare yourself to other sinners, yeah, you might look pretty good, right? But that's not where God's standard is. It's not down in the gutter where all of us filthy sinners are, it's way up high. Holiness is where Jesus is, is where God is, way up out of our reach. That's his standard. We're really far, so way down in the gutter, we can look at each other and be like, hey, I'm a little bit better than this person over here, right? But we're all still down at that low level. And when it comes to lying, it might be the easiest thing in the world, it might be the easiest thing to even get away with, or so you think, in this world. But God hates it. We saw in that first verse about it's better to be poor and keep your integrity. The person that lies has no integrity. When you're telling lies, zero integrity, because you're not saying anything, you're speaking falsehoods. Someone who has integrity is going to say and stand for what's right, just because it's the truth, because it's right. Because it's the right thing to do, because it's honest, because it's the truth. And if that causes you to be poor, then so be it. It's better to have that integrity, and it's the same thing here. Pay attention when God says He hates lying and you're not going to be unpunished. Because He means it, and especially when He says it over and over and over and over again. We need to watch our speech and make sure that we're not just given to telling lies. Look at Proverbs 19, verse number 8, He that getteth wisdom loveth his own soul. He that keepeth understanding shall find good. Verse 10, delight is not seemly for a fool, much less for a servant to have rule over princes. It's explaining here that foolish people are not going to have a lot of delight. It's not something that fits them well, because they're going to be suffering more than anything. And then verse number 11, the discretion of a man deferreth his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgression. The king's wrath is at the roaring of a lion, but his favor is as due upon the grasses. Verse 11, the discretion of a man deferreth his anger. So being discreet, being able to know, for one, to defer your anger. When someone does something to you that makes you really angry, to be able to put that to the side, to defer that anger, you have to have discretion to do that, to know when to put aside your anger. There's times to have a righteous indignation, a righteous anger, and be angry about things, but then there's also times to be able to put that to the side, to be temperated in control of those things, of those emotions, and to use your discretion of being able to defer your anger, because the Bible says here that it's your glory to pass over a transgression. When someone does you wrong, and you could be justified to be angry at that person because they've done you wrong, but then you extend mercy to them, you extend forgiveness to them, you look it over, you decide, you know what, I'm not going to get mad about this. Yes, they've done me wrong, yes, they are in the wrong, but I'm going to pass over this. I'm going to look over this. I'm going to allow, I'm going to give them some grace. That actually brings glory to you in God's eyes. God sees that and He goes, man, I like that. I really like that attitude. Why do you think God likes that so much? Because He is the one who's given us forgiveness. If He's saved your soul, He's already granted you grace. He's already given you forgiveness, and how much glory does that bring to Him? I mean, think about that. Who gets the glory for our salvation? Do we get it? Not at all. Not in one little bit. Jesus Christ gets all the glory. Why does He get the glory? Because He's the one that lived a perfect life. He's the one that was tempted in all points like as we are, yet with our sin. He's the one that bear our burdens on the cross. He's the one that died and was whipped and bled and suffered and went to hell for three days and three nights and rose again from the dead. He did all of that stuff. So that's why He gets the glory. And He says, in order for you to be saved, no works at all. Zero. You have to do nothing just receive Me. Just put your faith in Me. That's it. And once you do that, hey, you're saved forever. You get no glory for that. The person giving the gift, the person extending the mercy, the person giving you the grace, is the one that gets all the glory for that. So just as much as He gets tremendous glory for that, when we're able to just look over someone else's infraction, someone else's transgression against us, we get glory for that. And that's a good glory. That's a righteous glory. That's something that you ought to be looking for to be able to receive that of yourself. Verse number 13. We've got a few different topics here that we're going over. Proverbs 13. A foolish son is the calamity of his father, and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. And then verse 14 is followed up. House and riches are the inheritance of fathers, and a prudent wife is from the Lord. Now, this is going to come up a few more times as we're going through the book of Proverbs. And I'm going to keep preaching on it every time. Because our husband and wife role, the roles in our society, the roles that are given or understood to be husband's role and a wife's role in our culture today is completely backwards and it's all screwed up. And it's not, you know, your average person is not living a very biblical marriage as far as what the wife's role is and what the husband's role is. So we need to go over this over and over again. And we're going to do it as often as it comes up in the book of Proverbs. Now, this type of a phrase here, like the contentions of a wife are continual dropping, this comes up multiple times also, not in the same chapter, but there's chapters we're going to see in the future that basically say the same thing. You know, it's better to live in the corner of a house top than in a wide house with a brawling woman, you know, with someone who wants to fight. And what's a contention? It says the contentions of a wife. It's the fightings. It's the fighting of a wife. It's like a continual dropping. And what is that continual dropping referring to? Something that's really, really aggravating, gets under your skin and can drive you insane. It's a continual dropping, just over and over and over and over and it doesn't stop and it just keeps going and it builds up your stress. It gets you to the point to where you're just out of your mind. And that's the contentions of a wife. Now, you know what else is interesting is that the Bible and the Proverbs, it doesn't ever talk about the contentions of a husband. It talks about the contentions of a wife. And the reason for that is, as I've gone over in the past, God has established an authority structure within the household. With the husband being at the head, at the top, the decision maker, the boss if you will. Okay, the boss of the family is the husband. He is the God-ordained head in that family. There has to be somebody in charge. The world out there says it's equal. It's the husband and the wife are both at the head, making decisions. Well, what happens when you have a disagreement? When one says, I want to do this and the other says, I want to do that and they're opposite. How do you determine who's making the decisions? There has to be one boss. Otherwise you're going to have a lot of fighting, a lot of strife. And God has given that authority, whether you like it or not, or whether you think you've got a better way or not, it doesn't matter because the Bible has described what the best way is and it's God's way. And God is at the head. And the reason why it's saying the contentions of a wife is that the fightings, the strife that you get from your wife, there shouldn't be any contentions coming from the wife. Because if the husband says something, then that's the way that it ought to be. Now, you can talk about things, you can receive input, you could have discussions, but you shouldn't be fighting with your husband over what he decides to do. And the only time that you can say that you'd be justified is if your husband's telling you to break one of God's laws, because God is the ultimate authority. Turn if you want to Ephesians chapter five, we're going to see this. I'm going out of order of my notes, but that's fine. Ephesians chapter five. Now I know that none of us are perfect, right? There are, you know, when you live with someone for a long time there's going to be fights and things happen, but I'm just trying to show you here that first of all there shouldn't be the contentions, it just shouldn't be happening. The fights should not be happening, and know this ladies, that the contentions are like a continual dropping to your husband. If it's just a continuous thing, it's over and over again, it's always fighting, you're always nagging, you're always fighting and struggling against the husband's authority, it's just going to keep building, and it's just going to get worse and worse. But just to show you the authority that God has given us, look at Ephesians chapter five verse twenty-two. The Bible reads, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. So in what way should you be submissive to your husband? As you're submissive unto the Lord, unto God. That's what it says, as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. Is there any question in the authority or lordship of Christ over our church? There shouldn't be, absolutely not, of course Christ is the head of the church. Would you dare think to start fighting against Jesus over what God, Jesus, I think we should do things this way, I don't like this music, I don't like the way, I don't like what your word says here, I think we should be doing it different. And fighting with God over that? Of course not, it sounds ridiculous, you'd be like, no way, who would ever even dream of doing that? Well, when the Bible says here that to submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body, therefore is the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. The Bible says what it means. You don't need to try to figure out a way to interpret that to not mean everything. It means everything. And when you're not in subjection, or you're not being submissive to your husband, and you start fighting with him over the decisions that he makes, you're being disobedient to what God has established. You could say, yeah, but he's wrong. The Bible doesn't say, well, it's okay if he's wrong. It doesn't say that. Now again, if your husband's telling you to do something that is just overtly sinful, I mean, that's just, you know, forbidding you to attend church at all, when God's already commanded you, for forbidding you to read your Bible, when God's commanded you, these types of things, that's outside of the husband's scope of authority. And you need to obey God rather than men. But the majority of fights within marriages and the contentions that come, that's not because of that. It's not because, you know, and God forbid that that would happen within the people of our church, where, you know, the husband is doing these types of things. Turn, if you would, to Genesis chapter 2. Because it's not just Ephesians 5. There's so much of a foundation for this, I'm only going to go over a couple chapters on this and keep moving on, because we're running out of time. But Genesis chapter 2, this needs to just be ingrained in our heads, what a biblical marriage looks like. Because it has been so perverted and so twisted over time, and it hasn't even taken that long. The type of relationship that I'm referring to here was not that foreign as little as 60 years ago, a lifetime ago, not that long ago. This was pretty much normal, I mean, people would hear this and be like, yeah. Not everybody, of course. I mean, I know, there's always people who do different things, but just overall, in general, this would not be some crazy preaching as much as it is today. To hear these types of statements, I mean, people get triggered and will go through the roof here and this type of stuff these days. But look at Genesis chapter 2, look at verse number 18, the Bible reads, And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him and help meet for him. So what did God do with the creation? He created all the earth and the land and the sea and the trees and the plants and the animals and everything, and he created man, right? He created man, and then he saw man, he says, you know what, I've created man, because that's what I had in mind, but it's not good that the man should just be alone. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to make a help meet or suitable for him, because God made the man. He's like, I'm going to make him and help her. I want him to have a helper. And it says in verse 20, And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found in help meet for him. You know, the animals didn't work, they just weren't suitable for him. It's not what God had in mind. Verse 21, And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man, therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And this was God's design. Women was created to be a help meet for the man, for Adam. The man is the leader, the man is the one determining the direction the family is going to take, and the wife has a supportive role. Now it doesn't mean that God loves women less than God loves men. It doesn't mean that men are better than women. But they have different functions. And in order to do the best for God, in order to live the most godly and righteous life, you should fall into that role that God has given you completely, as much as you can. Your husbands need to be the best husbands they can and lead and do the things that God has laid out for them to do. And women should be doing the same thing from their perspective, from their role giving from God. Turn, if you would, to Genesis 3, just one chapter over, Genesis 3, look at verse 16. This is after they've sinned. See, Genesis 2, they're in a garden, everything's great, God made man, God made woman. He says, okay, here's a helper for you, Adam, it's not good that you're alone, you got married, excellent, things are going well. And then sin entered in. And then the cursings get started. Look at verse 16 of Genesis 3, says unto the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, and sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. This is God's judgment on the woman, the woman sinned, and this is what God brought forth on her. And Adam got his, the man had his own sin too, by the sweat of thy brow, thou shalt work, and that's how you're going to feed yourself is by working hard. They had everything laid out for them in the garden, but now he says, now you're going to work, man, that's your judgment. But the woman's was, your desire is going to be to your husband, he's going to rule over thee. And that's the way that God made it, and that's the way that it is. We saw that reiterated in Ephesians 5. The word of, when we read there, back and turn back if you go to Proverbs, Proverbs 19. When the Bible says the contentions of a wife are continually dropping, it means from. The contentions from the wife. The wife is the source of the contention. Now husbands can pick fights too, and I'm not saying it's right to pick a fight. And this doesn't, you know, this teaching, people misunderstand it, there's a lot of things that the husband can do that's wrong. Just because you're in a position of authority doesn't mean that everything you do is always right. Because that's not the point that I'm trying to make. I'm not just saying that the husband is always in the, is always correct and is always right. And everything that he says is just always the perfect, best way of doing things. But you know what, he is in charge and he has the authority. I like to liken this with being at work and having a boss over you, right? You may be smarter than your boss. You might know some things that are better for the business than he does. And maybe your way is better. But you know what? When the boss tells you to do something, he's still the boss. And you have no place fighting and arguing and saying, well no, I don't think, you know, and then just fighting with him about it. You're not being in your proper role of being his servant. And when the wife starts bringing contentions to the husband, she's not in her proper role either. Look at verse number 19, or here, yeah, I brought up a couple of references here. Proverbs 21, 19, you don't have to turn there. The Bible says, it is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman. It's better just to be off in the middle of nowhere than to be dwelling with a contentious, someone who likes to fight a lot, and an angry woman. And in Proverbs 27, 15, it says, a continual dropping and a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. And keep that in mind, ladies, if you have a problem with like, you know, fighting in your marriage, it's not going to get better by continuing to fight. Because as much as, I mean, I don't know anyone that likes this continual dropping thing, it sounds like some kind of Chinese torture, like it's just over and over and over again, like this all the time, and it could drive you mad, and it's the truth. So the marriage works out way better when everyone could fall into their proper roles. When the children are in their proper role, I mean, how happy is a family when the children behave like monsters? When the children are the ones in charge? When the children say, I want this, and they throw themselves on the floor, and they scream and cry and do everything until you give them their way, and ultimately they're the ones calling the shots because you just give in to them all the time. Is that a happy family? Does that have a lot of, does that sound joyous to you? Do you like being around those people when you go to Walmart? Because I don't. Well, it's the same way when anybody is outside, when the husband is not doing his role properly, when he's not leading properly, or when he is doing things that he shouldn't be doing, when he's, you know, when he's, you know, behaving improperly and sinning himself, or when the wife is not in her role and being submissive. So the biggest problem in our culture, at least, comes from, I think, just from the role of the woman. Because there's been this, this masculine movement has been going on, trying to turn women into men, and trying to teach them that they're not important unless they're the head of the household. Which is totally untrue. But let's keep reading here. Look at verse number 16, Proverbs 19, verse 16. He that keepeth the commandment, keepeth his own soul, but he that despiseth his ways shall die. Verse 18, Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. You know what this is teaching? That there's going to come a point if you're not disciplining your children, if you're not teaching them from a young age, if you're not, you know, giving them the proper correction, there's going to come a point where there is no more hope. Where it's too late. You've blown it. You can't correct them anymore because you had to do it earlier on. And that's why, you know, Bible says, let not thy soul spare for his crying because a lot of people don't want to give their kids spankings and they don't, you know, or maybe they'll give them one and stop because they're crying and screaming their head off. Don't let your soul spare. Don't withhold. Don't stop just because they're crying. You need to give them it because they need it, because they need the correction. It's not because, you know, you have this bleeding heart where you just can't do anything to correct them because then they're going to end up growing up and being a monster themselves. Look at verse 19. A man of great wrath shall suffer punishment, for if thou deliver him, yet thou must do it again. And this is someone who's got a lot, like just an extraordinary amount of anger and could be quick to anger. The Bible says they're going to suffer punishment. And if you save them, if you deliver them, if you help them out, you know, like, you know, they got themselves in a big mess because they just got super angry and wrathful and kind of got out of control. You're saying someone who has that problem, you're just going to have to do it again and again and again. Because when you're not able to control yourself and be temperate, be able to control your emotions, you're going to continue to get yourselves into problems. You know, when you just let the wrath take over and you start acting out of all this anger, it's going to get you in trouble time and time again. So if you have a problem with that anger, you need to get that under control or else you're always going to be getting yourself into trouble. Look at verse 20. Hear counsel and receive instruction that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end. There are many devices in a man's heart, nevertheless. So regardless of how many devices you have in your heart, the counsel of the Lord that shall stand. And that's what we're looking to tonight. Look at verse 23. The fear of the Lord tendeth to life, and he that hath it shall abide satisfied. He shall not be visited with evil. Jump down to verse 25. Smite a scorner and the simple will beware and reprove one that hath understanding and he will understand knowledge. There are people out there that are, you know, I call them brutish people or people who are kind of dumb, you know, the Bible refers to them as simple, who says they smite a scorner. They're only going to understand force. That's all they get. They're not intelligent enough to actually be reproved and just told, you know, the right way or told when the wrong be reproved with words that there comes a point where they just need a good smiting. And that's where the Bible has some punishments on people where they just receive a beating. And that's a punishment, you know, for crimes at the minute. And usually those crimes are indicative of them not being very bright and kind of being stupid because they're stupid crimes. So they get that punishment. And it says smite a scorner and the simple will beware. Those who are simple, those who are kind of dumb, they get that. And you know, when you start teaching, you know, correcting a child, a child is not very wise. They don't have very much knowledge. When they're young, they still need to learn, right? They still need to grow and learn. And that's why the spanking is so effective because they understand that really quickly. Oh, there's pain associated with doing this thing. Oh, there's pain associated with disobeying mom and dad. You know, this is something that you can make that connection. You don't have to be very smart to understand that connection. The simple will beware when the scorner is smitten, when they're hit, says, and reprove one that hath understanding. You know, hopefully your children should get to a point where you don't have to spank them anymore, where you could just reprove them and correct them that way because they have enough understanding and then they'll understand knowledge and you could teach them more and you don't need the physical aspect anymore. You've grown out of that. The Bible says in verse 29, Proverbs 19 29, he that wasteth his father, excuse me, judgments are prepared for scorners and stripes for the back of fools. Again, I mean, I'm showing you what stripes mean. It means a bloody stripe. It means getting whipped, being scourged where it leaves a stripe and that was designed for the back of fools. Why? Because you can't just tell them that they've done wrong and expect them to correct their ways. They need to actually receive a discipline or action like that. Look at verse 26, he that wasteth his father and chaseth away his mother is a son that causeth shame and bringeth reproach. Cease my son to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge and ungodly witness scorneth judgment in the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity. I want to focus a little bit real quick on verse 27. He's saying stop listening to the people that are trying to teach you in a way that's in error, that's contradictory to God's words, to the words of knowledge, to the right way. You know, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of foolish teachers out there. There's a lot of people in the world that will try to provide you counsel, try to tell you how to give you advice to try to help you in your life, but if they're giving you advice that's contrary to the words of knowledge, then stop listening to them. You don't want to have that influence and their advice on you when they're telling you to do things that are contrary to the Bible. I know someone personally that is not good at giving advice and we never listen to their advice because they'll say things like, you know, that this person told another girl who is, oh, is she getting married or yeah, she was going to get, she's having a child and was going to get married and do, you know, and do the right thing. But then she's being told, oh yeah, no, don't, you know, just leave him and bring the child, you know, get away from him and everything else. It's like you're teaching something contrary to what, you know, to what the Bible says to you. You ought to get married. You ought to raise that child and do the right thing. And when you start to hear people giving that type of advice or that type of instruction and it's contradictory to the words of knowledge, don't receive their counsel. Don't receive their advice. The Bible says in Proverbs 14, 7, go from the presence of a foolish man when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge. We did that five weeks ago in Proverbs 14. You know what? When you realize that someone's speaking foolish things, just depart from them. Don't listen to what they have to say. You don't have to listen to the fool when you realize, hey, this person doesn't have the words of knowledge. Don't get their advice. And that's the course for the vast majority of the world they advise out there trying to help you with your problems is going to be contrary to what the Bible says or what Scripture says. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for this instruction and wisdom that you have in your word. We cover a lot of different topics. God, I pray that you would please help us to retain some of these basic truths, help us to implement them in our lives, help us in our problem areas, dear Lord, that we could have a right attitude about being instructed, dear Lord, and just taking your word for what it says and just open up our understanding, dear God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.