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In Proverbs chapter 26, we actually have three main subject areas that are going to be covered tonight. None of them are new compared to the rest of the book of Proverbs, but there is some interesting things that are brought up. The first section talks about the fool. Now we've read a lot about fools earlier in the book of Proverbs, but what's interesting is that in each book it brings up different aspects of foolish traits, of things that fools do. So we're going to go into that a little bit, and that's followed up with the sluggard, which again, we've already covered a lot of different aspects of the lazy person, the slothful person, the sluggard. And then finally, the last section, main section here, is the person who dissembles with their lips, who's talking, being a tail bearer, and really in this context is someone that is out to cause trouble and is out to bring contention and to do that type of work with their mouth. And I think what's really interesting is that all of these Proverbs here in this chapter 26, they're all related. There's a lot of overlap between the fool and the sluggard. There's a lot, you know, the fool who's wise in his own conceits, and we're going to get into a lot of this, but just kind of laying a brief overview of chapter 26, it all flows together really nicely because there's so much overlap between the person who's foolish and the person who's lazy. I mean, the sluggard is a fool. And follow that up with the lazy person, the sluggard, that then ends up being a tail bearer. And you find that out with like, even in the New Testament, it talks about widows, right, that are younger, that they should marry, you know, get remarried and they don't want to find themselves idle and becoming toddlers and busy body. Why? If they're lazy, if they're not going to keep themselves busy doing work, doing something to keep them occupied, right, and then, you know, Bible's saying they just get married because that'll keep you busy. Your husband will keep you busy, right? Then that's when you end up getting into more problems and getting into this last section. So you can see how they're all kind of interrelated here. But let's jump into this now. Let's start looking here at verse number one regarding fools. The Bible reads, as snow in summer and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool. It's a very odd thing for honor to be bestowed upon a fool. You know, just like how often you see it snowing in the summertime. Doesn't happen, right? It's completely out of place. It's not something that you expect to happen at all. The same way, you know, don't expect to be honored if you're a fool. And it's actually a bizarre thing in kind of a backwards world when you start to see fools being honored, which is kind of the world that we're living in today. We see a lot of fools getting a lot of honor bestowed upon them. But let's keep reading here. Verse number two, as the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come. When a curse comes, the Bible is very clear here, it's not for no reason. There's always a very specific reason why the curse comes. Look at verse number three, a whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back. And this is likening a fool, basically, to a stubborn animal. What do you have with the ass and with the horse? Very stubborn animals, very difficult to break. You know, if you want to tame a horse, there's a lot of work that goes into it. Horses are wild. They don't want to do what you want them to do. You have to end up, and I don't know a lot about horses. I know a little bit, but what I do know is that, like, the horse needs to know you and like gain your respect, and you need to like, you know, that's why it says the whip for the horse, because they'll end up respecting you when you treat it like an animal, not talking about just beating it and make it, you know, like abusing animals, of course, but the same way that you use a rod on your children. I mean, the Bible says not to spare the rod, right? Well, horses, asses, very difficult, rebellious, stubborn animals to deal with, and that's why the Bible says the rod for the fool's back, because the fools tend to be very stubborn and rebellious and stiff-necked and very foolish in their thoughts and wise in their own conceits, and that phrase, let that sink down because we're going to see that as we get into this chapter more. It comes up multiple times. People who are wise in their own conceits, and you think about what is a conceited person. If someone's conceited, they're full of themselves, right? That's kind of what we think of as a definition of someone who's conceited. They think really highly of themselves, and if you're wise in your own conceits, it's like you're trusting in your own intelligence and how smart you are, and I just know everything and not really even necessarily relying on facts. You're just relying on yourself and just whatever I think is right because I think it's right. That's being wise in your own conceits, and that is a big attribute of the fool. Now, I think our laws ought to be resembling, at least, the Bible's laws. I think those are righteous laws, those righteous punishments to be had, found in the Bible. When God established human government and said, this is the way things are going to be. You're going to have these judges. Here's the law. Here's the penalties for the law. This is how you set it up. I think he was righteous in doing that, and I think that man can't come up with a better system than God came up with, and I think that that's the way that we ought to be here. And see, the concept of prison is not found in the Bible. There's a few cases where you see like in the Old Testament when they found early on just after God had given Moses the law, there was a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. Now, of course, honoring the Sabbath day and keeping it holy was a very serious commandment, and no work was to be done on the Sabbath day, and that actually carried the death penalty. That was a very serious sin. Now, I'm not going to get into all the reasoning behind that, but that's the way that it was, and it was righteous. And when they found somebody, basically like the first person that they saw, that was just completely disregarding that commandment. He's just going off, and he's gathering sticks. He's heard about the law, he doesn't care about it. He's going to do his thing anyways. He's going to go out and do his work because he wants to. Whatever. The Bible says that they put him in ward, which means they arrested him. They took him, and then they're like, well, we don't know what to do with him. God, what do we do with this guy? And that's when God said that he deserved a death penalty, and that the whole congregation should stone him with stones, and that's what happened. But all that, just to say, that's one of the very few times, I don't know how many times it comes up in the Bible, but that's like, if not that one, maybe one or two other times that talk about kind of taking hold of somebody until you can perform the actual punishment on them. That would be a justification for prison. But what we have today in our modern society, our modern law, is that prison itself is the punishment. That there is no punishment. We're going to lock you in a cage for however many years or months or whatever the sentence may be, and that is your punishment. And that is an unrighteous punishment, I think for many reasons. In many cases, I don't think it's severe enough, but in many cases, I think it's actually way too severe and inhumane and does a lot of damage and does way more damage than good. It becomes a burden on the whole society because now you've got to feed this person, support them, and pay personnel to watch over them and build these facilities and everything that goes along with the prison system. As opposed to just you commit the crime, pay the punishment and be done with it and not hang this over your own. It goes against the entire concept even of forgiveness and the concept of just, hey, you reap what you sow. Once you do that, it's done. Once the payment has been made, it's over. You don't need to keep this just continually hanging over your head. When you're in prison, you're just sitting there like, man, I did something wrong, but I'd rather just get beat. They consider that to be inhumane, yet they'll throw people in a dungeon called the hole or solitary confinement with nothing, practically naked in a steel room, no light, no bed, and they're just in this box. It's not even a cage. This is just a steel structure and say, oh, yeah, that's fine. That's just fine. Throw people in there for a month, two months. Some people have been in there for years. People lose their sanity in places like that. That truly is torture. And nowhere in the Bible are you going to see any justification for the use of torture ever, not even once. I don't care if it's an enemy in the time of war. The Bible says to basically to do good on your enemies. You see the example with Elisha. When they were surrounded and they were going after Elisha, and I believe it was the Syrian army, and they were surrounded by the angels, so they knew they were protected, but they didn't know, I think they were blinded. And Elisha was like, oh, here, I'll show you the way, right? And he brings them into the city, like brings them into Jerusalem, and then all of a sudden they could see, like, whoa, we're all here. And they asked Elisha, well, so what should we do with them? I mean, should we kill them? And he's like, no, like they're our prisoners. You're going to feed them. You're going to give them drink, and we're going to send them out in their way, right? That was the godly way of dealing with these prisoners of war. It wasn't torture them and get all this and try to extract information out of them by hanging them over the fire or stretching them apart or doing whatever sick, perverted ways to torture people. All throughout Scripture you're going to find that here's the crime, here's the punishment, do justice and be done with it. And, you know, all of that is coming from this one verse in Proverbs 26, verse 3, that there's a rod for the fool's back. We ought to have a punishment that is a public beating, that is a beating for certain crimes, you know, maybe misdemeanors, foolish crimes, right? Things that people do that's really just foolish, yeah, you might not have hurt someone, but it's not anything that bad, you're not killing anybody, you're not raping someone, you're not doing anything horrible, but you definitely commit a crime that that rod on the fool's back is an appropriate punishment that ought to be meted out. And I think if we had a righteous government we'd be doing that. And you know what, that's going to be a lot cheaper, and it's going to get the point across too. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of people that don't want to go back to prison, but even prison itself becomes its own society. I mean, there's people that go in prison for so long they don't want to leave prison. You know, they try to make it a bad place, but it ends up becoming where people are like, man, I've been in here for 20 years, 30 years, I don't even know how to survive out there. I know the way the politics work inside the prison. I know the prison guards which are corrupt, I know the guys that are in power over here, you know, it's a whole other world, society inside of that, and it's a slave society, by the way, too. I mean, they get the cheap work labor for, you know, just getting all kinds of public works done and whatever else, just using the prisoners as their slaves. And I could go on and on and on about the ridiculousness of our prison system that we have today and how unrighteous it is, but in a godly society we would have punishments similar to, or exactly what the Bible meets out here. And I believe it would do a lot better for the person. I mean, if you want to, you know, because they talk about prison being a rehabilitation center, I think the rod's going to do a better job, honestly. I honestly believe that. Because you think about the smaller crimes when people go to those prisons, they're not nearly as bad as the maximum security. You think of, any time you think of jail, you just think of like, probably the bare bones, like Alcatraz or something. If you've never been to prison, you've never been to jail, okay, that's like the image that might pop up in your head, but a lot of these places are like rec centers practically. I mean, they've got the TVs, you're getting your food, and you know, none of them are just saying like, it's not a vacation, but at the same time, some of these places it's like, it's really not that bad, and I think the rod would do a much better job. But let's continue, I don't want to keep rambling on this one topic. Verse number four, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. I love these two verses. I think they're great. I know some people get confused by these. I don't think there's much confusion here. I think what we could learn from this, because you say, well wait a minute, pass the verse that says, answer not a fool, and then it says answer a fool. So what are we supposed to do? Do we not answer him, or do we answer him? There's not a right answer. You should avoid fools altogether, so you're not put in that position, because with a fool, they're stiff necked. They're not going to listen, so he says, answer not a fool according to his folly. His own foolishness, don't answer him according to his own foolishness, because you're just going to lower yourself and get involved in their stupid trap, and you're going to be just like them, and you're going to end up being a fool, you know, answering this fool according to his folly. But then it says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. See, the fool needs a rebuke. They need to be told that they're wrong. You can't just, you know, you don't want them to just think that like, oh they're right, he's not saying anything to me because he knows I'm right, you know what I mean, and just further strengthen their own conceits. But at the same time, they're not going to listen to you, because they're a fool. Just by the virtue of being a fool in and of themselves, there's nothing that you're going to be able to do really to convince them, but they also shouldn't, you know, don't just get a free pass from rebuke either. And it's one of those situations where because they're a fool, you're in a lose-lose situation with them. And, you know, the Bible says in Proverbs 12, 15, we covered this, you know, two weeks ago, the way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise. So, the fool is not going to listen to you. And that's why the Bible is saying, you know, you're making yourself a fool thinking that you're going to, you know, show the fool, you know, wisdom and that he's going to listen to you. But at the same time, you know, you don't want them just thinking that, oh yeah, of course I'm right. And again, you know, to strengthen their own conceits. 2 Timothy, turn if you want to Titus chapter 3. 2 Timothy 2, 23, the Bible says, but foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender strives. So, in New Testament we see, you know, if there's a foolish question, avoid it. And how do you avoid foolish questions? By avoiding fools. Fools come up with foolish questions. Now, sometimes people who aren't fools come up with foolish questions. I'm not saying that that never happens, but by and large, you know, we're supposed to just avoid the foolish questions. Why? Because they're just going to cause strives and arguments. And that's what fools do. You know, the fool that's wise in his own eyes and everything they do is right, the person who's real conceited and just doesn't want to listen at all to what the Bible has to say, they're going to have a lot of stupid questions that's just going to cause you to strive and argue and debate and it's fruitless. And it's going to be fruitless because they're stiff necked. Look at Titus 3, verse number 9. But avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law for they're unprofitable and vain, a man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition, reject. Knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himself. So, they get the first and second admonition. You could rebuke them that they're not wise in their own conceits, but then be done with it because if you're going to invest any amount of time with them, you're going to end up becoming a fool too because there's nothing you're going to be able to do to answer that fool according to his folly and have them receive wisdom. So, this is a place where we all need to use wisdom. Go back, if you would, to Proverbs 26. We need to utilize wisdom in dealing with people, because usually the most common place you're going to run into a fool is without soul winning. When you're talking to people trying to preach the gospel and being able to identify the foolish person is important so that you're not wasting a bunch of your own time, that you're just avoiding it. Give them a couple chances and that's it. We just saw that today. Brother Sebastian did a really good job. We ran into this guy who was…it's so funny the hypocrisy in so many of these cults. So, this guy was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, he said, and then kind of got out of that for a long time, but then just recently, in the past few months, he's been going back to the Kingdom Hall. First of all, the guy is going to come out, he's wearing this Aerosmith shirt and these flaming rock pants, they're real tight, like a rock star would wear up on stage. These homo-looking pants on a man. Putting the looks aside though, he's talking to us and he wasn't listening to what Brother Sebastian was telling him. Brother Sebastian was real humbly trying to explain how there's just no works involved in our salvation. Gave him a couple admonitions and just said, hey, well the Bible says the eternal life is a free gift, because it's a gift, by the virtue of being a gift, it can't be our work. He's just going through the Gospel, just explaining that real briefly and the guy's just not receiving it at all, saying a whole bunch of foolish things and just had to cut it short. And you know what, thank God that we did it. And this is why I'm bringing up this example, is because the last door we ended up knocking on is someone got saved tonight. So we could have wasted a whole bunch of time on this fool, because he wasn't receiving it at all. I mean, people who are going to be reasonable, I mean, I don't care if they're in the Jehovah's Witness cult, if they're going to be reasonable and listen to what you have to say and have a conversation and be able to say, I see your point in this, I guess, you know, like, that's way different of someone who's actually listening and not being a fool than someone who's just, you give them the perfect, clear, just, you can't argue with a lot of these scriptures. Some of them you can, but the stuff that we're showing them, I mean, it's just black and white, like, it says what it says. No, no, well, throw off some stupid answer that you don't even know anything about, but just because you don't want to change your mind because you're a fool. And you could end up wasting, and it would have been very easy to get in an argument with this guy, it would have been very easy to become foolish like him, and then maybe never even talking to that other person because the next time we go back there, she might not even be home. You don't know that. So it's very important to use your time wisely and not get caught up in these vain contentions and strivings about the law with the fool. Give them one and two admonitions and say, you know what, he's condemned. He's an heretic and he's condemned of himself because he's subverted. And, you know, you gave him a chance, but that's it. They didn't want to hear. The Bible says in verse number 6 of Proverbs 26, he that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the feet and drinketh damage. You don't want to have a fool as someone that you're relying on to get anything done for you, especially anything important. Sending a message, it's like you're cutting off your feet. You're not going to get the outcome that you expect, ever, unless you're expecting the foolish to do something stupid. Let's keep reading here, verse number 7. The legs of the lame are not equal. So lame is someone here, either with a birth defect or someone who is physically injured. Today we call people lame, meaning like not cool or something like that, but literally the word lame means they're handicapped, they're injured in some way, they're not whole. So this is the legs of the lame. You know, if someone had part of their leg amputated or something, that's why they're not equal. That person is considered lame. They're not whole. And it says just like the legs of the lame are not equal because they have whatever issue they have, it says so is a parable in the mouth of fools. Fools will take parables and they have no idea what they mean at all and completely butcher them. Let's keep reading here, verses number 8 and 9. As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, so is he that giveth honor to a fool. As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools. Now, there are many people that give honor to famous fools out there today that are seen as teachers of God's Word. There are lots of fools out there that don't know how to discern the Bible or rightly divide the Word of Truth or give any type of meaning because they're false prophets, because they're not saved themselves. They can't receive the things of God. And I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but I mean, look at this real quickly at verse 8 because I love the proverbs. I love the language. And see, that bindeth a stone in a sling. So that's someone that ties a stone into the sling. I mean, what's a sling for? You put the rock in there or whatever, the projectile, and it throws up. If you tie the rock into the sling, that's not going to work very well, is it? You're going to be like, come on, come on. You have to throw the whole sling with the rock in order to do any type of damage whatsoever. It's stupid. It's stupidity. It's foolishness, right? And the Bible is saying that just like that situation, it's the same thing when you give honor unto a fool. And then in verse 9, as a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools. It hurts. It hurts listening to these people trying to explain a parable. In terms of Matthew 25, I want to go into a very famously misunderstood parable that's out, the false teachers love to go to these parables and try to teach you false doctrine from them. And I say this frequently, but I'm going to bring it up again because it's so important. When we derive our doctrine, when we decide what is it that we believe from the Bible, do not start with a parable. That is not the starting point ever for what you believe. What is a parable? A parable is a story, right? It's when you liken some truth, some great truth to an example of something that might help you to understand what that truth actually is. We use parables when we go out soul winning sometimes in the sense that we want someone to understand the freeness of salvation, so we give them an illustration, we give them examples, and we'll say, you know, when you receive a free gift, it's free, it's not a bore, you know, to get the concept across. And you're using a situation to illustrate the truth that you're trying to get across. That's what a parable is. Now, the fool, the false prophet, the fools that have all this honor, will take the parables and use that as their proof text, for example, of why you could lose your salvation. And nine times out of ten, when I'm talking to someone at the door, and someone who knows a little bit of the Bible, right, not someone who just says, well, I believe this because that's what I've been taught, or, you know, like, I don't know, it says it somewhere in the Bible, whatever, but someone who can actually try to go to a verse, when someone tries to explain that you can lose your salvation, almost every single time, they turn to a parable. I mean, literally, almost every single time. We base what we believe off of the clear statements that can stand completely on their own. You know, obviously we need to understand the context of everything, but there is definitely a lot of verses in the Bible that say what they say, and they stand out from the context because it's very literal in the meaning. And that's where we derive our doctrine from. That is the most sure foundation to say, hey, we're going to build on the clear-cut teaching. Thus saith the Lord. This is what Jesus said. This is what Moses said. This is what the Bible says right here. And then, what you do with the parable is that can just help build upon the foundation you've already laid with the clear truth. The parable is given to help provide a little bit more insight, but the foundation is still on the clear statements. So we don't go to the parable to prove the doctrine. I never go to the parables to prove doctrines. I was talking to a Catholic guy once, and he brought up the parable of the prodigal son. Again, trying to say that, see, you could go away from God, and then you're not saved, and you come back to God, and then you're saved, you know, and this back and forth type of thing. And I realized real quickly, I was trying to explain the meaning of the parable, but it's like, you can believe whatever you want, and you're not going to trust what this person, well that's just your interpretation. And see, that's where so many people get mixed up in this, well, everyone's got a different interpretation of the Bible. Well, yeah, first of all, that may be true, but it doesn't mean they're all right. And when you're going to a parable to define some essential doctrine like salvation, it's no wonder you're going to have everyone thinking something different. That's why we don't go to the parable to form our doctrine. It's supporting. But let's look at Matthew 25, this is a commonly misunderstood parable, it's actually very simple. Verse number 1, the Bible reads, Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you, but go ye rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not, watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh. Now this parable on the surface is just giving a story. You have ten virgins. Five of them, they all have lamps, right? Five of them have oil for their lamps to light the way. The other five don't. They're all sitting there at home. The bridegroom's coming. And there's an announcement saying, Hey, the bridegroom's coming. You need to go to his place now. It's time. And they're all scrambling around. Okay, it's time to go. And the five foolish ones, they're not going to be able to find their way because they don't have oil in their lamps to make it. And they're saying, Hey, you guys have some oil. Give it to us. And they'll say, No, we can't give you any of ours because we need to make sure that we have enough for ourselves. And if we give some to you, then we probably, you know, neither one of us will have enough. So we need to keep ours. You just need to go off and buy some oil, you know, and deal with that problem and then come or whatever. And it's a very simple story. But first of all, we've got to understand is there is a teaching that there is something to learn from this parable, right? But this parable is not clearly spelled out. And this isn't one, you know, and in some instances, Jesus says, Okay, this is what the parable means. His disciples asked him to say, you know, they didn't even get it. They're like, What are you talking about? What does this parable mean? He's saying, Okay, this is this, you know, with the sower and the seed, which we're gonna get to that actually in a minute. Anyways, he says, you know, the person has a sower, you know, the seed is the Word of God. And here's what all this means. And he just spells it all out from you all the symbolism. You're saying when the birds of the field of the air come and swallow up the seed. That's when the devil comes and takes the word that's sown out of a person's heart. Very clear. But that is the imagery that he's using. He's saying, Just an example, normal guy, sow and seed. Okay, this is what it all means now. This is what I'm trying to get across to you. This parable he doesn't do that with. So this is why you have a bunch of people saying, Well, and here's what the false prophet will say. The fool is going to say, Well, you see, you have to keep doing the works and you need to make sure that you're ready for Jesus to be here in the sense that, you know, you're you're following and ready and doing everything because it becomes and you're not you're not doing everything you're supposed to be doing. Then you lose your salvation. And that's not what this is teaching at all. Now it does say we need to be ready for the bridegroom to come. But the way that you're ready is by being saved. And, you know, I'm not going to go into the full just proof over why I believe what this what this is teaching. But you could study out for yourself. Look up when oil is used in the Bible. Oil is very symbolic consistently throughout the Bible of having the Spirit, having the Spirit of God, having the Holy Spirit. So what we see here it says, Yeah, but there are 10 virgins. That means they're all saved. No, it doesn't. It just means that they were maidens that were espoused to the husband, right? They were there to be come brides. That's why I mean, because unlike in today's society, you know, being pure and being virgin was something that was actually held in high esteem and that it would have been scoffed at to think that they weren't virgins when they were about to be married to it to the bridegroom, right? So that just fits in perfectly with the story because that's what a bridegroom marries is a maid, a virgin. So the fact they are virgin doesn't just mean automatically that, well, they must have been saved because they're virgin. No. The fact that they had oil in their lamps is what determines whether or not they were saved. And they say, Yeah, but you can't buy oil. You can't, you know, like you can't buy the Holy Spirit. Well, yeah, I know, but every story is going to fall apart at some point. I mean, you can't just look at every single little detail in a parable and try to apply it and say, well, you know, that can't be about that because this one aspect of it. That's not what he's trying to teach you anyways. When they say, you have to be able to apply the actual real world experience to whatever the greater truth is that's being taught there. Every single thing, and just, you know, you could do the same thing with salvation being a gift, right? You really dig down into the details and say, Okay, yeah, it's not a vore, it's all this other stuff. All those things apply to a gift, but then you could say, Yeah, but if you give me a gift, I could just throw it in the garbage and I could burn it or I could do this or I could give it back to the person. I could do all these other things. At some point, the parable, the illustration falls apart. I mean, it doesn't, it's not just like 100%. Every single little detail about this story is exactly the way it is with God and what he's trying to present. I mean, that you just need common sense to understand that, you know, the point, there's one major point that you're trying to illustrate with an example. And the fool doesn't get that and then not only that, they just completely butcher what the parables are about anyways. And you know, this parable, you could then look at when he says, when they're knocking on the door after they came, they went, they got, you know, they bought their oil physically. And again, I mean, that could just represent doing works. I mean, going and buying your oil, right? I mean, that's not how you get saved anyways. So they come back, they're knocking on the door like, Lord, Lord, we're here and open to us. Matthew 7 is another place that talks about people who are saying, Lord, Lord, you know, and they should, you know, and he said, the part for me that you work iniquity, you know, I never knew you. And he said here, but he answered and said, I know verily I say unto you, I know you not. He doesn't know him because he never knew him. He doesn't say, well, I used to know you, now I don't know you. But in any case, that's just one example. And, you know, the thing is we need to be ready. You know, we don't know when Jesus Christ is coming back. We ought to be ready. We ought to be ready for the bridegroom to come back. But, you know, the way that, the main way to be ready is be saved. I mean, make sure that, hey, when he comes, because when he comes back, that's pretty much it. You know, I mean, there could be a cutoff time for people even being able to get saved. So we need to make sure we get that settled. Turn, if you go to Luke, chapter 8, which is also another misunderstood parable, the parable of the sower. And then we're not going to go through the whole thing. I've done this very recently, but basically I believe that of the four examples, three of them are saved and the first one is not. And many people teach that only the last one is saved. And those are the people that want to rely on the works to prove that somebody's saved and that, oh, there's no way the other two could be saved. But we're going to see very clearly. And you find this parable in other gospels. It's not just in Luke. In Luke, though, there's some words here that make it very, very clear for us. First of all, I just want to point out why did Jesus even use parables? And, you know, we use parables in a sense to help people understand that's not why Jesus used parables, according to scripture. Look at Luke, chapter 8, verse number 9. After he had spoken the parable of the sower, verse number 9, and his disciples asked him, saying, what might this parable be? Say, what is this? What's the meaning of this parable? Verse number 10. And he said, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to others in parables. Why? Why is it only given unto disciples to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but not unto everybody else? He says, unto them I just tell them in parables. Why? That seeing they might not see and hearing they might not understand. Say, well, that's kind of weird. Why does Jesus not want them to understand? Why does he not want them to see? Turn back, if you would, to Isaiah, chapter 6. Keep a finger on Luke 8. Keep a spot on Luke 8, because I want to just quickly show you why I believe that the other ones are saved, other than the first example. Isaiah, chapter number 6. Isaiah 6, verse number 8, the Bible reads, also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then said I, hear me, hear my, send me. And he said, go and tell this people, hear ye indeed, but understand not, and see ye indeed, but perceive not. He's saying, you hear, but you don't understand. You see, but you don't perceive. Look at verse number 10, though. This is his command to Isaiah when he says, hear my, send me. Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes, lest, lest, meaning unless, they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and convert and be healed. When a people have gone reprobate, they can't believe, and God makes it so that the people can't believe. He says, he's going to go unto them, he's going to preach to them in parables, and many of the people, when you look, especially in the context, when Jesus is given the parables, you know, sometimes just to the masses and the multitudes, but you've got the Pharisees and you've got these false prophets and these other people listening there, that they can't get saved because they've already pushed it too far. They've already rejected Christ and become reprobate, and he's saying, they're going to hear the parable, and they're not going to have a clue as to what it is, and I'm going to give them the truth, but they're not going to understand it, and it's not, the mysteries aren't going to be clearly spelled out for them. And you see that, you know, the truth, the clarity, he says, always it's to his disciples, it's to the believers, he teaches them the very clear truth, but when he's just speaking in general, he just does it in parables. He never really just comes out just, just completely clear matter of fact in front of everybody, and there's a purpose for that. Go back, if you would, to Luke chapter 8, and again, another reason why the fool doesn't have a clue is that can't understand the parable, and they completely butcher it, is because, you know, it's not given to them to understand anyways, the foolish false prophet. Luke chapter 8, when Jesus explains the parable, verse number 11, he says, now the parable is this, the seed is the word of God, those by the wayside are they that hear. Then cometh the devil, and maketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. Very clear, right? If they believe, if that seed that they've heard, that word of God, if they believe it, they're going to be saved. Very clear, cannot argue with that. And then look at the next verse, verse 13, because all it takes to be saved is to believe, right? Amen, believe on the word of God, believe on Jesus Christ. Verse 13, they on the rock, so that the very first example, are they which when they hear, receive the word with joy, and these have no root, which for a while, what? Believe. And in time of temptation, fall away. Now if you believe, do you receive eternal life? Amen. That's what the Bible says. Now, what happens if you stop believing? It says they believed for a while. Well, the moment you believe, you have everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life, like John 5.24 says. Once you believe, the Bible says, if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself. Once you put your faith in Christ, you're born again. You cannot be unborn. And that's why these people are all saved, because in verse 13, 14, 15, whether it's the stony places, whether it's among the thorns, or whether it's on good ground, all those examples, they receive that seed. They become a new life. They turn into this new plant, and they start to grow. That new life, that's eternal life. Physically, in this world, they may end up perishing because the root doesn't go down. They get swept up with the cares of this world and things like that. They don't end up becoming fruitful, but they still believed and got saved. The first person is the only one where the devil comes and takes that word away where they don't get saved, because they don't believe. All the rest of them believe and get saved. Don't let the fool twist your mind around using a parable to try to shake your faith in the eternal security of the believer, because the Bible teaches in many clear instances, salvation is everlasting. It's free, it's not of works, and it's eternal. These parables, people love to go to the parables and say, see, they only believe for a while. So that means that when they stop believing, they go to hell. They'll just run with it. It's not what the parable is saying at all. The parable is actually saying they believe. The seed is the word of God, and they believe. Yeah, they believed for a while, but start going to the clearer scriptures. That's what you need to prove the doctrine. That's why I bring up 1 Timothy chapter 2. That's why I bring up other places that will explain the eternal security in very clear terms. Let's go back to Proverbs chapter 26. Proverbs 26, verse number 10. The great God that formed all things, both rewardeth the fool and rewardeth transgressors. As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. We ought to be careful when we're talking about the when you start to get sin out of your life and start to get the victory over a lot of sins, not to go back to those sins. It's like a dog returning to its vomit. That's a very foolish thing to do. The fool will do that. The fool doesn't gain the victory because they're just like a dog. It's kind of a disgusting example, but it is what it is. It's a fact that dogs do that. I'm not going to go into all the detail, but I've got four dogs and I've got one that likes to eat really, really, really, really fast, and I've seen him do other things and it's really gross, but when you see that happening and you think about the reaction, you think about like, oh man, that's nasty. That's the same type of reaction that God has with you return unto your sin. When you go back into doing whatever filth it is that you're doing, whatever wickedness you get involved in, we ought to have that reaction like, oh man, I'll never do that. That's gross. I mean, sin should look like vomit to us. I don't want to even get near that. I don't even want to smell that. I want to be as far away from that as possible. Let's clean this up and get rid of it. I don't want to go back to that again. Verse number 12, Seeest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him. So we just heard a lot about fools, right? And he's saying, you see that person who's wise in his own conceit? A fool's got more hope than that guy. A person who's just really puffed up and full of themselves and wise in their own conceits is worse than a fool. There's more hope for, and there's not very much hope for a fool. We've already seen that. Verse 13, now we're going to kind of transition in here to the slothful person. The slothful man said, there is a lion in the way, a lion in the streets. As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed. The lazy person doesn't want to get up, just tossing and turning. The slothful person, they usually don't end up getting a whole lot of sleep either. They end up spending a lot of time in bed, but usually the sleep isn't even that good for them. It's going to plague them. Why? Because you need to get tired to really get a good sleep. When you're up working, when you're laboring, it's not hard to sleep at all. Every once in a while I get these Saturdays where I could just do work around the house or whatever, and when I'm working, shoveling, digging, or doing anything that has labor involved. When I go to bed that night, I sleep pretty good. It's not a problem. You're like, oh man, I've got to figure out how can I go to sleep. If anyone has a problem going to sleep, work. Work harder. Now if you've got a job like I do, my day job where I'm sitting at an office, I'm working hard with my mind. That alone though, even doing that can exhaust you. When you're doing the work, it can exhaust you. Not quite as much as the physical exhaustion of manual laboring, but it still is exhausting. When you put in enough work, you're going to be getting tired, but by not being lazy, you're not just going to be tossing and turning all the time. Just take this piece of wisdom. If you have a problem tossing and turning in bed, take it to heart and analyze your life and say, you know what, maybe I need to be working more. Maybe I need to be up and be more active and doing more things to make sure that I'm not just tossing and turning. Am I being lazy? You could answer that for yourself. Verse number 15, the slothful hideth his hand in his bosom. It grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. This statement is almost ridiculous. People are saying like, oh man, it's so tough to eat. I got to pick up this fork and put it in my mouth. That's when you know you are a sluggard. When you are just totally lazy like that. That is ridiculous. When you need the Walmart motorized cart to get you home and to move you around your house and stuff like that, you've hit rock bottom. You need to get up and start working. Verse number 16, the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. Again, wise in your own conceit. We're seeing this again. Notice how the fool was relating to that and now the sluggard. The lazy person, often times they're lazy because they think they've got it all figured out. I don't need to do this. I don't need to do that. They're wise in their own conceit and you can't talk to them. You can't get through to them. It says they're wiser than seven people that could use logic, that could reason. They're real smart. They're intelligent. They could try to reason together with you. Well, the sluggard, you know, what do these guys know? They're gonna try to come at me with logic and reasoning, but I know better than them. They're a fool. The Bible says there's more hope of a fool than of him. Verse number 17, the Bible says, he that passeth by and meddleth with strife belonging not to him is like one that taketh a dog by the ears. If you've never done it before, don't take a dog by the ears. Believe the Bible here. It's not something you want to do. Imagine what you might do if someone walked up to you and took hold upon your ears and just like yanked on them. What would be your first reaction? I know what mine would be. Get out of here. That hurts. A dog's not that much different. You go up to a dog and try yanking on his ears, you're gonna see that they don't like that very much. And what the Bible is saying here is when you're passing by, when other people are in a fight, there's other things going on, other people's drama, other people's business, and there's people out there yelling at each other or maybe even people getting into a little scuffle or whatever. That's not your business. You don't need to go and get involved and meddle and everybody else is fighting. Because when you do that, it's just like taking a dog by the ears. You're gonna get bit. You're gonna get hurt. The damage is gonna come upon you now. You're just introducing yourself in a situation that you really don't need to become a party to. And obviously it's not talking about like someone's getting raped or someone's being like murdered or something like that to step in and try to protect them. It's just talking about a strife, a fight. When people are fighting, it's their business. The worst thing in the world, you know, it's like you go to the family get-togethers and then like two people are fighting and then you've got another person jumps in and then that person, you know, someone else jumps in. Before you know it, everybody's mad at each other. It just turns, blows up and it's a huge thing. Hopefully I'm not the only one who's ever experienced something like that. But it happens. You know, people, things get way out of control because people just can't keep their own noses out of someone else's business, you know. And, you know, obviously there's always times where one person's right and one person's wrong, but you don't need to go in there at the time and just start saying who's right and who's wrong. You're not helping the situation at all. You're just gonna bring more hurt and injury upon yourself. The Bible says in Proverbs 14 verse 16, a wise man fearth and departeth from evil, but the fool rages and is confident. So, you know, when you see people are involved in a strife or in a conflict, you don't need to be getting involved. You know, you don't need to be the hero. And again, we'll go back to the physical example, right. So people are gonna fight or whatever and, you know, a wise man sees evil. He's gonna avoid it. You know, he's not gonna just go and get himself involved in every single fight that's going on out there. But the fool rages and is confident. Nothing's gonna happen to me. Oh, I'm Mr. Hero. I'm just gonna go out and get involved in everybody else's fights. That's gonna come back at you. Not a wise thing to do. Verse, let's go here. Proverbs 20 verse 3, by it is an honor for a man to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling. Meddling and getting involved in fights. Hey, it's an honor for you to be the bigger man and to stop the fight. You know, usually in a fight people are, there's a little sense of pride involved. There's, you know, where people have insulted you or done something else, you know, to dishonor you. But the real honor comes in when you can just back off and not and just stop the fight. There's real honor to that. That's not being weak, by the way. Now, the spiritual battles, we stand up and we fight. But the personal attacks, the personal fight, you know, when someone mocks you or ridicules you and tries to provoke you into a fight or you're involved in a fight, it's a lot, there's honor involved in not pursuing that fight. Because we've got a different fight that we need to fight. There's a different battle. It's way more important. Proverbs 26, we're almost done here. Verse number 18, as a madman who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbor and saith, Am not I in sport? I'm not going to go into that very much, just for sake of time. Verse number 20, where no wood is, there the fire goeth out. So where there is no tailbearer, the strife ceaseth. And now we're getting into the last kind of main section of the chapter here about the tailbearer, someone going around and telling stories. You know, whether they be true or false, the tailbearer can be doing both. They could be spreading rumors, they could be spreading lies, or even telling the truth, but things that they ought not to just be going around and talking about. It says when that's not around, there's no strife. There's no conflict. You don't got people getting angry with each other because it's not there. It's just when the wood burns out, you got a campfire. Hey, when the wood's all gone, there's no more fire. It's gone. There's nothing to burn. And when there's no stories being told, there's no more fighting. Verse 21, as coals are to burning coals and wood to fire, so is a contentious man that can kindle strife. The guy that likes to fight a lot, he's going to continually be just throwing fuel on that fire and trying to get things going. The words of a tailbearer are his wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly. Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a pot shirt covered with silver dross. And again, the imagery being there, a pot shirt is just like a fragment of a pot. And you remember the dross is the impurities, the imperfection. It's not the good stuff. It's a silver dross. So it's this ugly, useless thing. That's what burning lips and a wicked heart are likened to that. He that hateth dissembleth with his lips and layeth up deceit within him. When he speaketh fair, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart. So there are some people that actually hate, and they're trying to cause mischief. They're trying to cause problems, and they dissemble with their lips. They use their words to split people up, to cause fights, to destroy. And that's why this is all mixed in here with the tailbearer going around and trying to start problems between people. And they layeth up deceit within them. They're ready to lie. And see, there's two types of people that can be a tailbearer. There's one who's a lot more innocent or ignorant, if you will, and end up slipping up and saying things that they shouldn't have said. But that's not really what's being described here so much. In the context, we're talking about people who like to fight, causing problems, and really doing damage, and have evil intent. And that's what we see. The person that hates, they dissemble with their lips, and they layeth up deceit within him. When he speaketh fair, believe him not. So when the guy that likes to cause problems and strife, and they start speaking good things, they're like, don't believe him. That's just a trap. There's seven abominations in his heart. Yeah, the outside is saying things that are real good, but on the inside, he's just full of wickedness. Verse 26, whose hatred is covered by deceit. This guy in his heart, he's got a lot of hate, but on the outside, he's saying all the loving things. This is like the sodomites, right? They'll go out there and say, oh, we need to love everybody, and we need to be tall, and we need to be accepting. And in their heart, it's just pure, like, seven abominations, and wickedness, and wicked thoughts, and wicked intent. And when they're not in public view, they're the ones sending all the hate mail, and all the things they want to do to your kids, and all this other stuff where their true colors come out. But their hatred is covered by deceit, by the lies, because they don't believe any of it anyways. They say, oh, God is love. You don't believe in God. You hate God. His wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation. Verse 27, whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein, and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him. See, God's going to bring judgment back upon. You know, these people think they're getting away with stuff. These people who have wicked hearts, and trying to set traps for people, and try to do all this damage, you know, they end up digging a pit, and they fall in it themselves. Their own ways get recompensed upon their head. That's the way it works, and that's the way it will always work as long as God is God, and you know what, that's forever. Verse 28, a lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it, and a flattering mouth worketh ruin. Keep that in mind, you know, I mean, especially us as believers, you know, a lying tongue hates those that are afflicted by it. When you tell a lie, realize that whether it's about somebody, especially if it's about somebody, you're lying about someone else, you hate that person, and when you're just telling lies in general, whatever, there's always going to be a damage that's going to come from sin, always, and when you sin, it always impacts other people. It's never just yourself. Any sin that you do is going to end up hurting somebody else. Eventually, it always works out that way. You never just brunt yourself. There's always damage to someone else, and even something, you say, oh, well, telling a lie, that's not going to hurt anybody. Yeah, it is, and oftentimes, you don't even know, you don't understand when you do it the ways that it's going to happen, but, you know, the person affected by that, keep that in mind when you tell your lies that you hate the person that's going to end up being affected by that. Let's borrow a word of prayer to your heavenly Father. Lord, we thank you so much for the great wisdom and instruction that we have, and that even though a lot of these topics we've gone over in the past, Lord, there's still always new information being provided and more details for us to learn from. God, I pray that you would please help us to not waste time with a fool, that we wouldn't become foolish like them. Dear Lord, I pray you please help us all to not be lazy, not to be slothful, but that we would be busy and working and being diligent to do a lot of work, dear Lord, and not to just be a lazy slugger, dear God, and I pray that you please help us also to be careful of the things that we say, not to get caught up in lying and to beware of those that have hate in their heart that are actually trying to cause strife and contention, dear Lord, and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.