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Proverbs 28, the way we've been doing most of the Proverbs, especially those that have been coming here, it's not anything new for you. I tend to group a lot of the verses together that are dealing with the same topic and just to kind of cover the same thing so I'm not re-hitting the same points. We can see the same verses. What's really interesting about Proverbs 28 is that two of the main points that we're covering tonight, one is basically the wicked and kind of in respect to the law. We see a lot of verses regarding wicked people and the law. And then poor people and rich people, they're actually intermingled when you start reading through this, you'll see like every other verse, one's kind of talking about the wicked people and a lot of other people talking about the poor people being oppressed or rich people. And I don't want to ignore that. The reason I'm even pointing that out is because I don't want to ignore the correlation that I believe that everything is ordered in the Bible for a reason. Even the Proverbs, sometimes you read through the book of Proverbs and it can be seemingly just unconnected, just kind of like random thoughts here and there. But the more you study, because I used to think that a lot, like it's just here's a verse, here's a verse, here's a verse and they're just completely random. I don't believe that anymore. That was way early on before I really studied and read and read and read and read. And the more you read, you start to see, wow, there's a lot more connection here than I realized. And I'm not going to go in depth in it. I just want to make it a point. So when you go back and read this, see for yourself, I'm not going to really preach a lot on the correlation between the two. Hopefully some of it will become evident. Obviously when you have wicked people, the wicked people are constantly oppressing the poor. And the rich men tend to be more wicked than the poor men. But there's a lot of intermingling that goes back and forth. A lot of people are poor because they're wicked. A lot of people get into wicked sins and live a wicked lifestyle and end up becoming poor as a result. So there's a lot of correlation and back and forth between these two topics. And I just kind of wanted to make a mention of that before we dig into this because I'm going to be separating the two and kind of going at that angle. But that's the way it's written in here and that's why I wanted to make a comment about that before we get really into this. So let's look here at verse number one. We're going to park it on verse number one for a little while. Anyways, the Bible reads, the wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion. Now turn, if you would, to Leviticus chapter number 26. Keep your place here in Proverbs 28. But this is a profound statement and this is something that I got a lot of points to make on this, but basically the Bible is teaching us here that people who are wicked, you're always wondering, like, what did I do wrong? Who's out to get me? There's a fear there. There's always going to be a fear of other people, a fear of what's coming when you're living wickedly. Because you don't know what's coming. It's like, you know, there's certain instances, if you're a troublemaker at school, like you get called down to the principal's office. Okay, what did I get caught for this time? You have no idea, right? But if you know you've done nothing wrong and you know that if you're just doing right, you're righteous, you can be bold. You have no reason to worry. You have no reason to fear because, hey, I'm living, I'm doing right. You know, what am I doing? Now, obviously there's always a situation like, I don't think anybody feels comfortable when you got a cop pulling you over or something. You're just like, oh great, what, you know, like, what I do now. But when you're living righteous, you can be bold. And the Bible says the wicked flee. They, flee means you run away. I mean, they take off running even when no man pursues. We're going to see some examples of this proverb played out in stories in the Old Testament. Leviticus chapter 26, verse number 3, the Bible says, if you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, because all throughout the book of Leviticus you're getting the law given to the children. You know, it's given to Moses. Moses is laying down the law of God. By the time you get to chapter 26, you know, he's wrapping it all up. He says, if you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in due season and the land shall yield or increase and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time and you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land safely. So he's basically saying, you're going to be blessed. If you could follow my commands, do the things I tell you to do, abstain from the wickedness. I'm going to bless your land. You're going to, your crops are going to increase. Everything's just going to go great for you. You're going to have a lot of blessings. Verse 6, and I will give peace in the land and you shall lie down and none shall make you afraid. Say, if you're doing what's right, if you follow and keep my commandments and keep my statutes, you're going to have peace. You're not going to be worried. No one else is going to make you afraid. You're not going to be worried about Russia dropping a nuke on you. You're not going to be worried about, you know, these other nations coming in and attacking you. You will be at peace and you can lay down your head at night and rest fully knowing I have nothing to fear. I'm doing what's right and I will rid evil beasts out of the land. Neither shall the sword go through your land and you shall chase your enemies and they shall fall before you by the sword. Look at this in verse 8, and five of you shall chase in a hundred and in a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. That's some pretty big numbers there. A hundred put ten thousand to flight. That's a lot of odds being stacked against you, but this is what God's saying is that when you're righteous, you can be bold as a lion, right? Then these people, He says, you're going to be chasing them and you're going to be putting ten thousands of people to flight. Why? Because you're doing what's right. Why? Because God's got your back. Because God is with you. God will be fighting battles for you when you're doing what's right by Him. When you're walking in the ways that He's laid out for you. And on the flip side, you know, the enemies of the people who are doing righteously, they are going to be fleeing when no one pursues. That's why you're going to have ten thousand people running away when there's only a hundred people chasing them. Because they're going to have the fear. They're going to have the fear that's put in them because they are doing wickedly. I think inherently in people, you know when you're doing wrong. You know, it's a natural instinct that we've got from God, from His laws being written in our hearts that, you know, even before I got saved, I knew when there's things I was doing that I shouldn't have been doing and there's situations you get into when, you know, you're just looking around waiting for something bad to happen because of the situation you're in and what you're doing. And, you know, be sure your sin will find you out. And that applies to everybody, saved and unsaved. Verse number nine reads, for I will have respect unto you and make you fruitful and multiply you and establish my covenant with you. So we see the same exact principle and concept being taught back when God gave the law in Leviticus. Leviticus 26 lays out the exact same concept that we see in Proverbs 28. Turn if you would to 1 Samuel 14. We'll see this example played out now with Jonathan. This is a famous story of Jonathan, King David's friend Jonathan, Saul's son, when they were at war with the Philistines. This is still pretty early, this is much earlier on in Saul's reign and they're battling the Philistines. And Jonathan goes up with his armor bearer and basically he's saying, you know, we can go up, well let's read it. Look at verse number six of 1 Samuel 14. 1 Samuel 14 verse six. And Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armor, come and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few. What great faith did Jonathan have? He's like, you know God's capable of doing anything. Why don't we just go over here to this great garrison, this great troop of the Philistines? Because what happened is they were both pitched on either side of this cliff. So there's this valley in between the two armies. And obviously the advantage is to have the higher ground and so neither one wanted to go down and have to fight that uphill battle. Jonathan's like, you know what? We've got God on our side. We're the righteous ones here. These uncircumcised, heathen Philistines that have their idols that they worship, that are against God and against everything that God stands for. He's like, God's with us. We could get these people and you know what? We don't even need the whole army to do it. If God is willing, God can do anything. He could save by many. He could save by few. And he had the faith to know that, you know what? He could save by you and me. Think about that for a minute. Put yourself in his position. You have an entire army over there. It's easy to read this and get excited about it and say, yeah man, that's great. Put yourself in his shoes though. Do you have that much faith? Not many people do. That's a big thing to, because think about it. He wasn't necessarily living in a time like when God led the children of Israel out of Egypt where you can see the signs and the wonders just being done that could help encourage you and be like, well God did all of these various things and like, I saw it. He was living in a little bit different time period. He didn't see all of those things, yet he had the faith. I mean, it's similar to the time period we're at today. We're separated from the visual miracles, or even in Jesus' day, right? In Jesus' day, you could see Jesus walking around, performing miracles, healing people, and doing all these great things. It might be a little bit easier to understand how you could just have this super great faith just seeing all that stuff because it has a bigger impact. The faith that Jonathan had here, he's faced with an army. A powerful army, too. The Philistines weren't someone that was just like, it wasn't just some poor nation that they're going to be easily defeated. They had a strong army, and Jonathan just says, hey look, we can go and do this. Basically, we're not going to read it, but he says, here's what we're going to do, just to make sure that God's with us. If we call unto them, we're going to go over there, if we call unto them, and they tell us basically to get lost, to get out of here, we're not going to fight you, then we'll just go. But if they say, come up to us, come on, we'll show you what's going on, he says, God's with us. I like the way he did that, too, because it's not shirking away from the challenge. He could have done it the opposite way, to see if God was on their side. If they said to go away, then we're just going to go up anyways. But he's like, no, if they tell us to come unto them, then we're going to go unto them. That's exactly what happens. Jump down to verse number 12. It says, and the men of the garrison answered Jonathan and his armor-bearer and said, come up to us and we will show you a thing. And Jonathan said unto his armor-bearer, come up after me, for the Lord hath delivered them into the hand of Israel. And Jonathan climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet, and his armor-bearer after him, and they fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer slew after him. In that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made, was about 20 men, within, as it were, a half-acre of land, which a yoke of oxen might plow. And there was trembling in the host, in the field, and among all the people. The garrison and the spoilers, they also trembled, and the earth quaked. So it was a very great trembling, and the watchmen of Saul and Gibeah and Benjamin looked, and behold, the multitude melted away, and they went on beating down one another. The fear, the Bible says that the earth was shaking from their trembling, because they got so scared, there was this skirmish happening, this real small battle, where just Jonathan and his armor-bearer is coming up that hill, and the people are coming down that he called unto, that small garrison. Twenty men. Jonathan just going boom, boom, boom, his armor-bearers just making sure they're dead after him, coming up, killing them all. Only 20 people. And 20 people is still alive, don't get me wrong, for one person to take out in a battle. I don't want to downplay even the 20 people. But you've got two guys coming up against 20, and because of that, you see this great commotion, this great fear like, oh no. And they didn't know what was going on, they were probably thinking Israel's coming to attack us. They're at this stalemate for so long, and you could see the fear that the wicked had, that they turned and actually started just beating on each other and just getting out of there and melting away and completely retreating and running away when two people were chasing them. Two people. That's all it took. But see, they were righteous. Jonathan was a righteous man. He was a righteous man of God, and he was bold as a lion. And you know what, his faith was in the right place. He wasn't looking for glory for himself. At no point do we see Jonathan saying, I'm going to make a great name for myself. I'm going to do this great... He's saying no. The Lord will work for us, is what he told his armor bearer. And then he said that he was going to win this great battle for Israel. Like it wasn't for himself, it was Israel's going to win this great battle. And God's going to be the one to do it. And we see the same thing happen with David when David went after Goliath. He says, you come to me with a sword and a spear, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts and killed him. And he went running, charging. The Bible says that he ran towards Goliath. Faced with this giant, he ran right at him. No hesitation, no fear. Just, alright, let's do this. And he was bold as a lion. Why? He was another righteous man. But you see here the wicked fleeing when no man pursued. Look at 2 Kings chapter 7. We'll look at one more example here. 2 Kings chapter 7. We're going to see here the story of the siege that the Syrians had upon Israel back in the days of Elisha. And in those days, the enemies would surround a city and a stronghold or whatever they surrounded to make sure no supplies could go in or go out. And in so doing, they basically would starve them out. So they'd just siege around and camp around the city to the point to where one of them's got to give. So if you have the army there and you have a supply line come in, you could just camp out there and wait and wait and wait and wait until they have to just open up because they're all going to die of starvation. This is what's happening here. There's a siege going on and it was prophesied that tomorrow you're going to be able to buy food real cheap. Everything's going to be in abundance and this whole siege is going to be over with. And the people didn't believe them. Well, the gatekeeper didn't believe them and he ends up dying in this case. But this is that story. Look at verse number 5 of 2 Kings chapter 7. Bob reads, and they rose up in the twilight. This is the lepers. Give you a little bit more back story where we're at. The siege is going on and there's these lepers and these lepers are outcasts. So they're not really belonging in the city anyways. No one wants them around them because they have this disease. And then you've got this other camp out there and they're like, well, we can't be in the city. And they're the enemy. They're like, well, let's just go and surrender to the enemy and maybe they'll have mercy on us. That's basically their plan. So they go out there and when they go out there they see the enemy's gone. And that's where we catch up to the story. Verse number 5. And they rose up in the twilight to go into the camp of the Syrians. And when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. For the Lord had made the host of Syrians to hear a noise of chariots and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host. And they said one to another, lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come upon us. Wherefore they rose and fled in the twilight and left their tents and their horses and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. Was anyone pursuing them? Nope. There was nobody. God caused them to hear a host. God caused them to think that there was this great army coming. They took off running. They took off scared. And again, proves the proverb true through these examples that when you're living a wicked life, you're going to be fearful. You're going to be scared. The Bible says that God is not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So when you're fearful of things, and look, I understand that happens from time to time, but remember that's not of God. It doesn't matter what the situation is, you're not to be fearful unless you're fearing God. That is the fear that we ought to have. Fear the Lord. We don't fear what man can do to us. We don't fear the situations in our life. That's why people say sometimes, I've gone sowning in so many different areas, you know, ghettos, the worst of the worst neighborhoods. And you say, oh, I can't believe you do that. Aren't you afraid to go there? No. No, not at all. Not even a little bit. They need the gospel, don't they? Did Jesus say don't go to the ghettos? Don't go to the poor? No. He said go to the poor first. I don't care if there's gang bangers. I don't care what they're doing around there. I'm going to bring the gospel because, you know what, if I'm righteous, if I'm doing what's right, if I'm doing what God has told me to do, I'm going to be bold as a lion. I'm going to go in there and preach the gospel unto them. And I'm not going to worry about my safety because if I'm doing what's right, God can protect me. I could go into the worst situation possible. If I'm doing what God has for me to do, it's either going to be His will for me to go as a martyr or He's going to protect me, one or the other. But either way, I'll be in God's will. I'm not going to be afraid of being a martyr because God will have some better plan if that is the case. Now how often are people martyred? It doesn't happen very often. Even in the Bible days, it's not like it's happening all the time. But whatever the case may be, we ought not to be afraid. We ought to have that boldness. And my question today is where is the boldness amongst Christians today? Where is it? You look at Christianity as a whole. Where are the lions that are out there roaring against this world? Where are the lions that are roaring and not afraid of the wicked people? See what we have today is a lot of the wicked heathen raging. We have this small minority of sodomites and God haters raging in the streets and what are they doing? They're scaring the Christian pastors. They're scaring the Christians into not saying anything, into shutting up, into apologizing. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, everybody's welcome here. Where are the lions at? Where are the boldness? Where are the boldness of the Christians saying, you know what? Thus saith the Lord. That's wickedness and we're not going to allow for it. We're not going to stand for it. I'll tell you why we're not hearing lions. It's because of the sellout compromising pastors who have lost all respect for the righteousness and the holy God of the Bible. When you're doing right, your faith is so much stronger. Why wouldn't God be there to protect you? When you know you're doing right, of course He's going to be there. But if you're in sin, well, then you've got a reason to reap what you sow. And I honestly think, you know, many, unfortunately, many of the preachers that don't have the boldness is because they're in sin themselves. The reason why you don't hear them preaching hard on sin is because they're in sin themselves. There's a lot to be said for the righteous life. I preach on Sunday night on the sanctification, the separation from this world, being a peculiar people and doing what's right by God. And if you want to have that boldness, if you're new to soul, you've never done it before. Hey, start getting right with God. Get out there and still get the practice. Listen to people learn. But you want to get that boldness. You want to see the guys are not afraid to go up to anybody. I don't care who it is walking on the street, you know, whatever they look like, the guys that are all tatted up and looking like gangsters or whatever. And you just walk right up to him and say, Hey, man, do you know for sure if you die today you're going to heaven without even batting an eye? It comes from being righteous. It comes from being in God's will and doing what's right. You can be bold as a lion. You have nothing to fear. And you know that because of the faith. We need more lions today. We need more boldness for people to stand up and to fight and to have that faith in God, knowing that God's with you. It's a great feeling. I'll tell you what, I lived, you know, even as a saved Christian, such a wicked life for so long. And it wasn't until I started getting things out of my life. And look, I know I'm not perfect. I'm still a sinner. But there's a stark difference, and I know it from experience, between living the wicked life when you go to bed every night and actually starting to do what's right. Reading, studying, praying, going to church, going soul winning, and you can lay your head down at night and your conscience can be free. And you could have a clear mind and you could be like the Apostle Paul and says, You know what? You know, basically my hands are clean of these people. I've preached the gospel to everybody that I did the work that you've laid out for me to do. And you could have that clearness of mind, that peace, that comes with knowing you're doing what's right. And until you experience, unless you experience it, you know, it can't even be described. You need to do it for yourself. You need to understand just you will have immense peace by just living a righteous life. And what's funny is that living the righteous life was going to bring you persecution. It'll bring you trials and tribulations and people fighting against you and stuff. But when you know you're doing what's right, you could still be at peace. People look at that and be like, Oh, I don't want to deal with all that stuff. Why? It's not even that big of a deal, really, when you're going through it. Ultimately, it's really not that big of a deal. Don't let your mind get too far ahead of you into thinking that, Oh, this is something I don't want to have anything to do with that. I'm just going to be scared and just stop going to church altogether or whatever. The devil is a big deceiver. He's a con artist. He puts up a big facade to try to make you think how big and bad and scary he is to get you to stop doing what's right. And what's interesting is the Bible says that basically when he's cast down into hell, you'll be looking at him going, Wait, this is the guy? This is who brought dread and fear and caused all that problem on the earth? This is who we're afraid of? Just keep that in mind. Fear is fake. The reason behind your fear is usually just one big facade. We ought not to be fear, we ought to be bold as a lion. Let's continue on here. Let's get into the rest of this chapter, go back to Proverbs 28. Proverbs 28 verse number 2, For the transgression of a land, many are the princes thereof, but by a man of understanding and knowledge, this state thereof shall be prolonged. And basically the Bible is saying, basically you're being judged. When you have a wicked land, we have a wicked country, you have a lot of people ruling over you. That's what a prince is. A prince is a ruler. A prince is someone who's just making laws. You're going to have a lot more laws, you're going to have a lot bigger government, you're going to have a lot more people telling you what to do when you're in wickedness. The Bible says where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. God's a God of freedom. God's a God that doesn't want us to be in bondage to our sin or to anything. God wants us to have freedom. I'm not going to get very political tonight, but we can see this principle right here that God in the Bible is for a limited, small government. Because when you have many rulers and you have many princes, you're basically being judged. It's because your land is transgressing, because you've got a lot of people in sin. And that judgment is going to come down. Verse number four, let's jump down to verse number four. They that forsake the law praise the wicked. But such as keep the law, contend with them. And again, we've had too many people that aren't contending with the wicked. I think, you know, the more you let the wicked people get away with things, the worse things are going to be. So we've been living in a country and I'm in a unique position in my life. I'm 39 years old. I've gone through in my personal lifetime here in this country, dramatic changes just in the culture and in our America that we have today. I've seen it back in the 80's when it wasn't nearly anything what it's like today. Back in the 80's when you could still call things the way they were and not have all the social justice warriors hating on you for the things that you say. I mean, it wasn't that big of a deal. You didn't want to be called a fag, but I mean, you call someone a fag because a fag is a fag and that's disgusting and wicked and perverted and you want nothing to do with it. These days, it's like, oh, he's a fag. You're going to offend somebody. And that's just one example, you know, it's so easy to go through, but the level of debauchery, the level of lewdness and wickedness that just accepted and tolerated today. I've seen it in just a few decades. It's bad. And one of the biggest reasons for that is because you don't have the men of God just thundering out against it and being bold and not allowing that line in the sand to keep moving and moving and moving before you're going to say anything about it. You need to stand and hold that line and say, no, we're not going to allow this. No, we're going to teach the truth. We're going to scream it from the housetops and let everybody know that this is what the Bible says. Some people are going to hear it. And you know what? It's more than just preaching, because you need to be preaching the gospel and getting to the hearts of people. The preaching on sin, like a lot of the street preachers want to do, to the unsaved, it's not going to do anything for them. I mean, it really isn't. They're not going to, you know, what are you going to do? You're going to get them to change their ways? You need to get them saved, get them the gospel of Christ first. And then that power and that light inside of their heart will help them to change and to do what's right. But, you know, let's use our time wisely. We need to be doing all of it as far as, you know, preaching the righteousness and not letting the bully, wicked God haters have their way and just keep going and going and going and pushing their agenda. But the best way to combat that is with the Spirit of God getting inside as many people as possible. The Spirit of God getting into them and building them up and training them up and discipling them to be bold as a lion also and to lose their fear. When you don't have that fear, that's where the real power of God is going to be anyways. I mean, people who are not afraid to die, people who are not afraid in the cause that they're doing are going to do a lot more for their cause. And that's for any type of cause. People who aren't afraid to die, you know, you have the wicked satanic Muslim religion out there where you have people that aren't afraid to die for their cause. They end up doing a lot of damage and will, you know, they end up doing what they're setting out to do and then they don't have that fear, they're accomplishing their goals. We need to have, not the same methods, but the same fearlessness of being able to preach God's Word and not have any fear whatsoever and just to be used as openly and fully as possible by our Lord. But let's keep reading here. Verse number 7, Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son, but he that is a companion of riotous men shameeth his father. Obviously it's a glory when you raise children for them to follow in the Bible and in the wisdom and the knowledge that's being taught there and it ends up being a shame when your child doesn't turn out living for God. And, you know, the children in this room tonight, you got to keep that in mind. Remember that, you know, if you love your parents, if you love your dad, if you love them, then you're going to grow up and be wise and not be a shame unto your father by making friends with riotous people. That means people who are living wickedly, people who just go out partying and getting drunk and doing the drugs and doing all those things. That's not going to make your dad happy. That's not going to make him proud. If you love your dad, you ought to be thinking about those things as well. Look at verse number 9, Proverbs 28 verse 9. He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, look at this, even his prayer shall be abomination. And I heard, I think it was Brother Robert talking before church tonight, and I don't know what he was talking about. He used the word abomination. He said that's a real strong word, and it is. And it's used in the Bible, but it's a real powerful word. It's not something that's just thrown around lightly. And we need to take note of that because of what the Bible is saying here is that the person that doesn't want to hear God's law, I don't want to hear it. Saying, yeah, but what you're doing, I mean, that's wicked, that's wrong. You shouldn't be doing that. You shouldn't be going out and getting drunk. You shouldn't be going out and doing these things. I don't want to hear. I don't want anything to do with that. When you don't want to hear, God, the Bible says even his prayer shall be abomination. God said, I'm going to hate it when you try to pray to me. Why? Because he's already tried to tell you. When you don't want to hear his law, why is he going to hear you? It actually angers him, and it's abominable. An abominable, an abomination is something that's just really strongly hated. That's what abomination is. And something that's abominable is just despicable. And a person thinks that, oh, I could always just turn to God, which, I mean, look, if you're not saved, right, turn to God and get saved, right? Put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But I'm preaching to people who are saved already this morning, and this will apply to you. Don't be turning your ear away from hearing God's law. Don't say, I don't like what that says. I don't want to hear that. I don't want to go to this church because you guys preached, you are, because you're preaching all these commandments. Oh, you guys, we heard that today at the door. Whoa, Baptists, you guys are strict. Yeah. Yeah, we are, actually. We're strict because we love God's law, because we have respect for the things that the Bible actually says. I said, look, we're strict in our practice, but the salvation's free. We're not strict at all. Salvation's 100% free. And that's what I told them at the door. I said, look, we believe that God's got a free gift for us. But, yeah, the way that we live, it is strict, because the Bible's strict because it's God's word, because we care about what God says. Of course it is. We don't want our prayers to be an abomination unto God. We want God to hear us. Verse number 10, whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit, but the upright shall have good things in possession. Jump down to verse 12, when righteous men do rejoice, there is great glory, but when the wicked rise, a man is hidden. Jump down to verse number 15. I don't want to spend too much time on some of these verses, because we've got a lot more to cover. As a roaring lion and a ranging bear, so was a wicked ruler over the people. Wicked rulers destroy people, and especially the poor people. People who are wicked in power are like this roaring lion and a ranging bear that's just out to seek and destroy. Why do you think our middle class is disappearing today? Because we have wicked rulers that are literally out and destroying the middle class, the working people, the people who supposedly they're supposed to be representing the most. And that's what all the platforms were. We're for the working people. We're for you. You hard workers. You go out, and you're the reason why our economy is here, and we're here to cater for you, and we're going to represent you. And when you have a wicked leader, yeah, they're saying that with their mouth, and they flatter with their lips, but their heart is full of wickedness, and they're out to destroy and do wickedly. And that's what happens, and that's why we're seeing the economic status of our country today. Wicked rulers have been devouring the middle class and increasing the poverty. And what's really sad, and look, I don't buy into the false left-right paradigm. I don't think that there's only two choices. I don't think that just like, well, you're the Republican or Democrat, and that's it. No. I'm a Christian. I believe what the Bible says, and I believe the truth and wisdom out of this book. That's what I believe. But what's interesting is how you can see the liberal left deceptively marketing as caring for the poor people, right? And the working class, when nothing could be farther from the truth. The wickedness and the pure evil. I'm not saying there's not wickedness and evil on the right side of things, because there is, but even just in the ideologies and what they're putting in, and you see these people like, you know, I mean, Hillary Clinton, God help us. Like, I don't know of a more wicked person that I could think of from all the things that I've seen, and I've read about her. But just in general, not even just her, these people, they say one thing and they do another. Like the, you know, Bernie Sanders, right? The socialist who wants to make college free and healthcare free and everything's free and you're getting everything for free, right? And yeah, it sounds great to these kids who are ignorant, who've been government educated. Yeah, yeah. Give everything to me for free. Where's the money going to come from? I'll tell you what's not going to come from. It's not going to come from Bernie Sanders who bought his, I forget how much money his vacation home was or whatever, like $400,000 or $500,000 or whatever, like his third home or his fourth home or whatever it is that he has, you know, how well he's been doing as a career politician. He's not paying for it. What's he doing? He's making you pay for it. Making everybody pay for it. That's his plan. He wants to steal from everybody to give to a few. And most importantly himself. But what they do is they set up these programs that they make it sound real good to the poor people. They sound good to the people who don't have anything. To steal from the people who actually go out and work. You know, the lazy person, we've read a lot about the sluggard. You know, we're going through the book of Proverbs. Remember all the scripture we read about the sluggard and the slothful and, you know, how they toss and they turn in their bed and they don't want to do anything and, you know, they don't want to work. And now the Bible says in the New Testament, you know, if any man shall not work, neither shall he eat. And that is the principle that we could find in the Bible. You need to be working hard and doing your own work and that the legitimate charity comes from people doing alms for someone who's injured, someone who's, you know, lame, someone who has got significant problems, a widow who, you know, their husband died and they got no one to take care of them, no family members. Those instances, yeah, they require charity and we ought to be cheerful givers and love them and help them out. But when you're able to work, you know, if you don't provide for your own, especially those for your own household, the Bible says that you're worse than an infidel. I mean, that's what the Bible teaches. We need to be hard-working. We need to be to ourselves. But what do these government programs say? They incentivize laziness. They get people to not go out and work and say, okay, we're just going to cut you a paycheck until you find work. Okay, so people will continue to receive their paycheck and then when that last one, time's finally just about up, oh, I guess I better go get a job now. That's what it does. People make poor decisions. People do, you know, doing wickedly. The government's saying, oh, no, no, we've got to help these people. And what ultimately happens is they get the people dependent on government instead of on God. And that's wickedness. And it's a big deception because the people who are down and out and poor look at that as saying, wow, this is great, as they bring themselves into bondage of the government. Saying, wow, this is awesome. Free stuff. And you don't realize the scam. See, the thing is, in God's economy, in God's world, in the society that He set up, the church will take care of those that are poor and down and out. But, see, the thing is with the church, you've got to come and make sure you're coming to church and getting right with God. Because the church isn't just this, it's not the government, and it's not this bank of funds that just goes out the door to anybody who just comes over here just asking for a free handout. And in case you're wondering, the way that we will give to someone who's in need, because we do give to people in need sometimes, I'll tell you the very first thing, they have to show up to at least a church service. The Bible says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. And all these things shall be added unto you, it wasn't riches. It was like food and clothing and the things that you worry about, what am I going to eat the next day? What am I going to wear the next day? Seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And that's what we teach to people if someone wants to come and get money. No, look, we're not just here to give you a free handout so you can continue smoking, continue drinking, continue fornicating, continue committing adultery, and when God's judging you for all that, just come here and we'll give you some more money. I don't think so. That's not what charity is, that's not what loving people is either. Just enabling them to continue in their wickedness. See in God's society, if you want to do those things, fine, go ahead. Be a bum living on the street. When you finally hit rock bottom and you get to the place where you realize, I got to do something different, come here. We'll show you the right way. You come to church, get right with God, and you know what will help you out. Anybody who loves God, anyone who wants to get right and get right with God, we'll help you out. We will when you're going the right direction, but we're not just here to give our hard earned money just out to anybody for any reason. Government doesn't seem to have too much of a problem with that though. But see, they want them dependent on them. We want people to rely on God. And that's why I have the standards that I have before we give any help to anybody. Because I want them relying on God. I don't want them relying on this church, I want them relying on God. Look down at verse number 16 there, the Bible reads, the prince that wanteth understanding is also a great oppressor. That word wanteth means basically he lacks understanding. He doesn't have understanding. So that the prince or the ruler that doesn't have understanding, says he's a great oppressor. Someone who's going to oppress people, who's a tyrannical leader. But he that hateth covetousness shall prolong his days. Now, you know, I don't, I've gotten more political recently because of the political cycle we're in, we just elected a president, whatever, all this other stuff is going on. And I tell you what, I read these things and I just can't help but, I mean this jumps out at me. There's a man that just got elected that we literally ran into a person that was coming to tears over his election thinking that it was some great blessing of God. The guy says that he's greedy, that he loves money, that he's covetous, and the Bible says right here, you know, he that hateth covetousness shall prolong his days, as contrasted with the prince that wanteth understanding is also a great oppressor. If you're full of greed, if you're, you know, the love of money is the root of all evil, if you have a love of money in your heart, you lack understanding. You really lack wisdom and knowledge. I mean, you don't know anything if you just love money. You really don't. If that's where your heart is and that's what you love, and the Bible says he's also a great oppressor. I'm concerned about where our country's headed. I was concerned either way. I mean, I wasn't looking to politics to solve our problems, believe me, we've got a much bigger problem than which tyrant is going to be in the White House. But the greedy ruler, the covetous ruler, they're going to be a warmonger. They're going to be the authoritarian that wants to strip away all your freedoms. The proud, the covetous, because you can't do that on yourself. I mean, we got the guy now saying, I'm going to come in and fix all the problems, right? I know what's right. What does that mean? Well, just give me all the power, I'll make everything right. And, you know, I don't want to make an unfair analogy, but I don't know how far off it is. I mean, that's basically, you look at the political climate in Germany when Hitler came to power. I mean, it's basically what he was doing. He was making Germany great again. Some of the things that he was doing were right on. There was a lot of filth and wickedness that was creeping in in Germany he wanted to get rid of. But, I mean, he focused on this nationalism on we're a great people and we're going to do these great things and give me the power and I'm going to fix everything and I'm going to make it all right. Watch out for people like that. The people that want to rule everybody and run the show and do everything in charge like that, watch out for them. That's where you lose your freedoms. I mean, we need to get ready. But, hey, the way that we're going to get ready is doing what God has called us to do because that's the greatest calling that there is anyway. So, I figured out a long time ago, politics will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever save a nation. Whatever your view is of perfect politics, if we had that today, we're still going to get judged by God. It's going to be meaningless. It's going to be pointless. God will make sure we're brought into bondage. God will make sure that when the blood of innocent children is being shed on a day-to-day basis, on the scale of thousands and millions per year, the judgment is coming. Politics are going to do nothing against that. Their blood is crying out to the Lord. Their innocent blood. You can't escape that. We'll see what happens though. We've got the Republican House and the Republican Senate and the Republican President and they all say we're against abortion. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Because you know what? We saw this before with Bush. And guess what? Abortion is still happening just as much as it was back then. We'll see where change comes from. Change comes from the heart. Change will come from our Lord. We need to not get distracted with that. We need to be aware of it. It's important to know what's going on in the world. It's important to understand things that are going on. But let's not put our stock into a covetous man or a ruler here. We get our wisdom from the Bible. We shouldn't be lacking understanding. We've got it here. Just keep going here. Verse number 17. A man that doeth violence to the blood of any person shall flee to the pit. Let no man stay him. Don't pity the murderer. I was just talking about abortions and innocent children being killed. You know, they deserve the death penalty. According to the Bible it says no man stay him. That's what it's talking about. Don't prevent that. It says here, the man that doeth violence to the blood of any person means someone who kills another person. Someone who's just a murderer. Someone who does violence to their blood. That just kills them, sheds their blood. It says that person shall flee to the pit. They're going to be killed. Or even go into hell. It says let no man stay him. Don't stop him. That's what they deserve. That's what they're going to get. That's the judgment. A lot of people today want to feel so loving and want to get rid of the death penalty and say, oh no, we can't do that. We need to rehabilitate people. We could fix things. No, we need judgment. We need the judgment that God gave. The righteous judgment. This is the way it is. And not have the pity upon those people. I mean, when you kill somebody, I mean think about it. That's a serious crime. You take someone else's life and just cold blood you murder somebody. That's a big deal. And it ought to be treated appropriately and not just put them away in a prison cell somewhere. When you're going to do something like that, be prepared to meet your maker because that's the way punishment ought to be. That's the punishment that God gave. That's the righteous judgment. Jump down to verse number 28. When the wicked rise, men hide themselves. But when they perish, the righteous increase. Why do men hide themselves? Because of the oppression. When the wicked rise, when they come to power, there's going to be a lot more oppression. And the righteous end up having just for their own survival to kind of hide themselves a little bit. But when they're gone, then you see the righteous increase and you see that boom again. Let's jump back up to verse number 3. That was all kind of like the wicked and the law. I need to hurry up through this. I'm sorry, we got a lot. I've done a lot of preaching on the poor versus the rich and stuff through the book of Proverbs. So I'm not going to really do too much expounding through this section because I want to get to the end where there's a couple more points I want to make. Verse number 3, a poor man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food. It doesn't make any sense when you're already poor to be oppressing other poor people. Basically, it just makes no sense. It's like the sweeping rain that comes in and destroys instead of providing the nutrition for the plants and stuff. The sweeping rain comes in and there's no food left behind because of the power of it. Well, the poor man, you do no good and you're supposed to be helping out your poor brethren instead of oppressing them. And don't think that these people that want to gain the favor of the rich people and try to be like them, they don't care about you. They don't care about you. Don't do their bidding thinking that you're going to climb the ladder of their wicked power. They're just using you. Verse number 6, better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness than he that is perverse in his ways though he be rich. Obviously, our integrity is way more important than financial riches. Verse number 8, he that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. This is God's way of being the judge and bringing vengeance upon people and righting the wrongs. In the end, the tables are going to turn. Now you see the wicked and they're prospering and making all this money and everything. Basically, in the end, they're going to lose everything and the righteous are going to get everything. And you know what? It doesn't have to be in this world. It's going to happen. When Jesus Christ said, I go to prepare a place for you in my Father's house, there's many mansions. Don't worry about what you're losing out in this world's riches because those wicked that live in their multi-million dollar mansions and great homes, when they end up in hell and you're in heaven in your mansion for eternity, the tables have turned. And the wrongs will be righted and you doing the right thing. And don't get discouraged. You're doing the right thing. You're living righteously and nothing seems to be working out for you. Don't get discouraged by that. Have the faith and the foresight to know of what's coming in the end. Verse number 11, the rich man is wise in his own conceit, but the poor that hath understanding surgeth them out. Verse number 19, he that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread, but he that followeth after vain person shall have poverty enough. Again, it's the same concept that I was talking about earlier. You've got to work. When you till the land, you're doing work. You've got to maintain what you have. You've got to do the work and you know what? You'll have plenty of bread. You're not going to be suffering hunger when you're actually out there and working and working a hard day's labor. You will be able to eat. I mean, the work that you do, you'll be able to satisfy yourself. And it says, but if you follow after vain persons, that will bring you to poverty. So watch out for, let's keep going here. Verse number 20, a faithful man shall abound with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considerth not that poverty shall come upon him. And that's in verse 22. Excuse me, I forgot to mention that. Verse 20, and we skipped verse 21. We did that already. Verses 20 and 22. We were talking about this before the service, and I haven't heard very many preachers, sermons in my lifetime, against gambling. And people who go out and gamble. And I don't know why that is. Maybe because like you don't really find it specifically mentioned by name in the Bible. I mean, I've heard people talk about the soldiers who are casting lots for Jesus's garments. Okay. I mean, that's like one example maybe you could turn to, but it's the principle behind it where the real problem lies. And that's what we need to be aware of where we see here in verse 20, a faithful, and all throughout the Bible, especially Proverbs, it teaches you to work hard. Work and earn, you know, and provide for yourself and provide for your family. And you'll be blessed. You're faithful. You're dependable. You're reliable. You're bound with blessings, the Bible says. But he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. And when you think about gambling, what is it all about? Gambling is all about making money. I mean, that's like, you play the game. Yeah, but what is the game for? What are you gambling with? What are you risking money in order to make more money? That's the whole point. I mean, it's all go. He goes, Oh, no, I just like playing the game. You know, like, I just like watching the flashing thing spin on the jackpot. I just, you know, then why don't you just play a video game? Right? I mean, you could do the exact same thing. Why? It loses its thrill. It really loses its appeal when there's no money involved. Why? Because deep down, you want to hit that jackpot. And it's not just because you want to see the little buzzer going off on top of the machine. You want the coins coming down or whatever the tickets these days, I think, I don't know, whatever, however they do it these days, I don't even know. But you want the money. And it says here that if you make haste, you want to get rich quick. It says you won't be innocent in verse 20. In verse 22, it goes on further to say he that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye. Because you have an evil eye if you just want to get rich quickly and you don't consider that poverty shall come upon you. In your endeavor to just make all this money and get rich really quick, you're going to make yourself poor. You know, these people that just buy these lottery tickets over and over and over and they spend this money and they get $5, $10, $20 and they just continually just buy into this, I want to win the Powerball, I want to win this lottery, I want to get these, you know, I want to become a millionaire. They have an evil eye and people don't even realize that. But the Bible is as true as a day is long. One of the reasons why I think that also poverty is going to come upon them, it's not just the continual thing with the lottery tickets, but when you get started gambling and you start losing, people always think, I'm going to win it back. I'm going to win it back. And you think, well, there's these odds, right? So there's these odds and one of these times I got to hit that one out of whatever and then I'll quit. And whatever money, I can't just lose this much money though, I need to get it back. And you get caught in this trap and people literally lose everything in like one night of gambling. It happens. Look, we need to be aware of this because it destroys families, it destroys lives. I got a little taste of this for myself. I've never been a huge gambler. Okay, I'm going to confess my fault to you tonight. I've done a little bit of card playing with the buddies, you know, when I was younger and a little bit here, a little bit there, dabbling in it a little bit, not that big of a deal. Then when I went to Vegas though, I learned a couple games and I got into craps and it's a dice game and it's like a drug. It literally is. I started playing that game and my buddy would come up to me and I was all shaky and jittery and just like, oh man, no, man, I can't talk right now. Like it was crazy. I mean, it was crazy. And look, I was never like really big into gambling. I got into this game and man, I got hooked. I stayed up all of night, all the way till four in the morning, the only person at this table. I mean, they're vacuuming up around the casino and stuff. They're flipping up chairs and I'm there all by myself, gone to the credit card, get a cash, you know, talk about foolishness, getting a cash advance on a credit card. Yeah, it's bad. You're talking 25% interest or whatever it is on those stupid things. Why? Because I thought I had, I mean, I just had to hit it. I lost too much. I need to get some of that back. That is foolishness. That's stupidity. But look, I've experienced, you don't have to experience it for yourself to know that it's real. Just look at Las Vegas. Look at it from an airplane. Look at the structures. Look at the pyramid, right? With the light shining way up into the sky. Do you think they built that because people go there and win money? They didn't. I mean, they don't build these roller coasters and all this great stuff because people just go there and they come home rich. No, they take your money. I mean, that's how they do it. Don't get deceived by this. And honestly though, the biggest problem is that in your heart, is what's in your heart. When you love, I mean, the Bible says a love of money is the root of all evil. When you just want to make money and have that covetousness and that greed, that is really, that's going to lead you into all kinds of sin. That's going to lead you down paths you don't want to be in when you start having that desire for money. And that's where gambling will take you. Look at verse number 27. Verse number 27, he that giveth unto the poor shall not lack, but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse. Really interesting, we just followed up on gambling with this verse. When you're gambling, you're thinking about you making money. You ain't thinking about anybody else. You're saying, you know what, I want to hit this jackpot. I need this money. What am I going to do with this and everything else? I'm going to spend this money on myself. We ought to be thinking about other people. You want to make some money, go out and work for it, and then, you know, if you give unto the poor, the Bible says you're not going to lack. And we read this earlier in Proverbs 19, but I'll read it for you. Proverbs 19 says, he that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and that which he hath given will he pay him again. God cares about poor people. He really does. And he's saying, you know what, when you give unto them, you're actually lending unto the Lord. And don't worry about what you give them. You don't need to worry about getting anything back from them because God will take care of you. He likes to see that when you have that type of a heart. Jump down to verse number 13, or jump up to verse number 13. Proverbs 28 verse 13, he that coveth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Turn, if you would, to Psalm 32. We're almost done here. I've got one more page of notes. I know we're going a little bit longer than usual tonight. But this is an important topic. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper. What does covereth mean? You're hiding it. You've got these sins in your life and you're just trying to hide it, right? You keep doing it, but you're just going to try to hide it and make sure people don't find out what you're actually doing. Dangerous place to be in. And the Bible says you're not going to prosper at all. Look, we all sin. We're not perfect, but don't make excuses for your sins and just say, well, I want to keep doing this anyways because you're not going to prosper. God's not going to bless you when you're just holding on to your sin and hoping people don't find out about it. The Bible says, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. God understands that you sin. It doesn't make it any less sinful what you do, but what he wants to see is he wants to see you getting right. He wants to see you have a humble attitude. He wants you to have a repentant heart that says, God, I know I've sinned. I'm sorry. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm going to forsake it. I'm not going to do it. And I'm going to just keep on trying to do what's right. You need to get that quickly when you find yourself in sin to deal with it right away. Because the longer you don't deal with it, the more it's going to fester and stir and build and grow and that leaven's going to start to spread and it's going to become something that you can't control. And it's going to take you down paths you didn't want to go down. You hold on to this sin. It grows out of control. You need to just confess it and forsake it before it destroys you. Look at Psalm 32 verse 1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man in whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. He starts off saying that, hey, you're blessed and you're forgiven. Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. But then in verse 3 he says, when I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. And he says, for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. When he kept silence from what? Admitting and confessing and forsaking his sin. This is what happens. He says, your bones waxed old. He says, the Lord's hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. But then look at verse 5. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. And that's important too. Pray unto God in the time that he may be found. Confess and forsake your sins early on. You hold on to that for a long time. You're going to get to the point where God's going to say, no, you know what? You need to have this judgment come upon. You need to get this punishment. You need to reap what you're sowing here because you shouldn't take it. If you would have taken care of it early on, I would have shown mercy on you, forgiven you. But now, you've got this coming to you. We need to make sure we attack the things that are creeping up in our life while God can still be found and hopefully we just get that mercy from God. I'm sorry. I just screwed up God. Please, I'm not going to do this again. I'm going to help you out. And God will be there for you. We're going to go back to Proverbs 28 and finish up here. Verse number 14, the Bible reads, Happy is the man that feareth all way, but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief. We want to keep a humble heart, a soft heart. Verse 21, to have respect of persons is not good for for a piece of bread that man will transgress. I've covered the respect of persons quite a bit previously. Verse 23, he that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favor than he that flattereth with the tongue. And again, if we're wise, we'll love to hear the rebuke. I mean, we'll accept that and know that someone cares for us and that more than someone that flatters with their tongue. As a flatterer, they don't care about you anyways. They're just saying it because they want you to think well about them or whatever. They don't really care about you. So just because someone's up here saying, oh, yeah, everything's great, you know, hell's cold, sin's fine, God loves you, everything's just great, you know, they're flattering you. They're not telling you the truth. But when you hear a strong rebuke, you know, maybe tonight you heard a rebuke about gambling and you're guilty of gambling. I don't know. I mean, whatever the case may be, you hear that, you know what? That's coming from someone that loves you because he wants you to get right with God. He wants you to avoid other pitfalls and other problems that you may face later in your life. Verse number 24, who so robbeth his father or his mother and saith, it is no transgression, the same as the companion of a destroyer. This is a wicked sin. Stealing is stealing no matter who the victim is. Here it's talking about robbing your father or mother. I mean, can you imagine that? Your own parents? Robbing your father or your mother? It says the person, you know, there's a person that'll say, oh, I've been sinned. It's just my mom and dad, right? I'm just stealing from them. And they don't even see it as stealing. They find a way to judge it. They find a way to justify their sin and their wickedness, whether it be from their family. Oh, well, they owe me that anyway. So, you know, people always try to figure out why mom and dad owe you something or why someone else owe you something. Oftentimes it can be a big corporation, right? They go out on a Walmart and steal from them and say, oh, well, they make billions of dollars anyway. So, you know, this isn't, it shouldn't be a big deal to them. It's still stealing for you. It's still breaking God's commandment. It's still wickedness. It doesn't matter who you're stealing from, you know, it doesn't matter who the victim is, whether they can afford it or not, you're still committing to transgression against them and against God. And what you end up doing then when you try to justify your sin is you make God's law of none effect, just like the Pharisees did. The Pharisees did that with this almost exact same example here, slightly different. I'll read this for you. You don't have to turn there because we're almost done. Mark 7, Jesus Christ said, full well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, honor thy father and thy mother and whoso curseth father and mother let him die the death. Jesus Christ saying that, whoso curseth father and mother let him die the death. That's the law that the Atheists and the God-Aiders want to mock and say, oh, why do you believe that? Jesus did. I do too. That's not even what I turned here for. But he's talking to the Pharisees and he's talking about honoring their father and mother. He says, but you say, if a man shall say to his father or mother, it is Corban, that is to say, a gift by whatsoever that might be profited by me, he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother, making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered and many such like things do ye. What he's saying is they're supposed to be honoring their father or mother and taking care of them, basically. And that's what that law is mostly about, is taking care of your parents when they get older. And what the Pharisees did was say, oh, well, it's just a gift. Whatever I do for you, whatever you may be profited by me, just consider yourself lucky. Consider yourself that I did something nice for you, as opposed to being obligated to do it because it's in God's law, because that's what's right is that you need to take care of your parents because they took care of you when you were young. You need to take care of them when they're old. It's part of God's law. And he says, you made the word of God of none effect by coming up with your own laws and your own traditions. And it's very similar to what we see here in Proverbs with robbing your father and mother and just saying, oh, it's not a sin. Oh, it's my mom and dad. It's not a big deal, right? They give me stuff all the time, so I'm just taking it. No, that's wickedness. Finish up here, we've got two more verses left. Verse 25, he that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife. He that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat. Verse 26, he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool, but whoso walketh wisely he shall be delivered. Don't get caught up in a worldly philosophy of just, oh, whatever's in your heart. The heart of man is wicked. We've got this sinful flesh, this sinful nature, and if you just let your heart discover itself, you're going to lead yourself into all kinds of problems. We need to gain the wisdom from the Bible. Thank God for the Proverbs. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for all the great wisdom that we have tonight. Lord, I pray that you will please help to continue to increase our understanding, our learning. Lord, we're coming before you. We know that you're going to give liberally to all men and upbraideth not when we ask you for this wisdom, dear Lord. We're reading your books. We're hearing it, dear God. We want to know the teaching, and we definitely don't want our prayers to be an abomination unto you. Lord, help us to do what's right. Help us to be strengthened. Lord, help us to confess and to forsake the sins that we have right now in our life and not to return to them like a dog returns to his own vomit, dear Lord, but help us just to really forsake them. And to be honest, dear God, we pray for your guidance and for your strength, dear God, and for the boldness to be bold as a lion, Lord. Help us to be able to not fear anybody, not fear what man could do unto us, but just continue to preach your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.