Jeff Durbin | The Wise & The Stupid

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If you would open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs, chapter one. If you're new to Apologia Church, you've come in during our series,

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Wisdom from Above, Wisdom from Above. This is God's wisdom. It's his instruction on how to apply knowledge, how to live out

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God's truth, God's knowledge. So we're going verse by verse through the book of Proverbs. I consider it such a great privilege, a true honor, to be able to open

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God's word and to do this. So many challenging things in God's word, in Proverbs.

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As you get there, there's a difference, as we've been saying, in the kind of literature that we're looking at right now.

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This isn't like Romans, the Apostle Paul in Romans, who's giving you didactic teaching.

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He's drawing a line conceptually saying, let's start here. Let's build foundations. And let's move our way through the arguments to explain the gospel systematically.

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That's one type or one genre of literature we have in the Bible. We have different types and different genres of literature in scripture.

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The book of Proverbs is, how do I live? How do I live this out? Because we can be the kind of person that has a head full of knowledge.

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We can recite biblical truths. We can articulate difficult theological concepts.

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But we can also be all those things, know those things, and be people who are not wise.

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We cannot apply the skill of God in the real world. And that's why we've chosen the book of Proverbs so that we can become, for the glory of God and Jesus Christ, wise servants of Jesus Christ.

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So we're in Proverbs chapter nine right now. As I said, we've actually already done much of this chapter in other chapters we've been in.

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We've actually pulled from nine. And so today we're in Proverbs chapter nine, starting in verse seven.

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Proverbs nine, verse seven. Hear now the word of the living and the true

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God. Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse.

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And he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you.

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Reprove a wise man and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser.

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Teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the

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Holy One is insight. For by me, your days will be multiplied and years will be added to your life.

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If you are wise, you are wise for yourself. If you scoff, you alone will bear it.

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Thus far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray together as God's people. God, thank you for the gift of your word.

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Lord, you know our hearts, you know our minds. Lord, you know the tragic history of so many professing believers.

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Lord, you know all. You know, Lord, our failures and you know, God, that we're all guilty here.

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And so God, I wanna ask that by your spirit that you would speak today. Get the teacher out of the way.

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That you would speak by your word, that you'd correct us, that you'd heal us. You bring glory to yourself,

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God, by your spirit indwelling us, that you would allow us through the proclamation of your word today and your wisdom,

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Lord, to be transformed, to be renewed in our minds. So Lord, be humble. Even now,

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God, would you work by your spirit within our body to humble us, to allow us to be receptive, to see the dark places, to see the places we hide.

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Lord, break our pride and our arrogance. Speak today. Let everyone forget me and remember you.

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In Jesus' name, amen. So when

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Dr. Bonson preached his sermon on this section of scripture, he did what

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I actually was going to do and that's make sure he remarked on the fact that entering into a section like this, and so much of Proverbs is like this.

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We get cut by Proverbs all the way through in reality, but some sins are highlight sins, I think, for others that are not so much highlight sins for others.

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And so, but you know, here, I think that if we're honest with ourselves, this sermon is for each and every single one of us today.

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And what Bonson made a point of when he opened up his sermon, again, like I was gonna do, is that this is a sermon that of course needs to be preached to all of us, including the pastor as he preaches it.

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You know, one of the things that John Owen, one of the great greats in Christian history, one of the great theologians of the last couple of 100 years, he said that he really struggled, he really struggled for about 20 years in his ministry where the

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Lord's day would come and he would come up and ascend to go behind that pulpit and proclaim the word of God. And he said that he was just inundated every

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Lord's day with attacks of the enemy. You're not worthy, you're guilty of that.

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You can't preach this. You haven't got this right yet. And he finally broke about two decades later where he finally said to the devil, he said, yeah, you're right, you're right.

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We're all guilty of these things, but these are the words of God. They're true anyways, and they're for all of us.

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And so I will preach them with fire because it is the very words of God. What we're handling today in the book of wisdom is a section that actually

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I believe that most of us are guilty of either at some time in our lives or currently guilty of, or we're gonna need to face down.

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So we need to ask God even now as you're hearing this, ask God, Lord, humble me, train me, teach my heart to long for these truths and to hold onto a desire to be wise and to not be a scoffer because this is the word of God.

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This is his revelation. These are words for his church. I believe with all of my heart,

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I've been a pastor for many, many years. And I believe that what we're handling today, what we're addressing today is a central theme in terms of the destruction of marriages, the destruction of families, the destruction of churches.

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I think many, a church plant or a church has split because of this very sin not being overcome to some degree within that body.

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Church splits occur because of scoffers, unteachable people, people who want to divide, people who hate to be corrected.

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And so God help us, help us God, to be the kind of people that long for God's wisdom, the desire to be wise people and teachable people.

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So as you enter in the text, Proverbs 9, verse seven, the text says, whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.

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Now, the word here for scoffer, some translations in English translations will use different words for scoffer, but the word for scoffer here is variously translated as scorner, scoffer, or mocker.

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Scorner, scoffer, or mocker. So just think about those words in our current language in English, scorner, scoffer, and mocker.

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And think about sort of the portrait that that gives you in your mind of a person who is scornful, a person who scoffs, a person who mocks.

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And so the text is, whoever corrects a scorner, scoffer, or mocker gets himself abuse and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.

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The book of Proverbs is actually the book that is filled with this word, the Hebrew word behind scoffer, scorner, or mocker.

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It is filled with this word all throughout the book of Proverbs. And so we want to first ask the question, like, well, what is

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God saying when he refers to somebody that's a scoffer? What is a scoffer? What are the attributes of a scoffer?

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What are they like? What should I be looking for in them or myself so that I can turn away from this sin and put it to death or correct it if I see it in my family or if I see it in the body?

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Now in Proverbs, if we just hang out in Proverbs and see how this definition gets filled out, we'll get an idea of exactly what

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God says about the scornful, the scoffer, or the mocker. So in, again, Proverbs 9, 7, it says that whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.

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That's Proverbs 9, 7. The scoffer, he or she will abuse you for trying to teach them.

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So one of the things that identifies a scoffer is that they will give you abuse when you come to them to try to correct them.

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That's very important for us to recognize, first and foremost, that we are all sinners. Amen, yes?

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Jesus did not come to save the righteous, to chase down the righteous, there aren't any. He came to seek and save that which was lost and he came to save sinners, not the righteous.

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And so if we can come to grips with that basic affirmation of what the gospel teaches, that all have sinned, all fall short of the glory of God, that we are all rebels in his sight, if we grab hold of that, we recognize that Jesus saves sinners and so we are reconciled to God by grace through faith.

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It's a gift of God, we haven't earned it, we don't deserve it. We didn't get into this relationship with the

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Lord because we actually were owed it. We could pay nothing, we can offer nothing, which means that we all enter into this relationship with God as saved people who don't deserve him.

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Do we all affirm that? Yes? Which means that we're not there yet. The process of sanctification is a process that is a lifelong process.

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And the arrogance of the scoffer is that they hate you when you try to correct them.

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They will injure you, they try to lash out at you when you try to teach or correct, which begs the question, have you ever met

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Jesus? Have you actually met him? If you're so committed to holding onto your pride and your sin, have you been brought to a place of real repentance if you cannot be corrected, you are beyond correction?

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You see, it's one of the challenging things we have to face. Are we people that have actually come face -to -face with the holiness of God and the grace of God and the gospel?

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Because if we're so protective of ourselves, if we think so highly of ourselves that we couldn't possibly be corrected, it begs the question of whether we've actually met

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Jesus. Because if you've met Jesus, you've been totally broken. What do you have? What do you have before God?

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Nothing. All you have is Christ and his work. You recognize that you're broken.

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You recognize that you're a sinner. You recognize that all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. That should breed within us all a humility to recognize,

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I'm not there. I have stuff I have to learn. I have instruction that I need. I need to be corrected by the word of God.

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Now, caveat, very important. Here we go, very important. Nobody has the right to abuse other

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Christians because of their own personal preferences. That's not what we're talking about here.

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And that's not what the scoffers resisting. The scoffer here apparently is resisting godly wisdom,

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God's word, God's standards, and they're abusing the person who's bringing it. So nobody should abide the person who is constantly trying to wield a sword to get everybody in the body of Christ to look just like them.

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We need to confront those people. We need to confront that log. We need to confront that.

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However, there is a standard, a revelation from God that we have that is a sure word from God.

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This is how God is, and this is how he calls us to live. The scoffer doesn't even care. The scoffer will hate you.

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The scoffer will injure you. The scoffer, the mocker will actually lash out at you for trying to offer some correction.

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Have you ever been in a position like that? Where no matter how lovingly, how gently, no matter how calmly and graciously you bring something to someone's attention who is truly inidentifiable, biblically defined sin, they still resist.

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You become the bad guy for bringing it up. And what's the source of all that? The person's a scoffer.

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They don't want your wisdom. They don't wanna hear it. They are filled with arrogant pride, which we'll see as we keep going.

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In verse eight, chapter nine, verse eight, it says, "'Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you.

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"'Reprove a wise man, and he will love you.'" So Proverbs nine, verse eight says that he or she hates the person trying to teach them, trying to counsel them, lovingly trying to give that godly wisdom.

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They hate you, they will abuse you, they will try to injure you.

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They turn you into the bad guy. The scoffer isn't teachable. They don't wanna hear it.

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You become the enemy when you are trying to teach or trying to correct. Keep going now.

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Again, the book of Proverbs has so much on the scoffer. It is thematic throughout the book of Proverbs.

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In Proverbs 14, I love to hear those pages. In Proverbs 14, in verse six, we have more identification of the scoffer from God's word.

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In Proverbs 14, six, the text says, "'A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain, "'but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding.'"

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So the contrast there, book of Proverbs is all about this. It's about the contrast, this, but not that, identifying the difference and distinction between light and dark, the path of recklessness and the path of despair and death and the path of life.

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And here we have the scoffer who seeks wisdom in vain, but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding.

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So in Proverbs 14, six, he or she doesn't truly want to be wise.

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That's the point. They seek it in vain because it's all vanity. They don't really want it in the first place.

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The person that brings it to them, they hate them. The person that brings it to them, they abuse them. They become the enemy.

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And the scoffer doesn't want to be wise in the first place. It's a facade. Now here's what's important.

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Are you ready? Everyone grab hold of this and come with me here. The scoffer doesn't always look like a scoffer, right?

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It's not like they're wearing a badge saying, hi, my name is scoffer, like avoid me. That's not how it works in the

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Christian church. It's not how it works in the body of Christ or the world generally. People don't want to say outright,

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I hate wisdom. I don't want God's wisdom. I would like to be a fool. Nobody talks like that.

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And especially it's important in the body of Christ to recognize all of us are in the process of sanctification.

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And within the body of Christ, there are people that have the shell or the veneer of godliness or wisdom, but secretly deep down, they are a scoffer who doesn't really want to be corrected.

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They don't want to be wise. They have all of the externals that make them look like they desire

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God's wisdom, but secretly within them, they're a mocker. They're a scoffer. They don't want to be wise.

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And the point is in Proverbs 14, six, is that their pursuit of wisdom is in vain because they don't really want it.

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But a person of understanding, knowledge is easy for the person of understanding.

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Knowledge is easy for them. Why? Because they fear the Lord. They want God's wisdom.

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They're teachable people. They're not the scoffer who rejects wisdom. They're the person that wants it.

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Teach me. I want to know. They have a humble spirit. They desire wisdom. And for the scoffer, it's all in vain.

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It's all simply a facade. Again, but no scoffer is going to yell out loud, I hate

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God's wisdom. I don't want to be a wise person. But the truth is, is that the unteachable scoffer, the scoffer who hates the one who brings them to a place of correction, the scoffer's pursuit of wisdom is vanity because they don't really want it in the first place.

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Something's wrong deep down. Proverbs 15, verse 12, more identification of the scoffer, the attributes of a scoffer, the way of the scoffer.

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Proverbs 15, 12. God's word says, a scoffer does not like to be reproved.

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He will not go to the wise. The scoffer does not like to be reproved.

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He will not go to the wise. So we see another identification of the scoffer is that he or she avoids introspection.

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The scoffer avoids introspection. The scoffer doesn't seek out counsel.

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Why? What would be the reason for that? The scoffer doesn't seek out counsel. They don't look inside.

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They don't actually desire that transformation. They don't like to be reproved. So they don't go to the wise.

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They don't seek out counsel. They stay within themselves. They, what?

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What's that famous? They keep their own counsel, right? They keep their own counsel. They don't want wisdom from outside their circle.

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They're the ones that know. They know and you don't know. And so what do they do?

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They gather people to themselves that will listen to them and that actually respect them and their wisdom.

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They don't get godly counsel. They don't want introspection. They don't wanna hear and be teachable.

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They want to actually keep their own counsel. They don't seek it out. That's the identifying mark of the scoffer.

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Now, Proverbs 19, 25. Proverbs 19, 25.

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This one's interesting. It says this. It says, strike a scoffer and the simple will learn prudence or wisdom.

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Reprove a man of understanding and he will gain knowledge. Do you see the difference there? It's giving you the contrast between the person of understanding, the wise person and the scoffer.

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What's it saying? It says the scoffer needs you to hit them. Now, freeze, please.

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Stop. The point is it's trying to give you a visual here. Strike a scoffer and then they will learn wisdom.

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What's that saying? Is that scoffers are so deeply embedded, entrenched in their own arrogance and their lack of understanding and introspection.

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They so hate counsel and don't seek it out that the only way a scoffer really learns is pain.

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Pain, pain. They have to feel pain before they actually finally release and relent and say, okay, okay,

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I'll be wise. I'll stop doing that. They have to actually feel some pain. So the point is, is you actually have to strike a scoffer.

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There has to be some punishment, some pain for them finally to actually grab hold of God's wisdom.

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Whereas, reprove a man of understanding, the wise one, and he will gain knowledge.

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What do you need to do to a person of wisdom? What do you need to do to a person of understanding? What do you have to do?

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Talk to them, challenge them. Say, here's what God's word says. This is

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God's wisdom. You only need to reprove a person of understanding for them to actually gain knowledge.

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It's a whole different set of circumstances. The scoffer, you're in a fight. They hate you. They're trying to injure you.

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They don't want any wisdom. They're not teachable. You can't correct them. All they can get is pain.

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Now, parents, we understand this if we're raising little sinners, right? We're like these little unwise sinner, image bearer of God things running around, right?

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These little things, sometimes you understand what God's saying here. We're like, you have to actually let them experience pain, right?

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We're talking about a godly, righteous kind of pain, not abusive pain, but sometimes you're like, okay, you're going to lose this and you're going to lose this and your life is going to be pain and it's going to be punishment for the duration until you learn to repent and stop being so foolish.

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Parents read Proverbs 19 .25 and they go, was he in my house on Wednesday, right?

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Like, is it really necessary? Do you need me to punish you? You ever have a situation like that, moms and dads with your kids, where you just, you try to talk to your children.

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You try to love them, you try to give them grace. You try to challenge them with God's word and God's truth and it just is not working and not sinking in.

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So finally you go, do you want me to punish you, right? Do you need to feel pain for you to actually grab hold of this and embrace this truth from God?

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I don't want you to experience pain. I want you to experience long life and blessings and the path of peace and light and not darkness.

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You sound a lot like the book of Proverbs talking to your children, right? Why do you want pain?

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The text says, the scoffer needs it. Strike the scoffer and the simple will learn prudence.

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Next, the next reference to a mocker or scoffer is actually not quite relevant for this particular sermon.

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And that's in Proverbs 20, verse one. Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler.

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Same word there used, but onto the next text, chapter 21, verse 11,

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Proverbs 21, 11. The text says, when a scoffer is punished, the simple becomes wise.

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When a wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge. What's that? That's a repetition of what we already heard.

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That's just saying it again in a different way. When a scoffer is punished, the simple becomes wise.

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When a wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge. Notice the difference, is a scoffer needs pain.

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The scoffer needs punishment to learn anything. They can't just be instructed. Whereas the wise person only needs instruction.

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The wise person who is not set on prideful arrogance just needs instruction.

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They just need to be talked to. The difference between the wise and the scoffer or the wise and the foolish is that the foolish or the scoffer needs pain.

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They need to experience consequences, but the wise person gains understanding because they want to change.

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They're humble. They're not connected to prideful arrogance. All you need to do is talk to them. And so that's 21, 11.

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More identification is in 21, 24. It says, scoffer is the name of the arrogant, haughty man who acts with arrogant pride.

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What's the source of all this? If you see this now, you're seeing that Proverbs is painting a pretty solid portrait of the scoffer or the mocker, the person who is scornful.

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They don't want to learn. They don't want to change. What's it say? It says that scoffer is the name of the arrogant, haughty man who acts with arrogant pride.

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So we can see that the scoffer here is filled with arrogance and pride. If you could put a finger on one place, on one place that's deep within us that causes us to be unteachable, that causes us to be scoffers and scornful, the source of it all is arrogant pride.

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How come we don't want to be teachable? How come we don't want wisdom? How come we don't want instruction? The truth is, here it is, ready, for all of us.

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This is for each and every one of us. When we're not teachable, when we're scornful, it's because we are filled with arrogance and pride.

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We don't want to listen. We don't even want to entertain the possibility that I might've misstepped. I might've done something wrong.

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I may have gone the wrong direction. Now here's something you gotta grab hold of too. Are you ready?

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Because we have someone here identified as a scoffer and as arrogant doesn't mean that every person who rejects counsel is arrogant or prideful.

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Sometimes people misrepresent you. Sometimes people mischaracterize a situation.

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Sometimes people have been told lies. And so when things are brought to you, you need to receive them with humility and work through them with the truth.

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Obviously, just because someone brings something to you doesn't mean that you are automatically guilty. However, what's the spirit in which we should actually be receptive within the body of Christ?

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Humility, right? Think about it in your marriage. Husbands and wives, wives and husbands.

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Think about it in your marriage. How do you respond when your wife brings to you a challenge about a way that you're behaving?

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Are you the kind of person that says, nope, you can't challenge me, I'm the man.

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How sinful is that, right? Just because I'm the man. You can't challenge me, you're wrong.

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You start digging your heels in and then the married couple start rolling backwards away from each other like this because both are unwilling to be corrected, right?

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Nobody wants to be told that they're wrong. It's the arrogant husband that just couldn't be wrong, right?

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His wife brings him, hey, I want to challenge you. Scripture says this, we really need to do this. Are you the kind of husband that wants to listen?

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Are you the kind of husband that's being humble enough to say, you know what, maybe she has, maybe I'm not seeing it.

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Maybe I do have a blind spot. Maybe actually she's been watching a pattern for some time and she sees that I'm starting to fall off the edge here.

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Maybe I need to listen. Like, well, why would you say that to me? Can you tell me like, where am

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I off? And be willing to listen and say, okay, have I actually misstepped? Have I fallen into sin?

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Am I being prideful? Am I being abusive? Again, just because somebody brings a challenge to you or an accusation doesn't mean that you're automatically guilty.

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However, we should have the kind of spirit that says, did I misstep? Did I sin?

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Did I fail? Did I fail you? Have I hurt you in some way? And same thing for wives with husbands.

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Are you the kind of wife who is dealing with arrogance and pride? Where when your husband just tries to give you instruction, tries to give you the word, does it turn into a massive fight?

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Does it turn into constant conflict and friction because your husband's challenging you in some way, just giving you a word?

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Does it look like that? Or children, kids, is your relationship to your parents in that way?

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Where when they try to challenge you lovingly to say, hey, you can't behave that way. You gotta glorify God. God calls you to live like this.

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Is your response immediately to firm up your commitments and to start to puff your chest and to argue and challenge?

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Or do we have the kind of spirit towards one another that we're humble because it says that the identification of the scoffer in God's word is the scoffer is the name of the arrogance, the haughty man who acts with arrogant pride, the source of being a scoffer deep down is arrogant pride.

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Now chapter 22, there's more. Chapter 22, verse 10. It says, drive out a scoffer and strife will go out and quarreling and abuse will cease.

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Well, there you go. There's God's wisdom for church discipline, right?

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Yes, a lot of churches today, like we don't do church discipline. We don't do that most of the time because they don't even know their body in the first place.

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They've never interacted with members of their body in a substantial way or meaningful way. You know, you have a mega church situation, no membership.

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And so all manner of things happens is never really challenged, never really corrected or maybe church splits are happening all the time and they're just not really aware of it.

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Or maybe they don't really care because they have large numbers that are coming in. But look what the text says in terms of how you can stop quarreling and abuse and strife within a community.

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It says, drive out a scoffer and strife will go out and quarreling and abuse will cease.

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Why? Why is that? How come the quarreling, how come the strife, how come the abuse ceases when they're gone?

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How come? Here's why, are you ready? Because they were the unteachable ones. They won't be taught.

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They won't be corrected, right? They won't be challenged and told you're wrong.

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And so the strife and the quarreling just continues. Why? Because of prideful arrogance. I couldn't be wrong.

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I couldn't be wrong. And so the resistance to wisdom leads to a person causing more quarreling, more strife that displeases

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God, that doesn't bring glory to God. God hates disunity. He calls it an abomination.

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And so the scoffer is the one within a community that is causing the quarreling and the strife and the abuse.

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And why is that? Are you ready? Because they're arrogant, because they're prideful, because they couldn't be wrong.

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They firm up their commitments and what they end up doing is causing more strife, more quarreling.

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Why? Because they are not teachable. They don't want wisdom. They won't seek it out.

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There's no introspection, the text says. And so he or she, according to the text, is the source of strife, quarreling, and abuse in a community because they aren't teachable.

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Proverbs 24, verse nine. Again, the scoffer is a big part of the book of Proverbs.

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It comes up a lot. Proverbs 24, verse nine.

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It says, "'The devising of folly is sin, "'and the scoffer is an abomination to mankind.'"

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The devising of folly is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to mankind.

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Here's the point. He or she, the scoffer, plots and schemes to do evil.

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The scoffer is not teachable. The scoffer doesn't want correction. The scoffer is filled with arrogant pride.

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They think they're right and everybody else is wrong. The scoffer brings quarreling and strife and abuse into a community.

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And so the scoffer, according to God, is somebody who is a person who plots and schemes to sin and to do evil, and they are, in God's word, an abomination.

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Now, pause there. It's really, really important to get this. It's typical of us today, and you've heard me say this before, right?

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It's typical of us today, the general, sort of the average evangelical today.

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If you were to say, what does God define as an abomination in scripture?

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If you ask the average evangelical on the street, what's God define as, toiva, as an abomination in scripture?

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Typically, especially today with all the stuff going on in the world today with gender bending and perverse sexuality,

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I think the average evangelical would say, I know what God calls an abomination. He says that when a man lies with a man, that is, what?

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An abomination. Or a woman with a woman, that is an abomination. We know like the favorite, like that,

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God despises. He loathes that. That's an abomination. Well, here's a text that says that it is actually the scoffer, the mocker, the scornful that is an abomination, that is detestable to mankind.

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They plot, they scheme, they're not teachable, they're not introspective, they don't want wisdom.

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That pursuit is vanity. They're the source of quarreling and strife and abuse within communities.

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That's the scoffer, filled with arrogant pride. God says the scoffer, the scornful, is an abomination to mankind.

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They are loathsome to mankind. They are a source of so much difficulty, so much strife and so much abuse in communities and churches in the world.

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It's something we need to repent of. Now, this is really important. There's another section here in Proverbs that talks about the ultimate end of the scoffer, and it's in Proverbs 29, verse one.

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And this is a promise to the person who will not be corrected.

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They will not be teachable. God's wisdom has a word for them. It says in Proverbs 29, one, he who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing.

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He'll suddenly be broken beyond healing. You see, I think that, here's the thing. The reason

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I wanted to emphasize this for just a moment is I think it's important for us to acknowledge within the

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Christian community, within the Christian church, that there are obvious respectable sins among us, right?

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Respectable sins among us. Things that we don't think are that big of a deal. These are not things that we need to really, you know, get all tight and wound up over.

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We have respectable sins within the body of Christ. We can give a whole list of those, but what we need to recognize is that the unteachable person is an abomination to mankind,

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God says, loathsome, detestable to mankind. And the ultimate end here is destruction.

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You will be broken beyond healing. You see, you and I know this.

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Don't you, do you know, we probably experience it every day. Right now in the Valley, it's a very, very big problem.

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We recognize the person who is stubborn, the person who is scornful, the person who doesn't want to be instructed.

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They don't wanna even receive like loving, loving pleas to please turn from what you're doing.

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And they continue to go down that road and live the life that they want to live. And there's no introspection.

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And I won't listen to reason. I won't be challenged. We see them all over the place right now in the

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Valley. They're on street corners. They're at the traffic lights. They're the people who refuse correction.

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I'm not saying that there aren't people who have actually experienced a very difficult moment, a challenging moment.

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We need to love those people. We need to love the poor. We need to care for people, but let's be honest. There are loads and loads and loads of people on the street today who have been loved by family, challenged by family.

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Let me help you. Let me get you to rehab. I'll pay for your rehab. Let's get you out of this.

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You're gonna destroy yourself. And where do they end up going? They end up going away from the council, away from the help.

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And they go onto the streets and they live a life of pain and misery and suffering and struggle.

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They are broken. Have you ever looked into the eyes of some of these people that are, you stomp at a stoplight, it's a person on the corner and their life is out of their eyes.

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They're burned up by the Arizona sun. They're thirsty. They're hungry. They're hurting. They're detoxing.

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They're just trying to gather enough money to be able to get their next dose of fentanyl or Dilaudid or Percocet or heroin, whatever the case may be.

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It's just a fight every day just to get the drugs to survive the detox of not having the heroin for a day.

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And how many of those people have had families begging them, I will help you.

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I will get you off the streets. Let's get you to rehab. I will pour into you. I'll give you anything you want. And they reject it.

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They say, no, I don't need to be taught. No, I don't need instruction. I don't need you telling me what to do.

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And so they go their own way. I can't tell you how many times at the beginning of our church body, many of you guys were there since the beginning.

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You know, the times at the beginning of our church body where we had a very, very sensitive church body.

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I mean, we had babies, people that had just turned to Christ and they're new in Jesus and they love

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God and they love his word. Some of the worship we had at the beginning of Apology of Church, some of the worship, those nights of worship we had with a

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YouTube video were some of the best worship we ever had, right? Best, most moving, it was incredible.

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And we had these moments early on in our church body where it just felt like you were soaring on a cloud in the sky, so much love, so much amazing fellowship, such depth of worship and so many passionate people to hit the streets and preach the gospel and to reach other addicts for Christ.

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But we also had some pretty challenging moments, some really challenging moments where we'd have somebody that was doing things that were gonna lead them back to their old life.

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And Pastor Luke and I would come to them with love and grace and we would beg them, please don't go back that way, please turn from that, we're here, we'll help you, we'll get you a place to stay, we'll let you live somewhere else and we will pay for it, we don't have the money, but we'll find out, we'll get you and we'll care for your needs, we'll get you to detox, we'll pay for that too,

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I don't know how God's gonna deliver it, we don't have the money, but we'll make it happen. And then those people would turn away and OD in a bathroom, a

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Circle K bathroom on the floor or those people would turn away and they'd be laying out on the street being picked up by an ambulance,

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OD, or those people would turn away and then I would find them walking on the streets in Mill Avenue or in downtown

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Scottsdale and we're trying to chase these people down, we're pouring in and pouring in and they won't listen to reason, they won't listen to reason, they're right, you're wrong, it couldn't possibly be that I'm wrong and the scoffer lives that way, but the promise from Proverbs 29 one is what?

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You will be broken, right? Maybe that's how you need to learn, the scoffer needs to be struck, the scoffer needs punishment, right?

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They can't just be corrected, they can't just be spoken to, they're not teachable in that way and God says this, here's the destination of the scoffer, are you ready?

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You're gonna be broken, right? What's that old song you may run on for a long time, right?

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Those old hymns, I love them, right? You might run on for a long time, but sooner or later, what?

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God's gonna cut you down, sooner or later, God is gonna cut you down, who sang that song? Was it

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Johnny Cash? I think Elvis sang it, Johnny Cash sang it, yeah, we need to get back to that,

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Elvis and Johnny Cash, hymns, no one sings gospel music like Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, I don't care what you say,

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I'm not teachable, just kidding, but we used to understand that, didn't we?

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You might run on for a long time, but sooner or later, God's gonna cut you down and that is Proverbs 29, there it is, sooner or later,

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God's gonna cut you down and let me just challenge right now, this body, our body, let me challenge within our local body context, you might be a scoffer, you might be not teachable, you might think that you're just right, you make all the right moves, you might think that you just know it all and you might be a source of division and conflict within this body and you might think that you're just gonna be allowed to live that way,

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I can promise you this, within this body, the leadership will confront you and I can promise you that if that doesn't change you, that kind of instruction doesn't change you, sooner or later,

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God is gonna cut you down because God will not allow his body and his sheep to be destroyed by somebody who is a scoffer that refuses correction, so you might be the kind of person that is a scoffer, the unteachable person who is the cause of conflict and source and strife within a body and you might go from body to body to body, eventually,

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God is going to cut you down, that's what scripture promises, the ultimate end of the scoffer because they are unteachable, because they need pain to learn, the ultimate end is they will be suddenly broken and it says this, beyond healing, sooner or later,

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God will cut you down, so this is in scripture thematic, we see in scripture, the call to live this way, to live in a way that is peaceable, that is humble, that is teachable and I'll give you an example,

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Proverbs 12 one, go to Proverbs 12 one, now this is where I got the title of the sermon today, again, the contrast between the two, this is the source of the conflict internally of the scoffer, of the scornful, it says in Proverbs 12 one, it says whoever loves discipline, loves knowledge, if you love to be corrected, if you long for correction, if you desire to change, you wanna be renewed, you wanna be transformed, if you love discipline, you love knowledge, you want to know, you want to understand, but he who hates reproof is stupid, like we need those heavy terms sometimes, right?

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We're always trying to play around the edges, God says, if you don't like being corrected, if you hate being corrected, you are stupid, the person who loves not, who loves discipline, loves knowledge, but whoever hates reproof is stupid, what kind of person am

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I? Am I that person who doesn't ever wanna receive a challenge, no matter how lovingly it's brought, how graciously it's brought, no matter how humbly it's brought, am

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I that person that just so hates to be corrected because I just have to be right, I have to be right, and I want everyone to think of me as a person that's always right, always right, you know, it's interesting in terms of sanctification within the body, sanctification within the body, we have to get ahold of this, that teachable spirit, that humble spirit, that's a wise person who is teachable, who is humble, you know, you have to make sure that you are a part of a body of believers who lives that way, we are a body that is teachable, we love wisdom, we don't despise correction, and it's interesting because even within the leadership of our church body, we're pastors, there is a pastoral authority that is ordained by God, but brothers and sisters, listen, that pastoral authority is limited authority, amen, yes?

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Pastors do not have unlimited authority, when you become a member of the body at Apologia Church, what do you hear in a membership class?

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You hear in a membership class that the pastors of Apologia Church have an ordained pastoral authority that is limited authority, what's it limited by?

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The word of God, pastors are not allowed to lord it over you in your life, if you're at a church or your pastors are lording it over you, run, pastors are not allowed to apply their own personal preferences upon the body and say, now you live like this too, because this is how

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I prefer to live my life, we have a limited authority, however, that pastoral authority is a real authority and it must be followed, if it's something that is clearly defined by the word of God, yes, amen, yes?

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But even amongst pastoral authority, a healthy pastoral authority is a body of elders who are allowed to challenge the other, it's a dangerous, dangerous position to be in, if you're in a body where pastors wield authority, where they themselves are not humble and teachable men, where they themselves are trying to lord it over you and exercise authority with their own preferences, it's only the word of God that should bind our consciences, amen?

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But if your pastor brings to you something that is wisdom from God, from the very words of God, it is clear, it is definable, that is something that all of us must be willing to be corrected by, yes?

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Your pastors, I want you to have some insight, your pastors, in our church body, we have a pastoral authority, but we are not beyond correction,

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I can tell you there's a whole history over the last, how many years is this now? 13 years, where we've had moments where we have to challenge each other as pastors, confront each other as pastors, repent towards one another as pastors, right?

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I mean, I can tell you times where I was brought into the office by Pastor James, I need to hear why you said this the way you did,

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I need to know what was your reasoning, I want to hear from you, and you need to listen to what I'm saying, when

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I say, were you following this or were you following that? That is a healthy, healthy place to be, we all agree with that, yes?

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This isn't a call coming from the pulpit of this church saying to you as a body, you be teachable and we are beyond correction, no, these are words from God for each and every single one of us, we must be teachable, we must put to death being scoffers, are you teachable?

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Stop for a moment, receive it now because these are heavy words and if we're honest, we're all guilty, do you need to repent?

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Do you have things to put to death? Are you a teachable person in your marriage? Would you say the history of your marriage over the last 30 days is that of a teachable person, a teachable husband, a teachable wife, children in our homes, is the last 30 days of your history and your family, is it a history of being teachable, being willing to be challenged and say, you know what, you're right,

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I got that wrong, I mean, here's the thing, we're gonna get to this in a moment here, we of all people as Christians to be the kind of people who are most arms open to correction because we have a perfect savior, our sins have all been dealt with, there's no reason to hold on to our pride and our arrogance and being unteachable,

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I couldn't possibly be wrong because we have a perfect savior who has washed away all of our sins, we should be the kind of people who are able to say easily, you know what,

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I'm a sinner, he saved a sinner and you saw something in me that you're absolutely right about, praise

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God, thank you for that, God forgive me, I'm forgiven, let's go, let's move forward rather than fighting and striving and causing quarreling and strife and saying,

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I couldn't be wrong, I don't make missteps, I don't have bad judgments, I'm right,

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I stand on the word of God, right? There's the veneer, the veneer of like the scoffer, the unteachable person always comes with the

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Bible up front, by the way, be really ready for that, within the body, no one wears the badge that says, scoffer,

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I hate wisdom, right? It always comes with this up front, right? Like this and then teeth behind it, right?

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Always comes with a veneer of like, I just care, I just care so much,

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I just care so much about this and I just want this to be done this way, it always comes with a veneer but that person is unteachable, be looking for that in yourselves and in others, are we a teachable people?

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Are we a humble people? Now, listen to this, I love so much, you know who my heroes are,

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I always announce my heroes like Dr. James White, Greg Bonson, Rush Dooney, Jonathan Edwards and I got heroes, you know that,

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I just really wanna encourage you, if you get a chance, Bonson Yu is up at Apologia Studios and I believe the book of Proverbs, Bonson's work through Proverbs is there, if you get a chance, listen to Bonson's treatment of this very section, it is so challenging, it is such a blessing, it's my favorite stuff that Bonson did and he did some great stuff but when he spoke on this section, he said something that I thought, wow,

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I'd never thought about it in that way but that's absolutely true, he said this, he said, the difference between people who are guilty of any particular sin, the key difference between the person who was theologically ignorant and those who are deemed heretics, the key difference between adulterers in the body of Christ, liars in the body of Christ and slanderers in the body of Christ, the key difference is this one thing, ready, teachability, teachability, because watch this, watch, in this body right now, where we sit, where we sit, there are people in this body who are adulterers, technically, guilty of adultery, people in this body who are liars, guilty of lying, people in this body who are guilty of slander, people in this body who are guilty of gossip, people in this body who are guilty of bitterness, people in this body who are guilty of being scoffers but what's the difference between the people who are here and are thriving and growing, who are technically guilty of those sins at some point in their lives, even in the body of Christ and those who have actually formally been disciplined and told, you cannot be around this body no longer, you will not repent, what's the difference, ready, teachability, it's the scoffer who refuses correction, so think about it for a minute now, in terms of Jesus, the

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Lord Jesus giving to all of us in the body of Christ, a standard by how we're supposed to live together in a body, in Matthew chapter 18, what's the

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Lord give to us, he gives to us that process of restoration and church discipline, what's the first rule that the

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Lord Jesus gives to us when we're trying to correct somebody or challenge them, what's the first thing we do, what do we do, tell me guys, we go to them how, privately, quietly, what's the point of trying to restore a person, it's because you love them, you're trying to correct them according to God's standards, you come to them privately, you don't make a scene about it, you don't vilify the person, you don't go outside that, you don't slander them, you don't gossip, you go directly to them to try to rescue them and to save them, you're trying to contain this thing, so there's no strife and there's no quarreling and there's no bitterness and there's no slander, you're going to them privately, but what's

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Jesus say, you go to them privately, now what happens in that text is if they won't listen, you bring what, witnesses and if they won't listen to the witnesses, what do you do then, you formally bring them before the church and Jesus says to put them out, why, because when the scoffer is put out, quarreling and abuse and strife ceases, but watch this, what's the difference between the person who's out and in in terms of sanctification and sinning within the body, the difference is very simple, it's teachability, the person who is ultimately disciplined refuses correction, they won't be taught, they won't be corrected, the scoffer, the scornful, the person who's a mocker, they just won't be corrected, they won't be challenged, here's what

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Bonson says and I think this is nailing it, he said, here's the truth, ready, we have too high of an estimate of ourselves, we have too high of an estimate of ourselves and if we can get past that and if we can repent of that, we're gonna heal, we're gonna experience peace, we're gonna experience joy, we have too high of an estimate of ourselves, you know, in our own personal history within the body, here in our church body, we've dealt with a number of challenging moments in our own history of people who have been scoffers, people who have refused correction and it's interesting, it's interesting too because I'm always afraid, by the way,

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I was just talking to Danny about this yesterday, people will come into Apologia and they will hear our sermons online, they'll see us on the streets online and they'll come in and we're grateful to God when people share their stories and they'll say, my life's been changed because of your teaching, we're like, praise

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God for that, all glory to God for that or hey, I'm out now reaching Latter -day Saints with the gospel because I saw your content and we're like, hey, all glory to God, we're so glad God's using that, but when people come in here at times and they treat us like we're somehow special or they're starstruck in some way, we have to like, like, oh, take a breath,

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I'm just your brother, I'm just your brother, we're not special, we're in the same body, saved by the same blood, we have to sort of like take people down but let me tell you the person that scares me to death because of experience is the person that comes in and they are just like love bombing the pastor and you're the greatest and you're this and you're that,

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I wanna immediately tell them, you better try to work on that because if you're here long enough, you're gonna see things in me that you don't like and I'm no longer gonna be seen as the hero in your eyes so you better get a balanced perspective of Jeff Durbin and James White and Luke Pierce and get a balanced perspective, we're sinners saved by grace just like you, there's a pastoral authority, we have a role that's designated by God but we are not superstars and I am not

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Jesus so you better have a proper perspective so the people that scare me are the people that come in and they treat you like you are the best and you're amazing and I'm like I am scared now,

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I'm scared, here's why I'm scared because I've noticed that the people that behave that way oftentimes when

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I do my duty as a pastor to offer them even the most gracious and loving challenge over their sin, they're the first people, the first people at times to create divisions within our body, to create factions within our body and to start going to war with Apologia Church, why?

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Because they're unteachable, they're unteachable, pastors, here's a good measurement for us, in our own history in terms of dealing with scoffers within our body and the unteachable within our own body, we've had instances where the pastors can bring the most gentle challenge, hey, you shouldn't fight over that movie online, so we had an instance, it must be eight or nine years ago where a controversy was brewing over Star Wars, yeah, see how you're responding to that?

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Yeah, that's appropriate, so we see as pastors, uh -oh, like this is getting serious, like they're starting, like this person is starting to try to develop a faction within the church body against Christians watching

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Star Wars and being excited about the release of Star Wars, so as we started to see strife building up, we did what you just did, like what is going on?

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And so what I did as a pastor is I went very gently to this person, I said, I love you so much and I am so grateful for you and I truly was, am, and I said, but it's really important in the body of Christ to maintain unity and a connection to the essentials of the faith and to allow these differences among us to be differences and we still love one another, we still serve with one another, we still outdo each other with honor, but we can't allow divisions in our body over Star Wars.

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Now I want you to know, and this is the truth before God, that before this day, I was the greatest thing in the world since cream cheese to this person, the greatest pastor, so wonderful, so gifted,

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I love you pastor, I'm so grateful for you, but when I brought one simple challenge like you cannot divide the body of Christ because of Star Wars, I immediately received a message, must have been an hour later, this person wanted to pull themselves from every ministry they were a part of in the church and I became vilified,

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I became a person who was not to be trusted, I became a very bad pastor and then this person left the church, pulled their membership and we've heard over years many people reporting to us stories of all the things, all the horrible things that they're saying about us and here's what it was for, you ready?

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Don't divide over Star Wars, don't divide the body of Christ over Star Wars, it was in just that simple challenge to a person, can you be teachable on this?

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We shouldn't divide over the issue of Star Wars, like I think Daniel is out of his mind, I do,

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I think, yeah, I think he's out of his mind that he thinks like Christian Hayden, whatever his name is, the best actor in history and all this,

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I think he's out of his mind and we can laugh about it and have fun about it but it doesn't really matter, right?

58:33

His bad taste in food doesn't matter, right? No, but here's the thing, we should be able to tease with each other and jab each other, we have a church full of Presbyterians, praise

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God, right, yes? This is a reformed Baptist church, it's a reformed Baptist church, you got reformed Baptist pastors and we're filled with Presbyterians and I say

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God is glorified in that, he's glorified and we could be unified and hold to the essentials together and fight for the glory of God together and preach the gospel together and we need to allow these things to not be things that divide us but do you know one of those identifying marks of the scoffer is even a gentle correction from a pastor, how dare you, how dare you challenge me, how dare you say that I'm doing something wrong, how dare you use that verse to try to challenge my life and then of course, what tends to happen with the scoffer is this is one of the first things that we've noticed within, this is getting very personal today, okay, let's just do it, okay, one of the things that we've noticed in our own personal history as a church body for all of these years is that what the scoffer tends to do is when they're challenged gently, when they're remotely challenged with by members of our body or by the pastors, the scoffers pull their memberships, right?

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They pull their memberships. I don't trust you guys anymore, what for? Because I don't like how you challenged me,

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I don't like what you said to me, the scoffers pull their memberships because they don't want to be corrected.

59:57

One of the things I've noticed in all my years of counseling, thousands and thousands of hours of counseling, either professionally in a hospital as a

01:00:05

Christian minister or as a minister for all of the many, many, many years I've been a pastor is in marital conflict.

01:00:13

The key issue of healing or not healing, healing or divorce, the key issue is simply, who's the scoffer?

01:00:25

Is there a scoffer? Are we being teachable? Because from the pastor's perspectives, when we come into a marital conflict, the pastors are trying to use equal weights and measures.

01:00:35

The pastors are trying to avoid partiality to any degree. The pastors are trying to advocate for both people and to say, how are you sinning?

01:00:45

And how are you sinning? How can we help you heal? And what we have seen, and this is a sad thing to report, and it's across the

01:00:51

Christian church, I believe universally, when marriages dissolve, when marriages are destroyed, they are destroyed because somebody is unteachable.

01:01:01

When both people come in with a humble spirit and say, look, we're both blowing it, I'm sinning, she's sinning, help us.

01:01:07

We wanna get accountability. We want help. When that's the case, when both are teachable, what happens?

01:01:13

Healing. When there is a person in the room who refuses correction, who is filled with arrogant pride,

01:01:21

I'm not wrong, I couldn't be wrong. That's when divorce is inevitable.

01:01:27

That's what we've seen. It's a feature. So, back to Proverbs 9.

01:01:33

Clementine, I hope you got your snacks. I'll just do this quickly in terms of how this is set up to point it out to us.

01:01:44

In Proverbs 9, starting in verse 7, it's 7 through 8a.

01:01:52

So, if you divide the verse into a and b, right? Two lines. From 7a to 8a, it is, ready?

01:02:03

As Bonson points out, it is a, b, c, c, b, a. It is down, then up again, but there's a contrast.

01:02:11

And here's how it works. Follow me. Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abused, but he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.

01:02:20

Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you. There you go. Ready? A, b, c. That's the scoffer.

01:02:26

Now it works the other way up, but now talking about the wise. And it says, give instruction to a wise man and he'll love you.

01:02:35

What's a scoffer do? He'll hate you. Reprove the wise man, he'll love you.

01:02:41

Give instruction to a wise man, he will still be wiser. Teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning.

01:02:47

There's the perfect contrast right there. It's descending and ascending in the book of Proverbs. Here's the scoffer, here's the unwise, and then the wise man goes the other direction.

01:02:57

So it's victory in the other direction. So Bonson again makes a note as he talks about this.

01:03:03

He says, how you respond to correction is the indication of whether you are a scoffer or a wise person.

01:03:09

How you respond to correction will tell us whether you're a scoffer or a wise person.

01:03:17

So I want to say this, because I think it's the most important thing. Because for me,

01:03:23

I believe that in my own heart and my own life, this has been the source. I believe

01:03:29

I could demonstrate this biblically, but the source for me of being able to shut my mouth and listen when somebody actually might have a point.

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They may have actually found something. Mostly this is my wife, right? I've learned, she'll see it.

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And I'll say, she might actually have a point. I need to repent, right? I've learned to say, okay, let me stop and think for a minute, she might actually be right.

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How can you actually embrace as a Christian, someone challenging you and saying, hey,

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I think that you failed here. I think you're not seeing this. You need to do this. And the answer is the gospel.

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The answer is the gospel. How can you be the kind of person that puts a death arrogant pride in your life, you put it down and you're receptive to knowledge and wisdom.

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The answer is the gospel. Why? Because we can have peace in being corrected because we have a perfect savior with a perfect sacrifice.

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You see, if you've walked through the gauntlet of God's holiness and recognized your utter depravity and your total failure and your total dependence upon God and his grace and mercy, then it should be easy for you to say, you know what?

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I should pay close attention to my heart and my mind and what's going on in my life. And you know what? It's okay.

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Jesus says, it is finished. Jesus says, it is finished. Nothing's left. My sins are forgiven.

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Of course I can be corrected because you know why? I have nowhere to run. Why do we run from correction?

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Why do we try to guard ourselves from correction? Because we don't want to be seen as guilty. We don't want to be seen as less than, as broken.

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And here's the truth with the gospel. If you are in Jesus Christ, you are not ultimately guilty in Jesus anymore.

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Do you get it? Your sins have been washed away. You've been declared righteous. God will never hold your sins against you again.

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So if one is spotted currently, you can go, you're right. You're right.

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I did behave that way. I did say that. I was angry, right? I wasn't just just now.

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I was showing partiality. I was gossiping. I was slandering. You're right.

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God, forgive me. Thank you for showing me that. You're right. I don't need to carry that. Brothers and sisters, being corrected doesn't mean you need to carry that sign on your head for the rest of your life.

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Actually, the text says, you're the wise one. So actually the place of honor is to be the person who actually receives correction.

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If you want to be seen as the person according to God that is the honorable person, the wise person, you are the person who receives correction and says, you're right.

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I was wrong. I repent of that. So have questions to ask us, all of us.

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Have you truly been humbled by your own sin before God? Have you truly been humbled? Has there been ultimate repentance in your life with the gospel?

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Who is Jesus? He's God in human flesh. He's blameless. He's sinless.

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He obeyed the law perfectly. He died for sinners, not righteous people. And then he conquered death, the death that we deserve.

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And he rose again from the dead. What's the call of the gospel? We are broken. We are,

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Paul says, altogether worthless. We are not righteous. We are not God seeking. We are,

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Jesus says, John 8, slaves of sin. And so you hear that message and you hear your total brokenness and need for Jesus and the gift of eternal life.

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And the call is turn from your sin and trust in Jesus Christ. Then you have peace with God.

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Then you're reconciled to God. So here's the thing, brothers and sisters, if that's happened to us, if we've had that ultimate moment of being broken over our sin and being brought to peace with God, if that's in our past, then how, please tell me, can we keep holding onto our sins for the rest of our lives as though we're not sinners?

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If we've walked through that and we've experienced ultimate repentance, then how come we're not teachable?

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How come we're filled with pride and arrogance? If we aren't teachable people, it's questionable, truly questionable as to whether we've actually walked through repentance and faith with God.

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So, quick points here. I'm gonna give this to you because I thought these were very insightful. Four points, four points of what the scoffer will do, of what the scoffer will do when they're challenged.

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And to do this, we need to look at Proverbs 15, verse 12. Bonson makes these points.

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I'm gonna give them to you. I think they're incredible and, in my experience, absolutely true and are based on scripture.

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Four points. Number one, when you challenge the scoffer and they will not be teachable, they will practice avoidance.

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The second point is they will rationalize. The third point is recrimination and the fourth is incorrigibility.

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So, let's just work through those. The first point is avoidance. Proverbs 15, 12.

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The text says, I must have written down the wrong verse here, guys.

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No, there you go. No, I got it right. There you go, okay. Proverbs 15, 12. A scoffer does not like to be reproved.

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He will not go to the wise. We did that, right? The scoffer doesn't want to be challenged. They don't want to go to the wise.

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So, one of the marks of the scoffer is that they will not seek out counsel. They don't want to hear the other side.

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They don't want to hear how they may be wrong. The scoffer will avoid wisdom. They will avoid instruction.

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They will avoid correction. They refuse authority. So, scoffers love, and I mean they really love, large churches that are unconcerned.

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Scoffers love to hide in communities where there is an unconcerned authority.

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Scoffers love to be in situations, in bodies where they can be the wise ones, they can lead with authority, and there's no real oversight.

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Scoffers love to hide in churches where there's no real authoritative oversight.

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Scoffers refuse authority, avoid authority, and so they go and hide in large churches or in churches where people won't see into their lives.

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Now, this is what's really important as we talk about challenge. Jerry did an episode, it just dropped two weeks ago with Park.

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Yes, she was the, if you haven't heard the story, Candy listened to like the whole four hours yesterday on the

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Sean Ryan show, and she was just like, hey, we're gonna listen to the rest of it, we're gonna listen to the rest of it. She's not usually like that with like Navy SEAL run shows, but she just was in awe of this girl's story.

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She is a person who was, she fled from and escaped from North Korea. She was sold into sex trafficking, and she ultimately escaped from that because she was rescued by Christian missionaries who got her out of it, and now she's in America, and she speaks against communism and the regime, and she's a believer, she trusts in Jesus Christ.

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She has a part of our story that I thought is really important, really, really important, and that is she said that in North Korea, which

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Korea used to be called the Jerusalem of the East. It was so filled with the gospel and so filled with Christians, and then when

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North Korea went where they went with communism and it was totally destroyed and Christianity was abolished, she made the point that the leadership in North Korea actually perverted the scriptures, and they changed the biblical stories into stories about them.

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So the leader, the dear leader of North Korea became God, right, and he gave us his son, this next leader, and he is basically immortal, and he's

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God, and he can read your thoughts, and they twist the biblical story and turn it to the leader, the dear leader of North Korea to make him

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God. Another thing that's a perversion is that she has this sad part of her story.

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It's on the Sean Ryan show if you guys wanna watch it. Park, it just dropped like a week ago, I think. She has this sad story where she's explaining how life was in North Korea.

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Under communism, people are starving, they're eating bugs, and they're dying on the streets constantly.

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Their organs are spilling out of their mouths and their orifices, because that's the process of starvation.

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It's not instantaneous. She talks about how hard life was, and she was afraid to even think because they're taught that the dear leader can read your thoughts, and she said this, and I thought this was so compelling.

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She said that they were required every single week as children to basically challenge and blame everybody around.

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They wanted to create a relationship of hostility between you and everybody else, and so you had to, every week, you had to actually accuse the people around you and say how they did not serve the dear leader, how they were not acting as a good comrade, and you had to actually accuse the others, and it could lead to punishment for you and your whole family.

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It could even lead to the death penalty, but I thought to myself, what a perversion, right?

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The devil always has a perversion of the truth where we are just living our lives as accusers, accusers, accusers, accusers.

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If we are living that way, we need to repent. We should never take a message like this and confronting the scoffer as I need to live my life now perpetually looking for the fault so I get the chance to correct you.

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When it comes time for us to challenge someone we love within the body, it should be something that breaks my heart.

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It should be something that brings tears. It should be something that caused me to plea for their souls, and it should be something

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I also am looking first internally about, am I guilty of these things? Do I have something to repent of?

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But the scoffer, regardless of how graciously you bring it and how true it is, the scoffer does not want the insight, they will avoid it.

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The second point is they try to rationalize. Proverbs 12, 15, the scoffer rationalizes.

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The way of the fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. The scoffer is filled with double standards, right?

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They have a different set of standards for you than they do for themselves. They're filled with double standards, arbitrary exceptions in their case.

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They're allowed to gossip, they're allowed to slander because of A, B or C, right?

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They're not guilty of that sin because they have some arbitrary standard they've set up with mixed standards and double standards.

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The scoffer, when you challenge them, will be filled with flimsy excuses for their behavior, exceptions in their case.

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The third point Bonson makes, again, I think this is just very insightful, is the scoffer, when confronted, actually deals in recrimination.

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Proverbs 13, verse 10, by insolence comes nothing but strife, but with those who take advice is wisdom.

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The key issue here is that when the scoffer is confronted, they will attack the person trying to correct them.

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They will attack their motives at times. They will attack their integrity.

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They will try to actually go outside that conversation and try to get people on their team to slander them.

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And that's the key issue. When somebody is a scoffer and they refuse any correction, when they're confronted, they will deal in recrimination.

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They will try to get you back. They will try to ruin your reputation. They will try to cause strife within the body.

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They will try to get people on their team against you. That is the pattern of insolence and the behavior of the scoffer.

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And the fourth and final point is, the scoffer is incorrigible. Proverbs 19, 25.

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That point I made about strike a scoffer and the simple will learn prudence, reprove a man of understanding and he will gain knowledge.

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Here's the point. They only respond to pain. The scoffers refuse to admit their error.

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They refuse to admit their error. Now final words here in Proverbs 9.

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We've already heard it, so it's a quick one, ready? Proverbs 9, verse 10.

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What's the advice after the scoffer is challenged? It says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the

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Holy One is insight. There's the foundation. If I wanna know, if I wanna be wise,

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I need to have reverential awe and fear before God, first and foremost. What's the point?

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Brothers and sisters, we're done here in a moment here. So just what's the point? Is that the wise person fears God. The scoffer has no fear of God.

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They don't fear God. They don't want wisdom. They don't want insight. They don't want instruction because fundamentally, they don't fear

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God. If they did fear God, they would want wisdom. They want instruction. They would wanna know. The scoffer ultimately has no fear of God.

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God promises, by me, your days will be multiplied, verse 11, and years will be added to your life. There's that, again, that promise of longevity and peace and blessing when you pursue wisdom.

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And here is what the final end is. Verse 12, if you are wise, you are wise for yourself.

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If you scoff, you will bear it. This is the final summary, and it is perfect. Here's the blessing, are you ready?

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If you pursue wisdom, insight, knowledge, if you're teachable, if you are the person that fears

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God and wants to be wise, then God says this, you're wise for your own benefits.

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Pursue the wisdom, pursue the insight, be teachable. Why? It's for your blessing.

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You want long days? You want a path that is lit up, that has peace at the end of it? Or do you want destruction and darkness?

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Do you wanna go into the pits? God says here, if you're pursuing wisdom, you're doing it for your benefit.

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It's gonna bless your life. If you are a teachable person, if you put to death being a scoffer in your life, then it is for your good.

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It's gonna bless your life. And the same goes, the inversion, the same goes for the scoffer.

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If you hate knowledge, if you hate wisdom, if you won't be a teachable person, if you just think you're always right, then you alone are gonna bear it.

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And what's the end result of the scoffer? You will be broken beyond repair. There is judgment and there is brokenness at the end of that line.

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And so, the call to all of us, whether you're a husband, whether you're a wife, whether you're a single person, whether you're a child, whether you're a friend, whether you're standing with the pastors who are trying to lovingly challenge you, the challenge for all of us is this, are we teachable people?

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The word from James, let's summarize. I'm gonna just read the text and then end it there.

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I took wisdom from above as the title of the series from James, I know most of you know that.

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But in James chapter three, verse 13.

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I'm gonna read the text and we're gonna close. Here's what James says, the Lord's brother. He says, who is wise in understanding of the law?

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And who is an arrogant and unselfish man among you? By his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.

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But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.

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This is not the wisdom that comes from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

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For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

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But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason.

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Some of your translations say what there? Reasonable, some say teachable.

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Teachable. The wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, teachable, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial.

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We do not show partiality. We don't play favorites. We don't have unequal scales and measures.

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And sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word today. Bless, Lord, the word that went out. Please, God, allow us to be a people that love you and love your wisdom, love your law, your word, and love your gospel.

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And, Lord, allow us to be a people that just walk with humility with one another, that are willing to hear words from you, that are willing to be teachable.

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Give us, Lord, by your Spirit, because it can only come by that. Give us by your Spirit this Spirit within this body that is teachable, that is humble, that is faithful, that desires wisdom, wants wisdom, wants instruction, rejoices in understanding and knowledge.

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Grant to us, Lord, the safety of that pursuit. Lord, for your glory and for your kingdom, let that be light that shines from this body into the world for your glory and kingdom.