True Wisdom

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:05
All right, as was mentioned, if you would take your Bibles and turn to the second chapter of the book of Proverbs.
00:30
So as we continue working through the second chapter of Proverbs, basically tonight I wanna just continue where we left off last time we were able to open this word from mostly Solomon.
00:50
I'm gonna read from the first verse to the 15th verse.
00:56
We spoke on verses one through nine last time and I'm gonna try to spend a few moments in verse 10 through 15.
01:04
But again, to get us, set us our minds on the chapter, let's just read it as it is laid out for us.
01:15
Proverbs chapter two, my son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding.
01:27
Yes, if you cry out for discernment and you lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as the hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord.
01:40
Find the knowledge of God for the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding and he stores up sound wisdom for the upright.
01:50
He is a shield to those who walk up rightly.
01:53
He guards the paths of justice and preserves the way of his saints.
01:58
Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path.
02:04
When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion shall preserve you, understanding will keep you to deliver you from the way of evil.
02:16
From the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the path of our brightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perversity of the wicked, whose ways are crooked and who are devious in their paths.
02:35
And we'll stop there.
02:37
If you remember last time as we looked at the opening verses in the chapter, I tried to emphasize this, the truth of basically the if and then, in that I said to you that as we would consider it that the grace of God, the sovereign grace of God, the saving grace of God is unconditional in that it is given to us freely and fully by God in his good pleasure.
03:08
But I also sought to open up from these opening verses that our communion with God or our fellowship with God or our intimacy with this great God many times is conditional on us applying ourselves.
03:27
Now that neither destroys the sovereignty of God nor does it destroy the responsibility of man.
03:33
But there's this reality that you and I must face continually in that God is merciful and his mercy is free.
03:43
And yet enjoyment of that free mercy many times is conditional on us applying ourselves.
03:52
And that if we do not do that, then we suffer a loss in the sense of having communion with God and fellowship with God on a moment by moment basis.
04:05
And I hope that's what we desire, not just to know God on Sunday morning or on a Wednesday night or whenever we gather as a corporate body, but that we desire the grace of God and to know that grace and to understand God moment by moment.
04:24
And again, I'm not saying that is something, I don't think any of us would say that that is where we're at, that we have this moment by moment walk with God and basically we're always in heavenly places is that would just be untrue.
04:41
So with that in mind, and again, I just wanna remind us of the major, what I see is the major theme of the book of Proverbs.
04:49
And if you remember, I've been saying, and I will continue to say it as we go through the book of Proverbs, that there really is a presentation from the author and from the spirit of God of basically two kinds of people and those two kinds of people run throughout the whole book and one is the wise person and the other one is the fool.
05:11
And that's the group that's being spoken to and the only two groups that is being spoken to because the reality, my friends, is there's nobody in between.
05:19
There is no place where man will not be able, where man can hide himself.
05:26
And so again, as the Lord Jesus said, if you're not with me, you're against me.
05:31
And so the book of Proverbs certainly points those two groups to us of the wise and the fool.
05:36
And then it gives us the characteristic of those two groups, the wise being the ones that are diligent in seeking after God.
05:44
And then the fool who is lazy and slothful and desires not the things of God.
05:52
So there's two groups, there's two characteristics and then there's two results.
05:57
The results being that the wise man or woman, the wise person is the one who seeks after God, not only finds God but receives reward for seeking after God.
06:09
And then again, there's the fool who because of his laziness and slothfulness and ultimately his outright rebellion, he not only does not have intimacy with God but he suffers consequences.
06:24
There's judgment that comes to it.
06:26
So again, with that in mind, and I think that kind of helps us understand the book of Proverbs.
06:34
Because again, as we move through this at a later point, as we get into the individual Proverbs themselves, where people might think that they're disconnected and they kind of jump from one subject to another, that you and I will be able to understand that that's not necessarily the case, that Solomon by inspiration is continually laying out before us both those two groups, their characteristics and the results thereof.
07:07
So let's just look at verse 10 through 15.
07:11
And I broke it there because as we get into it, the next time I have opportunity to speak and we'll look from verse 16 on, it'll begin to lead us into some thoughts about immoral women.
07:24
But I also wanna spend some time in that, that it's more than just physically being involved in inholatory and being involved with immoral women.
07:37
And I want to try to draw in a spiritual aspect to it.
07:41
So that's why I broke it at that point.
07:43
So verse 10, it says, when wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul.
07:51
And here's what I thought about this.
07:53
I thought about the fact that, that our ability to have wisdom, true wisdom, true wisdom, which really is experimental knowledge of God, that when he says when it comes, that it's not necessarily natural, that you and I must realize it is something that must come to us.
08:21
And the reality simply is this, and this is where so many people will miss the weight of it.
08:29
So many people miss that, that because of sin and because of the curse and because of the judgment that came as a result, that not only has man lost his innocence, not only has he lost his innocence, but he's also lost his ability to rightly understand, to rightly experience the grace of God.
08:57
And I think that's important for us to realize, especially in the day and the time in which we live in, that man in and of himself, although he's a rational being, he, in his depraved standing, acts irrational.
09:18
Because again, if we were to think about it, man is, think about what Job said, man is worn for trouble as the sparks fly upward.
09:31
That as natural as it is for sparks to travel up, so it is for man to find himself in trouble.
09:40
And again, that's because true wisdom as true knowledge of God is not something that everyone has and matter of fact, it was forfeited in the garden and we have forfeited, of course, by our own sinful thoughts and sinful actions.
10:01
And so, and I would say this, when he says when wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, that we would remember that this applies not only in the areas of what we would term special grace or saving grace, but also in the area of common grace, that you and I would realize that again, that the Lord Jesus Christ, as John says so clearly, that he's the light that lights every man that comes into the world.
10:34
And so, even if you think about it and we have these examples as we look out into the world we live in, even when common grace, and what I mean by common grace is that which allows man by the grace of God to at least bear somewhat of the reality of goodness and kindness and gentleness and those fruits of the spirit that apart from that, and we've seen it many times in many areas and countries where even common grace is not present, there's nothing but anarchy, there's nothing but ugliness, there's nothing but hurt and harm and those things that you and I so recoil from.
11:24
So, I think it's important for us that we don't take lightly when he says something in that he says, when wisdom enters your heart, it has to come to us, it has to come to us.
11:38
And again, as we looked in the opening verses, it comes by our own, in many ways comes by our own application in our own lives.
11:48
So, when we think about it, we have to think about it, not only, I often think about that scripture where Paul says, what do you have that you haven't received? And we would all say, amen, and that is true.
12:02
But I wonder if we really think of it more in a physical realm than the spiritual realm that we think of, well, I thank God for what I have and I thank God for my health, I thank God for my family, I thank God for my house, I thank God for the ability to go out and earn a living, but that we sometimes lose sight of it from a spiritual perspective.
12:25
And I ask us to think about, what do you have that God has not given you as far as understanding who God is and who you are? That spiritually, it has to be that which we receive and that it only comes because God is gracious and that we would not take it lightly nor neglect it.
12:52
And I think one of the reasons why we so neglect it is because there is this activity within the heart of man where he seeks to minimize God and maximize self.
13:09
When you agree that that seems to be the way it goes, that man seeks to minimize God in order to maximize self.
13:19
And so therefore many people will, even in those areas where they seek grace, where men are able to love their wives or men do things that we would consider to be good and kind and honorable, that too often it's applied to the man rather than the grace of God that God gives to the man.
13:42
And again, that's the way in which man minimizes God and he maximizes himself.
13:47
So again, as he says, when wisdom enters your heart, you and I would pause and realize if we have wisdom or if we are going to attain wisdom, it has to be because God has in his graciousness, in his goodness, given it to us.
14:09
And whatever area that works out in our life, it always has to be understood in that way.
14:15
So I wanna think a little bit further when he says when wisdom, and so when you think about wisdom, again, as I said, it really is, I think it's best defined as experimental knowledge, that there's a difference between knowing facts and having wisdom to apply the facts that you know.
14:37
And that enters into every area of life or any area of life that it's experimental knowledge and that it doesn't just affect our mind, nor does it just affect our emotions, but true wisdom ought to affect our minds, our hearts, and it should find an outworking in our lives.
14:59
Again, if you think about it, if what I'm saying has some truth to it, that wisdom is experimental knowledge, then I hope you would agree with me that it's something that affects the whole inner man in whatever way he possesses wisdom and that has an outworking in life.
15:20
That it works out in life.
15:22
So when he says that when wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, let me ask you to think about this.
15:35
Do we find God's wisdom pleasant? Do you find that the word of God and the instruction that comes from God and the statutes and the judgments and the testimonies and all that God has, do you find it pleasant? Well, sister, thank you for being honest because I think that's the case with all of us.
16:05
That we don't always find it to be a pleasant thing, but rather we find it to be unpleasant.
16:15
And I think there are specific reasons why that's so and maybe we'll talk about it a little bit, but when knowledge enters your heart and, I mean, excuse me, when wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul.
16:32
And I thought of what the Psalmist says.
16:33
You remember the first Psalm where it says that the one who loves God and the one who knows God is the one who says his delight is in the law of God.
16:46
And he finds it pleasant.
16:49
He finds it instructive.
16:51
He finds it, if you will, as a resting place.
16:57
He delights in the law of God and in his law he meditates day and night.
17:03
Why does he meditate in a day and night? Because it's pleasant.
17:07
You think about it very often.
17:12
How many of us would meditate tonight and find pleasant if we had to have a tooth pulled tomorrow? I mean, we would either think too much of it because it's unpleasant and it's captivated us, but I don't think we would just spend our time in pleasantry tonight thinking, oh, I can't wait for him to stick that thing in my mouth and start yanking.
17:40
Again, we have to ask ourselves, not only do we apply ourselves to the word of God, but do we find it as a resting place for us? Do we find it pleasant? And as you said, sister, and I think you just speak the truth in that way that we do not always find it that way.
18:05
And I do believe that's what we need to apply ourselves to do is to find God's word pleasant at all times in every situation.
18:16
And again, one of the reasons why we don't is because there's this, if you will, struggle that's going on within us.
18:28
And many times the things of this world or the things opposed to God seem to be more pleasant than the things that come from God.
18:38
And again, that's something that I believe comes in Christian maturity and growth and that you and I, it doesn't just come to us naturally.
18:50
As a matter of fact, as we'll spend a few minutes in a little bit, very often the opposite comes to us in a way that it should not.
19:01
I thought about what it says in Psalm 94, and I've quoted to you this scripture many times, but it says, in the multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul.
19:19
In the multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul.
19:27
Or if you would, I find a resting place.
19:31
It's so pleasant, I wanna rest there.
19:35
When you think about it, we all have our own little resting place.
19:40
We have our own little nook where we go to find rest and to have a pleasant experience.
19:49
I mean, it could be anything.
19:50
It could be a favorite room or a favorite chair, or some people like the time of day.
19:55
I know Hatsy, you've told me you like when it rains, which I don't know what's wrong with you, but you like it when it rains.
20:04
You find it pleasant.
20:06
And there are so many different things that enter into our lives.
20:12
And there's a whole idea of not only wisdom entering in our heart and knowledge that it's pleasant to our soul.
20:23
And so something that pleasant, as I said, is something you look forward to.
20:29
Maybe it's a favorite food.
20:31
For me, if it's Italian food, I'm there.
20:35
I just find it pleasant.
20:38
I could eat it seven days a week, and then I could eat the leftovers in the morning with no problem at all.
20:44
Maybe it's a favorite food.
20:46
Maybe it's a favorite pastime.
20:49
I'll put it to you this way, and I thought about it.
20:52
You know, I'm almost 67, and I love fishing.
20:58
I love to be at the ocean, on the ocean.
21:02
The only thing I don't wanna be is under the ocean, but I do so enjoy fishing.
21:07
And I could say, even at 67 years old, every time I go fishing, I feel like a little kid opening a new toy.
21:18
And it's always there for me.
21:21
And again, that's something that's within me.
21:24
And I have no reason really to tell you why, except I find it pleasant.
21:30
But something that's pleasant, something that you find as a pleasure, it attracts you.
21:38
It draws you.
21:39
You want to be there, right? Now again, if you don't, I remember my dad, my dad, if he got sand on his feet, he was ready to pull his hair out.
21:49
So he never went to the beach.
21:51
He never, he found no pleasure in it at all.
21:54
So then what did he do? He stayed away from it.
21:57
So again, I'm just trying to get us to think about things as we look in Proverbs and as we think about our lives, that we would start to really ask ourselves, what really gives me pleasure? Does God, does God's word, does the moving of the spirit within us, is that really a pleasurable thing for us? Or again, is it more a displeasure? And we, because whatever is a displeasure, you will avoid friends.
22:28
You will seek to move it out of your life and bring in whatever, again, gives you the most comfort and the most enjoyment.
22:40
So I want to look a little bit further through this.
22:43
And so look at verse 11, and it says, when wisdom enters your heart, knowledge is pleasant to your soul.
22:50
Here's what happens.
22:53
Discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep you.
22:59
Discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep you.
23:05
There's a result of this working in our minds and in our hearts to not only take God's, in that sense, take God's word in, or to take in the thoughts of the Lord Jesus Christ, who truly is the word of God, but not only that, but that we would find a pleasurable, and this is the yield.
23:34
This is what it brings to us.
23:36
It says that discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep you.
23:43
So I did a little bit of work with the words in this verse, and it's interesting where it says, discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep you.
23:53
The word preserve and that word keep are the same word in Hebrew.
24:00
It's the same word, it's samar, if I'm pronouncing it correctly.
24:05
So it's the same thing.
24:07
So what he's really saying is that discretion will keep you, preserve you, guard you, protect you.
24:16
It will be something that hedges you in.
24:22
And I wanna show you something.
24:23
I'll only ask you to turn to one other scripture tonight, but I wanna show you how these words are used.
24:29
So if you could just go back to Psalm 127 for a minute.
24:34
And this is a Psalm that many, many people know, many, many people quote, teach it to their kids, rightfully so, Psalm 127.
24:43
I wanna show you something about how this word is full of meaning.
24:51
In Psalm 127, I'll just read to you the first three verses.
25:04
Okay, familiar.
25:08
Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain.
25:12
Who built it? Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.
25:22
Now here's what I wanted to show you, where it says, unless the Lord guards, that's the same word that is translated preserve in Proverbs two.
25:34
Further, where it says the watchman stays awake in vain, it's the same word.
25:43
In other words, when it talks about how discretion will preserve you, it has a multiple application to us.
25:52
And if you think about it, and if you think about the function of a watchman, the watchman is set to make sure that you're protected.
26:02
The watchman is there to make sure that you are not ambushed unaware.
26:08
The reality is, my friends, that seeking wisdom from God and applying ourselves to gain it is not only to be pleasant, but the yield is, it guards us, it hedges us in.
26:26
It's like a watchman for us.
26:28
And certainly, if you think about it, that's something that I think we would say that only a fool would not find that thought pleasant, to be hedged in, to be guarded, to be preserved, to be kept.
26:46
I mean, who would not think that that's good stuff? And yet, for so many reasons, so many people neglect that very thing that they desire, but they neglect the means by which they can attain unto it.
27:04
So again, I think it's interesting that that word is translated in four different ways, at least, and I didn't spend any more time on it, but I did find it interesting because I don't know how many times when our kids were growing up that I spoke to them about Psalm 127 and how the Lord has to build a house and how the Lord has to keep them and watch over them.
27:28
And yet, those are the same words that are used in Proverbs chapter two, where it says that discretion will preserve us and understanding will keep us.
27:45
In Psalm 112, it says this, and I'm just quoting verses because I think it helps.
27:49
It says, a good man deals graciously and lends, and he will guide his affairs with discretion.
27:57
And that's one of the yields of finding God's word pleasant and seeking after more and more of it, of growing in grace.
28:11
Why should we grow in grace in the knowledge of the Son of God who so loved us that he gave himself for us? It ought to be pleasant, and it ought to bring something to us, and it does.
28:24
And if it doesn't, perhaps the issue is with us, because certainly the issue is not with God.
28:32
God is good, only good, always good.
28:36
God is great, greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.
28:41
It says, if any man lacks wisdom, what is he to do? Ask a God, why? He gives to all men liberally.
28:49
And so again, we have to begin to ask ourselves pointed questions.
28:57
Maybe one of the reasons why I find the Bible, and this is certainly a reason why so many discard the Bible, is because there's no pleasure in it.
29:13
They find nothing in it to really give them rest, and therefore they are, as Isaiah says, they're like the troubled sea, which casts up dirt and mire, and there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
29:31
Why? Because they have turned away from the very thing that God has given and does give to bring rest and to bring pleasure.
29:43
And so again, this whole idea of discretion is something that I think you and I would want.
29:55
I mean, certainly as you bring up your children, as you talk to others, you want them to have good discretion.
30:04
You don't want them to make foolish decisions.
30:09
You want them to do what is, and we say it so often, do what is right.
30:16
Do the right thing.
30:18
Well, discretion is the ability to discern and to do what is right, and it comes because it says that discretion will preserve us.
30:36
You know, friends, it really is amazing to me as I've been looking at the book of Proverbs more and more, how far I am from where I should be.
30:48
Right? No, you're all right.
30:53
I'm good with it.
30:54
That's true, amen.
30:55
I mean, we're so far from where we should be, and we're so far from where God truly wants us to be, and it's because we don't apply ourselves.
31:12
Or even if we apply ourselves, we don't apply ourselves in the right way.
31:18
And again, many people will spend hours reading the Bible, but to no end.
31:23
They have ulterior motives.
31:27
The motives ought to be because it's good, because it's right, because it's God's word.
31:39
So discretion will preserve you and understanding will keep you, and then just take a few minutes, and as we close, I wanna just go through the final couple of verse, because look what comes out of it also.
31:53
So it preserves you, it keeps you.
31:55
Then in verse 12, to deliver you from the way of evil.
32:00
To deliver us from the way of evil.
32:03
And I thought about this.
32:10
Experimental knowledge of God not only will give us discretion from evil men, but as I see it here, it says it will deliver you from the way of evil.
32:28
And I thought about something.
32:29
I thought, you know, many times we'll pray for God to keep us from evil men, because there's a lot of them, and evil things, but how often do we pray that God will keep us from the way of evil? How often do we ask God to give us wisdom so that we ourselves don't partake of evil? Not only from the outside, but from that evil which we still wrestle with.
33:08
And I would say to you tonight, if you're not wrestling with evil, then you're overcome by evil.
33:17
If you do not believe that you are wrestling with evil, then evil is so within you that you can't see the forest or the trees.
33:30
I would say it to you this way, my friends.
33:32
I say it to me and to you.
33:35
My greatest enemy, your greatest enemy, lies within your flesh, lies within my flesh.
33:47
And so many people want to point.
33:49
I was thinking about, I was listening to the other day when all them people were stuck on 95 in Virginia, and some people with 24 hours in their cars and all the craziness come out of it, and then today, what are they doing? It's his fault.
34:06
No, it's his fault.
34:07
No, it's the, they even blame the governor, the new governor, who's not already, he's not even in office yet, and they said it was his fault.
34:17
Or it's the ex-president's fault, or it's the police's fault.
34:22
It's everybody's fault, but anybody's fault.
34:26
And you and I need to think about these things, that we need to seek after God, not only to keep evil from us, but to drive evil out of us.
34:41
And again, I say to you, if you do not think that that is a true principle, then you're in trouble.
34:53
You know, I've been reading, part of my time, I've been reading through the Kings and the Chronicles again, just reading through the narrative, first Kings, second Kings, first Chronicles, second Chronicles.
35:02
And as I was reading through it, it struck me along these lines that so often as you read through the narrative of the Kings, and mostly what I'm thinking of is the Kings in the Southern King Judah, because they were more the godly Kings, the Kings in the Northern part of Israel, they were just, they were terrible, almost straight through.
35:30
But as I was reading through it, it struck me that even in the godly Kings, they would go along and they would do what was right, and they would find God's blessing.
35:44
And then all of a sudden, evil would just come out of them.
35:49
I mean, you, and I would certainly say, you could think about Solomon, Solomon's the one who's given us this instruction.
35:56
And yet, as you read through the narrative of Solomon, what happens to Solomon? The very evil that he warns against is the evil he commits in many ways.
36:12
And so when you think about it there, my friends, we have to, we have to walk circumspectly.
36:21
We have to be careful with our own souls.
36:25
We have to be those who truly desire that God will not only keep evil of others away from us, but that God would keep evil from us, from within.
36:47
But then it also speaks about to deliver, verse 12, to deliver you from the way of evil, and from the man who speaks perverse things.
37:01
And so when you think about that, I thought about this, we are surrounded.
37:06
Listen, we are surrounded by people who speak against the truth.
37:11
Let's think about that.
37:13
Just in your mind, just go through all the areas in which news and information, we're so inundated with information these days, right? I don't even know how to say half the things, hashtags and snapshots.
37:33
And you know what? I'm glad I'm in the stage I'm in, because I just don't know if I can handle all that stuff.
37:43
But we're so inundated with all these different things.
37:46
And if you think about it, almost all of it is perverse.
37:53
And I mean perverse in the sense that it's anti-God.
38:02
It's opposed to truth.
38:04
And it flows so freely.
38:08
It flows so naturally, because people, if you think about it, people receive not the things of God, therefore they're never gonna be able to express the things of God.
38:20
But we are inundated and bombarded with suppression of truth.
38:26
And it just goes on and on and on.
38:30
And so when it talks about this, it talks about how, again, do you not see the yield of wisdom here? And the yield of applying ourselves? And the yield of being diligent versus lazy, that it allows us to be delivered from the evil within us and from the man who speaks perverse things, from those, verse 13, from those who leave the paths of righteousness.
39:01
Again, I say to you, friends, not only are we bombarded by information, perverted information, but we live in a world that's walking the wide path, aren't we? We live in a world that the world sees, in a sense, all this diversity is something great and glorious and we ought to honor it.
39:28
Well, why does the path leads to hell? And there are many that find it.
39:36
And again, if I'm walking against the current and I'm walking in a world where the world apart from Christ is under the sway of the devil, then what could I expect to come from the world but perversity? Now, again, we struggle with that because we have these ideas of what perversity is and we put labels on things, right? But I don't necessarily think that's right.
40:09
I often think about this whole, I probably can't even say it right, this LBGTQZ divided by seven, three exclamation point hashtag snapshot.
40:23
But this whole thing and how everybody looks at it and they says, oh, it is so wonderful that there are so many different kinds of people and everybody's into their own thing and we should just honor them and we should just take pleasure that we live in such a diverse world.
40:42
Friends, we live in a perverse world.
40:49
And yet so many people think it's glorious.
40:52
Ain't it glorious that a man would love another man? Ain't it glorious that someone doesn't know whether they're a man or a woman, ain't that great? So many people take pleasure in the path of unrighteousness and they walk in the ways of darkness.
41:17
Look at verse 14, it says, and they rejoice to do evil.
41:23
They don't just do evil, they rejoice in it.
41:30
They take pleasure in evil.
41:37
You know, friends, the world will always love its own and the activities of its own.
41:44
And so there are people who will say, well, I would never accept this and I will never accept that.
41:52
But that's not the point.
41:54
The point really to me is that they will accept everything but God.
42:00
It's almost as it was when, if you remember, who did they say when Pilate said, who shall I release? Who did they want released? Barabbas.
42:12
What do they want with Christ? Kill him.
42:17
The world will always choose Barabbas because Barabbas is one of the world.
42:29
And so when it says to us that there are those that rejoice to do evil and delight, look at it, friends.
42:37
You see the difference here? So in the opening of our thoughts tonight, I talked about how wisdom, true wisdom ought to be a delight to us.
42:48
And yet in this verse, it says that not only are there those who rejoice to do evil, they delight in the perversity of the wicked.
42:59
They delight in it.
43:05
You know why they do, friends? Because they're haters of God.
43:11
Their love is a pleasure and they're haters of God.
43:17
And their course of life is in opposition to righteousness and holiness.
43:28
How often we hear of the activities of churches and ministries of churches, how they reach out to this group and that group and they accept this one and they accept that one.
43:43
And you could be anything you wanna be and it's okay, just come and we'll minister to you.
43:50
And they never ever consider the holiness of God and the righteousness of God.
44:04
And so they not only do evil, but they delight in the perversity of the wicked.
44:11
Verse 15, whose ways are crooked and who are devious in their paths.
44:20
I hope we're beginning to see, friends, as we go through Proverbs, that you're in one camp or in the other camp.
44:28
And that there are those who purposefully, energetically, with great desire, seek to snuff out the truth of the word of God, of the people of God, of the glory of God, of the son of God, so that their perversity can spread further and further.
44:59
In the end, they're of all the ways of death.
45:10
I'll put it to you this way.
45:12
Apart from the true people of God, this world is anti-God.
45:19
It's not ambivalent, it's not neutral, it's not somewhere in between, it's anti-God.
45:29
And again, the thought being that if we can just get rid of God, we can live the way we wanna live and we'll find pleasantry in our perversity.
45:40
And it's terrible.
45:45
So you and I really need to think about it as we close this tonight.
45:49
And just think about how there's so much out there that you and I need to put our hand to the plow to work against.
46:03
And one of them certainly is that we would attain to a more intimate knowledge of God, rather than a less intimate knowledge of God.
46:13
A more of a desire to see Him for who He is in all His glory, in all His majesty, versus the perversity of this world where so many people will call evil good, good evil.
46:31
And as Isaiah says, they put darkness for light and bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
46:40
And the end thereof, as I said to you, their ways are crooked and who are devious in their paths.
46:49
And as we close the chapter, when we get to it, just drop down and I'll close it with this, because I want you to see the end thereof.
46:58
Look what it says in verse 21 and 22.
46:59
We'll come back to this in a couple of weeks, but I just wanna show it to you because here's the yield, right? For the upright will dwell in the land and the blameless will remain in it, but the wicked shall be cut off from the earth and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.
47:21
And isn't that the day, in the day when Christ comes and He separates the sheep from the goats and the wheat from the tares and those that are His from those that are not His.
47:34
And those that are His shall be carried away.
47:38
Even as we sang tonight, I'll fly away and we shall forever be with Him.
47:47
And yet my friends, as we know it to be so true, there are multitudes.
47:54
Even, and I thought about what brother Keith said, that the first second in hell will wipe out every man's achievements that he has ever thought he achieved.
48:05
And every trophy that he had will be gone in the twinkling of an eye.
48:14
Let us be those who seek, desire, find rest and pleasure in knowing God.
48:25
So may God bless us.
48:28
Let's just close with a word of prayer and our brother Keith will come and he'll lead us in some closing breath.
48:34
Let's pray.
48:35
Our father in God, thank you for our time together, Lord.
48:37
You're so good.
48:40
Lord, your word is so straightforward in so many ways and so powerful.
48:45
And yet Lord, you extend to us through your word and through the power of the spirit because of the son of God who loved us and gave himself for us that we can come to you and not only be saved from hell, but be saved from all that is wrong with us Lord.
49:05
And that we could become more and more like that one, the savior who did always the things that pleased the father.
49:18
Bless us tonight.
49:20
Be with us even as we go our way and may we desire to come again to gather around your word and your people for your glory in Christ's name, amen.