Proverbs 21- Decisions Determine Destiny — Shane Idleman

Lord, I do pray, dear Heavenly Fathers, we open your word tonight that you will give many of us hope, Lord, others I pray that you would challenge and convict, others Lord I pray that you give restoration and peace in the midst of the storm that they're going through.

Lord, I do even want to pray for healing tonight, Lord, we know that you can heal, we believe in your healing power. Lord, I pray for those tonight who came with sickness or disease, Lord, that you'd begin to touch their body.

Your word is so powerful that it can go out and make disease just vanish, Lord. I pray that you would restore, Lord, even broken homes, Lord, just begin to bring a healing sense to this congregation, Lord, physically, spiritually, emotionally.

Lord, I also pray that you would just give me precision with your word, Lord, give me clarity, give me direction, Lord, as I always pray, I need you tonight, Lord, to help discern your word of truth, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen, amen.

Well, you guys can have a seat, and welcome to West Side Christian Fellowship if you haven't been here before, and I've actually been going back and forth all week on if I should clarify some things that I said last week briefly.

Biblical Self-Defense and Trusting God Rather Than Weapons

I don't know how many of you were here, but I talked on a very hot topic last week, which is an uncommon, and that is on guns. What does the Bible say about self-defense? And I made some comments, and I went against those who worship the guns, gun worshipers, which we can fall into that category, not trusting God, and what happened is the media picked it up, and it was ran, even I just heard on Glenn Beck, it was ran underneath, you know, pastor says, stop worshiping guns, and stop watching O 'Reilly and Hannity, and you know, I got, our server was shut down for a while, and there's, I think there was like a thousand views on the sermon just in that one day, and people emailing all upset at me, and rah, rah, rah, rah, rah.

What I say, what I told them, and what I wanna tell you too is read, watch the entire message. Don't just go off of a short little clip or an 800-word article, but go back and watch that message on if there's confusion about gun control and where we're at in a society, because I do believe that the church can speak on these issues.

We can speak boldly, and we can speak authoritatively with the word of God. These things aren't things where we can cower down and hide from, because the Bible speaks volumes to these issues. But I do wanna clarify, I'm not encouraging people to go out and arm themselves, and you know, in this fear factor, I'm actually coming against that.

I was saying, listen, it's good to protect yourself. I believe in protection. The whole point of the message is, what people missed is, the heart of the message was, what did I say? Our prayer closets are empty while our gun safes are full.

We're trusting in Remington and Smith and Wesson, but not in the God of the Bible. That's where our help comes from. So the whole message was just to challenge people to put it in its proper perspective.

Self-defense is biblical. I mean, there's a plethora of examples in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, I find it's ironic that Paul says, Timothy, if you don't provide for your family, financially, you're worse than an unbeliever, and you have denied the faith.

So if I don't provide for them financially, I'm worse than an unbeliever. But if I wanna provide and protect, physically, I'm a warmonger. But it makes no sense. So that was the whole thrust of that message, was not coming against, you know, O 'Reilly and Sean Hannity.

I was saying, watch less of them, and spend more time in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And I will say that again tonight. If we've got three hours a day for this, and feeding our mind, and feeding our mind, but no time for this, that's why we're in fear factor mode.

That's why we're worried, and we're scared, and all these things. And there's, I mean, meteors are hitting the earth now. Look at the news. But see, that's why we have to say, where does our trust rest in?

Where does my trust come from? Where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. So I was encouraging people, stop scaring your family to death. You can be well-armed, but start leading them spiritually.

Sure, you can have these things for self-defense, but don't worship these things. Your protection is not in Smith and Wesson, Browning, and Glock. It's not. Your protection is in God and God alone. So yeah, and the people I upset, I think they needed to be upset.

If, you know, what's that old saying, you throw a rock into a dog pile, and the one that makes a noise is the one you hit. So I have a feeling that a lot of these people were worshiping their guns. How dare you?

And they were saying, we have a Second Amendment right, and we, you know, we had this. And I mean, I was getting emails all day long, and I finally just started sending them to Randy and said, Randy, you want to handle these?

Normally I don't. You know, you can just blow people off. But some of the people, hey, listen, you might want to listen to the message, and some people appreciated that, and they had a better understanding.

But man, they just wanted somebody to rail at. So I want to clarify that. I went back over the message, and there's nothing I would take out, because I am challenging gun worshipers. We're putting more emphasis on the weapons than on God.

Sin, National Judgment, and the Need to Return to God

And as we're seeing a decline, really, do you want me to tell you what the problem? We do not need gun control. We need sin control. If you look at, when I was raised up, we would go target practice shooting, and all these things, Royal Rangers, Boy Scouts, 30, 40 years ago, I'm only 43, but when we were younger, you wouldn't see any of this stuff.

What happens is you'd see little bits here and there. Now there's mass shootings, there's people hiding out in Big Bear, there's shooting 20 Kittergard. This is ridiculous. People, this is a world out of control.

When they remove the fear of God, when they remove God from everything in the government, everything in the school districts, they remove him from everything. Don't talk about Christ anymore. Don't name the name that saves.

Begin to remove him. Begin to re-mock his word. He removes that shelter and safety of protection. So what we're seeing is a direct result of the spiritual condition of our people. It's not a gun problem, it's a sin problem.

It's a nation on the brink of destruction, walking away from the very God on which the foundation was built. That's the problem. And pastors have got to stop being motivational speakers and start being confrontational and say this is what the word of God says.

It's okay to say, listen, this is wrong. Stop worshiping your guns and start worshiping Christ. The problem is not gun control, it's sin control. We have a moral problem. It's absolutely alarming. If you look at what's happening to society, you say, wow, we got to do this, no, we got to do this.

The nation has got to break and get on her knees before Almighty God and cry out, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from her wicked ways, then and only then will I heal their land.

As we're disregarding him and removing him, we have no time for him. We don't want him to be involved. Now we have soft core porn on normal television. Everybody's addicted to this and addicted to that.

We don't want God in anything. We remove him from our schools. We'll talk about Buddha and Hare Krishna, but you can't talk about Jesus Christ. When you start to remove all these things, Romans 13, God gives them over to a debase and corrupted mind.

So would God judge America? Folks, he's already judging America. This is what judgment looks like when he removes that hand of protection and safety. And again, I'm not an alarmist. I didn't want to say a lot of this today, but I'm a realist, and this is what's happening in our culture.

That's why I get passionate about this issue because I want to tell people it's not gun control. It's sin control. It's moral control. You're either restrained by the Bible or by the bayonet. You're either restrained by the strong arm of man or by the inner working of the Holy Spirit.

Evil has to be restrained one way or the other. So that's what's happening in our culture, and I think if more pulpits would say that, in love of course, and call the nation to task instead of cowering from these issues, because what happens, oh, I'm going to lose some people.

I better not say that. I better not say it. So then I become a motivational speaker. What would you like to hear today, guys? That God loves you? You're just going to be healthy, wealthy, and wise? All you have to do, just keep going forward, brother.

You're the head, not the tail. You're above and not beneath. You'll be great. You'll be prosperous. What do you need to hear today? What do you need to hear? Just tell me. I'll tell you what you want to hear.

The truth. No, I can't tell you the truth. I'll lose half the crowd. Well, see how that works? You see how that works? And that's what's happening. The church is almost on the side of removing God, because when you say nothing, you say something.

The church doesn't realize that. When you say nothing, you say something. Well, we're not saying all this right, but you're not saying the other side either. And so once this hit the news, and all these different things, and people are getting upset, how could you, and you shouldn't, and people just, they don't admit the heart of the message is return to God, and he will return to us.

You're going to see this get more perverted, more shootings, until a nation either breaks or is destroyed. That's the consequences. Man, she and I want to come feeling good, or leave feeling good. Well, there is hope.

There's hope in Christ. That's why I show up. That is our only hope for our nation. It's the only hope for the church, to turn back around and turn back to him. So anyway, hopefully that clarified some of that for those out there.

Proverbs 21 and the Necessity of Obedience

With that said, we're still in Proverbs, Proverbs 21. If you have your Bibles, you can turn to Proverbs 21. And what we're doing, if you haven't been here before, we're going through the book of Proverbs, week by week by week, because there's a lot of wisdom in there.

And I want to just throw this out there, I really beat this up many months ago, but it bears repeating. When we're talking about Proverbs, what have we been learning? That the power of Scripture lies in the doing of it, not in the hearing alone.

Be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. We have a lot of people hearing the word of God, oh yeah, but not doing it. Do you realize we have millions of sermon downloads, not here, I mean nationally, a day?

Bibles are on their phones. The Greek, the Hebrew, sermon index, all these different things, we have more access to the word of God than ever before. You can just pull up a word and it tells you the Greek meaning and the sound of that word and how it's spelled and history and commentary.

We have all this stuff, so why is it so chaotic? Why is nothing working, it seems like? If there's so much power in the gospel, why is it not working? Now of course it's working in some people's lives, don't get me wrong, the remnant is small, I understand, God is moving, don't get me wrong.

But as a nation, if we've got millions of sermon downloads, everybody's hearing the word of God, they can quote the word of God, they have their little Facebook pops up, here's a verse for today, here's a verse for tomorrow, we've got it everywhere, what's happening?

Why aren't people being changed and transformed? Because the power is not in the hearing of the word of God, the power is in the doing. Millions of people have their radio set just for this and they get this speaker and they get that speaker, but there's no obedience to what's being said, there's no transformation.

And my concern is that we become hard of hearing, and I see this and you see this in little kids, clean up your room, clean up your room, clean up your room, clean up your room, clean up your room, clean up your room, sound like a broken recorder, pick that up, pick that up, what do they do?

In one ear and out the next, it doesn't happen. And it can, listen, if we're not careful, it can happen here, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church, husbands love your wives, God's saying, listen, I'm trying to save your marriage right now, will you listen?

Husbands love your, I've already heard that, let no bitterness, wrath, evil, anger, anything, let all this be removed from you. But then why do we hold on to so much bitter and anger and resentment and gossip, why do we hold on to it then?

Oh, I know what the verse says, I just don't want to apply it. And that's what's happening. So as we look at Proverbs, I just want to remind all of you that the power of God transforming your life and my life included, is in the obedience to God's word, not in the hearing of it.

And I think the church can sometimes serve as therapy, oh, I came and heard it, whoa, yeah, I feel bad and convicted, man, oh, not going back there again for a few weeks. And so we leave, what happens?

Nothing changes. Because be hearers of the word and doers of the word, that's where the change is going to come from. And that's one of my big concerns, honestly, is we know, we know so much scripture, we've heard it, many of us, it's just like, uh-huh, yep, yep, I know, yep, we'll get to a point that I can really use here, come on, I understand all this.

I mean, look at the most popular verse ever, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. If you thought, you just took a few minutes and you thought about what that verse means, it's powerful.

But we hear it, I've heard that many times. So just be careful, just be careful, because there's power in the word of God, when it goes out, when God speaks to our lives, it doesn't just come and take a baseball bat sometimes and hit us over the head and then we have to do something.

It's that slow, gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit, change these areas, work on that anger, get rid of that frustration, that bitterness, he's convicting, he's convicting, he's convicting, but then it's up to us to take that step and repent to those areas.

Decisions, Divine Sovereignty, and Human Responsibility

So with that said, let's begin. The title of the message is Decisions Determine Our Destiny. Decisions Determine Destiny. Now I want to be careful here, because I'm also aware of, and we've taught about God's sovereignty.

And this title would not sit well with the Calvinist. If you don't know what Calvinist is, that's okay. For those who do know, this title will not sit well with them, because our decisions don't determine our destiny.

God determines our destiny, which is true. And how that all works, as we talked about a few weeks ago, is not crystal clear. God takes sin and salvation and his sovereignty and he mixes it like a cake mix, and mixes it all together, Romans 8, 28.

All things work together for good to those who love God and who are called according to his purposes. All things, Paul? Yeah, all things. How does that work? I'm not real sure, because see, on one hand, there's many passages exhorting us to make certain decisions.

We could stay here for a year, really, and just read and do this. And then there's other scriptures that talk of God's sovereignty. And we make plans, but it's God's sovereignty that prevails. A man plans out his ways, but it's God's sovereignty that will prevail.

So how does that work? Well, we don't quite know, but what we do know is, obviously, our plans have, and our decisions have, ramifications. One of the verses that sticks out is in verse 5, the plans of the diligent, which means those who are diligent, they work hard, they plan, they obey God's word, it leads to plenty.

But those of everyone who is hasty, which is lazy and doesn't do anything, it leads to poverty. So the Bible's clear on that. You work hard, you're diligent, you're persevering. God will reward that. But if we're not, it could lead to the other end.

So somehow, within His sovereignty, our decisions do affect our life. We decide to take our vehicle down Goaty Hill, go right over the guardrails and down the side of the mountain. That's gonna have consequences.

No, that's God's sovereignty, brother. Well, I don't know, somebody decided to drive off the cliff. It's how that works, we don't know. So my encouragement is, try not to get polarized on one side or the other.

You know what I mean? If it's all about God's sovereignty, then I don't need to do anything. You know, whatever happens, happens, case rah, surah. What'll be, will be. It doesn't, I mean, God's sovereign, I don't need to work on this, I don't need to work on that.

This is who I am, this is how He's created me. Almost like a puppet. Whatever, you know, God and He'll just, wherever. But then on the other side, what happens is we get too worried about my decisions, my choices.

If I don't get this just right, if I don't stay right here in the middle of God's will, I'm, oh gosh, I'm destroyed. My life is over. Well, let me be honest with you, nobody stays right in the center of God's will.

We stumble and we fumble and God calls us back, no turn here, come back to me. There's no way you can stay in center in the perfect, in God's perfect will because we have sin in our lives that taint that direction.

So that's encouraging. So it's not all about our decisions because God is still sovereign. So a lot of times what I've noticed on this side, when we forget about God's sovereignty, what happens? We can get really worried and really fearful and really anxious because it's all up to us.

I'm messed up. But God can take those years and begin to restore those years. Dating relationships. You might've dated the wrong person. He can restore that and rebuild that. Life isn't over, trust me.

So we see that balancing of both our responsibility and God's sovereignty. So keep that in mind as we go through this. Verse one, the king's heart is in his hand, I'm sorry, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord.

Like the rivers of water, he turns it wherever he wishes. And this is just what we talked about. The king's heart, leadership, what's encouraging about, one of the encouraging things about our nation is God's sovereignty is in control.

God is still in control. He knows what's going on. He holds our nation in the palm of his hands, basically. He's in sovereign control. So it says the king's heart, the president's heart, whatever, is like rivers of water.

He turns them wherever he wishes. And if you want more on this, I'm gonna refer to the message I gave on February 2nd, Lord, why is this happening? So if you're wondering why something is happening in your life, why is this happening?

Look at that message. I talk a lot more about God's sovereignty and what that looks like. But I like what R .C. Sproul said on this point. Most Christians salute the sovereignty of God, but they believe in the sovereignty of man.

See, most of us believe in the sovereignty of God, right? But what actually prevails, we believe in the sovereignty of man. Sure, I believe about God's sovereignty, but I want to control things, and I believe in my own sovereignty and that I can control and I can dictate here.

And at the end of all, you'll see at the end of all these points, I try to take away the key takeaway, because there is so much in this chapter. So the key on this first verse is trust in God, God's sovereignty will prevail.

Trust in him, his sovereignty will prevail. And on that note, thank God for unanswered prayers. Because many of us can look back and go, wow, thank God that didn't happen. You're thinking of people you used to date, aren't you?

Thank God, or a business deal, or a business deal, or your old life outside of Christ. All the things, oh Lord, if you just make me this, and then you're like, oh, thank God that that didn't happen. Thank God for his sovereignty.

Verse two, every way of a man is right in his own eyes. This is interesting. Did you realize that we all think we're right? So when I argue against you, or you argue against me, I think I'm right, and you think you're right, hence the argument.

Whatever direction I'm going, I'm going. That's why we talked about before, accountability partners are important, or people who hold you accountable, or offer you counsel, because they can see things differently.

Because as I'm going, I think my way is right, they're like, oh, you might want to check this, you might want to rethink this. Because it's right. That's what it says. Every man, or every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but it's the Lord who weighs the heart.

Our actions are often tainted by ulterior motives. A few weeks ago, I was very transparent on this point. All of our actions are tainted by ulterior motives. We take a certain way because we have a certain agenda, don't we?

Unless you're Christ. All of our actions. So what does God do? He weighs, he weighs, it says here, he weighs the heart. And the New American Commentary says this, Yahweh's power of discernment goes beyond unmasking those who fool others.

He even finds out those who have fooled themselves. That's why I love Hebrews 4 .12, for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joint and marrow.

It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart. And this goes back to my opening. That's why the pulpits of America are so important. That's why preaching is so important. It's God's institution to proclaim his truth.

So it does pierce the heart and weighs and it balances the motives of people. We're supposed to do that. What does that word there mean? Preaching weighs, weighing the balance, balancing something in the hands to assess its weight.

So we want to go a certain direction, but God weighs the heart. I've got a five-pound dumbbell here, I've got an apple. What weighs more? Yeah, of course. So God's assessing, oh, there's your motives.

Not good motives. Not good motives at all. So he weighs these motives. Why are you doing what you're doing? And that's one of the goals of the word of God, is you spend time in the word of God, you should many times be feeling that, man, it's weighing my motives, my heart.

Let the integrity of the upright guide you. The decisions you make is integrity guiding you. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Husbands or fathers, raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

How you doing so far? That's what it does. It weighs the heart, it convicts and it challenges. So we think we're going right, and that's what's happening again to our nation. I hate to keep bringing this in, but we think we're doing right.

The Congress thinks they're doing right, the President, everybody, and I'm not going to go against party lines here. I'm just saying everybody thinks they're doing right. Let's just throw more money out there.

Let's do this, let's control this, let's tax it. Everything's going right in our own eyes, but the Lord is weighing the motives and weighing the spirit and weighing the intentions of the people. That's what's happening here.

The key for this, words can fool, but time reveals. And what I mean by that is a lot of times we can say the right thing or people can tell you the right thing, but give it some time. That's one of my favorite phrases now is time will tell.

Time will tell, because I can talk with you after the service or at lunch and people can tell us what we want. You tell me what I want to hear and I tell you what you want to hear. Oh, isn't that great?

Time will tell. You got to watch that fruit develop and see what happens. That's how you weigh the heart sometimes is you let time be the great divider there. Verse three, to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

Let me say that again. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Now this was written obviously in the Old Testament when what were they doing? They were offering sacrifices.

And what would happen is people would come, they would bring their sacrifice to the priest, but the heart's not right. So he's saying listen, to be a person of integrity, to be a man or woman of integrity, to do right, to be just, one of the prophets said, what does the Lord require of you, oh man?

But to love mercy, to love justice and to walk humbly before your God. That's all God requires of us. I believe it's Malachi. I don't want to say for sure without looking. That's what he requires of us, but people are bringing their sacrifice to the church.

Saying oh, cover my sin, okay, bring all the sacrifice, look, I'm bringing my sacrifice. Yeah, but you're beating your kids, you're screaming at your wife, you're bringing all the sacrifice. You see the difference here?

He's saying I don't want sacrifice, I desire mercy. I desire a true broken and contrite heart. Well that's Old Testament, Shane, yeah, you know what it looks like today? Same thing, we walk through those doors, ceremonies, rituals, all these things aren't necessarily bad, it's a condition of the heart.

And I found that a lot of people, and I used to do it too, we come to church as if we are doing God a favor. I didn't say it was going to be an easy sermon, I said it was going to be from Proverbs. But don't, have you ever done that?

Well, I'm going to, there's my checklist for the week, as if God's in heaven going oh, thank you so much, you just made me so, I'm going to do, I'm going to church to do God a favor. And that's what he's saying here, listen, this is why I often say religion is not relationship and doing right is not being right.

God looks at the condition of our heart. So he's challenging us here basically on just going through the motions. And people do that. You know how I know? And I say this often, those who are getting upset right now are the ones who need to hear what I'm saying right now.

If this convicts you and upsets you, it's because you need to hear it. People are either saying, amen, Shane, that's absolutely correct, God's word says it, or they're saying, would you shut up and go to the next verse?

Jeez, what's this guy's problem? From the minute I walked in here, he's grr, grr, grr. That's called the hound of heaven. The word of God is piercing the heart saying, get back in right relationship with me.

Come back to me. Think about that. That's what he's saying there. Do right and have justice and don't just sacrifice to me. Jesus said, this is the key, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice for I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

Jesus said, listen, the very reason I've come is to call sinners to repentance, not the arrogant prideful people who don't think they need me. They've got their form and they've got their religiosity and they've got their sacred assemblies.

Do you want to know what something is very alarming to me in the Bible? That the most scathing words in all of the Bible are against religious people. Think about that. Jesus' most scathing words are against religious people.

The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, John the Baptist would go as far as say, you brood of vipers who warn dutifully from the wrath that is to come. How would I like that next time I speak at a pastor's conference?

You brood of vipers. You Christian leaders who warn dutifully from the wrath to come, therefore start doing works worthy of repentance. He was calling out the religious people. Why? Because they had sacrifice and not religion, a relationship.

They had a religion and not relationship. That's what this whole point is here. Verse four, a haughty look and a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked are all sin. Pride is always wrong, but we take pride in our pride.

Don't we? Do you know some of the most healthy words you will ever say are these, repeat after me. I was wrong. I'm sorry. Very healthy words. That'll keep a marriage together more than anything else.

I'm sorry. I was wrong. But what does pride do? I'm not wrong. I'm not wrong. I am not wrong. And because we're not wrong, the volume of our voice gets higher. Have you ever noticed that? If I'm not wrong, why does my voice get higher?

I'm not wrong. When it should get lower. I was wrong. I'm sorry. At the top of God's list, he says, I hate six things, yea, seven are an abomination to me. At the top of that list, I hate a proud look.

I hate a proud. I hate the look of pride. Why? It reminds him probably of the devil. I will be like the most high God. And he was cast down from heaven. Pride let me tell you this, right? You want a secret to the Christian faith?

Be humble and broken because the devil doesn't have a lot of, of, of, of ground there. He takes pride, which is, I believe at the root of all sin. Man worshiping himself. Pride. I'm going to do things my way.

Everything you read about in scripture, let not bitterness and wrath and evil and anger be put away from you. I'm not going to do that. They did this to me. They hurt me. Shane. I can't do that. Well, okay.

I'm just saying the Bible says, forgive. I can't do that. Pride comes in there. It's a legitimate hurt, but pride often blocks the filling of the Holy spirit. That's why I often say we can't be filled with the spirit if we're filled with ourselves.

That's, that's, that's true. Pride fills us of ourselves. Think about it. All the arguments at home. Who's, who's right? I'm right. And it damages. So I'm going to work on that this week. Sorry, I was wrong.

Better bring some more humor in here because it's getting, I'm getting some looks. The key of this whole point is, and I've been using the word default lately. And the point I'm trying to get across is when I use that word default is we are proud by default.

What that means is anytime as human beings, if you don't do something like make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. If I don't fight against the lust of the flesh by default, what will it do?

Pull me away. If I don't work on humility and brokenness and repentance and, and, and while I'm worshiping and breaking and repenting, what will, what will happen by default? I'll get prideful and arrogant.

So see the flesh always by default. If we don't do something, incorporate spiritual disciplines, ask for God's help and, and have this, the spirit of humility that we often talk about by default, the flesh is going to lead me.

It's one or the other. Our choices are never free from this conflict. Paul says in Romans and in first Corinthians, I believe it is that the spirit and the flesh are warring against each other. The flesh is pulling.

The spirit is pulling as well. So if you do nothing to feed the spiritual side, guess who's winning right here? Right here. The flesh is leading by default. And that's the whole point there on verse four, verse five, the plans of the diligent lead to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty, it leads to poverty.

Diligence, Work, Poverty, and Wise Stewardship

Now think this is, this is very important. The plans of diligent, God's basically saying the plans of those who are diligent is going to lead to success. But those plans of those who are not diligent and are lazy are going to lead to poverty.

And this is what we've talked about before. I'm not going to talk about it again. But a lot of times when we think of poverty, you think of in our nation, right? Poverty. Not everybody is poor because of bad circumstances.

Those are the ones we need to help. God has called us to the, we're doing a terrible job on helping the poor because we're so concerned with our own pocketbooks. But a large majority of people are poverty because of this scripture.

So see, that's why there needs to be discernment. I need to have discernment on who I need to help and discernment on who's God's trying to convict. You see how that works there? Because God's saying, listen, if you're diligent, basically saying if you work hard, discipline and perseverance pay off.

The plans of the diligent assumes that action is taking place. So God rewards diligence, not laziness. He rewards hard work, not complaining. And he rewards serving and not complacency. You see that? The difference there?

It's all basically up here. It's an attitude. And I talk to a lot of people, especially now that are out of work and unemployment and different things. And a lot of times, more often than not, they're really just down and depressed and not fun to be around.