Discernment in Relationships (Proverbs) - Jon Harris

The subject of Proverbs is, or the purpose I should say, is understanding general truths about the world and wisely navigating it.

Understanding general truths about the world and wisely navigating it. How do you get through life? How do you go from A to B?

Right, my daughter was in here just a moment ago. She's pretty close to that A portion of life, right?

She hasn't had a lot of experiences yet. She's starting to learn things. Certain things are hot. She shouldn't touch that.

It hurts when you fall down. It actually isn't that fun, right? There's things she's learning to avoid.

There's things she's learning to embrace. It's good when mommy has food, right? It's good when daddy comes home and he wants to play with me.

She's learning very basic things like that. And the older she'll get, she'll learn more and more, just like all of us do.

But how is she gonna go from A to B, right? The same way we all do, right? We go through life. Sometimes it feels like life is just taking us for the ride, right?

But we're actually making progress. We're heading towards something, right? And that something for the believers is, eventually, we're going to be what we'll hear, well done, thou good and faithful servant, and we'll be embraced by our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But between that time, when we're embraced by Christ and when we're born, there's a lot of decisions to navigate.

And most of those decisions include other people. They include working with others. They include relationships of some kind, associations.

And so Solomon writes this, trying to give us a general template, a general truth, general truths, plural, about how to navigate all those different decisions.

And of course it's to us, it's in the scripture, but Solomon had, I think, a more direct intention, a more narrow view here.

He wanted to write this specifically for his son, Rehoboam, who would be a future king. So this is the wisdom that is given to a king, available to us.

He says in Proverbs 1 .8, hear my son your father's instruction. This is a father lovingly telling his son who will be a king and make many decisions that will affect many people, here's how you navigate life.

Here's how you live a successful life. If there's a main verse in Proverbs, I think it's this.

Proverbs 13 .20, he who walks with the wise will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

That's all of Proverbs right there, really. Just about, right? It's a contrast between the wise man and the foolish man.

And I know there's so many other terms today. Some of you have heard them and maybe found them helpful.

Narcissist is a term you hear thrown out there. I just learned about the gamma male, right?

I knew there was alpha and beta. I didn't know there was sigma and delta and gamma and all these other categories that people have come up with.

And it was really helpful, I have to admit. I didn't realize that I had, throughout the years, had had relationships, had had associations, whether tight or loose, with people who were gamma males.

And now that I understand it, it's like, wow, I can't believe it. Well, the thing is, whether it's the

Myers -Briggs or any of these personality tests, any of these categorizations, these are all generally,

I should say, they're generally experience -derived metrics that either therapists, psychologists, or just very kind of intuitive people have come up with to help them and help others navigate life.

And there might be some truths in those things, but ultimately, there's something,

I think, that's even deeper and something that's even more true because it comes from God directly. And that is the categorization of the wise man and the fool, right?

When we think about a narcissist, for example, a lot of the qualities that are used to describe a narcissist are just the same qualities that are used to describe a fool in Proverbs, right?

And so I think if we understand this, if we understand this ancient wisdom from God, this understanding that there are these two kinds of people, it will help us a lot in life.

And I know it's already helped me quite a bit understand who to avoid, who to embrace, who to associate with, who to partner with, and we all have decisions to make.

And so I'm looking forward to getting into more specifically what that looks like. Now, when

I was giving a presentation on this in Florida, the topic was discernment, which really was more reflective of spiritual discernment.

How do you avoid heresy? How do you avoid false teaching coming in? How do you avoid someone who comes into your fold and at first they seem great, they may have a lot of good things to say and they're motivated.

I mean, I've seen this many times. And then all of a sudden they say something that just sounds a little off and it spreads and it gets worse.

And I'm thinking of specifically, I'll give you an example. There was a young man that came to my church years ago who was very, very on fire for the

Lord. At least it seemed that way. Got baptized, was just studying scripture. And all of a sudden he started saying odd things.

He started asking questions, the questions are fine, but he started making accusations with the questions that God was the author of evil, that he created sin.

Well, that's not true. God's not the author of evil. God didn't create sin. Sin is a distortion of God's plan.

But hey, if God created everything, what about evil? What about sin? And that's something to reconcile and talk about and go work through, but he wasn't willing to really work through it.

He had made up his mind and things progressed. And over time it became apparent that this young man was reading a lot of Gnostic writings and he didn't think

Eve was the first woman. And he thought it was okay to experience sexual things outside of the boundaries of marriage, which

I think was a personal thing for him. I mean, he justified his own lifestyle. And eventually, if we didn't have leaders, this would have gotten bad.

But leaders stepped in and said, wait a minute, that's not true. That's not what the Bible says. You can attend here, but you are not allowed on a

Sunday morning or early any time to contact our members and start spreading this false lie about who

God is and questioning what the Bible says and whether it's true or not. So how do you identify someone like that, right?

How can people like that become threats? And this happens all the time. Cults form, personality cults, cults around false teachings.

And so this is really the context in which I originally was gonna give much of the material here, but I think this applies beyond that.

I think when Proverbs gives you a template for what a fool is, what a wise person is, it's not just to guard you against false teaching.

This is about the person you hire at work, if you're a hiring manager, or the person you choose to be friends with, or the person you choose to do ministry with, or what do you do when someone is disrupting your family, or a voluntary association you're part of, or if you're in politics, how do you know who to support or who to accept an endorsement from?

I mean, these are all questions that are out there. And it's often said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, but I think there's a corollary to this.

The reason good men do nothing is often because they foolishly rely on foolish men for advice, support, and loyalty.

Oftentimes, and I've seen this many times, excuse me.

George Washington had a rule of civility book, and his 56th rule of civility was this.

Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

It's better to be alone than in bad company. Now, going it alone is something that, from a young age,

I was taught to do if necessary in a song called Dare to be a Daniel. Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone, dare to have a purpose firm, dare to, what's the last of it?

Someone knows it. Does anyone learn that song when they were a kid? I can't remember the end of it. All right, well, the story of Daniel you're all familiar with, right?

Dare to make it known. I think that's the last line there. So dare to make it known. I'm gonna pray before God, even if the king decrees not to pray.

Well, I think that's all well and good. We should dare to be a Daniel, but at the same time, that's not the ideal.

We don't wanna shoot for being a Daniel. I don't wanna be a Daniel. I kinda would rather be a Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, where I got some friends with me, right?

There's an archetype, I think, in our culture in particular of like the macho man who goes out there alone and does the right thing and saves the town.

The cowboy, for example. And I think if there's no one else to stand by you, you do the right thing.

But we are social creatures and we do need each other. And the Bible assumes this. That's a unique circumstance.

And in those circumstances, you better be relying on God because you do need to lean on someone or something, right?

So one of the lessons that I learned early was that who you associate with is very important, including friendships, business relationships, and mentors, because we actually can choose those things.

When life gets tough, you are gonna be relying on those people. You are gonna be making those phone calls. You are gonna expect to have some kind of a support network.

And people who don't have that, it gets really lonely. It's not a good place to be if you've ever been there.

And so we wanna make sure we choose very carefully who we get close with. And this is something that we have within our control.

There's a lot of things we don't have within our control. You don't get to choose what family you were born into, right? That just happens.

Or the town you grew up in. Until you're 18, really, you don't have any choice.

That's where you live, wherever your parents take you. The neighbors you have, all of that is something that you're born into, you have responsibilities towards.

But when you get to a certain age, and even when you're a kid and you're making friends on the playground, you actually do have a choice with what group you hang out with, right?

So, that being said, we're gonna contrast today some very specific character qualities, some positive ones with some negative ones.

And then I'm gonna give you some tests, and this is all from the book of Proverbs, on how to discern between someone you should associate with and someone who you should not.

And the character qualities here, and we could put these under two different headings, wise and foolish.

We have under wise, the person who is just, merciful, temperate, loyal, humble, and diligent.

And under foolish, the crooked, cruel, rash, betrayer, lazy, and scoffing person.

And I'm gonna go through each of these contrasts and show you the difference between a person who is just and crooked, merciful and cruel, et cetera.

So let's start here with just. And I'm gonna give you some Proverbs. You can turn there if you want, but I am gonna be going around a lot.

So we're gonna be jumping to and fro quite a bit. Proverbs 11 .3 is the first one, though, for the just man.

A just man, I think this is true, gives to each their due according to transcendent divine standards.

They know what they owe. They know whether it's good or evil, whether it's punishment, right?

We have a little daughter, so sometimes she deserves a reward. Sometimes she deserves punishment.

Not often, but sometimes. And it takes a just person to figure out when either of those things is appropriate.

So Proverbs 11 .3 says, the integrity of the upright will guide them, but the crookedness of the treacherous will destroy them.

There are two paths. You can take the honorable path, or you can take shortcuts, right?

And I've met a lot of people who like to take shortcuts, and I feel like that's increasing. Maybe the internet is doing this,

I don't know, and AI certainly, right? You can kind of cover a lot with a manicured image that you project, especially from a video camera, and with software and so forth.

But do you want to be an honorable person, the real deal, or do you want to take shortcuts? The temptation to break moral laws in order to achieve advantage is more alluring when it comes to us in the form of peer pressure also, because we crave group acceptance.

We want the advantage of being on the winning team, and we do not want to be the target of unjust actions ourselves.

So it's tempting enough to do the wrong thing when you think you're gonna get an advantage to steal something, for example, from the store.

No one will know. But when people are pressuring you to do the wrong thing, it becomes even more of a temptation.

There's an example from 1 Samuel 15, where Saul is commanded by God to strike

Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has. And what does Saul do in the circumstance?

Well, Samuel comes to confront Saul, and Saul says, what is this bleeding in my ears?

How come you didn't do what the Lord told you to do? And Saul says, well, it was the people.

The people spared Agag, who's the king of Amalek, and the best of the sheep, the ox, and the fatlings, the lambs.

That's why we did it. And so he blames the people around him that this was their idea.

He finally confesses this, and he says, I have sinned, I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your, meaning

Samuel's words, because I feared the people and listened to their voice. So he finally admits he's wrong, but he gets consequences for this.

He can't go back, he can't redo it. He caved under the pressure. And as a result of this, he lost the kingdom.

It went to David after this point. There was a book

I read years ago called Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning, and it studied the Reserve Police Battalion 101 during the final solution in Poland.

And it's based on 125 testimonies. So this is during the Holocaust. And they were men who were not

Nazi Party members. These were just ordinary men, ordinary people. And they helped kill at least 38 ,000

Jewish people, including children. And only 10 to 20 % were excused based on moral qualms or physical inability.

Now, the reason this is an interesting book to me is because these weren't like hardened ideologues.

These were just people, mechanics, the normal kind of people that service your vehicle and mow your lawn and that kind of thing.

These were the kind of people that were sent to do this dirty job. And most of them did it.

When there's peer pressure around you, pressure to do this, you will do it. And the

Nazis basically gave them copious amounts of alcohol. Some of them got hooked on that, right?

And one can only imagine, I don't know what happened to many of them years later, but I'm sure that this must have been something that haunted them later in life.

But the point is, people will go with the crowd. This is human nature. It's a human weakness, many people at least.

When there's advantage. One of the advantages in this was you got to, some at least, got to keep the belongings off of those they killed, right?

You'd get to keep their clothing or their jewelry or those kinds of things. Proverbs 1, 10 through 19 says, my son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.

If they say, come with us, let us lie and wait for blood. Let us ambush the innocent without cause.

Let us swallow them alive like shield, even whole as those who go down to the pit.

We will find all kinds of precious wealth. We will fill our houses with spoil. Throw in your lot with us.

We shall all have one purse. My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet far from their path for their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed blood.

This is the dilemma I think many people find themselves in, even if it's small things in life.

And how often have we ourselves even failed that, right? When there's a temptation to do evil, to take a shortcut, to get an advantage, and we know it's breaking a moral law.

We know we shouldn't do it, but look, everyone's doing it. So what's the test here?

There is a test here. How do we tell the difference between someone who is wise in this sense and foolish in this sense?

How do we know the honorable person from the dishonorable person? And I think the test is contentment.

The test is contentment. Fear of man, personal insecurity, selfish ambition, and lack of trust in God can result in sacrificing personal honor and other people to achieve a place of security and achievement, right?

When you are not content in what God has given you or who you are as a person, you will try to amend that somehow.

And it doesn't matter who you stomp on to do it. Proverbs 16, eight says this, better is a little with righteousness than great income with injustice.

Are you satisfied with what God's given you? Are you willing to do, if you're gonna increase in your wealth and your influence, are you willing to do it

God's way? And if it fails, are you willing to say that's fine, right? I remember years ago,

Francis Schaeffer had said that, and this is a lot of years ago, because he died a while ago.

But I think, so this must've been in the 80s, it was a video I was watching. But he said that, Le Brie, which was his ministry, he was a

Christian philosopher. Someone asked him, what would happen if you started losing donations? He said, well, we get smaller.

That was it, that was it, right? I think the expectation was, what strategy are you gonna use to make sure your ministry continues and gets bigger?

He said, I don't have any strategy, I'm just gonna get smaller, it's up to the Lord. There's very few people like that, right?

And so the test is contentment. How content are you? And that's the kind of person you wanna associate with, right?

Someone who has contentment isn't someone who's gonna betray you. Someone who has contentment doesn't need anything from you.

They're looking to God for everything. Someone who has contentment doesn't respond to peer pressure in the same way.

They don't need what the crowd offers them. So that's the first test, or the first contrast between the wise man and the fool.

The just man and the crooked man. You wanna associate with someone who's just, not someone who's crooked, obviously.

And I think most of us, if we do associate with a crooked person, we find out eventually they'll be crooked towards you.

They're not just gonna let you be on their team the whole time. The teams change.

Life changes, teams change. And you will be on a different place than they are.

And it's not fun. Now, here's another category Proverbs gives us.

And again, this is about the foolish person and the wise person. But in this case, it manifests itself in the merciful person.

That's the wise person, is merciful. And the cruel person. You ever met a cruel person?

Proverbs 11, 17 says this, the merciful man does himself good, but the cruel man does himself harm.

And if they do themselves harm, they will do you harm. So what is mercy?

Mercy or loving kindness seeks the good of someone without sacrificing justice. An example would be

David in the cave of Engedi when Saul, his rival, is coming to kill him. And David cuts off a piece of Saul's tunic and then waves it when

Saul's leaving and says, I could have killed you, I didn't kill you. But David spares Saul's life.

Now, David didn't have to do that. David would have been well within his rights to kill

Saul because Saul was trying to kill him. It would have been defense, right? And David chose mercy.

There's a story in the play Les Miserables about if you've ever seen the movie or seen a play of this or read the book,

Bishop Myriel forgives Jean Valjean for stealing from him.

Jean Valjean escapes from prison if you know the story. And he hides in, I think it's like a,

I don't know if it's a church, I think it's like a parsonage, kind of like where the priest is.

Anyway, he steals some of the silver, takes advantage of this guy, and then takes his wealth and then he gets caught.

And the priest says, actually, the silver was a gift to him, right? The priest, he would have been well in his rights, the priest, to send

Jean Valjean to jail. And instead, you have a debt against me? I'm gonna say it's a gift.

There was mercy in that moment. Very merciful things to do. Now, was justice suspended in either of these circumstances?

No, justice wasn't suspended because in the case of David and Saul, who is

Saul against? Who does Saul owe something to? It's David. David's the one who has the authority to forgive or to at least offer an olive branch.

Same thing with this bishop. He's the one that can simply rearrange the, say it's a gift instead of that it's mine and you stole it.

And the debt is canceled with this man who stole from him. Love was able to cover a multitude of sins in this case.

So justice wasn't suspended. It was actually satisfied. I mean, the priest was the only one able to get

Jean Valjean off the hook in that case. No one else could have done it. Now, what about cruelty?

Cruelty delights in making someone suffer regardless of whether it is just or not. So think of the soldiers mocking

Jesus on the cross. It was cruel. Proverbs 2, 11 through 15.

Discretion will guard you. Understanding will watch over you to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the path of uprightness to walk in a way of darkness, who delight in doing evil.

They take pleasure in evil, right? We were talking about the crooked man before, right? The crooked man might not delight in doing evil.

The crooked man might just delight in the reward he gets after he does the evil, right? Evil's a necessary step

I gotta get through to get something. Well, the cruel person, the reward is the evil itself.

It's not just I want this gain, I want this thing that comes at the end of this evil process.

No, the whole process is my reward. I just wanna do it because it's wrong. St. Augustine talks about this in the

Confessions. He says that him and his friends used to go steal pears. And he said, what was the point?

We didn't even eat them. We would steal pears from these orchards and we'd give them to hogs. We would spoil them.

We literally stole because we liked to steal for the pleasure of stealing, and that was it.

There are people like this. And it scares me every time I see it.

I've seen some very clear examples of this. Where I think there's no reward, not that I can think of, for doing this evil thing.

And then it dawns on me, no, that is the reward. The reward is they did something evil. They're making someone else hurt.

Even if they don't get anything in return, they want to make other people hurt. So here's some tests for you.

How do you identify the difference between a cruel person and a merciful person? On the ground floor, right?

On the ground floor. Before you know a lot about them and have a lot of experience, how do you tell? Well, there's a few things.

One is, how do they treat their animals if they have them? Proverbs 12, 10, a righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, but even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.

So why is this significant? Because animals aren't malicious. And if an animal hurts you, an animal's operating on instinct, right?

And if you are cruel to an animal, there's something about that that is revealing.

That you're not just repaying evil for evil. You are doing something out of, because you like to see the suffering of another organism.

How about the way someone treats the poor? The poor have no recourse. They have no power. They have no way of defending themselves.

Proverbs 17, five says, he who mocks the poor taunts his maker. He who rejoices at calamity will not go unpunished.

So if someone picks on the, you ever hear that phrase, pick on someone your own size, right? If you pick on people who don't have the where, the ability to defend themselves against you, that reveals something about you.

You're making them suffer, right? They have, there's something that's pathetic about that, right?

You don't need to pick on them. How about the way someone treats their neighbors, right?

Because treating neighbors well is kind of obligatory. You have a responsibility to them because you share a life with them.

Proverbs 21, 10 says, the soul of the wicked desires evil. His neighbor finds no favor in his eyes.

Meaning that the relationship with neighbors is severed. You don't have a good relationship with them.

A cruel person eventually doesn't get along with the very people he has a responsibility toward. And then what's their speech like?

Proverbs 22, 11. And this is probably the first thing generally that comes, that is revealed is when people use their mouth and they start saying things.

He who loves purity of heart and whose speech is gracious, the king is his friend. A merciful person, a person that wants to use their speech to edify, to build up, to say things that are pleasing, that person is going to be friends with those in authority.

That person is an asset. Someone who is cruel has a foul mouth. And what their speech is not gracious.

Their speech is condemning. Their speech is, they say things, we call this verbal abuse now, but they say things just to get a reaction, just to hurt someone, right?

And that makes them feel good. That's the difference. And I think it's very dangerous if you're especially a business person or in politics or some influential field and you let a cruel person into your ranks and you give them authority.

Eventually that is going to come back to bite you. Next category is temperate and rash.

Temperate and rash. So this is really, does someone react by thinking or first or feeling first?

Proverbs 12, 18 says, "'There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts "'of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.'"

Very descriptive language there, the thrusts of a sword. Now this is really important.

Proverbs 21, 23 says, "'He who guards his mouth and his tongue "'guards his soul from troubles.'"

Proverbs 22, 22 through 23 says, "'Do not associate with a man given to anger "'or go to a hot -tempered man, "'or you will learn his ways and find a snare for yourself.'"

Proverbs 16, 22 says, "'He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, "'and he who rules his spirit than he who captures a city.'"

I think the top example is Jesus, right? Jesus had ultimate self -control.

He could have called down angels and he didn't, right? To stop the abuse that he received on his way to the cross.

But there were many times even before that that the Pharisees were after him, they were condemning him, and he's

God, right? He can do, he is a lot within his ability, and he practiced self -control.

And then there's Peter. Peter, who seemed to have no patience, and he,

I mean, he's the only disciple that Jesus said, get behind me, Satan, right? Peter was so rash, even

Satan could kinda slip in there and use Peter as his own mouthpiece. He denies

Christ. I mean, Peter's got kind of a rap sheet here, and a lot of it comes down to the fact that Peter was rash.

He just acted, he didn't think before whatever was about to come out of his mouth.

Now, here's the test for this. How do you tell the difference between someone who is quick -tempered, who's rash, someone who's more measured?

Proverbs 12, 16 says, "'A fool's anger is known at once, "'but a prudent man conceals dishonor.'"

Meaning, this is an easy one to detect. It's known at once. Proverbs 14, 17 says, "'A quick -tempered man acts foolishly, "'and a man of evil devices is hated.'"

So the test is, are people cautious or afraid of this particular person?

If someone is quick -tempered, people fear that person, right? When someone is, when someone has evil intentions, and they come out right away, and they're kind of unhinged, you don't know what they're gonna do next, because they're feeling their way through it, and they're just reacting.

They're not taking the time to think. The people closest to them know that better than anyone, because it's revealed so quickly.

And watching the reactions, I'll give you a firsthand here. I've seen this a few times, and it's always kind of weirded me out as I've traveled, but I've been in homes where there's a father, and sometimes they're a pastor, or someone that wants me to speak, or something.

And I don't always know what to make of this, right? Because I'm kind of in and out. But I have seen it where there's a father, and the wife is just very quiet.

And my wife, she's, I hope she's normal. I mean, I don't know, you guys, you're her siblings.

You can be the judge. I think she's pretty normal. She'll have conversations, even with men. And there's really no inhibition or barrier to that.

But I've been in homes where there's such a big barrier, and you can feel it. The wife just doesn't want to say anything.

The kids, they're well -dressed, they're well -behaved, but there's no happiness.

There's no joy there. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but I've seen this a few times. And oftentimes it's been revealed later, or at least there's enough for me to suspect, his father probably has an anger problem.

There's a rashness there. There's something that is keeping the family in line and afraid to even come out and say much because there's someone who can just snap like that, right?

That's not the kind of person you want to be associated with. That's a rash person. So that's the test.

What about the people closest to you? All right, so diligent and lazy is the next character quality, the diligent and the lazy.

Proverbs 10, four through five. Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.

He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, but he who sleeps and harvests is a son who acts shamefully.

That's pretty self -explanatory, right? The difference between someone who is lazy, someone who works hard.

Now what's the test for this? How do you tell whether someone's gonna be lazy? Now this is especially helpful for employers, right?

If you're gonna hire a guy to do a job, you wanna make sure they do the job. Well, here's a test.

Do they take shortcuts? Proverbs 21, five. The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is hasty come surely to poverty.

Talked to a teacher recently about grading papers and how many of the students use

AI just to write their paper now, right? They're not even writing their own paper. So she said, I can't even do at home writing assignments.

They all have to be done in class with blue books by hand because they're just bringing

AI stuff. That's someone who takes shortcuts, right? That's lazy. Or they fail to complete the task you send them to.

Proverbs 10, 26. Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the lazy one to those who send him.

Or they make excuses, right? Proverbs 22, 13. The sluggard says, there is a lion outside.

I will be killed in the streets. I can't go today. There's a threat.

So there's excuses that are made. And so they don't fulfill the work that they're supposed to fulfill. Those are three things to look for.

If you can, if you know the person, especially in a job situation, do they take shortcuts?

Do they fail to complete tasks? Do they make excuses? And then there's loyalty and betrayal.

The loyal person and the betrayer. Loyalty is the basis of trust between someone and that they are responsible to.

So Proverbs 20, 28 says this. Loyalty and truth preserve the king and he upholds his throne by righteousness.

Now loyalty does not mean agreement. You can be loyal to someone and disagree with them, right? Because faithful are the wounds of a friend.

Proverbs 27, 6. Deceitful are the kisses of the enemy. It's not about agreement in every area.

And this is important for me to say because there is a new understanding of loyalty that I've come into contact with where if you disagree with someone, you're disloyal.

That's not true. You know, I've always appreciated someone who's willing to call me out on something if they have my best intention in mind.

You know, they're not doing it to embarrass me. They love me and they come to me. I had a call just the other day with someone actually who

I was calling them to warn them about something and say, look, I'm afraid you might be getting too close to the edge here.

And they appreciated it because they knew my intentions. There was no disloyalty in any of that. Proverbs 19, 6 says, many will seek the favor of a generous man and every man is a friend to him who gives gifts.

And so here's the thing that shows disloyalty.

When you are in a relationship, I see this with friendships a lot, simply for the advantage it gives you.

And that's the only reason. And as soon as that advantage is gone, the friendship dissipates. There's a motive for betrayal when the motive is self -interest.

And the result of betrayal is terrible. Proverbs 6 talks about this, Proverbs 6, 12 through 15.

A worthless person, a wicked man, is the one who walks with a perverse mouth, who winks with his eyes, who signals with his feet, who points with his fingers, and with perversity in his heart, continually devises evil, who spreads strife.

Therefore, his calamity will come suddenly. Instantly, he will be broken and there will be no healing. You ever met anyone who, any situation they get into, controversy erupts.

It's like, I've met people like this. I can think of them where it's like, it doesn't matter what group they're in, there's gonna be a controversy.

They just survive, they like it. That's how they survive. They like to pick groups against each other and they're saying one thing to one side, one thing to the other side.

Well, how does it usually wind up for that person? Once people figure out what they're doing, they have to go somewhere else.

They have worn out their welcome. It's never good for them. And it's never good for the group that they come into.

So in our, who do we think of as disloyal? I mean, the templates are Judas, right?

Or in American history, Benedict Arnold. I've had people who have said, they were my friend and then they slander me.

This happened a few times without ever expressing concern over my care. I never heard from them that there was a problem and all of a sudden

I'm hearing from others that they have this huge problem. And that's the kind of person to run from, to not get into a close relationship with.

And there are some tests for it. So how deep are their friendships? That's the first question. How deep are they?

A disloyal person doesn't have friends, just people they use. And when trials come, they're gone.

So Proverbs 17, 17 says, a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity. A friend is someone who sticks with you through everything.

That's an actual friend, right? There's fair weather friends, there's fake friends, there's people who say they're friends, but they're not there when it counts.

And they don't have deep relationships. Here's another test. Are they divisive? Proverbs 6, 16 through 19 says, there are six things which the

Lord hates, seven that are abomination. Skipping ahead to the end here. It says, one who spreads strife among the brothers.

That's one of the things that the Lord hates. A person that, like I just said a moment ago, splits any group that they're in, that just seems to, controversy follows them for no reason.

I mean, there's good controversies, but I mean, this, you know what I'm talking about, a person who, personal controversies that are really of no consequence, they're just involved, they're at the center of them somehow.

That's someone to avoid, a divisive person. Now here's another test. How free are they with intimate information?

How free are they with intimate information? Proverbs 20, 19 says, he who goes around as a slanderer reveals secrets, therefore do not associate with the gossip.

So this is important for me to qualify. This isn't about revealing things to protect someone. If someone tells you,

I'm gonna commit suicide, don't tell anyone. Well, you better tell someone, okay?

You better, like, you would be a terrible friend if you just let that happen, right? So this is not about revealing things to help or protect someone, in which case, you know, there's a righteousness there.

This is sharing information specifically for the sole purpose of harming someone's character. You're deploying a missile to destroy someone, and that's why you're doing it.

You're not, you don't have any good motives in this. You're not trying to help anyone. You're trying to destroy someone.

And that's why you're sharing intimate information. So, you know, this isn't just about, you can't ever share anything.

This is the motivation also for sharing it. And those are the three tests, in Proverbs at least. How deep are their friendships?

Are they divisive? Are they free with intimate information? You start seeing any of those things and someone, don't associate with them.

At least give it some time, right? We all have to mature, but you wanna make sure that you don't get vulnerable with someone like that.

And then finally, the humble man and the scoffer. Proverbs 21, 25. The proud, the haughty, the scoffer are his names who acts with insolent pride.

Now, a sign of humility is taking advice. And this is all throughout Proverbs.

Proverbs 17, 10. A rebuke goes deeper into one who has understanding than a hundred blows into a fool. Proverbs 11, 14.

Where there is no guidance that people fall, but in abundance of counselors, there is victory. Now, here's the test with this.

This is the last character quality here, contrast that we're gonna go over. The test is, how does someone, there's three of them.

The first one is, how does someone react when they are corrected? That is a big test in determining their character, in determining whether they are a scoffer or that there's someone who's humble.

Proverbs 9, seven through nine. He who corrects a scoffer gets dishonor for himself.

And he who reproves a wicked man gets insults for himself. Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you.

Reprove a wise man and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser. Teach a righteous man and he will increase his learning.

That is a huge, huge dividing line. When you correct someone or when you are being corrected, the way that you react to that says a lot about who you are.

Do you appreciate it? Do, even if you don't agree with all the advice, do you appreciate the sentiment? Thank you for telling me that I had a booger on my nose or it's a small thing or I have a character flaw here and I need to correct it or whatever it is.

I need to change that, thank you. Of all the qualities that we just talked about, every single one of them can be, you can rise above them.

You can improve yourself, right? You can grow. This is the only one that you can't.

Because if you're not willing to start at point A to go to point B, you're never on the road.

A scoffer will never listen to anyone. They won't listen to the Lord. They won't listen to your advice.

You can't reach them. The Lord has to get their attention. There's nothing else that can be done. All these other qualities are things, especially as you're raising children, you can see those qualities sometimes come out and that's where you correct them.

If they receive the instruction, if they receive the correction, guess what? Their character changes. This is the only one that if this character remains intact, none of the other stuff changes.

You can't become a just, merciful, diligent, temperate, loyal person if you don't first have humility.

So how does someone react when they're corrected? That's how you tell whether they're humble or a scoffer. Also, who are their associates?

Who do they associate with? Proverbs 15, 12, a scoffer does not love one who reproves him. He will not go to the wise.

Well, that's a big one. You can tell a lot by the kind of friends and company someone keeps.

If they make it so there's no accountability in their lives, there's no one that can reach them. The only kinds of connections they have are to people who will not, who will tolerate their sin, who won't reprove them.

That tells you a lot about their character. And sadly, I've been there a number of times in my life where I've gone to someone

I thought was a friend and I say, look, this is a big problem over here. And then what's the next thing that happens?

You're cut off. And this is why the gamma male thing, which

I haven't really gotten into that. It's not enough time in this morning message, but that meant a lot to me when

I saw that because it just sort of like, I was like, oh, that's why I'm always left confused.

I'm like, I thought we were friends. I thought we were going in this direction. We had this purpose. I just thought that this was a bad thing over here.

Don't do that. And then it's like the whole relationship comes unraveled.

Well, here's the third thing. And this is, I think this is a particularly important one for today, because I see a lot of young people, more than I've ever seen them get disgruntled and upset at older people.

But how does someone treat the elderly? Proverbs 16, 31, a gray head is a crown of glory.

It is found in the way of righteousness. Proverbs 20, 20, he who curses his father or mother, his lamp will go out in time of darkness.

And here's the thing. Parents make mistakes. Old people can make mistakes, right? Obviously, we're human.

But there is a general tendency for the older you get, the more experiences you have, the wiser you are.

Even if you're not wise in every area, you will be wise in some areas and therefore worthy to listen to.

And the kinds of people you want counseling you are people who have been there, who have had experiences, who can draw from their own past.

The Lord specifically gave us mothers and fathers. Now, not all of them are perfect. Some of them might exhibit some of the traits that I even went over.

But if you curse your mother or father, if you think that there's nothing that they have a value to give to you, if you totally write them off, then

Proverbs says your lamp will go out in time of darkness. And so those three things, how does someone react when they're corrected?

Who are their associates and how do they treat the elderly are big things to determine whether or not someone's a scoffer and thinks they know it all or whether they're humble.

So to conclude, these are the character qualities, some of the specific ones that Proverbs tells us are associated with the wise person.

They are just, they are merciful, they are diligent, they're temperate, they're loyal, they're humble. And the foolish person, crooked, cruel, lazy, rash, betrayer, scoffer.

And it's really a simple message this morning, right? This is all from the book of Proverbs, all from the instructions that Solomon gave to his son, who would be king.

Be very careful of the foolish person. Do not associate strongly with the foolish person and surround yourself with someone who is wise, with people who can give, who are not lazy, who are not some of these negative character qualities.

And if you do that, life will actually go a lot better for you in your relationships with others.

And of course, the greatest relationship and the most important relationship, and it would be incomplete if I didn't mention this, is knowing

Jesus Christ, right? Jesus Christ is the fulfillment, he's the perfection of all these things.

He is the most just, the most merciful, the most diligent, the most temperate, the most loyal, the most humble, the most wise.

And knowing him and getting to know him better and deeper every day is the primary and best relationship you can possibly have.

So with that, thank you for having me this morning. I hope this was helpful and I hope it's applicable in the relationships you have in your life.