WWUTT 1349 Do Not Walk the Path of the Wicked (Proverbs 4:15-27)

The wicked love wickedness, and they can't even sleep until they've done something wicked, according to Proverbs 4.

But we who are in Christ have peace and His righteousness when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. So, last week we were in Proverbs chapter 4, and made it about as far as verse 14,

I believe. I'm going to read that verse again, and we'll go to the end of the chapter. Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil.

Avoid it. Do not go on it. Turn away from it, and pass on.

For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong. They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble.

For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

The way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know over what they stumble.

My son, be attentive to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings.

Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure.

Do not swerve to the left or to the right. Turn your foot away from evil.

I guess that last verse there is, do not swerve to the right or to the left. I read that the other way around, but it means the same thing, right?

We come back to verse 14, where it says, do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil.

That sounds reminiscent of the beginning of the Psalms. Psalm 1 -1, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was reading through Proverbs, but Proverbs is such practical wisdom.

I mean, it really is very straightforward. No pun intended, even though we're talking about the straight way here, but it is.

It is straightforward wisdom. You're not really in mystery about what is being said here.

Now, there might be some things that are said that could be lost because of culture.

For example, this meant something in Israel 3 ,000 years ago that might be a saying we would have to adjust our thinking to a little bit in order to get how this would apply to us in the present.

It still has present application, but we have to know what it meant to the people it was said to first before we can figure out what the application is going to be for us now.

Overall, the wisdom of Proverbs is just very practical, straightforward wisdom.

It's not mysterious. It's not something that is said in such lofty terms that you can't even wrap your mind around it or it's so vague that you're trying to figure out the meaning.

Have you really looked into a lot of the philosophers way back in the day, talking about the

Greek philosophers and even Confucius and Buddha and some of the Middle Eastern philosophy and stuff like that?

A lot of it is very ambiguous. It's confusing. It lacks precision.

It's vague and obscure. It might sound like it's something deep.

That's what I heard from my friends in college. Whenever we would take classes that would study stuff like this, some of the earliest philosophies, they would think, man, that's really deep.

And I'm looking at it going, why? What's deep about it? You don't know what it means. If you don't know what it means, then that's what makes it deep.

But God's word, what do we have in God's word? Don't walk in the way of the wicked. Do what is right.

Yes. And you know what is right according to God's word.

What God has said is righteous. You know what is wicked according to the scriptures. This is what the wicked do.

Anything that is contrary to what God has said to do, that is wicked. And here, the practical advice, wisdom being passed down from a father to his son is do not enter the path of the wicked.

Do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it. Do not go on it.

Turn away from it and pass on. When you see this repetition come up in the wisdom book so often, that's emphasis.

Whatever it takes, get away from the way of evil.

Don't even be dipping your toe over there. Stay on the path of the righteous. Follow what

God has set forth for us in his word. Now consider the attitude, the personality of the wicked, what's going on in their mind and in their heart.

That's what we have in the next few verses. Verse 16, they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong.

They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. Folks, I've been this wicked before.

I understand this wickedness that's being described of the wicked because I've been this evil.

I have had such grudges against people before that I'm laying in bed unable to sleep until I can figure out some way that I can get this person back.

That's evil of me to be thinking that way. This is the way wicked people are. Thankfully, God convicted my heart over these things and I repented of them before they consumed me because that's certainly what would have happened.

I would have lived in bitterness for the rest of my life. I mentioned this on the podcast yesterday,

I guess it was, when we were in Romans chapter 12, but life is too short to be walking around in bitterness.

That's not the way we're supposed to be as Christians holding grudges with one another. What a miserable existence and all you think about what consumes your thinking all day long is how much you can't stand that person and it just drives you crazy to even think that they're happy because you're miserable and you want them to be as miserable as you are.

Again, I relate to this thinking. I have totally been there before, thought this evil of somebody,

I can go on Twitter and I can see this all the time. There are people whose Twitter accounts are consumed with hating

Donald Trump. That is their entire social media account. Why?

Why are you letting somebody consume your thinking that much? If you've been listening to me for a long time, if you've been listening to me since 2016, you know,

I'm not a fan of Donald Trump, but he does not occupy my brain all the time.

I have gone days at a time, never thinking of that man, but there are some people that they just, it would die.

Their brain would stop functioning if they were to stop thinking about Donald Trump. That's how consumed with hatred some people are so obsessed with politics and they fix themselves on a person to hate, probably more so than they fix themselves on a person to love.

A lot of people that voted for Biden, I don't really think they voted for Biden because they liked Biden. In fact, the surveys showed us that all of the polls and everything.

They weren't voting for Biden for Biden. They were voting against Trump, largely consumed with hatred for this man.

They have had hatred for him for four years. This is just the easiest example for me to give because it's all over social media.

You can find, uh, you can find the, I have relatives that think this way, but you can find evidence of this all over the internet.

There are people out there who are consumed with hatred for somebody else. There are people that might be obsessed with an ex, an ex boyfriend or an ex girlfriend.

They either want them back or they want them to suffer. An ex spouse of children for their parents even can have this kind of bitterness that they're walking around with in their heart.

Sometimes they express it. Sometimes they keep it bottled up, but they are unable to sleep at night because they are just simmering in their bitter pool and they cannot relax until they've made someone stumble.

That's the piece that they have in their heart. When I've made someone else miserable, that's when I can be at peace.

That's just ridiculously wicked. And remember what I said yesterday about what we're told in Romans 12, do not take it upon yourself to get payback.

Romans 12, 19 beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written.

Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. And when you understand that, when you trust in that and you put your hope in Christ for his word, what he says there, you will have peace in your heart.

No matter how much the people in your life have labored to disrupt your life, to rob you of your peace and your joy and contentment and any of these other things, no matter what they have done to you, no matter what offenses have been made against you, rest in Christ.

He will have the last word. Either he will grant them repentance and forgive them of their sins, cleanse them and make them new.

And that's what we should certainly want for people. Even those who have done us so wrong, Christ will either do that for somebody or he's going to consume them in his wrath.

Either way, what Jesus is going to do will be far greater than anything you could have done. His forgiveness is greater than our forgiveness.

His vengeance is greater than our vengeance. And so we need to leave it to him.

And that will bring a peace to our hearts. I'm really concerned about the direction that I see the church going in a lot of, especially a lot of legal cases, but in things that are like the

Me Too movement, sexual abuse crisis that is going on in many denominations, including my own, the

Southern Baptist denomination. What I'm seeing as a reaction to these things is mostly bitterness.

I don't see, I won't say I haven't seen it at all because I have, but I very rarely see a call for forgiveness and grace.

It's all how can we get payback? How can we, and who is responsible for this?

That's the other thing. And a lot of times, it's not the people who've actually done the offense. Somebody else empowered these people.

Somebody else did not do something about this. And we need to blame that person and shame them and cancel them and all these other kinds of things.

It's just a constant game of someone to blame. And the person is never satisfied.

There's always someone else to point a finger at. There's always somebody else to get revenge against.

They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. We've gone now from a person who is simply hurt to a person who is doing unrighteousness, who is consumed with hate.

They've gone from hurt to hate and they cannot rest until they get vengeance on their terms.

Now I'm only giving one application here. Another way that this applies is a person that is just consumed with the passions of their own flesh, sexual immorality.

I've been this person to not being able to sleep unless I can satisfy myself somehow.

They cannot sleep unless they have done wrong. They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble.

I've also been in the place of feeling guilty for my sin. And I wonder if somebody is going to figure me out.

Is somebody going to find out this evil thing that I've done and I'm not going to be able to keep it under wraps?

That's robbed me of sleep too. Guilt, not surrendering my sins unto

God, not resting in him and his forgiveness, not knowing that his grace is sufficient for me.

As I've shared with you before, all sin comes from an ungrateful heart. It comes from a heart of a person who is not satisfied with God.

And so they basically say to God, what you have for me is not good enough. I need this other thing in order to be happy.

And so a person turns away from the way of God and they turn to the way of sin.

But when we cling to Christ, when we are thankful to God, we are satisfied with him.

Then it says in Philippians chapter four, the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

It is knowing that that in Christ he is sufficient for all things and we need nothing else when we are filled with Christ.

What are the wicked filled with? Look at verse 17 for they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.

What kind of bread and wine do we drink? Think of the Lord's table. Jesus says, this is my body, which has been broken for you.

Eat it in remembrance of me of the cup. He says, this is the cup of the new covenant, which has been poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

So the bread is righteousness. The wine is forgiveness of sins.

That's what we have in Christ. What do the wicked eat? They eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.

They're trying to shed the blood of man rather than looking at the blood of Christ, which was shed for those who believe in him.

If you are walking in righteousness, if you feed on the righteousness of Christ, if you are filled with him, then you are filled with his righteousness and you have the forgiveness of sins.

The wicked eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. That's what fills them up.

It's constant ways that I can afflict other people. But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn.

Verse 18 says, which shines brighter and brighter until the full day.

As we as Christians are growing in sanctification, the light of our life is getting brighter.

The light of Christ in our hearts. Verse 19. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness and they do not know over what they stumble.

When a wicked person stumbles over something, they continue on in that wickedness because they don't even recognize what it was that they stumbled over.

Why am I so incredibly miserable? And they'll just continue in their bitterness and their resentment and their hatred for other people, continuing to stumble into that and stumble and stumble and stumble because they're so blind to the reality of what it is they keep tripping over.

But the word of God, remember what the Psalm says, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

The word of God illuminates for us what is wicked and what is right. And when we've done wickedly, it's through the word that we're convicted of our sin and we would turn from it and be forgiven.

First John 1 9. If we are faithful to ask forgiveness of our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We go on into verse 20. My son, be attentive to my words, incline your ear to my sayings again.

Very practical and straightforward. And you don't necessarily have to read this as Solomon talking to his son.

This is God's word and he is speaking to you as a son or a daughter of God. Verse 21.

Let them not escape from your sight. Let these words of God not escape from your sight.

Keep them within your heart for they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh.

A person who walks around with with grudges and hatred toward other people. Health studies show that's not healthy when you are when that's your personality, when that is your demeanor toward others, it shortens your life and it affects your countenance.

We must have Christ in our hearts. We must rejoice in knowing what God has done for us, that we have been forgiven so we may forgive one another.

It is life and healing for the physical body, certainly so for the soul.

Verse 23. Keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life.

I believe it's the NIV that says guard your heart for from it flow the springs of life.

So keep your heart with all vigilance. Don't invest yourself in things that are wicked.

That would consume your heart, consume your thinking. Don't keep company with people that are going to make you think that way.

Guard your heart. The springs of life flow from your heart. Don't let those pure springs, the pure water of the

Holy Spirit that has been poured into your heart, get polluted by worldly things. Verse 24.

Put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk far from you.

The words that you say affect your heart and your heart affects the words that you say. So control yourself.

One of those ways that we exercise self -control, and remember that's a fruit of the Spirit, that's part of the fruit of the

Spirit that we read about in Galatians chapter 5, self -control. And one of the ways that we exercise self -control is being careful about what we say, how we use our words, controlling our tongue.

Verse 25. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you.

Ponder the path of your feet. Then all your ways will be sure. We're not going through life haphazardly.

Consider your steps, the way that you should go. Verse 27. Do not swerve to the right or to the left.

Turn your foot away from evil. God said to Joshua, at the start of Joshua chapter 1, to meditate on the word of God day and night.

Do not swerve to the right or to the left. In Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2, we are told, keep your eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

And the picture that's given there in Hebrews 12 is of a race. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.

If you're running a race in a lane, you can't swerve to the right hand or to the left, you'll be disqualified. Run straight ahead toward the goal.

Christ is our goal. Pursue him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and he will keep you from the path of evil.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, what good wisdom you have bestowed upon us in your word.

And I pray that we would be convicted of heart when we read these things, that we not walk in ways of wickedness or evil, we not envy the world and what it has.

We are fully satisfied in Christ in all that you give us. So in our thankfulness, fill us with that peace that we are promised, that surpasses all understanding, guarding our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

We're not consumed with hatred and bitterness and grudges and anger and malice and plotting and desire for vengeance.

We love God and we know that we've been forgiven our sins and that peace that fills us up in knowing the grace of God that we've received.

We want to share that grace, that forgiveness with other people.

May the gospel of Jesus Christ even be seen in our lives and give us the courage that we may share it with one another.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen. This has been When We Understand the

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