Lady Wisdom vs Femme Folly

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Proverbs chapter 9.
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And the title of tonight's lesson is Lady Wisdom vs.
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Femme Folly.
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There is a reason for that title so I'm going to write it up here.
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Lady Wisdom vs.
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Femme Folly.
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Now I want to say before we begin reading, this is the last chapter in the book of Proverbs wherein the author is going to give us a long narrative illustration of wisdom and foolishness.
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Beginning in chapter 10, which Brother Andy will preach beginning next week, it will begin those series of long individualized Proverbs which come across almost as small, discreet, common sense generalities and we're going to talk about the structure of those as the weeks go by and how they work and how they fit together.
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But this is the last chapter that really is a narrative until you get toward the very very end.
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And so from chapter 10 to chapter 30 it's going to be those short individual Proverbs.
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And so that's why I'm thankful because actually what I'm doing tonight is I'm actually bringing this portion to a close.
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Brother Andy has preached more of the book of Proverbs so far and he's done us a service because he's talked about the two ways, the way of the wise and the way of the fool.
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And really this chapter, all it does is summarize everything that the writer has said up until now.
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So I'm not going to break any new ground tonight.
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I may say something that you haven't thought about or hopefully something that would encourage you, but I'm not going to say anything that hasn't really in a sense already been said because the writer doesn't say anything that hasn't already been said.
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He simply summarizes it for us in this final narrative chapter and then in chapter 10 we'll begin those individual Proverbs.
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So let's stand and let's read the word.
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We're going to read all 18 verses of Proverbs chapter 9.
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You'll notice it comes in three parts and it's three six verse portions, 6, 12, 18.
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There's three six verse portions and as we're reading hopefully you'll see the structure.
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Beginning in verse 1 it says, Wisdom has built her house.
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She has hewn her seven pillars.
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She has slaughtered her beasts.
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She has mixed her wine.
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She has also set her table.
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She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town.
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Whoever is simple, let him turn and hear.
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To him who lacks sense, she says, come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.
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Leave your simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight.
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Now verse 7, whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.
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Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you.
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Reprove a wise man and he will love you.
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Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser.
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Teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning.
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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
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For by me your days will be multiplied and years will be added to your life.
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If you are wise, you are wise for yourself.
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If you scoff, you alone will bear it.
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And now the last six verses of this chapter forming this three parts.
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The woman folly is loud.
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She is seductive and knows nothing.
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She sits at the door of her house.
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She takes a seat on the highest places of the town calling to those who pass by who are going straight on their way.
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Whoever is simple, let him turn and hear.
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And to him who lacks sense, she says, stolen water is sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant but he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
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May God add his blessing to the reading and the hearing of his word.
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You may be seated.
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Now, as I mentioned, this chapter comes to us in three parts.
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I brought my whiteboard with me tonight because I hope to at least show some of the structural components of this particular proverb and how it all fits together.
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There are three sections and these three sections all have six verses.
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So we have verses 1 to 6 is the first section, verses 12, I'm sorry, 7 through 12 is the next section, and then 13 through 18 is the final section.
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And what we have is we have a feminine personification which is given on both ends of the person proverbs.
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So you have on this side, you have the lady who is called wisdom.
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And so we'll just draw that little arrow there.
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And then you have the other feminine, I hate to call her a lady because in this, she's not really presented as a lady and, you know, as they say, being a lady is like being important or being rich.
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If you have to tell people you are, you're not.
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So a lady is distinguishable by a proper woman.
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So we'll just call, that's why I call her the femme, she's the female, she's not a lady.
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So we'll just say she's the femme.
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And she is folly and she is identified in verses 13 through 18.
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And what's interesting about this chapter is if you look at verse 4 and verse 16, they're both the same.
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Look with me again, verse 4, whoever is simple, let him turn in here to him who lacks sense, she says, and then it goes into what she says.
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Now look over at verse 16.
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Whoever is simple, let him turn here and to him who lacks sense, she says.
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Notice, I don't know, is it the same in the other translations, is it basically reading the same? You look like, is it, okay, you look like, I didn't know, I was looking at Jackie, she looked at me like I was wrong, okay, I was making sure I was correct.
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So we have this, and the reason, the point is I believe that there's more structure here than maybe we have seen in some of the previous passages because I do think that this is the summary of everything that the writer has given us so far.
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He's given us the way of wisdom and the way of folly, and he's bringing that summary to a close and he's doing it in what I call a thought sandwich.
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And I know that's not maybe a deep way of putting it, but he's taking the idea at the end and he is, essentially, it's like two pieces of bread in a sandwich, they match, and that's what I want to show you is verses 1 to 6 actually match verses 13 to 18 if you put them parallel and beside one another because that's what the writer's doing.
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He's saying you've got two women who are both calling for your attention.
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They're both saying, simple man, come in here, and you remember what the simpleton is I talked about two weeks ago.
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He's the one who's at the crossroads.
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He's the one who hasn't made the decision yet.
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He's still there.
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And the one who is the lady wisdom, she's saying, come here, and femme folly is saying, come here, and so this is the structure that the author is giving us and we see this crossroads between the two.
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And I want to show you what's interesting about the middle because at the very middle of this proverb, we see the fear of the Lord.
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That's the crossroad because will you fear the Lord and go this way or will you not and go that way? This is the summary of everything Andy and I have taught up to this point.
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Will you, by fear of the Lord, seek after lady wisdom or will you reject the fear, be the scoffer, and we're going to talk about who the scoffer is in a moment because he talks about this whole section right here is about the man who doesn't fear the Lord, therefore he's going to go that way, right? And so this is a picture, that's why I wanted to do it on the board, sort of show you how this proverb fits.
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You've got a man who's right here, you know, like the old, I don't know if you remember going to the old mall and you didn't know where you were in the mall and you'd find the map and the map would say you are here and it'd have an arrow.
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Well this is where some of you are.
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This is where we find ourselves when we're having to choose between wisdom and folly.
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We're right there and the question is are we going to follow the fear of the Lord or not? That's this whole chapter and again I think it's the whole nine chapters put together in one final summary.
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So, I want to point something out.
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This concept of the fear of the Lord is the underpinning of this whole book.
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In fact I would say it's the underpinning of all of the scriptures because it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, it's the foundation point, it's the hinge point of all of scripture.
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In fact, one of my favorite stories and I know many of you have heard me preach on this so I don't want to spend too much time, but one of my favorite pictures in scripture is when Isaiah sees the Lord seated on the throne.
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Isaiah chapter 6 it says, in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord high and lifted up and the train of His robe filled the temple and around Him were the seraphim, the angels and they flew and with two wings they covered their face and with two wings they covered their feet and with two wings they flew and they called out to one another in chorus, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
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The whole earth is filled with His glory, right? And what did Isaiah do? He said, woe is me for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King.
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So he sees himself as unjust.
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He sees himself, even he is the most righteous man in all of Israel, of all the men in Israel Isaiah would have been at the top of the heap as far as personal practical righteousness and yet he sees himself as undone because he sees himself in light of the glory and the holiness of Almighty God and he says I am undone.
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And let me tell you something, the term woe is me is a statement of fear.
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It isn't like the old Yiddish phrase where people say oy vey, oh woe is me.
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It's not that.
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It's serious.
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When Jesus said woe unto you Corazon, woe unto you Bethsaida, for if what had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah had been done in you, then they would have repented.
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Remember Jesus said that? It's a word of judgment and Isaiah is bringing that word of judgment upon himself.
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He's saying woe is me because he feared the Lord.
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He feared the Lord and that's why he was a wise man.
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That's why he was a practically righteous man.
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When I say not perfectly but practically righteous because he feared the Lord.
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He was the man who took this direction.
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The fear of the Lord is, I'm not going to have you turn there because there's too many.
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Just in the book of Proverbs, this is how many times we see the phrase fear the Lord.
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Chapter 1 verse 7, chapter 1 verse 29, chapter 2 verse 5, chapter 8 verse 13, chapter 9 verse 10 we just read, chapter 10 verse 27, chapter 14 has it twice, chapter 15 has it twice, chapter 16 has it once, 19 has it once and 23 has it once.
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That's how many times the phrase the fear of the Lord is just in the book of Proverbs.
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As I said it's the foundation of the book.
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It's the foundation of where we're going to turn.
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So as I said I want to compare this woman with this woman but understand what the difference is.
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Understand what the distinction is.
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The distinction is in the middle of the Proverbs to fear the Lord.
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So let's look quickly at verses 1 to 6.
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This is Lady Wisdom.
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It says, Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars, she's slaughtered her beasts, she's mixed her wine, she's set a table, she's sent out her young women to call from the highest places of the town.
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Whoever is simple let him turn in here to him who lacks sense.
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She says, come eat of my bread, drink of the wine I've mixed.
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I leave your simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight.
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Now go down to verse 13.
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The woman folly is loud and she's seductive, she knows nothing.
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I don't know how it says it in the other translations.
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I like that.
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She knows nothing.
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What does it say? Is that basically? Yeah.
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And it talks about the fact that she sits at the door of her house, she takes a seat in the highest places, she calls to those who pass by who are going straight on their way.
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Whoever is simple let him turn in here.
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She's trying to get his attention.
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And she says, stolen water is sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
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But he who does not know the dead are there that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
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All right.
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So I want to show you four things.
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There is a distinction between these two women in four ways.
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Number one is in their productivity.
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All right.
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One is in their productivity.
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Lady Wisdom builds her house.
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She hews out the pillars of the home.
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She slaughters animals.
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She mixes wine.
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She even sets her table.
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She's a productive woman.
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But femme folly runs her mouth, bats her eyes, lounges on her backside, and remains blissfully ignorant.
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She's a useless woman.
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So there's a distinction in productivity.
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Number two, there's a distinction in priority.
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There's a distinction in priority.
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Lady Wisdom is busy with her work.
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So busy that she has to actually get others to help her and sends them out to do the work of going out and making her story known.
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Right? She's productive and she gets help.
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And she sends out her disciples to call in the simple.
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But femme folly, on the other hand, is hardly bothered to engage with anyone else.
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She sits on her porch and she calls out to herself.
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She is not doing anything.
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Therefore, she has nothing to...
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No one in need of help.
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She's not doing anything.
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So there's a distinction in priority.
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Number three, there's a distinction in provision.
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There's a distinction in provision.
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This one really caught my attention.
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Notice this.
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When Lady Wisdom provides the meal, she's giving delectable food.
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It says she slaughters beasts.
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Right? She actually prepares the table.
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She sets the table.
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She makes the meal.
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And it's prepared with her own hands.
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But how does femme folly provide for the young man? She steals.
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Stolen water is sweet.
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And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
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Well, what is bread eaten in secret? Also probably stolen, right? At least probably received in some way.
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You know, she didn't make that bread.
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When you go to Lady Wisdom's house, that is made by her.
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When you go to Lady Wisdom's house, she slaughtered the animals.
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She has set the table.
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She has mixed the wine.
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She has prepared the meal.
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She is productive and has her priorities straight.
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And she's providing for him something that's valuable.
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Let me ask you this question.
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Let's say you go home tonight, guys.
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And let's say you go home and your wife has spent the afternoon preparing you your favorite dinner.
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I don't know, Brother Andy, is yours fish? Are you a fish man? Okay.
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Well, I know you love to fish.
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Some guys love to fish and don't eat fish, though.
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I always get surprised.
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People say love to fish, don't eat fish.
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Like me, if I go home and my wife has got a steak, I love steak.
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And so, if there's a steak waiting on me and she's spent the afternoon preparing baked potato and a steak and all that, that's great.
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That's wonderful.
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Now, if I go home and there's a TV dinner, I'm still going to love her.
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I'm still going to appreciate it because that means her day probably was very difficult.
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She couldn't do all the things that she might want to do.
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And that's in no way would I be upset or angry or anything like that.
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But there's obviously a difference.
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And the time that is spent preparing the meal versus the TV dinner that's thrown in the microwave.
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Right? And again, I know this is a bad illustration with a sense of like my wife's not loving me on those days.
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No, she loves me the same.
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Days are hard.
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But there is a distinction.
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There is a distinction between a meal that's prepared.
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Somebody who loves you, somebody who cares about you.
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They go to, they're concerned about what you can eat, what you can't eat, what you want to eat.
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And prepares.
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Versus someone who says, I stole a loaf of bread and a bottle of water.
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Here, eat this.
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So, it's a provision thing.
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And finally, the last one, most important, is the distinction in the promise.
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Notice the distinction in the promise.
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The promise of Lady Wisdom is in verse 6.
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Leave your simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight.
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Come to my house and live and have wisdom.
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But verse 18 is the promise of Femme Follie.
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It is ignorance and death.
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He doesn't know how deadly it is.
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And that her guests are in their graves.
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See, that's why I say I do think these parallel one another.
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Very, very powerfully in fact.
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And again, it's all an allegory, right? I talked about my wife and the dinner thing.
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That's just a picture, right? The allegory is wisdom is valuable.
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And foolishness is worthless.
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And you stand at the crossroads.
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And you wonder which one you should take.
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It shouldn't be a wonder.
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But how many people go to the house of foolishness? Why? Because stolen bread is sweet.
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Or stolen water, rather.
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Because for a moment there's a little bit of excitement.
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Or a little bit of joy.
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Or a little bit of euphoria.
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That little hit of dopamine, however we're going to get it.
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It's obvious which one should be pursued.
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But men and women often make the wrong choice.
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Why? That question why is answered here.
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This section is the question and answer of why.
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Why? If it's so obvious which one is better.
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If it's so obvious which one we should be taking.
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Why would anybody go to the house of the harlot? Why would anybody go to Femme Folly's house? Why would you go eat water and bread when you could have wine and beef? Or whatever.
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It said slaughter something.
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For me it's a cow.
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When you could have one or the other, why choose that one? Well, verses 7 to 13 tell us why.
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Because verses 7 to 13, excuse me, 7 to 12, rather.
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Talk about two men.
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Because verses 1 to 6 and 13 to 18 talk about two women.
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Lady Wisdom and Femme Folly.
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But verses 7 to 12 talk about two men.
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The scoffer and the wise man.
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And by the way, the scoffer.
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I'm going to put a word up here to go along with the scoffer.
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A scoffer is uncorrectable.
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A scoffer is a man who is uncorrectable.
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Just read along and you'll see what I mean.
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Notice what it says in verse 7.
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Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse.
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And he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.
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Do not reprove a scoffer.
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He will hate you.
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But reprove a wise man and he will love you.
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Give instruction to a wise man and he will be wiser.
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Still, teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning.
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Note the difference.
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Again, we've seen the difference between Lady Wisdom and Femme Folly.
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Now we're seeing the difference between the scoffer and the wise man.
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And what is it about the scoffer? He will not accept correction.
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He is uncorrectable.
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Notice what it says.
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Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse.
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You ever try to correct somebody out of love? And instead of appreciating that correction, they hurt you with their words? Who are you to tell me? Who are you to say I'm wrong? How dare you speak against my lifestyle? This is the way I am.
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This is the way God made me.
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I was born this way.
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The scoffer will not be corrected.
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I want to quote somebody I don't often quote.
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Not that he's bad.
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He's a good guy.
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I just don't usually quote him.
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Warren Wearsby.
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That's a name some of you may have heard over the years.
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Warren Wearsby has a great quote on this passage.
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He says this.
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Fools, scoffers, and the simple like to have their own way.
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And to be told they're doing fine.
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But wise men and women want the truth.
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Teach wise people and they'll accept the truth and become wiser.
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Try to teach fools and they'll reject the truth and become even greater fools.
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And all God's parents said amen.
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All the parents in the room said amen.
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Because we have children.
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And we were all once children.
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And I tell you that's the hardest thing about having children.
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And people say, oh when your children get older it's easier.
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No, no.
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They keep getting, you know.
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I now have adult children and one of them is in the room.
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So I'm going to be gracious.
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I love you.
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But as they get older, the problems don't go away.
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They just get bigger.
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And as they get older, often times they don't want to hear what mom and dad have to say.
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Because they think they know everything.
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And they fall into this category of scoffer.
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Now mom and dad aren't always right.
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And there are times, well don't point your finger at me.
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My dad is sitting in the room.
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Point his finger.
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I just said mom and dad aren't always right.
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But often we learn how right they were when we get just a little older.
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Often we do learn there was wisdom there that we scoffed at.
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Because we didn't want to hear it when we were 15 and 17 and 20 and 24.
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Nobody likes to be criticized.
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Amen.
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And especially when we know we're wrong.
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However, when someone lovingly rebukes us, we must be able to respond by looking introspectively and not lashing out in anger.
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That's part of maturity.
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That's part of wisdom.
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To be able to receive a rebuke and not immediately fight back.
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But to consider the rebuke as possibly being a word of love.
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Now I say possibly.
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Because not every rebuke is a word of love.
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There are some people who are nitpickers.
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The Bible doesn't, well some translations use the word nitpicker.
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The term that is usually used, it's used in the King James, used in the ESV, is the word busybody.
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And there are those who are, they are people who like to make it their business to tell other people their business.
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And they become micromanagers of other people's lives.
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Now that is not, the proverb is not encouraging that.
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The proverb is not encouraging us to be busybodies.
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In fact, I'll give you just a few verses.
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2 Thessalonians 3.11, 1 Timothy 5.13, and 1 Peter 4.15 all talk about the danger of being meddlers and busybodies.
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And so we're not to do that.
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But we should be willing to receive rebuke and to give rebuke in love.
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Because that's what being brothers and sisters in Christ is.
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And that is what wisdom demands.
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If we are having the wisdom of God, we must be willing to be those who are corrected by others.
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I can tell you from the honest depth of my heart, the times that I have been the most blessed in ministry have been the times when I went home crying.
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Because I was rebuked and it was right.
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And I have been.
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There have been a few times in my life where godly men have spoken into my life something that was hard to hear at the time.
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And I was tempted to pooch out my lips and bow up my chest and not want to hear what they had to say in the moment.
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But as I went home and allowed their words to mull around within my soul, I realized I was wrong.
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And I needed to repent or to gain some wisdom in a certain area.
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It wasn't always necessarily sin.
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Sometimes it's just unwise thinking.
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But all of that is part of this.
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The fool, the person who goes to her house is the person who does not receive correction.
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The person who, when his lip gets stiff and his chest bows out, he fights back and he won't hear any correction at all.
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The fool will not be corrected.
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Do you know what a man has to do to tell you that you're wrong? He has to love you enough to tell you.
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Man or woman, that's gender neutral.
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A person who is willing to tell you that you're wrong has to love you enough to do that.
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Because it's a fearful thing.
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I've been in many situations where I've had to say something to someone that I didn't want to say because I thought it was going to cost me the relationship.
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And there have been times where it did cost me the relationship.
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But there have been other times, blessed times, where God used those moments where that person I was talking to was in the crossroad and they chose the path of wisdom.
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I think I've told this story before.
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I won't belabor it.
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But I remember the time very specifically.
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I was in that room right over there.
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I remember right where I was when a man came here.
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He wasn't a member of this church.
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He was a member of another church.
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But he came here.
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He was buying t-shirts.
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I used to have a t-shirt business.
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He was coming here to pick them up.
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And we were just talking.
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And he told me, I'm going to leave my wife.
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And everybody else had told him that was okay.
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And I said, brother, you have no grounds for divorce.
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And if you leave your wife, you would be sinning against God and against your family.
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You need to repent and go home and love your wife.
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And by God's grace, they are still together today.
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Because God was merciful, not because I'm a hero.
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I'm not trying to make myself the hero of this story.
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I'm just saying, by God's grace, I told him what he didn't want to hear.
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And in that moment, he was willing to hear it and receive it and be corrected.
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But you know, nobody else in his life was willing to correct him.
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Nobody else wanted to tell him that you are wrong.
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A wise man receives reproof.
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But a fool rejects it.
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And it goes back to this.
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Because the fear of the Lord lets us understand that sometimes we need to be rebuked.
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That we are still in our fleshly bodies and none of us have arrived.
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There's nobody in here who's got it all together.
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Amen? Quote Brother Andy, what are we? A mess.
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Sorry brother.
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It's true.
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We're all a mess in one way or another.
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And what are we doing as a church? We're bringing our mess together and trying to live it out.
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And encourage one another.
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And talk to one another and love one another, even in our mess.
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And at times, call each other to the standard of the gospel.
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So the center of all this, all that we've been learning so far, is are we willing to be corrected? And are we willing to forsake the house of folly and pursue the house of wisdom? I think that's a good place to stop.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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And I thank you for this night.
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I pray that this has been a blessing to all of us.
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And I pray that we, Lord, as every day we come to some point where we stand at that crossroad, where we hear the folly calling toward us and we hear the wisdom calling toward us.
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Both are saying the same thing.
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Come to my house.
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Lord, let us be wise.
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Let us be those who receive rebuke.
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Let us be those who are men and women of integrity, who love your word and love your people.
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And, Lord, when we do fail, and we will, Lord, help us to run to Christ, repent of our sins, and trust in His work and not our own.
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In Jesus' name, amen.