WWUTT 1579 Apply Your Heart to Know Yahweh (Proverbs 22:14-29)

You have to be careful about what entices you. It may seem innocent at first, but before long you're given over to sinful passions and God gives you over to your own depravity.

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Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our Old Testament Study. We've been in the book of Proverbs, still in chapter 22.

I'm going to pick up where we left off last week, that was at verse 14, and read through verse 29 in the

Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. The mouth of strange women is a deep pit.

He who is cursed of Yahweh will fall into it. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child.

The rod of discipline will remove it far from him. He who oppresses the poor to make more for himself, or who gives to the rich, will only come to lack.

Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, and set your heart on My knowledge.

For it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, that they may be established on your lips, so that your trust may be in Yahweh.

I have made you know today, even you. Have I not written to you excellent things of counsels and knowledge, to make you know the veracity of the words of truth, that you may respond with the words of truth to Him who sent you?

Do not rob the poor, because he is poor. And do not crush the afflicted at the gate.

For Yahweh will plead their case, and rob the soul of those who rob them. Do not befriend a man of anger, and do not come along with a man of great wrath, lest you learn his ways and take on a snare against your soul.

Do not be among those who strike hands in pledge, among those who become guarantors for debts.

If you have nothing with which to pay, why should he take your bed from under you? Do not move the ancient boundary which your fathers made.

Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings. He will not stand before obscure men.

You might have noticed a bit of a shift at verse 17, right? We went from the verse -by -verse

Proverbs to wisdom that stretches several verses at a time. Now, we're still going to get back to verse -by -verse

Proverbs. That's coming up in a couple of chapters. But for a little while here, we'll see wisdom that is stretched over several verses instead of an individual proverb that's stuck in one verse, which we've been doing since about chapter 10.

So this is 12 chapters of verse -by -verse Proverbs. We still have a few to finish up here.

Verse 14, I just love the way this is worded. The mouth of strange women is a deep pit.

He who is cursed of Yahweh will fall into it. And we're talking here about an adulterous woman.

We're talking about someone that tries to entice men with her words, that wants to satisfy their fleshly appetites and promises them things with what she says.

But those men will always be hungering for what she offers, and they will never be satisfied. And so those words that come from her mouth, they might think, oh, this is what

I want. This is what I need. And then they're constantly coming back for more until God has given them over to their depravity.

And they can't even repent. They don't have a heart that desires to repent. They just continue to go after these fleshly offerings until it leads to their destruction and ultimately hell.

The mouth of this strange woman, this adulterous woman who entices you with empty words, her mouth is a deep pit.

And he who is cursed of Yahweh, whom God has given over to his sinful, wicked desires, he will fall into it.

And it is that bottomless pit, that hell of fire and destruction, that's where he will go if he continues after this woman's ways.

We have seen over the course of the book of Proverbs strong warnings to abstain from sexual immorality.

And in fact, that sexually immoral person is usually depicted as an adulterous woman in the book of Proverbs.

We had entire chapters that were dedicated to this warning. A father giving advice to his son, stay away from that adulterous woman.

We saw it in Proverbs 5, 6, and 7. Calling attention to this, the

Bible speaks loud and clear to flee from sexual immorality.

We've had many pastors that have stood in their pulpits here in these present days and have declared things like the

Bible whispers about sexual sin. Two Southern Baptist Convention presidents in a row have preached exactly that from their pulpits,

J .D. Greer and then his successor, Ed Litton, who really just ripped off what J .D.

Greer said. But you see the poison that this is. The gangrenous teaching it is as it spreads and infects more people.

And there are people that will hear this and they will think that sexual sin is no big a deal and they will continue in it to their own destruction.

Now, almost every time I bring this up, somebody will say to me, Hey, Greer and Litton did call sexual immorality sin.

And of course they did, but they kind of shrugged at it like it was no big a deal. They called it sexual sin, but they said the

Bible whispers about it. So yeah, it's sin, but you know, it's not the worst sin. It's not like, you know, you'll go to hell for such a thing.

Oh yes, you will. We even talked about it this past week as we've been in first Corinthians. I mentioned again, first Corinthians six, nine and 10, the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God.

And as I have seen over and over and over again in my pastoral ministry, men who give themselves over to adulterous women and they never come back.

God turns them over to their sin to be judged in it. And they continue in it to their death and never repent.

That doesn't mean that a person can't repent, but more often than not, a person that goes after these passions of their flesh, that's what they want for the rest of their lives and they never return.

And God gives them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false and come into judgment because they love their sin rather than the truth that's talked about in second

Thessalonians chapter two. These warnings come up again and again and again. We cannot shrug at this.

We cannot think that it is not any big deal just because sexual immorality is so rampant in our culture.

Don't become desensitized to it. It will destroy you in one proverb here.

We have it again. We've seen it over and over again through proverbs and yet it being such a serious matter that we see it again.

The mouth of strange women is a deep pit. He who is cursed of Yahweh will fall into it.

Men, you beware even those images on social media, those pouty lipped women with those come hither looks that are trying to entice you with nothing.

You don't know who those women are. They're not going to give you anything. You are drawn to a picture, a fantasy, something that you've made up in your mind and the pouty lips of that woman even on a social media image.

That's a deep pit. Just going after those images on computers, on your smartphone, on whatever else, a billboard you pass by, a magazine you see in the rack, standing in line at the grocery store, building these fantasies in your mind that lead to absolutely nowhere.

Well, yeah, they do lead somewhere. They lead to a pit and those who are cursed of Yahweh will fall into it.

Constantly going after sinful passions instead of Christ, instead of the holiness of God.

You know, it doesn't matter if you're married or you're not married. If you're married and you go after these, uh, fantasies, well, then you're betraying your spouse.

But if you're not married, you're still not supposed to be going after these empty women. Look for a wife, go to church, find a woman that you can marry, commit yourself to her for the rest of your life.

The two become one flesh, raise up children together, do it in honor of God and in glory to his name.

Raise those children in the instruction and the discipline of the Lord. Bring more into the kingdom of God through your family who you raise up in the knowledge of the gospel and then going out and preaching the gospel to this lost and dying world.

People everywhere going to hell and largely because of the sexual sins that they go after.

Tell them to repent, come to the Lord Jesus Christ and live. But you first Christian, you first must repent.

Do not treat these things lightly. Do not fall into that pit. Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, be lifted up and live.

We continue on to verse 15. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of discipline will remove it far from him, right?

Just as I was telling you to get married, have kids, raise them up in the training and the instruction of the

Lord. Part of that discipline that you give to your children is going to be spanking that they would recognize there are consequences for our actions.

Sometimes those consequences are painful. It's better to spank them that they may learn the the painful consequences of these sinful things that they have done rather than getting older and continue into worse sins and receive even worse consequences, including destruction and hell.

Boy, there's a lot of negative stigma out there about spanking. Well, there's there's disdain for the doctrine of hell as well.

But the but the book of Proverbs tells us to correct our children with the rod and you save them from hell.

Consider that what we're going to get to later on in chapter 23, verse 13. Do not withhold discipline from the child.

Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die. You shall strike him with the rod and deliver his soul from Sheol because you teach him when he is young that there are consequences for his actions.

So he won't go the wrong way. He will go in the right way. The path of righteousness as laid out for us by God, according to his word.

We have previously read last week, Proverbs 22, six, train up a child according to his way.

Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. Seize those opportunities these years in the present to train up your children in the the instruction and the discipline of the

Lord so that they will know the right way to go when they are older. Verse 16, he who oppresses the poor to make more for himself or who gives to the rich will only come to lack.

And that lack ultimately is you will not receive the kingdom of God. Do not show partiality.

My brethren, as it says in James two, one, as you hold fast to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, we show no one favoritism over another.

We do not oppress the poor to make more of ourselves, even putting down those who are poor in spirit to make much of ourselves, but rather we care for those, especially those who are most in need, building one another up in this most precious faith that we have in our

Lord Jesus Christ. Now we get to the shift here. Verse 17, we'll go through this a little more quickly.

Verses 17 to 29, incline your ear and hear the words of the wise and set your heart on my knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, that they may be established on your lips so that your trust may be in Yahweh.

I have made you know today, even you, this sounds very similar to things that we read right at the very beginning of the book of Proverbs of a father instructing his son and telling him,

I'm going to teach you wise things. Take these words of mine and do what they say.

And you will live. You will get to know the way of Kings. You will get to know the King of Kings himself.

And that is the Lord. That is Yahweh. I have taught you these things so that they may be established in you.

They will be pleasant if you keep them within you, they may be established on your lips.

What comes out of your mouth is going to be a reflection of what is in your heart. So what you have within you is going to be established on your lips.

What you say will always be a reflection of what you have in your heart so that your trust may be in Yahweh.

I have made you know today, even you, these wonderful precepts, this wisdom, this knowledge that we've been taught over the course of this book.

And in fact, the whole book, Genesis to revelation, we learn of God.

We know his will. We know his character. We know his son through what, through that, which is given to us in the

Bible. We have fellowship with God. When we put our trust in him so that your trust may be in Yahweh, the great

I am the one who created heaven and earth, who knows every one of our needs, who fellowships with us through the access that we have to God by faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 20, have I not written to you excellent things of counsels and knowledge?

Don't you rejoice to read what it is that we've read here over the course of the book of Proverbs to make you know the veracity of the words of truth that you may respond with the words of truth to him who sent you.

You may know the word of truth. You may speak the word of truth. You may share the word of truth to others.

And what comes out of your mouth will even honor the one who sent you. In this particular case, the word is lowercase, right?

It's not a capital H, so it's not a proper pronoun. Therefore, it's not referring to God.

That you may respond with the words of truth to him who sent you. Who would it be that sends you?

Well, whoever you serve. In this case, it's probably the son that is serving his father.

So the words that a son says is going to be pleasing unto the father. It's a reflection of the father who taught him these good words of wisdom and knowledge.

And so even stretch this out spiritually to recognizing that what we say and what we do is a reflection of the king whom we serve.

The father whose family we have been adopted into by faith in Christ. So now we get to some more wisdom proverbs here, verses 22 to 29.

Do not rob the poor because he is poor. And do not crush the afflicted at the gate. For Yahweh will plead their case and rob the soul of those who rob them.

So you're talking about people who are vulnerable. People who do not have as much. Those who might be easier to draw in and take advantage of.

Do not rob them because they are poor. Do not take advantage of them because they don't have much. Do not take advantage of them because they may be weak, poor in spirit, easily given over to suggestion, whatever it might happen to be.

Rather, the instruction we have in Romans 15 .1 is that we who are strong are obligated to bear with the failings of the weak and build them up for their good.

Do not crush the afflicted at the gate. So the one who has had wrong done against them, don't bring them to the gate, that place of judgment in the

Old Testament and issue judgment against those who actually need justice. They need those who are strong to exercise justice against those who have afflicted them.

For Yahweh will plead their case. In other words, those who are poor, those who are afflicted,

God is on their side. Yahweh will plead their case and rob the soul of those who robbed them.

There will come a day in which you will have to stand in judgment. Will God look at you and know that you have been one who has treated others without partiality, but you have shown love and affection to one another equally with just weights and measures, treating one the same as you would treat the other, not showing favoritism to one and despising the other.

Verse 24 says, do not befriend a man of anger and do not come along with a man of great wrath, lest you learn his ways and take on a snare against your soul.

The apostle Paul says to the Corinthians, we'll get to this when we get to chapter 15. So first Corinthians chapter 15, bad company corrupts good character.

If you keep bad company, you keep friendship with those who are a bad influence on you, then you will start to behave and act like them.

It's an interesting comparison here to what we read back in verse 14, right? So 24 and 25 say, do not befriend a man of anger.

You'll become like him and take on a snare against your soul. What did verse 14 say? The mouth of strange women is a deep pit.

He who is cursed of Yahweh will fall into it. So there are women to not go after, or it will lead to your destruction.

There are men that you should not keep company with, or it will lead to your destruction versus 26 and 27.

Do not be among those who strike hands in pledge among those who become guarantors for debts.

If you have nothing with which to pay, why should he take your bed from under you? So in other words, you got somebody who's going to sweet talk your way into some kind of a deal and you strike hands, you know, shake hands or something like that.

You, you approve of this deal and boom, you are now obligated to pay back a debt.

He's given you money, seemed good at the time, but now you've got a debt you got to pay back and with interest.

So don't put yourself in those situations where now you've become a slave to the lender. Why should he take your bed from under you?

Pay for what you can afford. It's a very simple economic discipline. Don't buy what you cannot afford.

Verse 28, do not move the ancient boundary, which your fathers made very simply here.

We have the instruction of the Lord that is given to us here in the word of God. Don't change it.

Don't move the boundary lines. Don't try to stretch it out. Don't say things like the Bible whispers about sexual sin.

That's moving the boundary line. No, rather what the Bible says plainly and straightforwardly,

God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Hebrews 13, four, flee from sexual immorality, cling to Christ, be pure in your conduct, be holy as God is holy.

As it says in first Peter one later on, when we get to Proverbs chapter 30, it says every word of God is tested.

He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he reprove you and you be proved a liar.

Lest he reprove you. Did I say that right? Yeah. So do not add to his words, lest he reprove you and you be proved a liar.

That's Proverbs 30 verses five and six. Do not move the ancient boundary, which your fathers made.

Going back to Romans 15 again, which I've mentioned once already, I think it's Romans 15 for that, which was written for us in ancient days, was written for our instruction that through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.

And as Paul has said previously to the Corinthians, first Corinthians chapter 10, these things have been written down for us so that we would not fall into sin as our ancient fathers did.

So we read the word of God and we do what it says. Don't try to move the boundary line.

Verse 29. Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before Kings.

He will not stand before obscure men. If we labor, if we work according to what the word of God says, and we continue to grow spiritually in these things, growing in sanctification, growing in holiness, who will we stand before on that great day?

We will stand before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who will say to us, that is mine.

That one belongs to me. This is a member of my kingdom. Well done, good and faithful servant.

Now great is your reward. Enter into the eternal kingdom that has been prepared for you by my father from before the foundation of the world.

That's what you'll hear him say. And we will fellowship with Kings, the King of Kings forever.

Heavenly father, we thank you for this good word that we have today. May we read it and may we do what it says that we may stand before you justified, received into your wonderful kingdom.

We delight to anticipate this and live for that day. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

It's in his precious name that we pray. Amen. This has been, When We Understand the

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