Good morning. We're going to
be in Proverbs chapter 31 this morning. If you'd like to turn
with me there in your Bibles. This Sunday, two weeks ago I
guess it was, before we left to go out to Montana, I began
Proverbs 31 and we looked at the first 10 verses. This morning
we'll begin at verse 11 and try to find our way through to the
end of this chapter. I want to thank the men that
were so faithful to preach Christ to you in my absence, and I'm
very, very grateful for you and especially for them. The church in Montana covets
your prayers, and I assured them that as the Lord enabled us that
we would pray for them. in hopes of the Lord providing
them a pastor. But we had good services there,
and I was very encouraged and thankful to visit with them once
again. I'm sure everybody knows that
Rainin, the way she gave birth to Axel while we were gone, And
I just got a text this morning from Phil that Axel had surgery
this morning and is still very, very critical. So I want us to
pray together for them. Next Sunday, we'll have lunch
together in our new fellowship hall, so y'all come prepared
for that. All right, let's ask our Lord's
mercy and blessings. Our Heavenly Father, we come
before thy throne of grace, so very thankful that that is what
it is, a throne of grace. We thank you, Lord, for the accomplished
work of thy dear Son, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who
put away the sins of his people once and for all by the sacrifice
of himself. Lord, we pray that you'd be pleased
to send your spirit and power and that Christ will be lifted
up and that our hearts will be drawn in faith to him and that
we find him to be all our salvation, all our righteousness, all our
justification, all our wisdom. Our all in all, Lord, bless us
with your mercy and with your grace. We have no ground or merit
in and of ourselves to come into thy presence, but oh, how thankful
we are for that solid ground that we have in Christ, the rock
of ages. Pray that our feet will be planted
firm on him this morning. We pray for little Axel and we
ask Lord for your hand of protection and healing to be upon his little
body and pray for your grace and for your mercy for him and
for the Weishi family as they wait in faith on you. We ask it all in Christ's name.
Amen. You have your Bibles open to
Proverbs chapter 31. Many, most I would say, of the
Proverbs are written as parables. A parable is a natural event
that all men can understand, but hid within that natural occurrence
is the mystery of the Gospel. It does not require the work
of the Holy Spirit to understand the surface meaning of these
Proverbs. They are easily understood as
they're written to give us wisdom and direction in life, but to
understand the gospel, we are in need of the Holy Spirit. The
natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit. You remember
when our Lord gave the parable of the soils, and the disciples
afterwards said, Lord, why do you speak to them in parables? And the Lord said, because it's
not for them to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. It's been
given unto you. And And you would think at that point
the disciples would say, okay, wonderful, we understand it now.
But they didn't. They said, Lord, explain to us
the parable. So even though it had been given
unto them to understand the parable, they were in need of the Lord
to reveal the truth of that parable, as we are in all parables, to
them. So we see much of scripture is
written that way. And the heart of the child of
God always wants to see more of Christ. Turn with me over
just a page in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter one. I wanna
show you a verse in Ecclesiastes chapter one at verse eight. All things are full of labor,
man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with
seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing." Now, the truth of that
verse relates to the physical eye and the physical ear. We
just spent a week in one of the most beautiful places I've ever
seen and Tricia and I were constantly saying, wow, look at that. Wow,
look at that. And I can't tell you how many
times we said that to each other. Every time we'd turn around,
there would be something different to look at. And you understand
what I'm saying. The eye is never satisfied with
what it sees. It wants to see something more.
And the ear is never full of hearing. The flesh is never satisfied
with what it has. It always wants more. But this
is also true of the spiritual eye and the spiritual ear. Though
we be satisfied with Christ, we are satisfied with Christ. We're not looking anywhere other
than the Lord Jesus Christ for our righteousness before God.
We're satisfied with his person. We're satisfied with his work.
We're satisfied that he did everything necessary to put the sins of
his people away. He put them away and God saw
the travail of his soul and God was satisfied and we're satisfied. But David put it like this. He said, he said, I will be satisfied
when I awake in his likeness. There's, there's a part of the
heart of the child of God that always wants to know more about
Christ. We want to see more of His glory.
We want to experience more of His grace. We want to know more
of who He is and what He's done. That's why Paul said in Philippians
chapter 3, oh, that I might know Him, the power of His resurrection,
the fellowship of His suffering. He said, I've not yet apprehended
that which has apprehended me, but this one thing I do, pressed
towards the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ
Jesus. And every time we awake in the morning, the Spirit of
God moves the hearts of God's people to want to see more of
Christ. And that's especially true when
we come together. And so the eye is never satisfied
with what it sees in that sense, and the ear is never satisfied
with what it hears. Tell me more. I don't want to
hear something new and clever, but I want to hear more about
who Christ is and about what he has done. And so I pray the
Lord will reveal the mystery of the gospel of Christ to our
hearts this morning through this parable. Now, as I said a couple
of weeks ago, this virtuous woman that's described here would be
every believer in woman's heart desire to be this kind of woman,
but no believing woman would ever refer to herself as a Proverbs
31 woman. We know that in Christ, we are
perfect, and we have the Lord Jesus Christ to look to and to
follow after. But the mystery of the gospel
in Proverbs 31 is that the Lord is revealing the nature of his
church. This is the bride of Christ that's
being revealed here. This is the body of Christ of
which you and I are a part of, and our Lord is exalting her,
much like he did in the Song of Solomon when he spoke of her
beauty and speaks of her comeliness, her strength, and her grace,
all given to her by her husband. And so it's important for us,
it's necessary for us to understand how the Lord sees us. And because, you know, every
single one of us are at least three different people. We are
the person that other people see us to be, we are the person
that we see ourselves to be, and we are the person that God
sees us to be. And I want us to glory in the
person that God sees us to be, because that's who we are. That's
who we are. The way God sees it is the way
it is. The way we see ourselves, none
of us really know ourselves very well, do we? And the way other
people see us, aren't you glad that others don't know all the
thoughts and intents of your heart? But here's how God sees
us. Here's how he sees his bride
and he glories in her. Notice in verse 11, the heart
of her husband doth trust her, safely trust her. Our Lord is not suspicious of
his wife. What a horrible thing that would
be to be married to a woman that you didn't trust. Trust is the
foundation of every relationship, isn't it? Without trust, there
is no relationship humanly, nor in our relationship with God.
Faith is trusting him. But here the Lord says that he
trusts her. He trusts her. Why does he trust
her? Because he knows every thought
and intent of her heart. He gave her the heart that she
has. And he's constantly changing her heart and moving her heart
and speaking to her heart. And so there's no secrets. And she's constantly exposing
and revealing the thoughts and intents of her heart in prayer
to him. We say things to God in prayer
that we would never want another person to know. And we ought
not to let another person to know. Some people think they're being
spiritual when they start exposing their sins to other men. Don't
do that. That's not being spiritual. You're
just becoming a stumbling block to somebody else is what you're
doing. You know, if you've sinned against someone, of course, you
know, ask for forgiveness. But otherwise, you reveal your
sins to God and only to him. He's the only one that can help
you with it. And so, what great trust there is in that the Lord
has revealed to us in his word all that we need to know about
him, and he knows all that there is to be known about us. And
he's, The heart of her husband, who's
her husband? Christ. The heart of her husband
doth safely trust in her. He rules her heart and she likes
it that way. Notice the last part of this
verse. So that he shall have no need
to spoil. He doesn't have to go out and
fight battles for her to get spoils of reward. She is her
spoil. She is his spoil and his reward. That's clear in Isaiah chapter
53. The Lord Jesus Christ went to Calvary's cross to fight the
battle, to win his bride, to pay, if you will, her dowry,
and to make her his own. And the reward is his wife. That's his spoil of battle. He tells us in Isaiah chapter
40 that we're to comfort God's people. Comfort ye, comfort ye
my people. Speak ye comfortably to her.
Tell her her warfare is accomplished and her sins are pardoned. And
she has received of the Lord's hand double for her sins. What a gracious husband we have
as the church, the bride of Christ. And this is how he sees us. This is who we are. glorious
and radiant and perfect. Perfect in his sight. And once
again, we see ourselves, we don't consider ourselves to be perfect,
but in Christ, this is the Lord speaking about his bride as he
sees her in the fullness of her beauty and strength and holiness
given to her in Christ. What a picture. You know, we,
there, There is a sense in which we want to live up to the expectations
that the most important people in our lives have of us. Isn't
that true? You know, children are greatly
influenced by the opinions that their parents have of them. And so it is, you know, we become
the person that the most significant person in our lives tells us
we are. Isn't that true? I mean, psychologically,
that's true in terms of our human relationships, isn't it? Who's
the most important person to the believer? It's the Lord. Here's what he's doing. He's
telling us who we are, how he sees us, and what is the motivation
here is to live up to this expectation. It's to please him and to rejoice
in what he has made us to be in Christ. Look at verse 12. She will do him good and not
evil all the days of her life. She will remain faithful to him.
He will see to it. She will not leave him, and he
will not leave her. Scriptures are clear. If anyone
goes away from the church, away from the body of Christ, that
they were never of us. That's what the Lord says. They
went out from us because they were never of us. For had they
been of us, they would have remained. Isn't that what John tells us?
And that's what our Lord's saying here. She will do him good and
not evil all the days of her life. She cannot live without
him. She will depend upon him and
rejoice in him. and he will see to it. Aren't
you glad? This isn't, this isn't, you know,
something for her to be proud of in terms of, well, I'm going
to, I'm going to be faithful and I'm going to, you know, I'm
going to be committed. And no, he's going to, he's going
to make sure that that happens. Turn with me over just to, this
is, this is the, this is the bride of Christ. Turn with me
over to a song of Solomon. Chapter five. Look at verse seven. The watchman
that went out about the city found me. They smote me, they
wounded me. The keepers of the walls took
away my bail from me. Now this is the bride of Christ
who's looking for her husband. She's seeking him with all her
heart. And she runs into these false
prophets, and they rob her of her hope by beating her with
law and telling her that there's something that she needs to do
in order to earn favor with her husband. Verse 8, I charge you, O daughters
of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that
I am sick of love. She responds to their beatings
by saying, if you find my husband, just tell him I'm sick with love. I need him. I've got to have
him. And here's what they say in response to her. What is thy
beloved more than another beloved? O thou fairest among women. What
makes you so special? Child of God, have you had your
friends and family members say that to you? Your religious friends
and family members? Sure you have. When we declare
who Christ is and what he's done, and that this is the one and
only true gospel that will save a sinner's soul, what do they
say? Well, what makes you so special?
What makes your God so special? What is thy beloved more than
another beloved? O thou fairest among women. They're
being sarcastic to her. What is thy beloved more than
another beloved that thou dost so charge us? Why aren't you
satisfied with our husband? Your prophets have just told
you about our husband. The watchman on the wall have
just told you about him. And she doesn't want anything
to do with him. He abuses her. No, she wants a husband
that loves her. a husband that will keep her
and treat her with love and mercy. And that's the relationship that
Christ has with his church. He's never raised his hand against
his bride, not once. And what a glorious husband we
have. Husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. I speak
unto you, Ephesians chapter five, a great mystery concerning Christ
and his church. It's the pattern, isn't it? The
relationship that Christ has with his bride is the pattern
that believers are to look to and to seek after. Oh, we fall
so far short, but he doesn't. He doesn't. Now, this is a description
of his relationship with his bride. Go back with me to our
text. Verse 13. She seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly
with her hands. She doesn't have to be intimidated.
She doesn't have to be threatened. Oh, her work is a willing work. He has made her willing in the
day of his power, hasn't he? She doesn't have to be shamed. She doesn't have to create committees
and offices and beat one another up and intimidate one another
with a law in order to get her to serve him. She's a willing
servant. And what is she seeking after? She's seeking after wool and
flax. You know, the first mention of
wool in the Bible is when Gideon put that fleece out on the ground,
and Gideon wanted a sign from God. And I know I've shared this
with you all before, but I've heard people say, well, let's
look for a sign. No, don't look for a sign. Don't
look for a sign. The sign that Gideon had was
given to him in order to point to Christ. We have all that we
need in what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished and who he is
and what he's revealed about himself in his word. We're not
looking for a sign. Signs are deceiving. God's word
is true and faithful. It's pure and perfect. We rely
upon the revelation that he's given us in his word. But Gideon
put out that fleece, you remember? And he asked the Lord to prove
what he was hearing by making the fleece wet and making the
ground around the fleece dry. And sure enough, the next morning,
Gideon got up and he wrung bowls of water out of that fleece.
And Gideon still wasn't convinced. So the next night he said, Lord,
make the ground wet and make the fleece dry. And the next
day he got up and the ground was wet and the fleece was bone
dry. And we know what that fleece
is. It goes all the way back to the garden. It's the righteousness
of Christ. It's what God has given us to
cover our nakedness before God. And the full anointing of the
Spirit of God fell upon the Lord Jesus Christ as he lived out
a life of perfect obedience and righteousness before God. And
that's the wet fleece. And then the next morning, the
ground's wet, but the fleece is dry. That's a picture of Christ
on Calvary's cross, where he pours out his soul in agony for
the sins of his people in order to provide that same spirit to
his people. There's the sign, that's the
first. She seeketh after wool. What is she seeking after? She's
seeking after the anointing of the spirit of God. She's praying,
Lord, send, every time we come together, what do we pray? Lord,
send your spirit and power. Open the eyes of our understanding,
reveal to us the glory of Christ. Show us who you are and what
you've done. Give us faith to rest all the hope of our salvation
on him. That's what she's seeking. She's
seeking the righteousness of Christ. She's seeking to know
him. The eye is not satisfied with
seeing. She wants to see more, nor the
ear full with hearing. She wants to hear more about
him. Oh, here's, here's her, here's her heart. Look at, look
at this text. She seeketh wool and flax. Now flax is what linen is made
out of. And linen in the scriptures was
the clothing of the priest. And God has made us to be priests
and kings so that we're able to come into the very presence
of God. We don't look to a man as our priest. We don't set up
an individual sinner, another sinner, to be our intercessor.
There is one man between God and man, the God-man, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's our mediator, and he's given
to us. He said, I will make you kingdom,
a kingdom of priests. So she's seeking after this flack
so that she can make, she can have a, A linen garment able
to come into the very presence of God. Revelation chapter 19, verse
13, when John saw the church, the bride of Christ, the virtuous
woman, when he saw her in heaven, he asked, who are these? And
here's what the angel said, for the fine linen that you see on
them, is the righteousness of the saints. The fine linen is
the righteousness of the saints. Here we are standing as priest
in the very presence of God, but she's always seeking more
wool and more flecks. That's her heart's desire to
know him and to be in her presence. Her work is all done to not to
call attention to herself, but to but to honor her husband That's
what her work is done for And and and here's what she's saying.
She seeketh wool and fax and worketh willingly with her hands
Look at verse look at verse 14 She is like the merchant ship
she bringeth her food from afar now we were in Montana last week,
got home yesterday. That's a long way for us. And you've traveled, you know,
long way from home before. But what is that distance compared
to heaven? That's a long way away, isn't
it? That's a far, for the natural man it is. The natural man can't
get there. And so the Lord traveled a far
distance. He condescended. He opened the
windows of heaven. He was made in the likeness of
sinful flesh. He came as a man and brought
heaven to earth in himself. And she seeks her wool and her
flax from a place that's too far for the natural man to travel.
Had he not made that travel to us, we never would have been
able to travel that distance to him. Look at verse 15. She riseth
also while it is yet night and giveth me to her household and
a portion to her maiden. I had that experience, especially
last night, still jet lagging a little bit. And, you know,
Sunday mornings, I'm up really early preparing a meal, looking
back over my notes and hoping the Lord will be pleased to bless
our services. And how many times you've gotten
up And you've thought on the things of God and sought His
face and poured out your soul in prayer in times of great need
to Him. Here's what she does. She knows
that her husband neither sleeps nor slumbers. He's always awake. He's always waiting and watching.
He's never far away. She's, he's as close to her as
her lips. When she speaks, he's there.
He's there every time. She is like the merchant ship.
She brings her food from afar. We are eating meat right now
that came a long way to get here. You can't buy this food anywhere.
This is the body of Christ. Lest you eat of my flesh and
drink of my blood, you have no life in you. And this book that
we're looking to is the revelation of who he is and what he's done.
In the volume of the book, it is written of me. We are bringing
our food from heaven. This is heavenly food. This is
the manna that came down from heaven. Isn't that what the Lord
said? He said, yep, Moses didn't give you that manna that you
ate in the wilderness. We live in a wilderness. We're
in a dry and thirsty land. There's no food for our souls.
We feed our bodies, but our souls are never satisfied unless the
Lord sends us bread from heaven, unless he reveals Christ to us. She riseth also while it is yet
night. That's where The only way this is a dark world
There's no light in this world Scripture says those false prophets
that she met there in the Song of Solomon That she was pleading
with to help her find her husband. I You know how that ended, don't
you? She answers that question, that
they ask her, what is your husband more than our husband? And she
describes him to them. And you know what they said to
her? They said, where is he? We want to find him too. Where
is he? Oh, he's down in the garden.
He's in his church. That's where he is. He's right
here, where two or three are gathered together in my name.
There I am in the midst of them. He inhabits the praise of His
people. He walks among the candlesticks. This is where our Lord is pleased
to show forth His grace and His glory to sinners. What a blessing we have. This
is a rare thing. Who can find a virtuous woman?
The one over there in Tennessee? The one in Montana? two or three
up in West Virginia and Kentucky, where are we going to find a
virtuous woman? This woman that speaks of her
husband so gloriously and knows him. We have to be very careful to
protect her, don't we? That's why the Lord tells us
in Romans chapter 16 to mark those who cause division in the
church and avoid them. The church is very fragile. We
have to be careful. It's a rare, rare, rare thing
God's given us. She gives a portion to her maidens.
There we are. The Lord's feeding us. He's feeding
us. She considereth the field and
buyeth it when the fruit of her hands she planted the vineyard. I think about what we did. Some of you men been here with
us for almost 25 years now. When we started meeting 25 years
ago and we met for and ladies. But I was thinking about the
meeting that we had when the men got together and we decided
to buy this field. And after we had been gathering
together for a few years and we put our resources together
and we bought a field and Jeff was telling me this past week,
Jeff Tovenheim, he said, oh I hope that Lord, we're pleased to keep
us together for my children's sake, for my children's sake. We bought this field and we built
this property just so we could have a place to meet and preach
Christ. And our hope and prayer is the
Lord will keep us faithful for our children and our grandchildren's
sake. He won't put this candle out. There she is. She considered
the field and she buyeth it. The fruit of her hand, she planteth
a vineyard. Here's where we're planting the
vineyard every time we come together, aren't we? And we're depending upon the
Lord to make it grow. Paul said, I planted and Apollos
watered and God gave the increase. If the Lord doesn't give the
increase, all of our labors are in vain. They're just in vain. We're just spinning our wheels
if the Lord doesn't give the increase. She girdeth her loins with strength,
and she strengtheneth her arms. Ephesians Chapter 6, when it
speaks of the spiritual armor, speaks of our waist being gird
up with the belt of truth. Oh, if we depart from the truth
of the gospel, then we'll no longer be this woman. The Lord
is going to have to keep us girded up with the belt of truth. the truth of who Christ is and
the truth of what he's accomplished and the glorious, immutable truth
of his word. Our only question is what sayeth
the scriptures? Now, it doesn't matter what you
think or what I think about anything, does it? You know, we all have
in our opinions You know the word, the word opinion is to
make a choice. And the word heresy that's in
the Bible is exactly the same word as opinion. It's for man
to make a choice, to choose something outside of what's been revealed
by God. That's heresy. And what does
our Lord say in here? She girdeth her loins with strength
and she strengtheneth her arms The right arm of God is the righteousness
of Christ. And here we're, we keep looking
to God's word to find more of his glory. Never satisfied until
we fully awaken his likeness. That's when we'll be, see the
fullness of who he is and be made, be made like him. The Lord himself is her strength. And His Word is her rule of life. His Word reveals Christ and Christ
is her rule of life. She just looks to God's Word. What does God say? I was talking
to somebody out in Montana this week and they were asking me
about our church and wanted to know what denomination and what
kind of creeds we adhere to and that sort of thing. You know,
I was able to tell him, you know, the Bible, all we need. It's the full revelation of Christ
to his bride. Look at verse 19, she layeth
her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the staff. Here she's, what are we doing
right now? we are working the spindle. That's
what we're doing. And we are weaving together scripture
to scripture, that which is spiritual to that which is spiritual, letting
God speak, letting God, I should never put those words together,
but hoping that God will speak to our hearts by his word. As we weave together the tapestry
of the gospel, and we're just, We're using scripture to compare
scripture and to reveal scripture. And that's what she does. If
she's doing something else, it's because she's not the bride of
Christ. This is the bride, and this is what she does. You pray for me as the Lord enables
you during the break. I was hoping to get through this
chapter the first hour. hold off the second message that
I had prepared for this morning and continue along these lines
the next hour. Our Heavenly Father, I pray that
you direct our steps. We pray it in Christ's name.
Amen. Okay.