Proverbs 17, 19. He that loveth transgression,
or let me back up, I said that wrong. He loveth transgression
that loveth strife. And he that exalteth his gate
seeketh destruction. Now, whether or not you've identified
it as such, you probably, all of us know someone that loves
strife. If it's predominant enough in
their lives, you will recognize it. And I suspect everybody knows
somebody like this. There are varying degrees of
it. But people that thrive on drama and turmoil and unrest,
they're not happy unless it's something going on like that
in their lives. Isaiah 57 20 says, the wicked
are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters
cast up mire and dirt. And that's the nature of every
sinner. And the truth of that verse manifests itself in different
ways, casting up mire and dirt, but one of them is this love
of discord and trouble. It's something that is noticeable
in young people as well as old. And I don't remember the specific
time, but I sort of remember the first time it dawned on me
that somebody actually enjoyed turmoil, the opposite of peace
and contentment. And I know it sounds self-righteous
to say it, but it was a little bit shocking to me that somebody
actually, you could just see that they thrived on it. And
I'm not saying I didn't have it in me as well, because we
all do. But it's a lot easier for us
to see it in somebody else than it is to see it in ourselves.
And just to be honest about it and thankful, the Lord has to
a great extent spared me from that. I don't like drama. I don't
like unrest. And I'm thankful for that. In
natural things, some people are spared that more than others.
It's every sinner's nature to be discontent and contentious. This word strife. But as with
most outward sinful attributes, some people are prone to this
outwardly more than others in an obvious way. Some people are
characterized this way. They're known for it. And others
are better at hiding it. And still others are just temperamentally
not prone to it. And I've known all kinds, and
I'm sure you have too, but consider what this is at its core. Discontent,
unless there's some kind of strife, unless there's some kind of turmoil. And I think you'll see this not
only in the right division of the scripture, but in your experience,
that people who love strife are just bored with the lack of it.
They're just bored with normal things. just ordinary things
with which most people are generally occupied, carrying on your everyday
life, you know, just going to work and, you know, putting in
an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. And, you know, buying
groceries and whatever it is you do during your day. Most
people, I would say, are just bored with that. It's just not
enough for them. And some to the point of absolute rebellion
against it. They just won't do it. And this
is a plague upon humanity now. It's a terrible plague. And most
people I don't think recognize this. It's very easy to miss
it, to overlook this. But the source of incalculable
evil in this world is just simply boredom. And you think about
that. Call it discontent, call it sin,
and you'd be right. But this brand of evil, we know
more commonly simply as just boredom. As young kids, this came naturally
to us, didn't it? Just getting bored with the usual
thing and looking for some way to get in trouble. I was relatively,
I lived a very sheltered life, I would say, relatively speaking.
But we all, why did we get into trouble? Why? Because we just
got tired of not getting into trouble. Just bored with it.
We enjoyed a lot of wholesome things. I enjoyed playing sandlot
football, or we'd get together at a basketball game, or just
going down, when we were real little, we'd just go down to
the big ditch, you know, and look for frogs and snakes and
stuff. And that was perfectly, we were
perfectly happy with that. Crawfish, we'd tie a piece of
bacon on a string and feed it down a crawfish hole. Have you
ever done that? If you had never been crawdad fishing, you hadn't
lived. But it wasn't always enough. Wrapping houses, I was pretty
proficient at that. And some people didn't really
care. I mean, it was just a joke and it was fun. Some people knew
we were doing it and didn't say anything about it. Other people
didn't appreciate it quite as much. And we'd get in trouble
if we got caught, which wasn't often. ringing people's doorbells
and running off. People call it ding dong ditching.
We didn't call it that. I don't remember what we called
that when I was little. We've all done it pretty much. Boys have done it. I don't know
about girls. And then it would just get worse
from there, and I won't go too deep into it, but I actually
may or may not have started my own black market fireworks racket. I would stock up on firecrackers. I'd buy what they call a brick
of firecrackers during the Fourth of July. And when everybody else
had popped all of their stuff and set off all their stuff,
I still had a huge supply. So I would sell it at a premium
to the neighborhood kids, and they'd get in trouble. I always
figured it would come back to me somehow, but it never did.
And then we'll probably just stop right there, because it
gets a lot worse from there. And I was very sheltered as a
kid. We lived in a great neighborhood. But it's just all of our, it's
our nature to be bored with just being good. Wholesome, honest, straightforward
living is still boring to most people as adults. And many will get into trouble
because of it. And here's a phrase I believe
that'll help us understand what this is, the love of strife. Two words, not enough. Not enough. Look with me at Proverbs chapter
30. Love of trouble Proverbs 30 Verse 15 I believe
it is 30 15 the horse leech hath two daughters
crying give give There are three things that are never satisfied
yea for things say not It is enough the grave the barren womb,
the earth that is not filled with water, and the fire that
saith not, it is enough. Our nature is like that fire,
it's never enough, we're always consuming. The eye, look at verse
17, it's interesting in the context of verse 16, the eye that mocketh
at his father and despiseth to obey his mother. You just can't
stand just to do what's right. It just ain't enough, is it? The ravens of the valley shall
pick it out and the young eagles shall eat it. You see, it can
be cute when you're three to do bad things, but it gets
a lot less cute when you're 17, 20, 40. And it don't change, our nature
never changes, it just gets worse. The nature itself doesn't get
any worse, but we get better at expressing it in subtle ways,
in a way we get smarter at getting away with it. But it doesn't get less voracious,
never enough, enough, enough, like the troubled sea always
casting up mire. And understanding what this is
is critical to understanding the spiritual lesson of our text. Because the spiritual teaching
here is illustrated very well by this. Strife in spiritual
things. Strife in your soul. Never resting in Christ. like
the troubled sea always casting up mire rather than hearing the
voice of the master say, peace be still. Strifes of words, strifes in
the church can be identified by these same two words, not
enough, not enough. People start arguing and finding
fault. Starting rumors and talking behind
people's backs and meddling in everybody else's business when
Christ is not enough When the worship is not enough People start seeking contentment
in the world and they start consulting the wisdom of the world when
Christ is not enough And in natural things, you know,
the Lord blesses some, and I believe he's blessed me with some things
in the, just being content. That's what it boils down to.
Everybody has their primary business in life, whatever it is that
supports your family and you make a living at. And then the
rest of your time you spend doing whatever it is you enjoy. You
may enjoy your job, most people don't. But you're gonna seek
that which you enjoy when you're not having to do what you have
to do to make a living. And that can be various things.
For me, I love to go fishing, I love gardening, I like woodworking. Those things keep me out of trouble
by God's grace. And it really is that simple.
God uses those things, but more important than the things, because
it doesn't matter what it is for you, doesn't matter what
it is, God gives you the grace to be happy with those things,
to be content doing that. Most people would probably be
bored to death and not have any interest, and not get real excited
about growing a squash in their backyard. Most people I know
wouldn't care for that, or a cucumber, they wouldn't get excited over
that. You may not have the patience to sit in a boat for five hours
and catch three fish. I love it. I love it. I would
count that an outstanding day. And that's a day where I didn't
offend a single person. That's a day when I didn't hurt
anybody. But in spiritual things, what
God uses to keep us out of trouble is Christ being enough. His worship,
the things of Christ. Christ is, by God's grace, enough. That's what keeps us from being
part of the problem in the church of God. I don't wanna argue with
anybody. You know why? Because Christ
is enough. I don't care. to argue with it,
I really don't. I hope that you can be content
with Christ, and I can be content with Christ, and we can fellowship
and worship together. If it's not that way, you're
gonna have to argue with somebody else, because Christ is not.
I want to hear of him. I don't want to take stances
on points. No interest in that. You ask
me what my stance is on something, I'm just gonna say, look, I just
like to hear about the Lord. Brother Jack used to say, we'd
come in on Wednesday, we'd be wore out on a Wednesday night.
Most of us are tired and hard to concentrate sometimes on a
Wednesday night. But the Lord blessed Jack to
preach the gospel so simply and beautifully. But he would say,
we would come in and he would say, you know, you came here
tonight to hear me say good things about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I was like, that's exactly why I came here tonight. And
he said, I pray I'll be able to do that. Christ is enough. Don't wanna
argue with anybody, not interested in other people's business. It's just simply being happy
with the simplicity of what God has arranged and ordained. God
created his church from the very beginning since the time of the
Passover. There's been a holy convocation,
a public gathering of the people of God to worship him in Christ. And there still is. And I don't want to hurt anybody's
feelings. If that happens beyond my control,
I'm sorry about that. And it has. Even when I'm not
happy with somebody, I don't want to hurt their feelings because
Christ is enough. I want that to be true for them.
I don't want to give anybody a piece of my mind. You know,
everybody says, I'm going to give them a piece of my mind.
Well, even when, when somebody's wrong, I don't want to do that.
I really don't. Now when I say that, there are
times when we do, don't we? But when I'm thinking right,
I don't consult this world because Christ is enough. Christ being enough is not a
doctrine. You can't agree with things and Christ is enough for
you. It's a constant reality. It is
the work of God in the heart. It is Christ in you. It's either
true or it's not true. You can't learn it. It's a gift
of God's grace. It involves learning. But you can't learn to be content
except as God reveals Christ in you more and more and more. It's a person, it's knowing him. It's him being your heart's desire. It's like in natural things,
when you gravitate to what you love to do, when you've got spare
time, some of you don't even know what that is, spare time. Maybe we have a little bit of
it, but whatever you gravitate to, It's like that in spiritual
things. Where your treasure is, that's
where your heart is. It's the simple teaching of our
Lord. Believing on him, you come and
you hear of him, You want to hear of Him, there's nothing
you'd rather do. You sing His praises, you delight in the fellowship
of His people. You try to be a blessing to His
people in whatever way the Lord may gift you to do that. And in whatever way He honors
you to be able to do that. And it's enough. That's the key. You remember what Jacob said
to Esau? I have enough. When we can say that in the simple
worship of God, by the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, I have enough. Then we will have learned, as
Paul said, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.