Proverbs 16, 29, a violent man
enticeth his neighbor and leadeth him into the way that is not
good. He shutteth his eyes to devise
froward things. Moving his lips, he bringeth
evil to pass. So these two verses go together,
as you can see. So let's just sort of begin looking
at these words. The word violent here is not
just what we might think of when we think of violent, we think
of physical violence. But the word means violent, wrong,
cruel, and unjust. So there's a lot included in
that. And interestingly, the word there, violent, in the original
Hebrew is hamas. I don't know if the terrorist
group Hamas used that name because of this. I don't know. There
may be more to it than that. But it means violent, wrong,
cruel, and unjust, Hamas. And the word neighbor here doesn't
just mean who lives next door to you. It's people that they
come in contact with, acquaintances. peers and As we know from from other scripture
and from personal experience this type of person of violent
Cruel and just wrong just It's just an evil person which is
all of us by nature of course, but but particularly those who
are outside of Christ in this context, those who don't know
the Lord Jesus is who it is, those who are not righteous in
Christ. But they're not happy with just
being an idiot all by themselves. They want to convince others
to be idiots with them. And it's easy to envision when
you read this, a violent man enticing his neighbor, you might
picture some gang member recruiting, you know, more gang members or
something like that. But when we break down each of
the words in this text, it's down to just their basic meaning,
that meaning of that word violent. It's not just somebody that does
physical violence. and neighbor and leadeth and
not good. And we look at these things in
their basic meaning. This can be, and most often is
in reality, a lot more subtle than physical violence. Anybody
that's wrong, enticing someone else to be wrong about something
in particular or whatever, There doesn't have to be physical violence
involved anyone with a twisted sense of justice It's unjust
the word is unjust it includes that and That's of course the
evil they have a Sense of what they think is right. There is
a way that seemeth right just true to a man, but the end thereof
are the ways of death and destruction. And I thought about just an example
of that. You know why people smash storefronts
and steal stuff? To them, that's justice. They've
been wronged. Society owes them something.
That's a twisted sense of justice. And of course, they just do it
because they're flat out evil. They steal, they're robbers.
But that's another reason they would say that they're owed. And that's just an example of
how man in his violent, cruel, unjust, wrong, evil nature thinks. That's justice to them. They
hurt people they don't even know because they feel like it's unjust
that they have things that they don't. But now think of the same type
of thing with words only, not outward violence, not outward
cruelty. People are cruel, but they can
be cruel in so many ways. It's not just physical. People
are ruthless. Sinners are ruthless. They're
selfish. They don't care who they hurt to get what they want.
They're unjust. And other sinners are easily
enticed to follow people that are outwardly that way because
of our evil nature. I don't remember ever being enticed
to do something good. Just the very fact that you have
to be enticed usually means it's not good. And that's false religion,
isn't it? In a nutshell, they beg, they
plead, they entice, they try to woo people down the aisle.
The gospel's not like that. God doesn't beg. God's preachers
don't beg. It's not with enticing words
of man's wisdom. Gospel's a declaration. It's
a command, not an enticement. Think about those who preach,
teach, or just tell of the false god of free will religion. They
do violence to the souls of men. It's not physical violence. But
listen, Paul wrote about the false teachers in Acts 20, 29. He described them this way. They're
grievous wolves, not sparing the flock. And all they're doing
is just saying some things. Grievous wolves, not sparing
the flock. That's violence, but not the
kind that we normally think of. That's what our text is talking
about. And they're wrong, the word wrong is in the definition.
They're wrong about that which it is vital to be right about.
It's okay to be wrong about some things, but not this. Not the
truth of God. The word cruel is in the definition. It's cruel, it's cruel to tell
a lame man that he has to take the first step. And yet that's what they're doing.
They're telling dead people to come down an aisle. And their
false doctrine, it's unjust is part of the definition too, their
false doctrine is a violation of the justice of God. They say
that God is not fair. If he just saves who he wants
to save, that's not fair. And so they come up with their
own sense of justice in false religions, own sense of justice. The only way for this thing to
be fair is if God leaves everything up to us. That's not justice. That's the most unjust thing
you could possibly think of. Even in the courts of men, think
about this. Even in the courts of men, when
you're standing as the defendant, as the one
accused of a crime. What's up to you? There's not
anything up to you. You're just sitting there waiting
to see what's gonna happen. So in the courts of God, how
is that just? To leave it up to the guilty.
It's not that way. Justice is what God says and
what God does. And again, sinners are easily
enticed to see justice the way this violent man does because
it's our nature to hate God. It's our nature to selfishly
malign the very character of God so that we can appease our
own sense of justice. That's this violent man. We're easily led by bad example,
by enticing words of man's wisdom into that way that seemeth right
to a man, but the end thereof is destruction. Because by nature,
unless the Lord gives us eyes to see the truth, to believe
a heart to believe the truth of God, we're easily enticed.
Listen to Romans 16, 17. Paul wrote, now I beseech you,
brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary
to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them. It doesn't
matter which doctrine it is. If it's not the gospel, avoid
them, avoid them, mark them which cause divisions and avoid them For they that
are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ. They can use his name
all the time, but they're not serving the Lord Jesus Christ,
but their own belly, their own appetites, their own lust, their
own fleshly desires. And by good words and fair speeches,
Good words. They use a lot of good words,
don't they? Talking about God and heaven and mercy and grace. They use grace, the word grace.
Have no idea what grace is. By good words and fair speeches,
they deceive the hearts of the simple. That's our text. Now, in our text there, it says
he shuts his eyes. And what that's talking about
is he meditates, he closes his eyes and thinks about it. He contemplates the evil that
he's devising by closing his eyes. That's what we do when
we're thinking hard about something. We don't want any distractions.
That's a picture of this man given serious thought to the
evil that's in his heart and coming up with ways, man devises
ways of distorting the truth, the justness of the gospel. But what a description this is
because We see that picture, you know, when you're really
thinking about something, you might close your eyes and meditate
on it, contemplate it, and that's what this is. But what a picture
that is, because in contemplating ways to, and what I think of
when I think about that is they come up with ways for the Bible
to not say what it says. That's just the truth, isn't
it? They devised all kinds of ways. Now, most people don't
even give it a whole lot of thought. They just think what they want
to think and get on with their lives. But false preachers, they
come up with ways to avoid the truth. That doesn't say that.
And they'll even turn to scripture and say, well, this refutes that. But they're taking
scripture out of context and perverting the meaning of the
word of God. And so they do that, but the
picture of them closing their eyes to do that, when they devise
evil, in closing their eyes, they're
shutting their eyes to the truth. They're deliberately shutting
out the light of God. He's shutting his eyes to the
plain, clear truth of God. I've experienced this, talking
to people about the gospel and showing them scripture where
they just plainly declare that God is God. And they'll just
shut their eyes to that. You know, God loved Jacob and
God hated Esau. That's not complicated. God chose
one of them. He loved Jacob from the beginning. He loved him with an everlasting
love, and not Esau. That's not complicated, but they
just shut their eyes to that because it doesn't fit in with
their evil, unjust way of thinking concerning God. And so they shut
their eyes to that. Shut their eyes to the gospel
rather than, and So this shutting it, what a picture that is because
the gospel faith is pictured by what? The opening of blind
eyes. Being able to see. Our Lord pictured
that by giving sight to the blind. And this is the opposite of that.
Rather than with a God-given heart of faith, what did Moses
say? Look and live, look and live,
look. But they shut their eyes. They're
not gonna look at the true Christ of the Bible, because they hate
him. Shutting their eyes to the Lord
Jesus Christ, the only one that can save their soul, forsaking
their own mercy. And notice he brings to pass
the evil that he contemplates in his heart. perverting the Word of God Distorting
in changing the truth of God into a lies the scripture puts
it in one place But then they bring evil to pass
they act on it Everything comes from the heart
and the Lord listed all those things that proceed from the
heart they act upon what's in their heart and The way they
do it is with their words. You see that in our text. By
moving their lips, as it pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. I love that verse right
at the beginning of the book of Matthew where it says, he
opened his mouth and taught them. That's how God saves sinners. But that's also how sinners are
deceived, by the opening of the mouth, by the moving of the lips,
by teaching false Christ, anti-Christ teaching. It's by the speaking
of false doctrine, telling lies about God, speaking not according
to the word of God. and telling lies about how God
saves sinners. It's just simple as a couple
of little things that a man can just decide to do. He can just
get up and walk an aisle and say, I wanna go to heaven when
I die. And that's salvation? So as it's pleased the Lord to
save sinners by the foolishness of preaching, speaking, heralding
the truth of Christ, it's by false doctrine, the speaking
of false doctrine and telling lies about God and the truth
of God. It's by that means that the hearts
of sinners are deceived and ultimately damned. And here's what I just wanna
close with. Be careful who you listen to. Matthew 7, 15, beware of false
prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing. It's gonna
be somebody you probably like. It's going to probably be somebody
that you have some respect for. It's probably going to be somebody
that sounds so much like they have your best interest at heart,
but inwardly they are ravening wolves. They come in sheep's
clothing. But inwardly, they are ravening
wolves. Beware, beware. And it's not just false preachers
who can steer you wrong, it's a false witness of any kind,
and they're everywhere. They're everywhere, false witnesses.
And don't judge that. Don't judge whether they're a
false witness or somebody that you can trust. by how much you
like them or by who is most convincing, judge it by the word of God.
The only truth in this world, the word of God, the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Be careful, be wary. There's
so many warnings in scripture concerning this and may God impress
this on our hearts this morning. Anything that's not Christ is
eternally deadly.