All right, if you'd return to
Proverbs chapter 4 in your Bibles. The proverbs are often approached
by people as a series of wise sayings that we are to apply
in our day-to-day lives in order that we might have more successful
lives. Well, I will have to say this,
that if we take them that way, we'll gain a benefit from them.
The things that are spoken of, even the very practical things,
they are generalities. General rules which make for
a better life. But that's not why they were
given. Because it doesn't matter how successful your life is,
it ends. And it ends the same way everybody
else's ends. The scriptures are not so much
taken up with the matters that pertain to this life, as they
are taken up with the life to come. Or maybe we could put it
this way, because in reality, we who believe, we're already
in the life to come. That is, the life to come is
already in us. Maybe that's the way to put it. New spiritual
life has been created in us. And so far as our spirits are
concerned, and so far as our worship and our relationship
to God is concerned, we're already New creation. It's just so. So maybe it would
better instead of saying this life as opposed to life to come,
let's say it's less concerned with the matters of our fleshly
day-to-day life as it is concerned with the matters of our spiritual
lives. And so when we read the Psalms,
we want to look past what may seem the immediate practical
value of them and find a much greater value in them when we
apply them spiritually as they should be. They are about spiritual
principles. That was a problem that the Jews
of the days of our Lord, that's why they didn't recognize Christ. because they look into the Old
Testament and particularly to the books of Moses and all this
and all they saw was rules. All they saw was things to do
that pertain to this life and they thought by the doing of
them they could obtain the favor of God And so while they were
so busy doing all those rules and even inventing many more,
they utterly missed what the scriptures were about. They are
about Christ. Our Lord says, you search the
scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life. They are
the scriptures that testify about me, but you won't come to me
that you might have life. Paul says the law is good if
a man uses it lawfully. Well, what's the lawful use of
the law? Well, by law, he meant more than just the Ten Commandments
given on Sinai. He meant that entire covenant
which God made with Israel from Mount Sinai. And when you look
at that, it was not given simply as a, not even primarily, as
a set of rules for them to follow. It was given to them to show
them Christ. particularly in all the, what
you might call the Levitical laws, the laws that regulated
the priesthood and worship at the tabernacle and then later
at the temple. Thus the psalmist could say,
how I love thy law, and I meditate on it day and night. I don't
think he sat all night going over the Ten Commandments. He
was thinking about the worship of God through the sacrifice
of a substitutionary lamb. He was thinking about the high
priest that would go in on the day of atonement and pour out
the blood on the mercy seat and the sins of Israel would be atoned
for. And he was a believing man. He had spiritual life within
him. He understood that all those rules really weren't about that
temple. For God does not dwell in a temple
made with hands. It was not about the sons of
Levi. nor the sons of Aaron who were
the high priests. It was about the promised one
to come. And now that's something to meditate on day and night.
And that's something to love. And when we look at the Proverbs,
we're not just looking for ways to make our lives prosper in
this world, we're looking for Christ in it, we're looking for
the spiritual things pertaining to Christ. Now, how were we to
look at this passage I read? It says, my son. Well, when this
was written, of course it was written by Solomon, whether Solomon
was recording the things that his father David said to him,
or if he's writing down things that he wants his son to keep
in mind, here's one thing we know. Whoever that son was, they
utterly failed. Solomon failed to do the things
that are written here. Do you know who it was introduced
idolatry into Israel? Like all the kings of old, he
found great glory for himself in the multitude of his wives
and concubines. And as I understand it, there's
about a thousand of them. Can you imagine that? Talk about too much of a good
thing. And those wives and concubines brought their idolatrous gods
with them. And he began to build shrines so that they might worship
their gods. And he probably thought it was
pretty big of him to do that, that he could afford it and he
would do it. And thus was idolatry introduced into Israel. And then
when Solomon died, his sons fought with one another. And the kingdom
eventually divided into north and south. But the sons of Solomon
were an awful mess. So they didn't do it. They didn't
do what Solomon wrote down here. Solomon himself didn't do it. But there is one son who did.
These are the words of the father to his son. The father to the
son. My son, pay attention to what
I say. Our Lord said, I don't say anything
the father didn't say. I teach what he told me. And our Lord Jesus, and you know,
We can glorify our Lord in this, and it will glorify the Lord
in your heart when you think, was there ever a man like our
Lord Jesus Christ? I know he's God, but he came
as a man. And so let's just look at him
as a man here for a moment. Was there ever a man like him? Can
you think of anybody who came even close? I've known some people that I
would, in human terms, call them good people, but nobody comes
even close to what the Lord Jesus Christ was. A man of integrity,
a man of mercy, a man of righteousness, and a man of grace. A man who
was absolutely, thoroughly, and completely in submission to God
his Father. Say, well, I submit to God. Well,
you want to put your submission up against his? In the adult Bible class, we're
going through the book of Philippians, and we're in chapter two, and
it talks about Christ, though he was in nature, God himself. He did not think that that godness
and all the rights and privileges of being God were something to
be held on to, but he let go of them. Made himself of no reputation. Imagine that. And he became a servant and he was in
the likeness of man. Imagine that. But that's not
as low as he went. He went lower yet. In being found in fashion as
a man, he submitted himself to death, even the death of the
cross. Why did he do this? Well, we
could find in the scripture several motivations, but the primary
motivation is this, the Father sent him to do it. That's why
he did it. You talk about submission, you
haven't submitted unto death. And even if you did, you did
not submit to death as one who by nature would never die. And
you didn't submit to the death. And when he talks about death
on the cross, he's not just talking about how horrible it must be
to be crucified. To be hung up like that was to
be under a curse. Cursed by God. He's not just
talking about a death of the body. Jesus Christ died completely
and fully. Nobody else has ever done that.
Not even those in hell. And that's why hell lasts forever.
They're never done dying. They have never satisfied the
wrath of God. Their death can't do it. Jesus
Christ died and he could say, it has been perfected. It has
been fulfilled. And he did that in submission
to his father. And look at what he let go of
in order to lay hold of that. He let go of equality, that he might suffer like that.
Now brethren, that's submission. We just sang that song, how can
it be that God should love a soul like me? And yeah, I understand
that. Oh my, look at how God demonstrated
that love. Look at how Christ displayed
that love. Was there ever a human being
that loved like Jesus Christ did and continues to do? I'm not one of these guys that's
bashful to say I love my wife. I tell her, I'll tell others
if they'll listen to me. But I would not put my love for
anybody next to the love that Jesus Christ has for his church. He loved her and gave himself
for her, lock, stock, and barrel. Oh, what a man. Of course, he was more than a
man. But in all of his duties as Messiah, in all of his functions
as the Christ, the Savior of his people, he operated as a
man. And he lived perfectly, and then
he died perfectly. He actually did what his father
said to do here. However, as Brother Scott Richardson
used to say, has this scripture no voice for us? But it does. And I would like to look at this
little passage around or understood around verse
23. Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life. Let me paraphrase this, because
Hebrew is a difficult language to translate anyway. I mean,
that is, to bring it from Hebrew into smooth English is difficult. And when you get into Hebrew
poetry, which is what this is, it gets even more difficult to
try to write it in that short, brief style. So let me paraphrase
this. With all diligence, Guard your
heart for everything about your life issues or flows from your
heart. That's why he said, above all
else, guard your heart. Why? Because everything else
comes from your heart. Everything that you are begins
in your heart. What you say comes from the abundance
of your heart. Out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaks. Now, that's what our Lord said. He wasn't
talking about that carefully trained speech that religious
people learn how to do. It's what people say when they
let their guard down, then their heart comes out. Out of the heart comes all of
our conduct. It directs our ways. And therefore, in as much as
everything that pertains to our lives comes out of our hearts, how important then it is that
we guard them. The heart is the true picture
of a person. That's why it's written God does
not look on the outward appearance, he looks on the heart. Well,
we learn how to put on a facade, and I'm glad we do. I don't want
you to see all that goes on in my mind, and I don't want you
to perceive everything of all my desires and inclinations and
all that, and I don't want to see yours. Civilization requires that we
suppress what we are. but our heart is what we are. It says over in the 27th chapter
of Proverbs, verse 19, as water reflects a face, so
a man's heart reflects the man. Now that's why God looks there.
I can fool you, you can fool me. I've had people commend me, and
I'm not gonna correct them, but often they'll say something about
me, and I'm like, man, if you only knew, if you only knew. Glad you don't. And I can tell
that you don't know. I can tell that some people don't
know what I am because of what they say about me. God knows
what I am because he looks past the facade that I show you and
he looks right into my heart and he knows exactly what's there. In chapter 16, Proverbs chapter
16, verse 9. In his heart, a man plans his
course, but the Lord determines his steps. Now, basically the
lesson from that particular proverb is go ahead and make your plans.
I'll tell you what's going to happen. What God ordained is
going to happen. That's what's going to happen.
There's nothing wrong with making plans. But we must realize that
no matter what plans we make and how carefully we lay those
plans, God is the one who will decide whether or not it ever
happens that way. Everything about our lives was
determined ahead of time by God. But though that is the overall
lesson from that verse, it begins with this, in his heart, a man
plans his course. And when we make our plans, our
plans, generally speaking, are a revelation of what's in our
heart. Now, maybe not to others, because
we can arrange our plans to look like we're trying to accomplish
something else, but we know what we're going for. We won't turn to it in our translation
because I truly don't understand why our translation handled the
verse the way it did. But in chapter 23, verse 7, it
says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. You know, I learned that verse
in my childhood. And it has troubled me ever since
I learned it. When I think of what I think, I must conclude that's what I
am. And what I think is not good. The heart, it's everything. And from it flows everything
that pertains to your life. Now, we put a guard on those
things we count valuable. And really, you can find out,
you can discover what a person finds valuable to him by what
he invests the effort to protect. If a person doesn't protect something,
it doesn't mean much to them. Now, about all the time, Until
2014, like 2016, excuse me, before I bought that nice red Buick
I've got, I didn't park in the garage. I didn't clear out the
garage. My side of the garage, all kinds
of stuff from my whole construction business, there wasn't room to
put a vehicle in there. I bought that red car, I cleaned out my
garage. because I wanted to park that thing in there. I didn't
want to take a chance it'd get hailed on. I wanted to make it
harder to steal. In fact, I wouldn't mind if people
didn't know I had it. I protected it. I put a guard
on it. How much do you guard your heart?
What does your heart mean to you? We need to guard our hearts.
because they are of greatest value and we need to guard our
hearts because naturally our hearts are deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked. Jeremiah 17, I think it's Jeremiah
17, nine. I can tell that I wrote the wrong
verse down. I think it's Jeremiah 17, nine.
Another scripture I learned as a youth. Now, That part that
says desperately wicked is generally translated incurable. And I kind
of like that because that's exactly what it is. Our hearts are deceitful
above all things and you can't fix them. Religion tries to. But all that
religion can do is put chains on your conduct. Religion cannot
change your heart. It cannot cure your heart. It
can sometimes reveal your heart if you take it honestly. It's
deceitful. Now that's a natural man's heart.
We have to be careful. The word heart doesn't always
mean the same thing every time you find it in the scriptures.
It's kind of a overall term for the inner life. What you think,
what you desire, all those things bundled together. And actually,
the believer is in some respect of two hearts. He's got two ways
going on in him. He's got the way he was born
with and then the way he was born again with. But we recognize that our fleshly
heart, our natural way of thinking, isn't ever going to improve.
It's deceitful. It's beyond cure. We're not even
trying to fix the natural way we're thinking. What we're doing
is trying to put a guard on that part of us that's been born again
by the Spirit of God, that it not be polluted. Some say, well,
don't you believe that if God is gracious to you, he'll preserve
you? Yes, I believe that absolutely. God has never given the new birth
to someone and then somewhere along the line they lost it.
God will preserve the life he creates. But one way he preserves
the life he creates is by exhortations like this, watch your heart,
guard it. We're not to take a lackadaisical
approach towards the things of God and the things that pertain
to our heart. We realize that our salvation's
not by works, but it's never been had, and
understand what I mean by that, it's never been had without work.
It stirs up in us. God's work of salvation stirs
up a warfare in us. And we can't just lay down and
let the enemy win. We are to do the battle. We are
to guard our hearts. Now, how do we do that? Well, there are a few things
mentioned right here in this chapter. And if we will look beyond what
they seem to be saying simply as day-to-day rules, and see
the spiritual sense of them. It will help us. It says here,
put away perversity from your mouth, keep corrupt talk far
from your lips. Now, what, you know, your parents
taught you about dirty talk and things like that. Sure, that
shouldn't be part of our conversation, but any believer ought to know
that. In fact, anybody over 12 years old ought to know that.
That doesn't mean that they're not going to use filthy language
and all that kind of thing, but that's not all that's being spoken
of here, not even primarily. You know what the most corrupt
talk there ever was? The most corrupt talk there ever
was was a boast of one's own righteousness. Most corrupt talk. that's ever been uttered in the
world is the so-called gospel that somehow involves my works. Keep that from your mouth. And
I might put it this way, of course, with the Lord Jesus as God's
final prophet, of course, he spoke pure truth. And me as a
preacher, as much as possible, I'll do all I can not to preach
corrupt talk to you. But we might want to say, for
us, put away perversity from your ears. Don't listen to it. Well, I listen
to so-and-so. I know he doesn't believe, but
he's got some good things to say. Well, you can find good
food in a garbage can, but I don't suggest you take a plate and
some silverware with you. Because while you're looking
for the good things he says, you're going to be listening
to corrupt talk and it will corrupt you. Sometimes I've, I remember one
time I was reading a book and I was really getting into it.
I thought it was great. It's written by a guy claimed to be a sovereign
grace fella. And I'm sitting there reading it, and I'm all
caught up in it, and I'm thinking, this is great. And after about
an hour reading that book, I suddenly thought, you know, I haven't
thought a thing about Christ while I'm reading this book. This book's
about me. I closed it up and put it down. If it's about you, it's not worth
listening to. It's not worth reading, and it's
not worth saying. about Christ, who he is, what
he's done. Listen to that. Talk about that.
Mind that. It'll guard your heart. Let your
eyes look straight ahead. Fix your gaze directly before
you. Paul expressed the same thing
this way. Forgetting those things which
are behind, I press on to take hold that for which Christ took
hold of me." Now this is not an easy thing to do because while
we're doing that we still got to get up in the morning and
go to work. We've still got bills to pay, we got to have, we got
kids to raise, we got to provide a house, got
to get some, you know, we got to do all those things and to do
those things and yet have the focus right down on And Paul
at that point was likening life to a race, but he's saying, you
know, I'm running the race and I'm not turning around looking
to see how far I've come. I'm not taking into consideration
how I tripped at some point and I might have, you know, been
able to shave another tenth of a second off if I hadn't tripped.
He's not looking at his successes. He's not looking at his failures.
The only thing he's looking at is that goal that he's reaching
for. That's what consumes his mind,
and that's what directs the way he lives. So, keep your eyes straight ahead. And when you see yourself being
distracted, well, get undistracted. I know
things come up, but if it's starting to become
a way of life, You need to change your way of life. Okay. Make level paths for your feet
and take only ways that are firm. Now I'm a curious individual
just by nature. Believe it or not, when I was
a kid and I had some spare time, one of the things I do is go
in and get that world book encyclopedia. I grabbed one of those off the
shelves and just start reading it. And the result was I got
a head full of more or less useless facts up there. Taken up a lot of room. Maybe
that's why I can't remember anything anymore. I can't put anything
new in. I filled it up. But I do. And I watch, just yesterday
I was watching some videos and they were trying to put a different
spin on the opening chapters of Genesis. And I'm watching
it, and I'm listening, you know, and I'm not going to be turned
from what I believe, but I like to, you know, I just kind of
listen to what these fellas say. And they start going through
it, and they're saying, now, we've got to look at this the way that
the pagan people would perceive things and all of that, you know,
and it comes out that none of it is actually history, you know,
telling us what happened. It's all just symbolic. things,
and Adam and Eve were just chosen out of all the humans that were
there to be the priests of God in that temple called Eden. Well, there'll be people that'll
listen to that, and they'll say, wow, yeah, that's kind of a cool
idea, and they'll start walking there. Make level paths for your
feet, and take only steps that are
firm. You start to take a step, it feels a little mushy under
your foot, step back. You take a step and it seems
to be going in a direction other than the one you've been taking
under the gospel, step back. This scripture is used for those,
it's in the book of Hebrews, and for those who were being
tempted to go back to the old covenant ways. And it says, make
level paths for yourself. lest you twist your ankle." I said, don't swerve to the right
or the left. Keep your foot from evil. Just don't have anything
to do with a faulty gospel message. It just won't work. Now, I realize
that in every preacher there's fault. But there will be in every faithful
preacher the core of truth that declares who we are and declares
who Christ is and what he's done. Stick with that. Don't wander
off into other things. Let's look quickly at a couple
of scriptures. If you'll turn first to the book
of Jude, next to the last book in the
Bible. Don't go there very often, but then there's, it's a really
short book. Verse 21. Only one chapter, so just verse
21. Keep yourselves in God's love. Now, by using the word keep,
we're prone to think that it's exhorting us to make sure to
stay in God's love. But it doesn't mean keep in that
way. The word means guard. Guard yourselves, protect yourselves
in God's love. Now, how does this apply to guard
your hearts? With all diligence, guard your
hearts. Remember this. Keep in mind,
meditate on this, the unimaginable love that God has shown you. I realize, you know, the world's
been told by professed Christians that God loves them. Everybody
thinks God loves them. But we know the love of God is
not universal. Because God's love always results
in the salvation of its objects. I know this, if God loves me,
all is well. All is well. Our brother read
about love. Love does not seek its own. Love is occupied with the welfare
of its object. And if God loves you, he has
all power and wisdom. In fact, the next words after
the passage our brother read is these words, love never fails. Now, it's easy to get wrapped
up in the world. The world will act like it loves you. It doesn't.
Doesn't love you at all. It'll use you. It'll flatter
you because you got something it wants. It's seeking its own.
And it's very charming. Remember this. The God who made
the world loves you. If you're a believer, the God
who made the world loves you and he loved you before he made
the world. And he'll love you when this
world is gone. And if we keep that on our minds,
what charms will the world have for us? And then turning back to Philippians
chapter four. Beginning at verse 4, rejoice
in the Lord always, I will say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness,
your moderation be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
present your request to God. And the peace of God which transcends
all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in
Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is
true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever
is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy,
think about such things. Whatever you have learned or
received or heard from me or seen in me, put into practice
and the God of peace will be with you. Now, it says that the
peace of God transcends understanding and it protects, it guards, it
keeps our hearts. Well, how do we experience that
peace that transcends all understanding? Well, several things are given
here, but they all kind of coalesce around one concept, and it's
to think about the right things. It says, rejoice in the Lord
always. I'm reminded what I told you our brother Gary said. Got some serious health problems.
They said, but my sins are gone. My sins are gone. You can think
about your health problems if you want, and I'm not pretending
like we can ignore them, but what do we make the focus of
our thinking to be? Rejoice. The believer always
has cause to rejoice, even when tears of sorrow are running down
his face. Rejoice. And make sure he didn't miss
it. He said, I'll say it again. Rejoice. That must be important. Rejoice. Let your gentleness
be known. That word gentleness or moderation. We sometimes think that being
idealistic is the best route to go. Well, we do want to have
the ideal of perfection. But when we're dealing with people,
we got to realize nobody's perfect. And if we're judging everything
by the black and white judgment, it's either all right or all
wrong. And I'm talking about people, you know. And if someone
doesn't toe the line just like we think they ought to, you know,
we can't have anything to do with them. What are we going
to do? We're going to be miserable. We're not going to have peace. And that bitterness will infect
our hearts. Rather, be moderate, be general,
be understanding with people. Remember that the Lord is near.
He doesn't mean like he's around the corner and he might jump
out and get you. Here's what he's saying. One way or another,
you're going to be with the Lord soon. So the things about this life
are really not that important in comparison to that. Don't
be anxious about anything. Boy, I wish I could learn how
to do that. I'd like to learn how to not be anxious about one
thing. Pick one thing and I don't worry
about it. I am a horrible worrier. No, I'm a wonderful worrier.
I probably do it better than anybody else. Don't be anxious. The same word
is used when it says, cast all your care, all your anxiety on
him. He cares. He's anxious about
you. He's looking out for things.
No use you fretting about it. Don't be anxious about anything
but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving. I mentioned this a few months
ago when I was going through a time of emotional turmoil. And I started this practice,
and I must admit I didn't keep it up, but for a while it went
and it was very helpful. Soon as my eyes popped open in
the morning and as soon as my mind would remember this, I would
start to give thanks. I would look through and find
things to thank God for. Because it's easy for us in times
of struggle to let that small cloud of trouble blot out the
entire sun. and yet there are blessings around.
Give God thanks, and then the peace of God will
be with you. And then, I won't look at every adverb there, but
he said, finally, brothers, whatever is true, and so forth. Think
on those things. Recently, I have, well, let's
just say I spend a whole lot less time reading the news reading
the comments that people leave about news stories. A lot less
time reading what people have to say on Facebook. And I've
known this for years, and I don't know why I didn't do it, but
they aren't saying true, good, noble, praiseworthy things. And they were keeping me in turmoil,
and I thought, why do you keep jumping in that pool? Get out. So I unfollowed some people. I quit clicking on links. I looked
for pictures of cats and grandchildren, you know. Why? You say, don't you care
about what's going on in the world? It's not like I don't care, but
there's nothing I can do about it. And no matter what's going on in
this world, my Lord's on the throne. He's got my interest
at heart and my sins are gone. Guard your hearts. Don't let
them get away from that or it'll corrupt your ways. Well,
may God gain some benefit or some glory for himself out of
that and give you some benefit.