It's 9.30 on the nose, and I feel like
I'm starting five minutes late. The older Henry is, the more
he's after. When he's ready, he starts. If
you're not there, you're late. The wise people start getting
there five, seven minutes early, and then they're right on time.
So let's ask the Lord to bless us this morning. Our Heavenly
Father, we do bow before you this morning with humble spirits
and contrite hearts, and beg of Thee to enable us to worship
Thee. We pray that you'll help us to write and divide the Word,
to see the truth in the Word, the beauty of Christ in the Word.
We pray that you bless our worship service, that we might learn
Christ, that we might bow down at His feet continually, that
you might love and adore, and give thanks for all the grace
and mercy that we have in your blessed Son, Jesus Christ. We
pray for Brother Paul on this day, and ask that you bless him
as he speaks in his journey to Martin's home. We pray for Cody
here safely, bless the time together he has with his people. And Lord,
with one heart we give thanks unto Thee for what You've done
in this place, the grace of a man and a people that love the Lord
Jesus Christ. For after mercies and blessings
upon them, upon this man and this family, the glory of Christ
will be to Your people and Your church. He asked again, bless
us, we do pray. He was not alone at this point,
but bless us, we pray. In his name we ask forgiveness,
we do pray. And what I'd like to do this
morning is, Brother Paul gave me the option of continuing your
lesson in Romans where you are or bringing any message that
sums to the lesson I wanted. I felt impressed, I told someone
last night, I felt impressed for some time about a particular
message. But I could never preach, and
Paul was on my mind, and Paul would call me. I didn't have
any place to preach. Anybody I'd ask, I'd preach.
There was no one to call me. And Paul called and said, well,
that must be the message for that day and that place. So I
prepared that message which I'll bring in a few minutes. But then in terms of Sunday school
lessons, he said, well, you can do Romans where you are. And
I said, well, I've got this other message to bring. And so I've
got something else on my mind. I said, recently, every year
back at 13th Street, there's a number of young people who
graduate from high school and college. So, one Sunday evening
early in June, we have a little get-together. It's just an excuse
for fellowship where after the Sunday night service, we go in
the back and all those young people that have graduated sort
of stand there and get patted on the back and maybe an envelope
with something in it too. We sort of celebrate their accomplishment.
And on that occasion, Mr. Henry said, well, why don't you
bring a message? He said, you've taught all these young people
at one time or another. He said, why don't you bring
the message that sometimes something that would be pertinent to them. And I did that, and the irony
of it was, I don't know that the young people got anything
out of it, but all the old ones came up to me and said, oh, I
wish you could bring us a message like those young people every
time. And I thought, well, I'm going to be there on Sundays
too, and there won't be any young people there much, but maybe
those older ones will get a blessing again. So I'm going to revisit
that this morning, and I hope it's a blessing to you. Now,
what I felt impressed about, and Henry asked me to bring that
message, whenever you stand to speak to a priest, you've got
to preach Christ. You've just got to do that. But
it's always the most difficult thing is to find the Scripture,
or the portion of God's Word, the vehicle by which to get there.
And while necessity was laid upon me to preach Christ, to
preach the gospel, I felt certain that the path I needed to follow
in advocation was down the narrow road called wisdom. And it's not because those young
people that I think they're particularly lacking in wisdom or because
I think they're so foolish, even though they are. No, we were
proud of their accomplishment, and you know, they're to be commended,
but of all the times in the lives of young people, probably the
two most important crossroads is when they graduate from high
school or college. by crossroads in their life. And at that time, there's two
road maps available to them. One is called the Roadway of
Wisdom, and the other is the Roadmaps of Misery. And they're
going to go down one of those two roads. That's the only two
choices there are. So, it's a vital issue in their
life And the subject is not wisdom,
because I think young people are especially foolish, because
every older person in this room, and some of us who aren't, you
know, I don't know when I crossed over from being older to just
plain old, but I feel like I'm there, you know. But every older
person realizes that about this about young people
and ask them. The foolish things we realize,
the foolish things we are almost in. And it causes us to have
a particular concern for young people. You know, for that reason
we realize Because of what we did or almost did, we realized
that the tremendous potential that every young person has is our nature. We come by it
honestly. And I illustrate it this way.
If any young person, for that matter, any of us adults who
might be looking for a new position, what if I said, I've got a position
available. Here's the circumstances. We're
going to put you in a residence with a perfect climate. You don't
have to worry about too much rain. You don't have to worry
about getting too hot. It's just perfect all the time. And you really won't have to
do much physical work. It's not even taxing mentally.
You'll get all the food and drink you want and it'll be the very
best. You will love the taste of everything provided for you,
night and day. I mean, this food's available
to you at your own request. You'll get all the best benefits,
and by the way, you'll be the highest paid person in the country. Now let me ask you,
oh, and your home? It'll be surrounded by magnificent
gardens. Now is there anybody who would
like that position? Is there anybody who would be
so foolish as to throw off that position and not want it? Well, you know, there was a fellow
one time who had that position. His name was Adam. And as the young people say,
he blew it. He just blew it. And he hasn't quit. He told his boss
where to go. He told him to shut it. He said,
I'll just make my own decision. But he did, and we thought that
in that position everything was happening. You say, what kind
of fool is he? Well, he's your daddy, and we're
just like him. So you see this tremendous potential
we have for foolishness. And the fool's way is what I
call the road map to misery. And we're going to deal with
that just a little bit at the end of this. But on the other
hand, there is a roadway to wisdom. And I want to show you that roadway.
And I'll introduce you to it here with a principle that you're
all familiar with. It's called the if-then principle. Now, it goes something like this,
and young people identify it this way. If you say one more
word, then you're grounded. Well, they know that principle.
If you don't clean up your room, then you're not going anywhere. If you don't study, then you're
going to fail that class. Of course, that does work two
ways. If you study hard, then you make it better. So, it's
the if-then principle, and it's one that never goes away. If
you don't do your job, then you're going to get fired. The older
you get, just the stakes get higher on them. And it gives
them principle. And most young people think that
it had to be some parent who made up that principle. And if
it wasn't a parent, it had to be a teacher. No. God made that
principle. You see it here in Proverbs chapter
2, verse 1 it says, My son, my daughter, my child, if, if thou
wilt receive my words and guide my commandments with thee, you'll
take God's word in your heart, if, over that. Verse 2, so that
thou will incline thy ear unto wisdom, if you'll listen to God's
word, and if you'll apply your heart to understanding. Yea,
give, here's the first act of my sermon, give Thou Christ after
knowledge, and give Thou this up Thy voice for understanding.
You know, young people spend most of their time crying after
a lot of things. What do you mean I don't get
it? No! Everybody's giving it a stab.
It's not fair. He may get it either. Actually,
I didn't think that was my room. I bet he's crying after everything
comes in. My buddy's got to play games.
I don't know. I need to do the PlayStation.
They're crying after all kinds of things, don't they? And they
lift up their voice. I can't believe you're going
to make me do that. I can't believe I got to go there.
I've got to go to church on Wednesday night too. But it says, if you'll
cry after knowledge, and if you lift up your voice for understanding,
and your verse four, and if you'll speak after wisdom as you would
silver and search for wisdom as you would for hidden treasure,
I tell you what, if Paul had announced on Wednesday night,
that he was going to have a gold bar somewhere on the property
here before Sunday school. There'd be bathrooms down here. The whole town would be here
for Sunday school this morning in order to have a chance to
find a gold bar or the silver, wouldn't they? But it says here,
if you'll see after Christ, after wisdom, like you would for gold.
Most folks, they've got a station now. I don't know if you've seen
this yet or not, the outdoor town or something. And about
half of them just give it over to hunting for gold. And, and,
you know, and I go, you know, man, the people that just spend
a fraction of the time, those guys, they're out there in the
woods in the creeks doing that kind of thing. And they never
had to hear the word one time. But it says, if you'll speak
after wisdom that way, and here's the second half, verse 5, then
shall thou understand the fear of the Lord, and then you'll
find the knowledge of God. Some people think they've got
something at their fingertips when they get on that computer
or internet, don't they? And I understand why I like this
and I had to go to the library and search through the whole
building to find a piece of information that now you can find in, what,
ten seconds? I tell you what, what would you
give to have the whole knowledge of God that you can't get? It says here, you'll see Christ,
that's what you have. If you see Christ, then you'll
have the knowledge of God. Knowing that Christ Jesus is
better than all the different epitomizers in the world. Verse 6, For the Lord gives wisdom
out of his mountain of knowledge and understanding by the preached
word. Verse 7, He lays out his own
wisdom for the righteous. He's a buckler to them that walk
uprightly. He keeps the paths of judgment
and preserves the way of the saints. You're now listening
in. If you'll receive the Word, if you'll cry after knowledge,
if you'll lift up your voice for understanding, if you'll
seek it as you would a treasure, verse 9, then shall you understand
these three things—righteousness, judgment, and ethics. He said, what's so, this young
person thinks, what's the big deal about those, those three
big words, Bob? Well, let me tell you what those
three words mean. They'll understand righteousness,
and this is a simple thing young people have a heart of understanding.
It's the difference between right and wrong. Our country's in a
mess because we're not teaching anymore the difference between
right and wrong. It's terrible when the highest
office of the land says, I didn't do that. And that's the condition we're
in right now. And it's why the Bible didn't teach children righteousness. That'll teach them they're doing right
and wrong. And it'll teach them judgment. And that is there's
a penalty for wrong, and there's a reward for right. And you teach
them equity, which is knowing the difference. Just and justified. And it says, if you see God's
work, then you'll understand these things. We've got to teach
our children these things. Nobody else is. It's not in the
schools anymore. It's not even in the churches
anymore. Not anymore. But here, look at
this last phrase. It says, if you'll do these things,
Then, God will put you into every good path. See, all the good,
all the bad paths are on the road map of mystery. And all
the good paths are on the roadway. Now, that's a principle and an
important one. But let me show you this. Every
good path is along this roadway to wisdom, and the theme of the
entire book of Proverbs is Christ our wisdom. It's a collection
of wild sayings and truthful words, and it's a clear instruction. But it's a lot more than that.
You can read through Proverbs, and you'll say, oh, that's true,
that's true. And oh, isn't that smart? And
oh, I like that. And it is a collection. But it's
a lot more. Let me illustrate it this way.
Let's say we went over to the mall at a fabric store and I
bought a bolt of red fabric and a bolt of blue fabric and a bolt
of white fabric. And I came in here and I spread
them all over and everything. And you go, that's pretty soft,
what happened? That's one thing, is we can admire
each of those claws for what they are and the beauty of them.
But let's say that I then take some scissors, and I have some
seamstress with me, and I start cutting this claw. And I cut
the red and white into these stripes, these strips of claw,
and I cut the chunk of blue out, and then I cut some little pieces
out of the white, and I get the seamstress to work in a certain
way, and all of a sudden, you know what I've got? I've got
13 red and white stripes with a blue field and 50 stars on
them. You know what? If the Red Claw and the White
Hawk can keep up their one thing, let me tell you, if you put them
together that way, I'm going to sleep that night. Together, that is worthy of my
respect, my allegiance, It's different. And that's the book
of Proverbs. If you go through it, you can
just read these snippets and pieces of Proverbs. Wild things
and good things give a benefit to you, but not life if you just
eat Christ. That's what the book's about.
Now, look at Chapter 4 with me. Turn over there. Let me see if
I can illustrate this. Read with me these Now, this
is instruction to children the age of your children, but it's
also instruction for us as children of God. There's two levels here, it's
bipolar. It says, "'Hear, ye children, the instruction of
a father, and attend to no understanding. For I give you good doctrine,
and for safety not in the law. For I was my father's son tender,
and only beloved in the sight of my mother, and my mother and
father taught me as well the same. And they taught me also
and said unto thee, let your heart retain my words, and keep
my commandments and will. Get wisdom. Get understanding. Forget not wisdom. These are
declines from the words of our mouth. Forsake not wisdom. And
wisdom shall preserve thee. Love wisdom, and wisdom will
keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing.
Therefore, get wisdom. And with all thy getting, get
wisdom. Exalt wisdom, and wisdom shall promote thee. Wisdom shall
bring me to honor without doing it thus. Embrace wisdom. Wisdom
will give to thine head an ornament of grace, and a crown of glory
shall wisdom deliver thee. Hear, O my child, and receive
my thanks, and the years of thy life shall be in them. And all that's true. All that's
true. If you follow and obey the wisdom
that's in this book, you'll live longer. It's real. It's a natural
blessing. It comes to everybody who does
that. But the subject that run like
stripes in a flag, that run through the 31 chapters of Proverbs,
will be done in this way. There'll be a mention of hard
work in chapter 6, but then again in chapter 10, chapter 14, chapter
22, and chapter 24 and 26. And that's the reason, and it
doesn't matter to anybody, I mean, he's a young man, he can go about
hard work right now. I say, what, if you could be as old as me,
he's going to still go back, or Kirk, because it's going to
run all its way through your life, isn't it? Even when you
retire, you think, well, it's over now. No, it's not. No, there's
plenty of hard work out there, okay? And it runs like a strike,
okay? And there'll be stars along the
way, but it runs these principles. And the truth of a proverb It
may be wonderful, but it profits us nothing without Christ. No matter how hard you work,
that's not going to recommend you to God. That's not going
to, that's not the principle being expressed. Let me show
you the big picture. It's not red stripes, white stripes,
blue field, white stripes. It's what it is come together.
And when the proverbs come together for you, it's Christ. Now, they
illustrate that here. Let's go back to chapter 4 and
read through it again. Here, ye children, in the instruction
of the Father, in attempt to know understanding, I'm going
to give you truth, forsake not my law. I was taught this by
my father and father. They taught me. Look at verse
5 now. Get Christ. Get Christ. Forget not Christ. These are
declines from the words of my mouth. Forsake not Christ. And Christ will preserve you. Love Christ. And Christ will
heal you. Christ is the principle thing. Christ is the person. Christ is everything. Christ
is the principle thing. Therefore, get Christ. And with
all you're getting, get Christ. Exhaust Christ. Christ will promote
thee. Christ will bring thee to honor.
When you do embrace Christ. If you embrace Christ, then you
get these things. Christ will give to your head
an ornament of grace. A crown of glory shall Christ
deliver you. Hear, O my son, and receive my
signs, and the years of thy life shall be met. See, if you get
all those principles and things you live on, you'll get a prize
and you'll get a job. Why? See, there are two levels
as it runs on. all through the Proverbs. And
actually, to make my point about threads that run through the
Proverbs, this is not the first mention of long life. If you
turn back to chapter 2, I'll show you this. And it's not the
last mention. It's mentioned several other times in the book,
and I'm not going to take the time to show you each one of
those. But the promise that if you give Christ, then you'll
live long. If you get wisdom, then you'll live long. If you
get Christ, you'll have eternal life. To show you there's seven
benefits on the roadway to wisdom. Seven. And they're very specific
here in chapter two. And the first one is, this long
life, you see a chapter, I'm sorry I said chapter, chapter
three. Chapter three begins, my child, forget not my law,
forget not my word, but let thy heart keep my word, keep my command. Here it is, for length of days
and long life shall be added to. Now, each one of these seven
benefits, there's a physical, earthly, real promise and guarantee. And then there is a spiritual
meaning as well, and the first of these is long life. You know,
most of us never want to die. and would go to extreme lengths
to preserve their life. I ask the young people in the
class I teach, and they're from like 11 to 14. Every once in
a while, I say, okay, everybody put up your hand. And I hold
them, and I say, now, I want to start naming numbers. And
when I get to the number of years that you think is how many you're
going to live, then take your hand down. Or how many do you
want to live? Whatever. I'll start and I'll
go see everybody's 11 right up there. 14 or whatever. The oldest
one is 14. Okay, who wants to live to be
14? 15. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. 25, 30. 40, 50. 60, 70. 80. You know, a hand never comes down
from 40 to 85. Never. And almost all of them
go over 100. And you know what that proves?
It proves, number one, they're deluded about how long they think
they're going to live. Because even though our life
expectancy in this country is now up in the 70s or something,
Good men don't want to get that far. There's very few in my country,
and most of us don't want to get that far, do we? That's too
old. That's too old. Even if you cut
your health in your mind, it's probably too old. The bodies
give out. But this thing of all life, there's
nobody in here who wants to go. It's not a decision. You understand, we, and I, I
said that instead of oops. You know, some of us are getting
to the place where tonight, if the Lord can be bad, we'll be
alright. That's not what I mean. You know
what I'm saying. We don't all... No, what I'm
saying to you really, honestly, makes me feel bad tonight, too.
We didn't want to see the sun come up tomorrow. Well, there's
nothing wrong with desiring a long life. Some of us need to be alive
for the sake of our children and grandchildren. But I'll tell
you, as I say, most folks who go to extreme measures to live
just one more day. A fellow that I know that's in
the nursing home business is telling me that if you know what
percentage of our health care goes to the last 30 days of life,
80-something percent of what's spent goes to the last 30 days
of life. That's how desperate people are
claiming to be one more day. That's folks who have no hope.
That's what's driving them. But anyway, most people go to
any lengths to live a little longer. And most young people,
they want things to be happy at home. They want things to
be perfect and everything. And they'll do anything except
one thing. And that's mind their cameras. Isn't that the truth? They'll do anything except do
what their parents tell them to do. You know, I tell them, they'll
live longer. They'll just go by the rules.
And stop fussing and fighting and carrying on. Just battle
to the end. You know, folks, it's just battle
to work. And you're going to be a lot better. A lot better.
But here's the precious promise of this long life. And that's
that, because this life is going to be just a few short years
of mess. And then it's gone. The older we get, the more it's
like a vapor. It's just here and gone. But if we get Christ,
who is our wisdom, we get eternal life. You see, he's already got
eternal death for all his fools. who heed the instruction and
promise to see Christ. Well, we're all fools. That's
not a third thing. The question is, are you a fool
on pro-matter ministry or a fool on pro-wisdom? One of the two. Look at the chapter, well let
me show you the second thing here in chapter 3. Right after
it says that the first promise is peace, I mean it's long life,
the second promise it says is peace. See that right there?
That's a promise. That's something you can get
when you find a wizard. Now turn over to chapter 16 and I'll show
you another mention of this. Now, one reason that young people
that graduate from high school or college is in such a critical
time is that they have been, up to this point, under the root
and protection of their parents. And that's fixing to change. Some who go to high school and
to college still live at home in that time. But at some point,
they're going to leave that protection. of those that they love, and
they go out among strangers. And, let me tell you, the greatest
danger they face is determining the difference between their
friends and their enemies. Enemies of wisdom can harm us
more. that we can talk about anything. Some people do not understand the danger, the danger of those
who do not seek wisdom. They lay in wait for fools, is
what the Scripture said. But on the roadway to wisdom,
look here in chapter 7, verse 16, I mean, verse 7, I'm sorry,
chapter 16, verse 7. When a man's ways please the Lord, and we
already know what pleases him, right? That's seeking wisdom,
seeking Christ. When a man's ways please the
Lord, the Lord makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Now, there's the question, isn't
it? I mean, don't you wonder sometimes? Yesterday, I had a run down to
the lake permit that's on some business before we got in the
interminal, and I pulled into the 505 and we could get us a
gas. And man, there was people carpooling everywhere, and it
was all jammed up. And some silly, foolish girl
was about half sideways in the middle of the lot, and nobody
could get around her, and everybody's driving in... I know Claude and everybody go
this way. Well, I can inch up just a little
bit. I don't even know what you're saying. Listen, lady, you're
in a car, and I said, well, you might as well look at that guy.
I mean, he's come out of the car and gone with me. You need
to understand, all I'm trying to do is get out of the way,
and so we can all get going again. And I went, I took out the gang,
you know, I just come on, and I sat there even though I'd be
with him. Hey, listen, let me go down where everybody can come. No, no, I got to sit there while
he... He gets by, then I get to go to sleep. But, you know,
the only difference between him getting out of that car was when
I was shooting. What you read about in there
all the time... The only reason is because God's made me a seeker
of wisdom. He protects me from my enemies. He kept that guy right in his
seat. All he did was shake his fist at me and say, kill me.
And that's a benefit for being one of God's people. Being a
seeker from the roadway to wisdom. God will edge you out even from
your enemies. And young men, you need to edge
them out. as fools run into places. What's
that song, Fools Rush In? And people get very confused.
You rush in where the fool's very afraid. Well, young people
just rush right in. It's part of my nature. And,
well, I just don't get it much faster. So we get older, too,
but we still rush in and think we ought to hide. But look, it
says here, even as enemies, but be at peace with it. And the
road back to misery is with companions who have no interest in wisdom. And you can read all the problems,
and I'm going to get over and over and over again and warn
you about, they're out there laying in wait for you. Just
wait for you to put your toe on the line, or they'll rattle
you up in a heartbeat. Now let's get specific about
some of these things. Number one, you tell young people
this, When they leave the house, when that day comes, the number
one thing is go where you can go. If you have any influence
over your children at all this afternoon, you start telling
them that each of them gets to know them. So when the day arrives,
and they're trying to decide between school A and school B,
then it's fine to let them make that decision. They're getting
all grown up, and they need to make some decisions. And if they
made it, they'll be happier in it. Do everything you can to
influence them. I don't care how better school
A is than school B. If school A is where they can worship,
thank God that they can go to school A. Okay, wherever they
can worship, wherever it is. I don't know whether I said that
right or not, but you know what I'm saying. Give them where they
can worship our Lord. Where you can have fellowship
with believers. If those on the roadway who is You know, you go to the best
school in the world thinking you're going to become wise.
Once you really understand you're going to become wise, you're
going to become a believer. I'm very happy with this school.
It's a huge thing. Worship God and fellowship with believers.
It's not what you're here for. It's not what you're here for. That is specific. Draw the way
ahead and it never changes. It's going to be over. You get
an opportunity for a new job, job A or job B. I don't care
what job A takes, it doesn't matter what job B is. If one of those jobs is for a
gospel preacher, that's the job to get. There's those of you
here, I don't know whether to tell them this is right or not,
but when I first turned to gospel, I had some kind of job. I'm not saying I didn't want
you to grow up listening to every church I could find, and I didn't
even thought of moving to the front at all. For your citizenship,
you know I didn't know that. And the day came, I realized,
I've got to go to IAEA, the National Accounts Committee, and my business
partner, and I said, well, you need to get your license and
pass your leaving here today, or you're going to go broke.
And they were about right. But just to show you, the difference
was, they came when they made a proposal and said, we'll give
you what amounted to less than 5% of what it was worth. We'll
give you 5%. We'll take half of that. And then you'll be free. My pastor
taught me, when they come with an offer, this is what you have
to do. Fifteen years down the road,
you know what happened? God had prospered me and me off
on a wildest, wildest dream. You know where those girls at?
They sold. They sold what it was that they
took from me. You know, they spent twelve years
in purgation and never came back. They got venom out of everything.
God has a need about it. And there are those of you that,
I mean, I, in fact, just made the right decision to come to
the Council of Christians. I'm embarrassed to talk about
it. Sammy Bruce has a job over there or whatever it is. They
go out of business. Let me tell you, God won't let us in on it. And if you stay where the Council
of Christians is and teach your children that, you'll edge them
around. You'll make peace even with their enemies over this.
I believe in absolute control. Here's another specific thing,
dating and marriage. I tell young people both in my
class and when I teach the summer Bible school every summer, because
I did it at a questionable age, when I started dating. And I
tell them, hey, anybody you want, it's fine. Some of us are real
friends. Real glad that God allowed some
of his children to stay on the loose. And he abused his great
children, his handsome children, snagged one of his own, and he
abused that. So it's not, don't, don't tell
your children, you're not going to have that boy, he's a heathen.
Well, there'd be too many choices right here, you understand? It's
okay, but the thing you've got to teach them is that it's okay
to date, but you don't marry. And the other thing about this
very business is that he didn't want to be found attractive,
so long as they'll come worship you. Absolutely. And they might
even come to church and get this, and you can get a feel for it
and find out. But marriage, it had better be
with someone who's going down the roadway with you. It doesn't
matter whether they're just starting or they're at their first step,
they're going to do that now. And that is the first step down
the roadway with you. When folks are mentally
going down that road sometimes, that's the first step, they come
to the back and say, When that happens, you can marry.
Now don't let them know that that's a condition of marriage,
because they'll all do this, and they'll go, yeah, I'll be
baptized. They can now get married and
do whatever they want. The sovereign grace landscape
is strewn with young women who make the mistake of letting some
boy know, well, if you really believe in me, you can get back
with me, and I'll marry you. I tell you, they would run through
that Google in a heartbeat to get that ring on their finger. And then they're right back where
they started on the road to that convention. But when they've
actually, when there's a change, God shows you that. Don't marry
one until then, okay? Because wisdom and foolishness,
you marry some young man or some young woman who's on the road
map of history, and you're on the roadway of wisdom, those
paths sometimes run parallel for a little while. Do you know
that? Because you don't have to send her away that far. If
you think you're going arm-in-arm down that road, all of a sudden,
they park. And they're going that way, and
you're going this way. They don't care if you, your heart, or whomever's
fault it is. Be warned. Be warned. It happens over and over and
over again. Wisdom and foolishness cannot
go far together. All right. And listen, it says
this to show you how these schemes run through progress. In Proverbs
21, it says, it's better to dwell in a househouse, that means in
the attic, than with a contentious person in a big house. You'd
be better off, you'd be better off living by yourself than with
somebody who's on a different roadway. It actually means you'd
be better off living in a kayak than have a mansion where you
can really live. It also says that it is better
to live in the desert than with a contentious and angry person.
And that's what everybody who's not seeking wisdom is. They're
angry, and they're contentious, and they're troubled. All right.
And the most frequent stop, listen to this, on the road map to misery,
you know what the most frequent stop is? Is a non-wise marriage. That's the most common thing
there is. There are more women than men
who are miserable because they're married to somebody who doesn't
love Christ. But go where there is a fellowship
of believers and choose friends and companions wisely. That is
the highway to happiness. See here, chapter 16, verse 17? It says, the highway of the upright
is to depart from evil, and to keep it this way and preserve
it is also evil. I'll tell you, you know, even
though Scripture says the way is narrow, you know, I think
it works out simple. You know what it looks like? It looks like 564. You know,
it looks like a super accolade. That's because He built it just
for us. Wouldn't it be something you
could go out there and get on the interstate and nobody else
would want it but you and a few other folks? Huh? That's what
the roadway to wisdom is. And it's for God's people. And
it's a superpower is what it is. And if you want all the benefits,
And you see we're out of time. And this is what happened to
me when I started preparing this message. I got this far and I
thought, I've got nine and a half working hours. I said, what am
I going to do? I've got 45 minutes. And so what
happened is that I backed away and said, and this was about
three weeks before I was going to do it. And I thought, you
know, this. And so I wasn't going to do this,
but I didn't want to do teaching. I didn't want to do it. So this message turned
into, this was the introduction we just got from my children's
Bible school, and then the other nine hours was the rest of this. Let me summarize it for you in
three minutes, see if I can do that. You see, the other benefits,
let me show them to you here, if you turn back to Proverbs
3, the other benefits are clearly identified here. And verse 4
says, you're not only going to get long life and peace, but
verse 4 says, you'll find favor and good understanding in the
sight of God and men. You see here, you'll find favor
with men if you're on the roadway of wisdom. You'll have a good
name, a good reputation. You'll be known for your honesty
and integrity. God's people aren't. That's a
natural benefit. But you get another benefit.
You'll have another good name. You know what it is? You come
one day and you've got to brush the teeth on it and say, well,
I'm just going to brush this one. Where is that brush? Well,
that's food. They're singing the food, notably. Here's my son. Oh, that's the
thousandth Christ. He's got that name on him. Now, mommy, did you get a good
name? Is that an understanding? All
right, look down at verse 8 and it says, here's the fourth benefit.
It shall be health to your navel and marrow to your bone. You'll
have better health in this life. Wise folks just live better.
They stop doing some things. Spend their substance on things
like food, and they get a little wild shit. They get friends sitting
there, and you'll get one. Real friends sitting there. But
you get life. Long life. You get good health. You get eternal life. That's
the health you get. You're so healthy, in fact, when
you turn before God, you see, that one's perfect. In Christ,
that one's perfect. Then put it down in verse 6.
It says, happy is the man, not his wisdom. You know, there's
a lot of unhappy folks in this world. Most of them. In fact,
I can't tell what ever makes them happy. If you read all the
time about the guy who invented the lottery, he gets, you know,
two hundred million dollars, and three years later he's miserable.
Well, that's obviously not the answer, is it? Let me tell you
where it is. It's a roadway to wisdom. There's a stop called
happiness. And God's people, you know what
I'm starting to think? It's not without trials and trouble
and tribulation that you're promised to have those things. But I tell
you what, they'll go through them, even with the countenance
of the police. You'll see people bear up on
those things because God makes them happy. But I tell you, do
you know what the real happiness is? The real joy? I strongly
do promise, one day there will be no more sorrows, no more tears. We'll be happy and joyous, and
the promise continues. And then, the second thing is
over in verse 24. It's called this. When you lie down, you shall
not be afraid. When you get down, you shall
lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. I tell you, if you
want some peace of mind, get on the roadway of wisdom. Have
a conscience. I tell you, young people, it'll
eat you alive on the roadway of adventure. It'll bother you
to where you can't sleep at night. But let me give you one more
thing here. There's a roadmap to misery.
If you want to read it later, you all know what it is. It's over in chapter six. It's
the seven things God hates. Pride and abusing God's people. You'll read it when you get a
chance. But let me give you this real quick. One thing you can
do, you need to do to your children, is understand their propensity
for Buddhism. Understand it from the perspective
of how Buddhist you were, or are, and still are. And understand
there is a gift to it. As Adam gave us that, he gave
us a Buddhist nature. And you need to teach them this
principle. Because chances are, most of
them are going to do just what the Prophet did. One day, they're
going to go, I ain't listening to that dumb old woman anymore.
She's told me for the last time that we don't have it. And I'm
afraid of it. They're going to get out there
somewhere, sending their substance, doing things that break your
heart, whatever. And I tell them this every opportunity
I get, and this scripture lends itself to it in my class, I tell
the children, I've got one right now who's just left, just gone
off. I mean, one of the families in
church got a boy and he's just gone. And I knew it was today,
and I told him, I said, Why don't you get any more care? I know
you're vaccinated, and you do. You know I'm vaccinated. You don't think so now, but there
you are. You've got to close the box. You've got to learn your lesson. This should go on. If you don't go back in and teach
that, so that when the day comes to come to its end, and we're
down that road, not just as far as they go, one day, at the end
of that road, we're done. We've taught you how to help.
And now we've come to the road where we're at, and we're not
going to stop. Well, don't be hard, and we'll come on back. Come on out here in the evening,
hug him up, kiss him on the cheek, make off that ring and say, you're
welcome, you're welcome. Cheater of the boy, sometimes
the girl's the cheater. Alright, I'm getting too long,
but I hope that's a blessing to you. I'm going to have to get home
early. It's too soon.