A message from this particular
fourth chapter. And you remember when we first
started, it was David. Solomon was a young man. He said,
in verse 2, back up there, I was my father's son, tender and only
blood in the side of my mother. He taught me also. and said unto
me." So it was Solomon, he's talking about how David, the
man after God's own heart, taught him, instructed him, instructions
of a father. And then last week we saw the
two paths that you take, the path of the righteous, the path
of the wicked. The path of the just shineth
more and more unto the perfect day, where the wicked walketh
and lives in darkness. We had light, they're in darkness.
Two paths that men go down. One's a path of righteousness
that leads, that's Christ and the other's the life of wickedness
and despair and hopelessness and darkness and men love it
like that. But tonight I want to talk about
wisdom for both the body and the soul. Both our body and our
soul. And in this particular verses
that I read, He gives us five parts of our bodies that He addresses. He addresses our ears, He addresses
our eyes, He addresses our mouth, He addresses our heart, and He
addresses our feet. What you hear, what you see,
what you say, what you believe, where you go. And Solomon is
here and he's still talking about what his father's teaching him.
Now, I'll tell you what, and all these, all these are endless
for sin. Our ears, sin comes through the
ear. Sin comes through the eye. Sin
comes out of the mouth. Oh, the tongue, who's able to
take it? Sin comes into the heart. And our feet sometimes don't
go the way they should go. We walk in the right paths. Solomon and David teaching Solomon
says and teaches us some of these things. And so we're talking
about wisdom for the body and the soul. Look what he said here
in verse 20. You know, here's what he says.
My son, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings." He
said, incline thine ear. He says, now listen, turn your
ear to what I've got to say. Incline that ear to what I'm
teaching you. And I tell you, give attention
to my words. And that means, beloved, sometimes
you go like this here. Floyd used to sit and he'd put
a head behind his ear occasionally. And that's because he wanted
to hear. He'd turn his whole head in that direction. And that's
what happens. We give attention. In other words,
be careful to words of wisdom that's required. You know, our
Lord Jesus said this. He said, Take heed how you hear.
Take heed to how you hear things. Pay attention to how you hear
things. Take heed to what you hear with your ears. That's what
He says. Look over here. You keep this and look at Matthew
13. Matthew 13. That's why we're here tonight. is because we want to hear something.
We come here to hear something. We come here to our ears to be
instructed, to hear things with our ears, listen to them with
our understanding, receive them into our hearts, to help us go
back out into the world and use the words that God's taught us,
and use the feet that God gave us to walk upright to His glory
and His honor. But look what our Lord said here
in Matthew 13 and 9. Now this is where everything
in this chapter is a parable. But He said, He who hath ears
to hear, let him hear. He said, if you've got ears to
hear, listen. That's what He's saying. If you've
got ears to hear, you listen to what I'm saying. That's what
our Lord said. Now look what He says down in verse 13. Therefore I speak to them in
perils, because they see, see not, Seeing means to see. When you see something, it means
you see it with understanding. Or if you don't see it, you don't
understand it. And that's what He's saying here,
because they seeing, see not, and hearing they hear not, neither
do they understand. And I'll tell you what, that
seeing and hearing often means the same thing as understanding.
And if we have ears to hear, God help us to use them Lean
forward to listen if it's necessary. Do whatever we need to do to
listen. And as we often go away and say,
Boy, did you hear that? Boy, I'd love to hear what he
had to say. Shirley's talking about a message
she heard today. What a blessing it was to her.
She heard something with her ears. She heard it with understanding. And so you see, it's like the
Bereas. They received the Word with all
readiness of mind. They heard. And I, over there,
and I believe it's in, it might be Acts 28 or 17.1. But anyway, they said, when Paul
got through preaching and broke up, they said, would you come
and speak to us again? We want to hear some more of
what you got to say. We want to hear what else you
got to say. We liked what we heard. We want
to hear some more. And the Gentiles heard the word
gladly. Huh? Gladly. And so the first
part about our bodies is our ears, spiritual ears. And the
second thing, look what he says here now in verse 21. Attend to my words, listen to
them, and all listen to what I have to say. And then he says,
let them not depart from thine eyes. Huh? Focus your eyes on
this thing called wisdom. No, and He says, you know, let
them not depart from your eyes. What He means is don't let them
depart from your understanding. Looking, seeking, searching with
your eyes. Don't let them depart. Huh? And oh, listen, having eyes,
and having eyes, but they see not what our Lord Jesus Christ
said. And our eyes should always be
fixed on what our Lord is saying. And we sang that old song, you
know, set your eyes upon Jesus, turn your eyes upon Jesus, and
that's what we want to do. And that's why Paul told Timothy,
give attention to reading, to reading. And let me show you
where wisdom comes into and your eyes seeing with wisdom. Look over here with me in Luke
6. Your eyes seeing with some wisdom. You know, when we talk
about our eyes, we're talking about our understanding. That's
what he's talking about really. When your eyes, your eyes see. How many times have you said,
whoa, I see that. Well, I never saw that before.
And what are you saying? I understand it. I got it. And
that's what he says. Focus your eyes. Put your eyes,
keep your eyes on wisdom. Keep your eyes on Christ. Keep
your eyes on the things of God, the eyes of Christ. And here's
wisdom looking at things with eyes. Here is wisdom seeing,
eyes seeing with wisdom. Look what he said down here in
Luke chapter 6 and verse 41. Here's talking about the eye. Don't let your eyes depart from
this thing called wisdom. Don't let them depart from the
Scripture. And why beholdest thou the moat that's in thy brother's
eye? You're looking at it, you're
seeing it. This fella's got something wrong with him, his understanding's
not right, he don't see things the way I do. And look what he
goes on to say. But you don't perceive the beam
that's in your own eye. You only see it out of one eye.
You got such a beam in one, you only see it out of one. And he
ain't seein' the same way you're seein' and you surely ain't seein'
the same way he's seein'. And that's what he says here,
and this is lookin', this is eyes with wisdom he's talkin'
about. Let your eyes, let your eyes focus on this. Either how
canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull the moat
that is in thy eye. Oh, I got this, let me, let me
help you with the understanding here. Let me straighten you out.
Let me get your ducks in a row. Let me make sure you get this
now. That's what he's saying. I want
to straighten you out. When thou beholdest not the beam
that's in your own eye. Now wisdom's got sense enough
to know that you don't go around picking on on people and trying
to straighten people out. It's the gospel that straightens
people out. It's the Word of God that changes people. It's
the Holy Spirit that moves upon people. I'm like Bruce Crabtree
said, if there's any counseling done, it's done from the pulpit.
We don't have to go back here and have a powwow around the
desk. I don't have to come to your house, sit around your kitchen
table. You want counseling? Get under the sound of the gospel
and the Word of God. And then you'll see clearly You'll
say, boy, I wish that fellow had been there to hear this.
If they had meant to hear it, God would have had them here.
And if they wasn't here, listen, it's their fault, not yours.
You pay attention to what Ben said to you. See what you see
with your eyes. And that's what he's talking
about. Oh, God. He said, keep your eyes. What
did he say there? Keep your eyes. Oh, don't let
them depart from your eyes. Don't let these things depart
from your eyes. Oh, my. And look what else he
says here now. In verse 21. Keep them in the midst of your
heart. Oh my. Right in the middle of your heart.
Keep them in the midst of your heart. Huh? When we talk about the heart,
the scriptures when it's talking about the heart, it's often speaking
about the mind and the affections. You know, the heart and the mind
can be interchangeable. When he talks about the heart,
remind the things of Christ. That means let your heart be
involved in the things of Christ. Let your affections be involved
in the things of Christ. It sets your affection on things
above. And so when he says here, keep my word, not only focused
in your eyes and here with your ears, but keep it right smack
dab in the middle of your heart. Keep it in your mind. There was
an old woman told Mr. Spurgeon one time. She said,
Mr. Spurgeon, I've got a seed in my brain. She said, what do
you mean? He said, I'll come and hear you
preach. And I get every bit of it while you're preaching. Before
I get to the house, most of us speak down. It just goes right
through the seed. And that's about the way most
of us here say it. It just But boy, if God would
bless us for a little of it to stay, to keep it in the midst
of our heart, right here, in our understandings, in our minds,
in our affections. That's why Paul told the Philippians,
meditate on these things. Oh my, contemplating wisdom and
reading wisdom. And then look at the blessings
of a seeing, hearing heart. In verse 22, here's the blessings
of a hearing ear, seeing eye, and a hearing heart. For they
are life unto those that find them." These words, this wisdom,
this blessed thing called wisdom, this wonderful thing called wisdom
in life. For they are life unto those
that find them, and health to the flesh. You know, And they
said here when He's talking about your flesh, He's actually talking
about your body. He said it's spiritual life to
you. And it's life to you because believers do not have the same
kind of stress that people out in the world have. Now I have
stress. I know you have stress. But stress
don't get me in the kind of condition that it gets the world in. It
don't destroy them like it does in the world. But, oh beloved,
their health to the body, health to the soul, they keep us from
the sins and stresses that cause so much healing. And what this
actually says, that it gives life, healing, and health to
your soul. That's what it says. It gives
life, healing, and health to your soul. Ain't that what our
Lord Jesus Christ said? The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit. And what else are they? Life.
And that's what this thing does, this gospel, this wisdom of God
in Christ gives us. And oh, listen to this. I tell
you what, this is a message all of its own, and maybe one of
these days I'll preach from it. Verse 23, and oh my, this is just talking
about the body. Now this is, keep thy heart with
all diligence. For out of it are the issues
of life. Do you see what it says in the
margin? Keep the heart with all, above all keeping, keep your
heart. Above all keeping, keep your
heart. Now let me say a few things about the heart. When you know
your heart, when God reveals to you your heart, and you know
something about your own heart, you know how dangerous it is.
You know how dangerous it is. It's a very deceitful thing.
It's a very dangerous thing. And the heart, before you'll
even try to keep it, before you'll even know anything about needing
it affectionately kept, you've got to know something about it.
And if you don't know nothing about your heart, as God's revealed
it to you, then you don't know nothing about keeping it. And
here's the thing about it. You know, keep your heart with
all diligence for out of it comes the issues of life. Can I keep
my own heart? I can't. I can't. I want to. I desire to. I'm concerned about it. I pray
about it. I watch it. Here's the thing about a believer.
I'm going to tell you something. We find our rest and our comfort
in Christ. We find great assurance in Christ.
But at the same time, we never ever find any rest or peace in
ourselves. We're continually seeking, searching,
believing all the time. We're never satisfied with who
we are in our believing life. Are you satisfied with... You
know what else I say? We're rested in Christ. We're
comfortable in Christ. We're assured in Christ. We believe
Christ. But yet at the same time, We
are constantly seeking the Lord. Constantly wanting to grow in
grace. Constantly feel like we're a million miles from what we
ought to be as a believer. We constantly feel like we fall
so far short of the grace of God and the glory of God. Would
that not be in the fair assessment of us? But yet, and that's what he says,
keep your heart. Well, who's going to keep my
heart? I say, we sung that song, oh Lord, Oh Lord, search me,
know me, try me. Search what? Search my heart.
And if you find any wicked way in it, save me from it, deliver
me from it. And that's what He's saying here.
Oh my. Oh, we committed to Him. And
we struggle by God's blessed grace. You see, God put a principle
within us to trust Him. Look over here, I believe it's
in Philippians 2. Look with me in Philippians 2. You know, God put a principle.
He put a life within us, a heart within us that seeks Him, that
finds no assurance in anything but Him. And about the time we think we're
keeping our heart, Something will slip up on us. And that's why our Lord said,
"...for from within, out of the heart, proceeds evil thoughts,
adulteries, fornication, blasphemy..." Pride! Pride! "...murders, thefts..." Oh, look
what it says here, Philippians 2.12. And this is the way we are. Wherefore,
my beloved, have ye as always obeyed, not as in my presence
only, not when I'm there only, but now much more when I'm gone
from you, absent from you, work out your own salvation. And you
do it with fear and trembling. And then look what he says in
the next verse. He said it's for his God. You work out your
own salvation with fear and trembling, but it's God which worketh in
you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. And yet He
works in us, and yet we go with fear and trembling at the same
time over our failings and our faults and how far away we feel. Look over in Jude. Look in Jude,
that last little book, that one chapter right before Revelation. Look at this. It gives you a perfect illustration
of what I'm trying to say. Keep your heart. Set a watch
on your heart. You know, to keep your heart,
you know the first thing you need to do is understand you
need it keeping. It needs keeping. And if we could keep it ourselves,
would we not keep it perfect? But we can. So it's God works
in us both to will and to do. Now look what he said here in
Jude, verse 21. Here's another one of those things,
keep yourselves. Keep yourselves in the love of
God. Keep yourselves where God's love
is. Keep yourself believing. keep looking to the love of God
and look keep yourselves in the love of God looking for this
looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal
life now look what he says in verse 24 keep yourselves now
in the love of God now unto him verse 24 that is able to keep
you from falling and to present you faithful before the presence
of His glory with exceeding joy. He turns around and tells you
what to do, and He turns right around and tells you what God's
going to do for you to keep you. And that's what I mean. We just
keep coming back. We just keep throwing ourselves
on the Lord. Keep throwing ourselves on the
Lord. Oh, my. Well, issues of life. Let me
ask, as you said, just a little bit about the issues of life.
How many issues do you think we face in life? Lots of issues we face in life. Christina and Jonathan and Briley
facing some great issues in life today and tomorrow. Facing a
lot of issues. Facing issues of life, you have
to face death. To face issues in life, you got
to face yourself. To face issues in life, you've
got to be honest with yourself and honest with other people.
A lot of issues come up in life. And all these issues that come
up in life, they come right out of here. And this is where you've
got to have wisdom and grace so you can deal with what issues
come up in your life. A lot of issues. Alright, let's
put a way back over here in Proverbs 4. Keep your heart with all diligence. Then look what he says down in
verse 24. Here he's talking about the mouth now. Put away from
thee a froward mouth. Perverse mouth is what that means. And perverse lips, far from thee.
Put away from you a deceitful mouth and perverse lips. Put
them far, far away from you. And I'll tell you something. God help us never to use our
mouth to lie, use our lips to misrepresent God, to misrepresent
Christ. That's why Paul said, put away
lying, let each and every one of you speak truth with his neighbor.
And when he talks about the heart here and the eyes here, God puts
a new heartiness and God help us, you know, and keep this and
look at Ephesians 4 29. You know, these verses, scriptures,
I learned this years ago that make a point and comment on it and try to
illustrate it with a verse of scripture. Make your point, comment
on it, and then use the scriptures themselves to illustrate your
point. And so we're talking about put away from you a deceitful
mouth. A mouth that you know said, boy, I know people that,
and I've said this about them, I said, if their lips are moving,
they're lying. I know people if their lips are moving, they're
lying. That's the truth. That's the
way it is. You used to say all liars are
going to be friars. But that's, you know, And we
all make exaggerations and we'll joke around, things like that.
But boy, one thing we've got to be careful with with our mouth
is what we say about God, what we say about Christ, what we
say about one another. We don't want perverse words
and perverse lips to speak perverse things. No, no, no, we don't. And look what he says here in
talking about this in verse 29. Here's the same thing. Let not
corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. Don't let
corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. Don't let
ill, hateful, contrariness, miserable things come out of your mouth. Shirley was talking to a woman
the other day, and she married a preacher. This woman married
a preacher. I said, boy, he was the sweetest
fellow you've ever been around. He was just, oh, he was so attentive
and kind and gracious and all that. And then we got married.
And I went home. He was the meanest man I'd ever
seen in my life. I said, he was mean. I said,
he was hateful. He was just all the time straightening
me out, straightening me out. That's corrupt communication.
If you ain't got nothing to say, just don't say nothing. Ain't
that right, Bruce? But that's what he says, let
not corrupt communications proceed out of your mouth. But here's what ought to come
out of our mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying,
establishing, building them up, and that what we say may minister
grace, grace unto the hearers. Oh, don't, use your mouth, let
it be good words and it may give grace to the hearers. Let's look
over here again, something else. Look what he says now in verse
25. Now we're dealing with our eyes
now. We've dealt with our ears. We've dealt with our eyes. We've
dealt with our mouth. We've dealt with our heart. Now
look at our eyes here. Let thine eyes look right on,
and thine eyes' lids look straight before you." What in the world
is he talking about? Other words keep... Old Scott
Richardson used to say it like this. He said, you know, we ought
to be like a mule wearing blinders, that we can't see nothing but
cry. And boy, that would be a good thing. That would be a good thing. And that's what he's talking
about. Let your eyes look straight on. Let your eyelids look straight
on, huh? You know, it's our Lord Jesus
Christ says, a man putting his hand to the plow and looking
back is not fit for the kingdom of God. So we got to, if we're
going to keep our hand to the plow, we got to keep our eye
on the road. We got to keep it on the road
that we're hoeing in and plowing in. And that's what we got to
do. That eye's got to be focused. Focus. Look straight. Let your
eyes and your eyelids look right before you. You know, you remember
Watts' lost wife? You know what God told her to
do? He says, you get out of Sodom and don't even look back. And
it should have kept her eyes straight ahead. But she didn't. She didn't. And that's what he
said in Hebrews, if they had been mindful of that country
they came out, they might have had opportunity to have return.
But they was looking for a city, looking, with their eyelids fixed,
their eyes straight on, looking for a city whose builder and
maker is God. I'm going to show you what our
Lord said about the eyes in Matthew chapter 6. I told you these scriptures
illustrate much, much better than I could ever possibly do.
And look what our Lord said about it in Matthew 6.22. About our
eyes. About our eyes. Let your eyes
look straight ahead and your eyelids look right before you. And oh my. Matthew 6.22. The light of the
body is the eye. What understanding you get, what
light you get, what revelation you get, it comes through the
eye. If thy eye, therefore thine eye be single, your whole body
shall be full of light. You'll be walking in the light,
living in the light, everything about you will be in the light.
But listen to this, but if your eye be evil, thy whole body shall
be full of darkness. If therefore the light, what
revelation understanding you have is in thee be darkness,
How great is that thought! Let your eyes look straight on.
Let your eyelids look straight on. Let them look right on. And
oh my! Now let's look at the feet. Look
at the feet. Ponder the path, verse 26, ponder
the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established.
Turn not to the right hand nor to the left. Remove thy feet
from evil. Ponder the path of your feet.
That means meditate on the way you go. Meditate on the way you
go. And then He says, let all your
ways, let all your ways be established. Be established. Be established
with grace, not with means. Think about the direction which
your feet are taking. You know, I'm going to show you
two things here in Psalms. Look at Psalm 37. Talking about
feet. Walking. Walking. talking about
our feet. You remember old John Bunyan
in Pilgrim's Progress, Psalm 37, 23. You know, old Bunyan
in Pilgrim's Progress, they'd come up on these by-path methods.
They'd come up on by-paths. They'd be on the road. They'd
be on the straight and narrow. And they'd be going on their
journey toward the celestial city. And all of a sudden, there'd
be a path going down this way. And if they took that path down
that way, they always got in trouble. They ended up in John
Despair's castle one time. Ended up falling on the enchanted
ground one time. And got mesmerized and got enchanted
and got beguiled. Had a bunch of lines after them
one time when they got off on the side. So he says, you know,
don't go down those by-paths. It's like a preacher, you know,
they say that preacher's preaching, but he's running a lot of rabbits
while he's preaching. That means he's not preaching
the gospel, he's going after everything but the gospel. But
we're not chasing rabbits, we're after sheep. Identify and bless
the Lord's sheep. But look what he said here in
Psalm 37, 23. The steps of a good man are ordered,
and in the margin it says established. ordered established by the Lord. And listen to this, and he delighteth
in his way. Look over here at Psalm 40. Psalm 40. Look in verse 2. Talking about walk, our walk,
ponder your path, let all your ways be established. He brought me up also out of
a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, listen to this now, and
set my feet upon a rock, And established my goings. I'm going to show you one more
and I'm done. That's why I said lead us not into temptation.
Look in Isaiah 30. Isaiah 30. That's why I said
don't turn to the right. Don't turn to the left. Don't go out this way. Don't
go that way. Don't turn right, left. Just
stay on that path. Ponder your path. Stay on that
path. As ye have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in him. Look what he said in Isaiah 30
verse 21. And thine ears shall hear a word
behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it. When you turn to the right hand
and when you turn to the left, this is the way. Walk in it. The voice speaks that to us.
Who speaks that to us? The Lord does, in His Word. This
is the way. Walk in it. What's that way? Christ. Walk in Christ. Walk by faith, not by sight. Huh? Oh my. Wisdom for the body and for the
soul. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed,
blessed name of our Lord Jesus Christ, how we bless you and
praise you for your abundant mercy tonight. Thank you for
your precious, precious Word. Oh, how it blesses our heart
and instructs us. Oh, your words for reproof, for
correction, instruction in righteousness. And, oh Lord, if anybody needs
correcting more than me, I feel for them. But I thank you that
you're kind and gracious and you keep us in the way and you
speak to us and say, this is the way we're in you all. Thank
you, Lord Jesus. God bless these dear saints.
And again, again, we pray for Briley. Pray for the family. Give them peace of heart, peace
of mind, rest of soul. Lord, make them understand in
their very heart of hearts that you'll do what's right, that
you'll be gracious and kind and loving, and you'll take care
of this baby. Lord, we believe it. We believe
it with our heart and soul. And Lord, bless our brethren
as they travel. We thank you in Christ's name.
Amen. Amen. Talking about our eyes.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light
of His glory and grace. Good night, God bless you, see
you Sunday.