If you turn with me to Proverbs
chapter six, we'll be there for the majority of our time this
morning. Proverbs chapter six. Continuing
in our search for wisdom. I don't know why, but this this
series and having to topically preach through a letter, it's
it can be a daunting task. The title of today's message,
as you see on the screen, the fear of the Lord is learning
to hate with wisdom. You might think about that, you
might say, well, why in the world would we learn to hate? Well,
it's not a play on words. It's not a catch. It's not a
bait and switch. It's literally what the Proverbs
is teaching here in chapter six. We have to understand. That we
are all people of worship. We're all people of worship.
We all worship something, someone. Most of us, ourselves, to some
degree, we worship ourselves. We worship our families. We ascribe worth to them. That's
what that means. Worship. We ascribe worth. We
exclaim worth. We gain joy from helping to proclaim
worth. Worship. So what has the highest
place of worship in our life is usually what really roots
deepest in our soul and really is what has the greatest of our
affections. Proverbs 8, 13 says, The fear
of the Lord is hatred of evil, pride and arrogance and the way
of evil and perverted speech I hate, says the Lord. In Proverbs 6, look at verse
12. It says, A worthless person,
a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his
eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with
perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord. Therefore,
calamity will come upon him suddenly, In a moment he will be broken
beyond healing. There are six things that the
Lord hates. Seven that are an abomination
to him. Haughty eyes. A lying tongue. Hands that shed innocent blood.
A heart that devises wicked plans. Feet that make haste to run to
evil. A false witness who breathes
out lies. and one who sows discord among
brothers." It's really ironic, oftentimes,
how we speak of fear and wisdom at the same time. It's a little odd, like I said
last week, is that we think that the wise person does not fear,
but rather, the person who fears lacks wisdom. The inability to understand and
to grasp the fact that God is bigger and so we should not fear.
But there's one thing we should fear, and that is God. As we
consider what fear really is, we're trying to still understand
what it actually means to fear the Lord. Friends, I'll tell
you, I can teach in Proverbs and will probably be in Proverbs
for the first part of this year, at least for the next few months. And we're going to be looking
to seek wisdom and wisdom begins with the fear of God. And so it's not going to take
a sermon series or a commentary or an exposition on Proverbs
and the wisdom of the fear of the Lord to understand what that
means. It's going to take a lifelong discipline. of Holy Spirit, supernatural,
spontaneous affection toward God and His Word and His holiness,
understanding who He is every day as we go into the pages of
His Scripture, because He is our ultimate treasure that we
desire to know more and more and more and more. And as we
learn to know Him, we learn His ways, we learn His nature, we
learn His heart, we learn His character. In December, as I
went through the four weeks of December, looking at the heart
of Christ, Recognizing Christ, his heart of holiness, is the
display of his intrinsic worthiness. It's what makes him worthy of
worship. It's what makes him God. He is
God. God is life. God is holy and
God says to be holy because he is holy. It's the only way God
accepts human beings, is if we come to him perfect. But we're impossible. It is impossible
for us to come to him perfect. And so the only outcome of our
imperfection, which I call evil sin, not me, but God, because
of our sinfulness, because of our depravity, we come to God
imperfect, not only imperfect, but actually wretched. Hardly
evil. And so God has only one choice,
and that is to eternally destruct us into hell. Except in his mercy,
he says, I will become like them and die for them so that I may
forgive them and still be God. See, that's the gospel. David Carson said week before
last, I may have told you this, I heard him or I saw he had written
this, that you can trust the God that bleeds for you. You
can trust the God that bleeds for you. And see, in some wisdom
of this world, people look at God and they see His holiness
as a killjoy. And if the holiness of God is
a killjoy, you have nothing to worry about. Stop pursuing it. You'll never
be in the presence of His holiness. You'll never be bound to live
to His holiness. You'll just receive the consequences
of living unholy. If you hate holiness, you won't
have to worry about being in the presence of Christ for all
of eternity. He will not drag you into heaven,
kicking and screaming, wishing that you were somewhere else
partying it up. It will not happen. But those who are his children,
those who have, who are believing in him, have been saved and have
been led to love him and to love his holiness. It doesn't mean
that we don't struggle. It doesn't mean that we don't
fail. It doesn't mean that we don't fight. It's a fight to
battle. That's what I'm going to talk about this morning. Our
walk as believers is a continual fight. It is not a passive, organized
lifestyle in a recliner. If your walk in the faith is
easy, you're not walking. You're standing. As a matter
of fact, I have to say, even if you're standing in your faith,
your feet will hurt. One thing about Bride is she
came up here yesterday and I made a comment about having a couple
of hours of speaking. I said, but I don't know that
the dress and all these ladies and everybody and these lights
could handle the heat. She turned around and said, my feet already
hurt. She's been in those shoes for 20 minutes. Are we working? Are we fighting?
Are we battling in our faith? Are we seeking to understand
more of how that's supposed to work, of who God is? Do we have
an affection for him in this way? Understanding his holiness is
the beginning of this venue of understanding what it means to
fear him, of understanding what it means to actually know him,
and then recognizing our sinfulness in light of his holiness is essential. Last week, we looked at the second
chapter of Proverbs in verses one through six. I'll refresh
our memory there where Solomon says, my son, if you receive
my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive
to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding. Yes.
If you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the
knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom from
His mouth come knowledge and understanding. So you may be
sitting here today and for years you may have been sitting in
church and you've been going, I don't grasp anything. Unless the pastor
gives me an actual bulleted list of something that I need to do
today, I'm going to get nothing out of this message. For those of you who know me,
I don't do that, because the Bible doesn't give us that. The
application in your life of the Word of God is the implication
by the exhortation that comes. In other words, as the Word of
God is given to you, the consequences of that is what the Holy Spirit
does in your heart. It's simple. God's Word does
its purpose. And if your heart grows cold
after the Word of God, then that's what God wanted it to do. He
has hardened your heart. And as we continually push away
from him, as we continually to reject him, as we continue to
despise wisdom and instruction, as it says in chapter one, verse
seven of Proverbs, the fool despises instruction, the fool despises
wisdom. The scripture is very clear that
God will harden the heart of the wicked. We'll make it impossible
for them to hear Isaiah six. Jesus says that in Matthew 13.
For to you it has been granted to understand the things of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. Their
eyes have been blinded. Their ears have been dulled because
of the wickedness of their hearts. So you may have a cognitive understanding
of Christ. You may have a cognitive understanding
of the Word of God. You may have a cognitive or a mental understanding
of things. You may have a knowledge. You
may be the greatest theologian that ever walked in the world
as far as understanding the truths. You may be the greatest expositor.
But it doesn't mean that you truly know the knowledge of the
Lord. Because the knowledge of the Lord always brings fruit.
Always brings fruit. And it always brings fear of
Him. But we start out lightly, don't they? Some of us. See,
some of us today are frustrated by that idea. How can you say those things?
Because it's what God has said. It's not my opinion. It is God's
truth. And the scoffer scoffs at God's truth and goes, no,
that's not possible. You can't say that. Well, then you're a
scoffer. The fool says, yeah, whatever.
I'm OK. That's complacency. We actually
studied that in Bible study this morning. But the heart of the child of
God cries out and rejoices, succumbs to His holiness, worships
His awesomeness, and tests themselves daily by continually putting
their faith in Christ alone. See, many of us, our faith is
not in Christ. Our faith is in what we've done
to come to Christ. The prayer we've said, the aisle we've walked,
the study that we've been in, the church that we joined, That
does nothing for you, nothing for you, nothing for you, nothing
for you, nothing for you. Christ has done it all. And faith
in Christ alone means Christ, you're it. It's not the magic
words, it's the heart. Fear of the Lord is recognizing
what he is, who he is and what he should do. He should not have
saved us. It would not make him evil to
condemn every human being to eternal destruction. It would
make him absolutely righteous. But God is rich in mercy. Rich in mercy. See, as the Lord
teaches me, and just right now as I'm saying these words, He
is speaking to my heart that there are some in this room that
will not agree with what I just said. And I fear for your soul. If you think that other than
the mercy of God is going to grant you salvation, woe be it
unto you, for that is a salvation of words and is an arrogant position
that is foolish. But what we saw last week is
that God does give wisdom, so we don't have to remain in our
foolishness. We don't have to remain in our ignorance. We don't
have to remain in our sinfulness. We believe and trust in Christ
alone, and God saves. We repent. Repent is not just,
I'm sorry, I sinned. Repent is turning from sin, continually
turning from sin. You see sin in your life? You
run the other way. You wake up and you make a decision,
I'm going to sin, and God convicts you, and you run the other way.
You don't go back to the bowl. The dog returns to his vomit.
Solomon says in this book that we're studying. The question really is today,
what do we love, right? Is that the ultimate essence
of everything the text pours out into our soul, everything
you read here, it's a constant. The knowledge of God is continually
testing our heart and the wisdom of God is continually running
our heart through the gospel. Every second. Believe. Those that believe, believe right
now. You check yourself. You test. You believe. That's
faith. Faith is not a point in history.
It's a present reality. You're trusting in Christ. You
are believing in Him currently. And that means that your unbelief
is continually being tested and put to the test. How can you
know if you're a believer if your belief is never tested?
You don't. Your trust and your faith is
put in something you've done rather than what you are continually
believing. Well, you know, 50 years ago, I believed. What does
that have to do with anything? That's not saying I ate last
week. I took a vitamin when I was 20. I'm OK. I bought a pair of shoes. My
mom gave me a pair of shoes when I was in the first grade. I'm
still wearing them. One pair on each toe. We grow, we continually wear,
we continually repent, we continually believe. Right now, we test ourselves. That's the reason the word of
God is so important for us to be in, because if we're not testing
ourselves to see if we're in the faith, chances are we're
probably not in the faith. And it's not a wringing of the
hands despair. It's a continual, I want to know more about who
my God is so that I may be more intimate with Him because He
is my treasure and nothing else stands in His way. And if you
tell me I can't worship Him, I'm leaving. And I'm going to
find a place to worship Him. If you tell me I can't have the
Bible, I will tap you into my skin. And there are some places in
the world that when they do that, they will peel the skin right
off their bodies. What do we cherish? What do we
cherish? What do we hold dear? Has God
given you a heart to love him this morning? Or do you still
love the world? See, it takes wisdom to see that.
It takes wisdom to know what the world is because the world
comes in many forms. The world comes in with many
disguises. Babylon, if you will, looks very,
very appealing. And for the Christian, Babylon
comes in the form of a real slick, rich guy who picks the Bible
up and sucks him into a business deal. That's my story. I'm not interested. Oh, he picked
up the Bible. He's got it. The Bible is years and years
and years. Of complacent learning of God's
word. The world can look just like
Jesus. So we have to be careful. You don't believe that and why
would the Bible tell us to teach, I mean, to test the spirits?
Why would the Bible tell us to test our learning? Why would
Scripture teach us to test our teaching? Why would the Scriptures
say that one of the primary purposes of the church as a whole is to
stamp out false doctrine? Stamp it out. Stop it. Rebuke it. Publicly humiliate
it. Why is that so upsetting to some
of you? Because you don't believe the
Bible. You believe parts of it, not the whole Council. We have to test it. What do we
really love? Is the world so entrenched in
our souls that we love the pieces of God that we like? And in turn,
we've molded into a God that's not the true God of the Bible. No matter how spiritual the content
of your affection, it is either on the world or it's on Christ.
And that brings me to what I've said to start with. Our lives
as believers are battles. We are in a battle. We are not
bored and tired, routine people. We're in a fight. We're in a
battle, a continual battle. The body of Christ is not an
organized people who get together and do things that the traditions
say they're supposed to do. The body of Christ are warriors
marching, Tim's favorite song, into battle. And if you're not in battle,
you're not engaged. Are you fighting the good fight?
Are you running the race? Or are you sitting on the sidelines
waiting for somebody to give you a ticket in? What we need in the body of Christ
is radical reformation. We need hard, hard reform in
our thinking and in our living and in our loving Our affection
toward God and toward his word and toward each other. But stoppers go. Well, I'm tired
of hearing this. Be careful, church, be careful,
brother, be careful, sister, that you don't find that in your
soul today. Our lives as believers are battles
and they're a battle to rest in grace, rest in faith and rest
in the joy that comes only from the Lord. We sing psalms. We
sang some psalms. Some older praise choruses today.
Ones that have been around since I was a kid. They're not as old
as the psalms we normally sing in here. So, they're a couple
of hundred years newer. You are the real joy giver. Do you realize when you sing
a psalm in worship, and you say you're worshiping God, and you
actually aren't really worshiping God, but you're just mouthing
off the music, you are using the Lord's name in vain? You
might as well say G.D. and get it over with. It's the
same thing. Using the Lord's name in vain
is not just profanity. It's using it and not needing
it. You serve me with your lips, but your hearts are far from
me, Christ said to the Pharisees. It's about what we love. It's
about our fight to stay in the grace of God, who is our joy. He is our joy. If we are his
children, he is our joy. And this morning, as we hear
these words, our heart is welling up almost to tears with overflow
of affection toward our God who gave himself for us so that we
might live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave
himself for us. What else do we want, church?
What else do we need? What else are we looking for?
Why are we so hard to get our hand out of the bowl? Like the
slugger. Puts his hand in the bowl and
doesn't even return it to his mouth until he starves. Our lives as believers are battles.
These battles do not come without pain and struggles. These battles
do not come without frustration. These battles do not come easily.
These are hard battles, whether it be in your body or in your
mind or in a relationship. These battles are going to come. And it is these battles, it is
the suffering of the saints of God that proves to the world
that they are the children of God. And without suffering, we
are nothing. We are nobody. We're just a stupid
bunch of idiots walking around singing dumb songs to nobody. But because we suffer, we have
grace and we have power. And the world says that's weird. We should be weird. If you're
not weird to your unsaved friends, you need to look at yourself. If people don't accuse you of
being self-righteous because of your love for Christ, not
because your condemnation, now there's a difference, but because
of your love for Christ, something's wrong. Because they're going
to choose you to be a self-righteous. If you love Jesus like some weirdo,
oh, you just think you're better than me. But most of us, we get
that comment because we think we are better than them. There's
a difference. Be careful. But our lives are
battles as believers, and they're battles for the mind. For the
mind. It's what we think about. Listen,
sin begins in the heart, not the hands. We don't find ourselves
and go, what am I doing? How did I do this? I didn't even
think. No, we decide. It's the heart and the mind.
Sin begins there. Eve sinned. Humanity fell. Had she never
eaten that apple or whatever the fruit, whatever the fruit
is, whatever, had she never eaten it, we'd still be falling because
she decided in her heart it was good. Let's just say she went to get
it and Adam stopped her. We would all still be condemned.
Because she decided in her heart not to listen to the Word of
God. She became a fool. And she despised the wisdom of
God. She despised the instruction of God. So this battle is for our mind
as we continually discern how to respond, how to react, and
how to relate to the world around us and to the people in it. If
we never had a problem, we would never be able to live out our
faith. If we never were challenged in our thinking by the world,
if we never were exhorted by the Word of God, if we never
were confronted by the Scripture, we would never be able to live
out our faith. If we never suffered, we'd never
be able to live out our faith. We'd never be able to worship
God in truth. We just worship Him in emotions. I love God.
I love Jesus. It's all good. It just feels
so right. It just feels so good. Friends, we don't come here to
feel good. Yet learn that man grow up. This ain't Chuck E.
Cheese. This is the house of God. These are the we are the
people of God. We come here to be broken. To be broken so that we can be built
up. To maturity. Folks, you don't
think growing hurts? It hurts. See, that's wisdom. Knowing that it hurts, knowing
how to relate, knowing that the pain that I'm experiencing, those
growing pains that your children experience. These phantom pains,
it's part of growing. We are going to have pains. We can't even exercise spiritual
wisdom without suffering. Because what are we having? How
do we exercise wisdom when everything's good? So do you really love Christ? I guess is where I'm trying to
go for this introduction. Where do you really love Christ? Do
you really love him for who he really is? Your love for him,
your heart for him will produce a desire and will produce a struggle
in your life for holiness. Friends, hear that. Your love
for Him and your affection truly as a child of God will produce
a battle for holiness. You will fight to be holy. You'll
fight. And you'll fall down sometimes
on the battlefield, but you will get back up and you will fight.
Friends, that's why we have to love each other with an affectionate
love that comes only from God. Because without each other, we
would really be in trouble. Really be in trouble. The new birth that God gives
will eternally, continually and exponentially expand in all reaches
of our being, in all reaches of our soul and our mind and
outside of our lives. The new birth. Do you believe
in new birth? Do you believe Jesus said that
in order for a man to see the kingdom, God must rebirth him?
You must be born again, Nicodemus. You're looking through your spiritual
eyes. You're looking through eons of learning. You're looking
through all that knowledge as an expositor of the law. You
have got a good handle on what you're saying. And you've got
it right. I am from God. But you miss one point. I am
God. I am God. And until the father
gives you new birth, you can't see me. Jesus says that you cannot
see the kingdom. Speaking of himself, you cannot
see me until God gives you birth. And John says in John one. Many
did not receive him, but those who did receive him, he gave
the right to become children of God, not of the will of man,
nor the will of flesh, nor of blood, but of the will of the
father. And so as we engage this text
today, as we engage this text, you'll see two areas of our lives
that are to be questioned here in order to see if we really
fear the Lord, if we really love the Lord, if we really understand
him or are seeking that understanding and then in turn truly have wisdom
and knowledge of God. Every man must regard his own
heart and every man must test his own way. Are you doing that? See, that's that's why we gather.
That's why we gather every time we gather Sunday morning, Sunday
night, Wednesday night. That's why we gather. And that's
why understanding on Wednesday nights, we're like, what is a
family? We're going through a lecture series, not a Bible study, but
a lecture series on what is a family. And we're pulling from Matthew.
We're pulling from Psalms. We're pulling from Proverbs.
We're pulling from all other places. And we're looking at. The idea
and understanding theologically of the church as a people and
then the family unit as a temporary building block of the eternal
church. So we've mixed it up. And I really encourage you, if
you can come 630 on Wednesday night, not only that, but like
Ed said, we sing some lot of hymns and we have a good time
and we do have we had a really good time of prayer this past
week. But what we love And how we live will prove that which
we say, as 1 John says, what we have learned. So you thought
we were out of 1 John. Surprise, surprise. God's Word
is universally consistent, so no matter where we go, you're
going to see it. So if we truly know God, we do embrace this
opportunity to worship and to fear Him all the more. Are you
here today to truly worship Him? How can that be? How can that be if you come today
and you come face to face with bitterness in your heart? Especially for another brother
or sister in the Lord. Are you here to worship Christ with true
love? How can that be if you find yourself feeling more worthy
and wise than the person sitting next to you? Are you a follower of God's way?
If so, then your affection toward yourself would be less than the
affection for your brother. We must lay down our lives as
we lift up our Lord. And then we live out our lives
by faith in the Son of God. He gives a new heart to his children.
He gives a new mind to his children. And then we battle with the Word
of God and the power of the Spirit in order to be the people of
worship that God says he is looking for. The Father is seeking true
worshipers, nothing else. And there is nothing more. The fear of the Lord is hatred
of evil, pride and arrogance, and the way of evil and perverted
speech I hate. Now, couple that in Proverbs
8 to Proverbs 6, where I've had you sitting for a while. I've
read it already. I want to go to verse 17 or verse 16. There
are six things that the Lord hates. So the whole premise of
this message today is learning to hate with wisdom. We must
hate certain things, but we must do it with wisdom. We must hate
what the Lord hates. There are six things that the
Lord hates. Seven that are an abomination to Him. Look at verse
17. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes
out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. See, true knowledge
can easily be defined as Knowing the true God, the knowledge,
this knowledge is fear. It begins with fear, fear, a
good fear, fear in the sense of respect. Fear of the sense
of reverence. Honor all in the awesomeness
of God's nature and of his eternal being, we think of God and we
shudder to realize that he is trying To show us Himself. We shudder to think that we stand
in His presence when we are absolutely unworthy. I suggest to you that
the haughty thinks they're worthy. And most of them because of what
they've done to come to Him. How can a man be right with God?
Job asks. Only by God's grace. Only by
God's grace. We tremble to know what God should
do and that he is able to do in all righteousness, which is
to destroy all sinners, including myself. But John teaches us that
perfect love drives out fear. So God is love and that love
is righteous and that love does condemn. But that love is also
equipped with a balance of mercy. And that is all by the sovereign
will of the Father. And so, therefore, as He places
His affection on His children, we can fear Him without shrinking
and hiding from Him. We can fear Him without being
cowards and hiding our face and running behind the buildings.
But we can go bold, as Hebrews writes, before the throne of
grace. The question is, does your heart show that you're a
child of God who has His affection? Do you have the affection of
God as a child? Do you live in a continual state of believing
and repenting from sin so that your life will be a reflection
of the hope that you say you have, the hope you profess? See,
today is a simple message. It's a very simple message. If
you have knowledge and wisdom in Christ, then you love what
God loves. His people, His holiness, His
Son, His glory, His Word, Himself. God loves Himself more than anything
else in the world. Why? Because He is worthy of
that type of affection. If God loved something else more
than Himself, I would want to worship that. Because that would be the means
of my grace. So not only do we love what God
loves, but we should hate what God hates. And God hates evil. All of it. No matter where it
comes from, no matter who does it, no matter how old they are,
no matter how long they've been doing it. God hates it all. And
God hates. Evil, and so therefore, God is
worthy to destroy evil, and he's right in doing so, it is righteous
to do what is to destroy and get rid of evil, isn't it? Cops
that let drug dealers go are not good. Judges that let murderers
and child molesters all because they like their family. That's
not good. That's evil. God is not evil,
so he must eternally and continually punish evil. And when you sin
against a holy, infinite and eternal God, you don't get to
just get a slap on the wrist or a couple of years and you
certainly don't get to get snuffed out. It's a continual, eternal,
never ending, unrestricted punishment. It's God's wrath forever. All of it. And so when you couple God's
hatred of evil with this list that we see here in Proverbs.
Six. What does that mean? I want to
take in in our latter part of the service today, and I want
to just walk through those and I want you to test yourself. I mean,
this is this may seem a little unorthodox. But I think this
is what this text calls for. When we read it, when it's exposited,
are you looking inward to yourself, to ask yourself, do I have these
attributes? Do I? Can I be identified with
what God hates? And if so, it either means one
of two things. You are rebelling against your father, or your
father is the devil. That's what Jesus says. And so
you don't get mad at Jesus, you just get mad at me. So we look at the heart, what
we love, and we look at the life, the way we behave, the way we
act, the way we respond, and we see this thing. We see pride.
We see pride. In Proverbs 8. Three things. Pride, arrogance, and the way
of evil. And then I'll couple that with Proverbs 6 in just
a moment. You don't have to turn to Proverbs
8. Because these three are laid out there. But three foundations. Pride. The Scriptures say God
opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. You know what
pride is? Pride is thinking that you're able to do it on your
own. Pride is saying, like the fool,
I know what I'm doing. I know I'm right. I know this
is the way it ought to be. I know that what I'm thinking
is what needs to be done. I know, God. I know. I know. It is the commitment to be about
you. Let me turn that and make it
in, not into the first person. It is the commitment to be about
what one wants. It is a commitment to be about
one's own affection for one's own life. It doesn't sound too
harsh, does it? Pride considers itself first
without fail. But then you go to the next step
there in Proverbs 8, arrogance, arrogance. What's the difference? Big difference. Pride is the
self-absorption. Arrogance is the response to
that pride when you think of other people. Pride is completely
internal. No one can see it. Arrogance
is the visible sign of pride. That's the absolute definition
of it. They're not synonyms. They're
fruits of each other. Arrogance is pride taken to the
level of treating others as inferior to one's own self because of
one's own glorious view of themselves. Arrogance is what Jesus says
in Luke's Gospel. The Pharisees that pray, thank
you God. I'm going to paraphrase this
to get the meaning out. Thank you God for giving me a heart
to follow you and to tithe and to worship and to do all these
things. Thank you, God, that I'm not
a sinner like the publican. See, when y'all read that, you
read it as though that man was just angry and haughty. He was
not haughty in the external prayer. He was thanking God that he had
been saved from his sin. But Jesus said he went home condemned. But yet the publican says, have
mercy on me, a sinner. So what confidence did the Pharisee
have. The confidence the Pharisee had
was in the fruit of God's work. Not God alone. Not Christ. Not faith. Just what God had
done. And the publican says, have mercy
on me, a sinner. And Jesus said, this man went home justified.
You know what that's called? Justification by faith alone.
And Jesus, those are Jesus' words. That's not an argument on the
new perspective or the Pauline. justification argument and all
that kind of stuff that you hear about. That's not an argument
about new theologians arguing for years around stuff. That's
Jesus teaching that the only way you can come to faith and
be right by God is by faith. And if you put your hope in what
God is doing, well, what did what did King David put his hope
in when he was scheming, sleeping with and murdering somebody? And it was after that that God
said he's a man after my own heart. What faith did he have
in his works? Thank you, God, for allowing
me to be an adulterer. Thank you, God, for allowing me to
be a murderer and a liar and a cheat. That's the same prayer
that the Pharisee prayed. It's not the fruit of our lives
that we focus on, it's the fact that Christ is our only hope.
See the difference. How do you know that you're saved?
Because Christ is your hope. That's the answer. I trust in
Christ alone because He has saved me. I am repenting of my sins.
I am turning away. It's not your turning away that
gives you life. It's the life that makes you
be able to turn away. So the arrogance and then the
way of evil is when one's life becomes a pattern of living in
the world. Some sadistic, some evil, some
obvious. Others, it's just this quiet
little life of just dealing with oneself. And then it also says
there in chapter 8, the perverted speech. Anything that we say
out of our mouths that does not edify or glorify Christ, we should
use our mouth to praise him. James talks about this. How do
curses and praises come out of the same mouth? It should not
be. I guess many people, often what
we do is we water down what perverted speech really is. Oh, the perverted
speech, that's for sailors. No, I'd say that most of us in
the last week have had perverted speech. Not perverse in the sense
of what we would call it today in our society, which anything
goes, don't even beep out profanity anymore on the networks. But Jesus calls it this way,
this is how he calls it. He said, from the abundance of
the heart, from the overflow of the heart, The mouth speaks. You want to get to know a man?
You know, I always thought about this. Jesus doesn't have to hear
us and hear what we say in order to know what's in us. In John,
chapter 2, verse 24, 5, 6. Many believed in his name that
day because of the miracles that he did. But Jesus did not entrust
himself to them, for he knew what was in man. No one had to
tell him what was in man. But we can tell what's in man
by what comes out of his mouth. And that's not us judging, that's
Jesus proclaiming that that is the way we test. You may know
a tree by its fruit. Look at verse 12 of chapter 6
of Proverbs. I mean, verse 16. And then in
the 17 it says there are things, the seven things that are an
abomination to him. Haughty eyes. Pride goes before destruction
and a haughty spirit before the fall. That's a Proverbs 16. Everyone
who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Be assured
he will not go unpunished. Proverbs 16, 5. See, holiness
is the person that thinks they know what is best is pride. They
are a fool and they despise instruction. Proverbs 1, 7. They are the most
correct. They are the most wise. They
are the most important. They are the one. You're still the one. And it says, God hates, it's
an abomination to Him, haughty eyes. Not necessarily eyes, but
you see there, as I'll show you in a minute, also a lying tongue.
You know what that is. Deceit in any kind. Half-truth,
false truth. Deceit. Deceit. A twisting of the truth. Is to take what you know is true
and just a little change. Most of us say, oh, that's just
an exaggeration. It's a lie. That's hyperbole. It's a lie. Unless it's a literary
device or unless it's an oratory and you're rhetoric or rhetorical,
that's where some, I mean, a very prominent spiritual leader, he
exaggerated a little bit and now he's done. Just last year. He's done. Because his exaggerations
got bigger and bigger and bigger. And the next thing you know,
he was right there with Jesus creating the world. And in his
heart, I believe that's what he felt. But I don't know that. But I know what came out of his
mouth. So what he said with his mouth
is a good indication of what might be in his heart. Can we
condemn him? No. Should we judge what comes
out of his mouth? You better. Because if you sit
under his teaching after you heard what comes out of his mouth,
you're a fool. That's what the Word of God teaches us. Test
the spirits. Hold to what is good. Reject what is evil, murder,
the taking of innocent life in any way we see here in the Proverbs
that God abhors that it is. It is wicked. It is an abomination
to him. That includes abortion. Because
what is the root of murder? It's selfishness, it's hatred,
usually for righteousness. We hate people, hate us because
we are gods, as we saw in first John, when John referred, he
alludes back to to Genesis when Cain killed Abel. The murder
of Cain in his heart. He also couples that, by the
way, for people who say that they love Christ but hate their
brother and have animosity toward them. The Bible teaches us. John
is saying that's the same spirit that is a murderer. So you're
a murderer in your heart. When does sin happen? By stabbing
a guy or wanting to? Wanting to. And he says wicked plans. The
heart that devises wicked plans. This is the heart that plans
to engage in sin. The heart that plans to do stuff. Have you ever
sat around and contemplated what you're planning for your life?
Is it wicked? Well, I'm not really trying to do anything wrong,
illegal, or absolutely immoral. Seeking first the Kingdom of
God and all of His righteousness, then your plans are wicked. Are
you buying that property? Because your hope is then hopefully
one day you'll make a million bucks and that's what your joy
comes from? You more happy today because you got some investments?
rather than you were yesterday when you were dirt broke. That's
wicked. It's an improper affection. John
says that if you love the world, the love of the Father is not
in you. This is not a twisting of truth.
This is not an interpretive issue. This is absolute black and white.
Greek. Starts to say English. But it's
not. It's Greek. Wicked plans running to evil. You know what that is? You know
some people who run to evil? Do we run to evil? We make haste
to run to evil. We run in evil ways. We run in
evil directions. We run back. Here's one way all
of us usually run to evil. We go back to our old philosophies.
Well, I know that what I just heard from the pastor, man, but
what I've always believed is. It's OK to juggle that battle.
See, there's a fight. But when you understand what
God's word is said, guess who wins? God wins. Or better yet,
you've got a friend or a family member, this is the one that
always gets us. You've got a family member who we know is not walking
for Christ, but we're going to go get their advice on things. Or we go and we call our pastor,
and we don't like what he says, so we call another pastor. I
don't like what he says, so we'll call another pastor. Well, by
golly, then you're down there with MissChloe1900, tell me the
lie. That's running into evil. And then this thing, the last
two, a false witness, it says, a false witness, one who breathes
out love. I cannot say that together. False
witness who breathes out lies. One who tells something that
is not true. This is a gossip. This is someone who talks about
someone else for the purpose of bringing them down. If you
are talking about anyone anywhere without them present about anything
that is not edifying to their character. You are a murderer
and a gossip. And in our church covenant, it
actually deals with that in our Constitution, if you get caught
gossiping, it is a grounds for dismissal of membership of this
church. Why? Because it is an abomination to God. An abomination to God. What's
the big deal? It's a big deal because God hates
it. And some of the biggest gossip
I've ever heard in my 16 years of being involved in ministry
is prayer meetings. Oh, pray for old Aunt Sally.
She's been running around the same old guy about 30 years now.
She's got two other guys on the side, and he's a crack dealer,
and he beats his wife. Yeah, he's married. You know,
pray for her. She needs help. That's not prayer. How about
pray for Aunt Sally? She's in sin. That's enough.
And I think our intentions are good, but the devil, even if
your heart's right, the devil uses that. Because then Gladys
and Eunice and Lila and Audelia, these are the names of my aunts.
They're all passed away, so they're not going to get mad. And they
haven't done this. I just think they're neat names. And so they
get on the phone and they call each other and everybody else.
Did you hear so-and-so? And it's just a mess. It's a divisive.
It's a false witness, which is from a divisive spirit. This
division among the brethren. And I believe division among
the brethren of the church, listen to these words, the scripture
teaches very clearly, is demonic and satanic. Division in the
church is demonic and satanic. When our flesh divides us, where
is the gospel? The gospel says, you lay down
your life for them. When you feel like you've got
to be right, you're being used by Satan himself. He is in your
bed. He's in your bed. When God's word is the platform
and the foundation, guess what? The gospel is paramount. Divisive spirit is an abomination. Not that disagreements don't
come. Disagreements better come or then something's really wrong
there. But disagreements aren't dividing. You see what I mean?
Oh, we don't agree with that. Let's work it out. Let's see
what God's word says. You know, I never thought of
it that way. And sometimes you can agree to
disagree on these non-essential things. But we love each other
still. That's the glory of the gospel.
So don't think that utopia happens in the church. But division doesn't. It shouldn't. It is not of God. And understand, divisive spirit,
people who want to stir it up. People who want to get on the
phone. People who want to start trouble. People who want to call Spice.
People who want to keep sticking and stirring the same old mud.
That's divisiveness. But sometimes there's things
that the body of Christ or the church, if you will, does have
to divide over doctrine and over truth. You stand on it. And if
you're not willing to stand and actually be killed in an argument
over God's truth, you ought to just leave the church. Most of the time, all these things
come out of a heart that is selfish and proud anyway. And so these
descriptives, as we've seen here in Proverbs 6, it's amazing because
what this is is, listen, we've got eyes, tongue, hands, heart,
feet. It's a descriptive of a man who
is worthless. Not my words, but God's. Verse
12, a worthless man, a wicked man. Goes about crooked speech. Winks with his eyes. Signals
with his feet, points with his finger, perverted heart, sowing
discord, and then he lists those things that God hates based on
that. And so what we see here is that these descriptives are
the person who has no purpose in life except to be set aside
for destruction by God. His eyes, his mouth, his mind,
his feet, his heart are all wicked, and therefore they're worthless.
Our purpose is to glorify God as worshipers. So one who does
not do these things, the Scripture says, is worthless and near to
destruction. Now, see, that should pound and
that should be like a cheese grater on your skull. That should
grate away at your worldview. That should grate away at your
thinking. You should think yourself, but I always thought people were
naturally good. That's not true. That's not true. We're not good. There's no one
righteous. No, not one. The natural man
is hostile to God. The natural mind is hostile to
God. The heart of the flesh is an enemy of God. If left to our
own way, without God's grace, Romans 1 says we would completely
fall into absolute debauchery and be turned over to the reprobate
mind of the flesh, and we would fall right into just lascivious
sin. a worthless. Child of God loves his righteousness
and he strives for holiness. We come every moment of our lives
to the grace of God for strength and hope, and we rest in the
promise of God. While we fight and battle against
sin in the power of God. Because on these things that
we see, the lying tongue, the murdering heart, the wicked plans,
the running to the evil, the false witness, the divisive spirit,
on these things come wrath. God will bring His wrath. We
must repent and believe on Christ alone. He is our only hope. And God has promised in Proverbs
16, 6, by steadfast – listen to these words, church – by steadfast
love and faithfulness Iniquity is atoned for. By steadfast love and faithfulness,
iniquity is atoned for. And by the fear of the Lord,
one turns away from evil. Should have started with that
maybe. So the fear of the Lord is knowing Him, recognizing Him,
revering Him, worshiping Him, understanding Him. Loving what
he loves, hating what he hates, striving and fighting and battling
and making war against sin while uniting with unlovable people. And we lay our lives down for
each other in repentance and in forgiveness. God says in Proverbs
8, I love those who love me and those who seek me diligently
find me. Are you loving God? Are you seeking
after him? Do you seek after his righteousness?
Because that's the only way. Because if anybody here that
ever hears this message begins to start taking this list and
start checking themselves in some way of going, well, I want
to check and see if I'm a liar and I'm going to get the lying
under control. I'm going to become, I have a murdering spartan, so
I'm going to become less of a murderer. I'm going to really work, I'm
going to take a class on anger management and stop being such
a bad murderer. Or I'm going to stop being divine.
I mean, these are all noble things, but they're not going to get
you in the right relationship with God. You will still, even
if you wash through this stuff, you're still guilty of being
a lawbreaker and you still have condemnation on your head. It
is only by the grace of God through the person of Jesus Christ that
you can be saved. And the only way you can be saved
is by the sovereign grace that He gives you. And then you will
repent and you will believe and you will trust in Christ alone.
The Word of God calls us to believe to repent and believe. And that
means we turn our affections from the world and ourselves
and we realize that Christ is the only treasure worth loving. And we walk toward Him and we
run toward Him and we break our neck to go every day to the cross
so that grace of God will be sufficient for us. Because by
steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for. God said
that his steadfast love, his faithfulness, Paul says to Timothy,
if we reject him, he reject us. If we don't stand for him, he
won't stand for us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful
because he cannot deny himself. See, that's glory. That's glorious. And so we read through these
proverbs and we get these warnings and we get this wisdom. And we
have such, as human beings, even as children of God, we have such
a horrible flavor of the flesh. We try to do it. We try to do
it on our own. And we come to, just like that
Pharisee, and we begin working so hard that we look good. And
we don't actually come to a place of really believing in Christ
alone. And so, church, my prayer for
you is that as we continue in this next week, we're going to
begin some topics. We're going to look at we're
going to look at self-control next week. Self-control next
week. What does that mean? What's the
Proverbs teach us about self-control? And then the next few weeks,
look at some more topics like that. But all in all, we come
to the end of our day and we come to the end of this text
and we see that it is about God's grace that gives us hope. Nothing
else. Nothing else. And if your faith
is not in Christ alone, you have no faith. If your belief and
your trust in the Lord is because of what you did to get His attention,
you have no faith. The Scripture teaches clearly,
it is about Christ. Be strengthened by His grace,
young Timothy, that is in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and grace
be with you. Let's pray. Father, Oh Lord God,
we thank you so much for your grace. Unmerited favor. Unwarranted. And Lord, without Christ on the
cross in our place, it would be an evil favor. Thank you so much for your mercy.
Thank you for the test of our hearts today as we have gone
through this. Lord, may it settle with us for
days to come. May we really look at it. And
if nothing else, God, we can worship You because these are
the things from which You've saved us. You've saved us from
the judgment that comes from our pride. You've saved us from
the judgment that comes from our lies and from our murdering
heart and from the wickedness of our plans and our walking
into the evilness of our paths. And Father, You've saved us from
the judgment that comes from this divisive spirit in our hearts. You've saved us. And because
you saved us, you've empowered us and you're recreating us every
moment. You've given us a new heart and
it's just growing with worship. May we worship you in spirit
and in truth. May we truly have an affection
for you. May we have a fear of you to know that you could and
would rightly be just in condemning us. But Father, we thank you because
you have given us grace. And I pray that as you bring
this delight to your people, they would come to the knowledge
of faith and they would be saved by your Spirit, Father, if it
be your will. And they would grow and petition
for membership in this church and be baptized and be obedient
by meeting each other's needs and making disciples in the body
of Christ. And the Lord, through it all, you would be glorified. And your wisdom would be seen
clearly. And it is in Jesus' name and
His glorious power that we stand and pray these things to your
ears. Amen.