me please in your Bibles to Proverbs
chapter 10. Proverbs chapter 10. The scriptures were divided into
chapters in the early 13th century. That has certainly made it easier
for us to find places in the scripture. For instance, if I
had asked you to turn to about the third part of the book of
Proverbs It would have taken us a while probably before we
all got to the same place, Proverbs chapter 10. The way it was divided,
there's 32 verses in this chapter, and there are eight statements
in this chapter about the righteous. We're going to look at all eight
of these verses. We're going to divide our thoughts
into four headings, but there are eight statements made here
in this chapter about the righteous. And before we look at these statements,
I just want to remind us of how any person would be declared
or considered to be righteous. The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter
three, he says, and he's quoting from one of the Psalms, Psalm
14, there's none righteous. No, not one. How then can we
read about someone who's righteous when the apostle said that there's
none righteous? No, not one. Well, in that passage
there in Romans chapter three, of course, he quotes a number
of verses from the Old Testament. And his purpose was in showing
how, as he said, that the whole world might become guilty before
God. that every mouth might be stopped,
that no one would believe or think that somehow they were
born different from everyone else and that they are righteous. No, there's only one way a person
is made righteous and that is through the person and work of
Jesus Christ. And he tells us that in that
chapter, Romans chapter three and verse 22, he says, being
justified. Now that word justified is the
same as being righteous, being just, being justified freely. This is the only way anyone is
going to be justified, be made righteous. It's going to be freely. It's not going to come by our
works or any other person's works. Not going to come through some
church's work or some preacher's work or some individual's work. No, those who are justified,
those who are declared righteous or made righteous freely, first
of all, freely through the redemption That is, through the blood of
Jesus Christ, through His person and work, freely through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus. You know, in the 1500s
when the Great Reformation took place, what is considered to
be the Great Reformation, there were four solas, four solas that
were kind of like watchwords of the Reformation. The word
sola, of course, a Latin term that meant only. And it began
with only the scriptures. When we want to determine something
about God and about man and our relationship to God, where do
we go? Where do we go? We go to the
scriptures. We go to the word of God. And
then there was sola Christ. It's only through Christ. that
a person is made righteous, declared righteous. And then there was
sola fe. It's only by faith. It's by trusting
in Christ, by believing in him. And we know, and we explain this
quite often, how that the righteousness of Christ, which was his perfect
obedience, He came into this world as a man, as a God man,
and he lived under the law, and he obeyed God's law perfectly. Perfectly. He loved God with
all his heart, all his soul, all his being, and loved his
neighbor as himself, as the law commanded, something that no
other person has ever done. And when a person believes in
Christ, trusts in him, That righteousness of Christ is imputed or charged
unto the person who believes. It's illustrated to us in the
parable of the prodigal. When he came home, remember,
one of the things that the father said was, bring forth the best
robe and put it on him. And the best robe is the righteousness
of Christ that is put upon or charged to or imputed unto everyone
that believes. And therefore, God declares that
person to be righteous, to be righteous. And the last sola,
of course, was by grace. Sola, only the scriptures, only
Christ. and only by faith and only by
grace. Now, we see this in Romans chapter
four when Paul said, well, what about Abraham, our father, according
to the flesh? How was he made righteous? By works? No. Abraham believed
God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. So I wanted
to remind us all, when we read here in this chapter about the
righteous, who are the righteous? No one by nature is righteous. There's none righteous, no not
one. But only those who are made righteous. And that's the work
of God. He's the only one who can make
a person righteous. Another reason that we insist
upon the truth that we find in the book of Jonah, salvation
is of the Lord. Just picture Jonah in the belly
of that whale. Now, how's he going to get out?
How's he going to be saved? Salvation is of the Lord. And the same thing is true about
all of us as we come into this world by nature, sinful individuals. How are we going to be saved?
If we are going to be saved, it's going to be by the work
of God, by the righteousness of Christ being imputed unto
us. Now, as I said, there are eight
statements in this chapter concerning the righteous, but we're going
to look at all of them, but all of them under four divisions,
as we will see. The first is, if you notice in
verse three, The righteous have a wonderful promise. Notice in
verse three, the Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous
to famish. This is a wonderful promise that
every righteous person, every child of God has. The Lord will
not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish. Now it is true that
in the scripture sometime that word soul is used for a person,
both body and soul. For instance, in the book of
Genesis, we read concerning Abraham and Sarah, it says, all the substance
that they had gathered and the souls that they had gotten in
Haran. Now that word souls there refers
to persons, all the servants that they had. But in this particular
case, we're going to look at this, and I believe this is the
way it must be looked at. It is a promise concerning our
soul, that new nature that is given unto us. The Lord will
not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish. We know what it means
to be famishing, to famish. Physically, it means to be weakened,
It means to be weakened and usually that occurs because we haven't
had food or water or something like that. And so we're famished,
our bodies are famished. The same thing is true concerning
the soul, the spiritual being, the new man that is created in
righteousness. and true holiness. Sometimes
we might feel in our souls that we're weaker than at other times,
that our soul is famishing. But notice the promise is the
Lord will not suffer the righteous to famish. Now, as I said, that's
a promise. It's a promise that is given
unto us. But does that mean that we have
no responsibility? As believers, as children of
God, we have no responsibility. Well, no. Actually, this promise
is given to us to encourage us. Many times in the word of God,
when we're given a promise, it's not to cause us just to sit down
and do nothing to become indolent, but it is to encourage us in
the use of means. And that's the case here. The
Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish. He's
given us means and he's promised us that in the use of these means
our soul will not famish. We shouldn't grow weaker, we
should grow stronger. Every day we should grow stronger
in the Lord. You know, the matter of growth,
if something is alive, I don't care what it is, if it's living,
it's going to grow. When something doesn't grow,
it shows it's not alive. And the Bible is very clear,
the word of God is very clear in teaching us that as we start
off in our Christian life, we come into this world just like
a baby is born physically. A baby has everything it's ever
going to have. It's never going to have any
more fingers or toes or other organs in its body. It has them
all there at birth. But that body is going to grow.
It's going to increase. And the same thing is true concerning
us spiritually. The Lord will not suffer the
soul of the righteous to famish. And that includes the use of
the means that he has given us. Now, what would we consider to
be the means? Well, first of all, the Word
of God. I would think that would be first on everyone's list,
the Word of God. He's given us His Word, and we
neglect it if we do to our own detriment. We do. Look over,
keep your place here, but I want you to look back to Psalm 119.
Everyone is familiar with Psalm 119, the fact that it is the
longest of all the Psalms, but I want you to look at this verse
18. Psalm 119 in verse 18, where
the scripture says, David wrote, open thou mine eyes that I may
behold wondrous things out of thy law. The law of course here
is not referring just to the the books of the Pentateuch is
speaking of all the Word of God. Open thou mine eyes that I may
behold wondrous things out of thy law. I would that we would
all learn that verse by memory. Many of you, I'm sure, already
know it. And every day, every time that we come to the Word
of God and we open the Word of God to read it, that we might
pray that prayer. Open thou mine eyes, that I may
behold wondrous things out of thy law or out of thy word. There are wondrous things here
in the word of God. But if the Lord doesn't open
our eyes, we can read right past them. We can just read right
over them and miss the truth, the wondrous things that God
has for us here in his word. We need God the Holy Spirit to
open our eyes to the truth, that we might behold the wondrous
things that he has in his word for us. There's a verse in 1
Peter where the apostle said, as newborn babes. When a baby is born, you notice
this especially with animals. You know, it's always amazing
when you see a colt horn, that immediately they try to stand
on their legs, and their legs are so wobbly. But you know what
they're looking for? They're looking for food. They're
looking for the mother's milk bag, and that's where they're
headed. That's where they're going. And the same thing is
true about babies when we come into this world. As newborn babes,
Peter said, then desire the sincere milk of the word. And that word
sincere means the incorruptible word of God. We don't need to
mix things with it. I remember years ago when I was
just a kid, my grandfather was a preacher and he was so against
the Scofield Bible. He was so against it. I didn't
know. Why? But it wasn't just the notes,
it's the very fact that there was notes in the Bible, that
there was words of men in the Bible that he was so much against,
other than the Word of God. Read the Word of God, study the
Word of God. And for help, you say, well,
I need some help. We all do. And God, the Holy
Spirit, is the one who will help us as we read the Word of God.
Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of
thy word, out of thy law. So the Lord will not suffer the
soul of the righteous to famish in the use of the means that
he's given us. First of all, the word of God.
Secondly, of course, would be prayer. You know, I think sometimes
we think of prayer as just asking for something. And sometimes
I feel convicted and I have to say to myself, I want to pray.
I want to pray today and I don't want to ask for anything. I don't
want to ask God for anything. What I want to do is I want to
thank him. I want to praise him for what
he's already done, for who he is and what he's given me. You
know, prayer is fellowship or communion with God. It's not
just asking. So many people think that's all
that prayer is. It's just asking for things.
No, it's much more than that. It's spending time alone with
your Heavenly Father. And we pray to the Father through
God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, with the help of God the Holy
Spirit, He helpeth us in our praying because, as Paul said,
we don't know what we should ask for. You know, in prayer,
we feel our need as much in prayer as anything else we do. It's praying. It's a time of communion. It's
a way that God encourages His people and we grow, we increase
in the things of the Lord. And then the third thing that
I would mention before I move on is public worship. When we
come together and join together as believers, we come to sing
His praises and study His word. Yes, but we come also to exhort
one another, to encourage one another. for fellowship. We need that as believers, and
we suffer spiritually when we neglect public worship. You know, sometimes on Wednesday
evenings, our group here is pretty small, and it's easy to look
at the number and get discouraged, but my thought is this, Let God
be glorified. That's the main purpose here.
It's not to look and count how many people are here and how
many people are not here. No, it's that God will be glorified. That's my prayer, that he will
be glorified, whether there's 15 people here or 30 or 40, no
matter. But public worship, and I understand
our church, we live in a city where some of you live 30, 40
miles from here, maybe farther, some people. And I understand
it's impossible to make all the services for some of you. But
be faithful when you can, when it is possible, be faithful. And if it is possible, then be
faithful. It's important to you. You say,
well, I watch the streaming. Well, the streaming, let me tell
you, the streaming is good. But being here is better. The
streaming is good. And we have one member, at least,
of our congregation who is not able to come to any of the services
because of her health. She's in the hospital, I believe,
even right now as I'm preaching. And if she's able, she'll be
watching the service on her phone. And that's a blessing. That's
good. I'm glad that we have this, but we should never use it as
an excuse for not attending when we are able. We shouldn't. The
second thing I want you to notice in this chapter about the righteous,
the righteous are made a blessing. The righteous, they're made a
blessing. First of all, the Lord will not
suffer the soul of the righteous to famish. But second, the Lord,
or the righteous rather, are made a blessing. I want you to
look at three verses. Verse number 11. The mouth of a righteous man
is a well of life. All right, look down to verse
21. The lips of the righteous feed many. And then, if you will,
in verse 32, the lips of the righteous know what is acceptable. Each of these three statements
concerning the righteous here deal with the organ of speech,
the mouth and the lips. And the first one tells us that
the mouth is a well of life. Now, We know what's in a well,
water, water. But here we're told that the
mouth of the righteous is a well of life. Our Lord told the woman
at the well, John chapter four, that Samaritan woman, remember
he told her this first, and this is something we should never
forget. Our Lord said, whosoever drinketh of this water shall
thirst again. Talking about the water that
was in that well. And that statement can be written
above everything that people look to in this world, in this
life, to give them happiness or contentment. I don't care
what it is. Whosoever drinketh of this well
shall thirst again. But whosoever shall drink of
the water that I shall give him, it shall be in him a well of
water springing up unto everlasting life. And this verse here tells
us that the righteous, their mouth is a well of life. As God has entrusted us with
the gospel, revealed the gospel unto us, then we are to share
that gospel with others. We ought to speak to others about
what the Lord has done for us. You know, men, and when you share
the gospel with people, people can want to get you in an argument,
get you in a discussion about all kinds of things. How old is the earth? Where did Cain get his wife?
I mean, they've got more, different ways to try to get you off course,
talking about these things. What difference does that make,
how old the earth is? The situation is, what think
ye of Christ? This is the issue. It's not how
old the earth is. It's not how Cain found a wife
or any of these things that men and Satan no doubt puts that
into the thoughts of men, the minds of men, just to keep them
away from hearing the gospel. No, the mouth of the righteous
is a well of life. Someone one time said that. Preaching
the gospel is one beggar telling another beggar where he got a
piece of bread. And that's a pretty good description
of preaching the gospel because we're all mercy beggars. Every
preacher that is saved by the grace of God is a mercy beggar. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And when I preach the gospel
or you preach the gospel, your mouth is a well of life to speak
to others and tell them what Christ has done for you. Don't
try to get engaged in, well, what about election? And what
about predestination? And who did Christ die for? And all these subjects that people
like to use to divert themselves from the main issue. What think
ye of Christ? And when we preach and when you
witness and testify, you just keep coming back to this issue,
this issue over and over and over again. Then it says not
only the mouth of the righteous is a well of life, but you notice
the second one is the lips of the righteous feed many. the
lips of the righteous. Again, our words, our mouth,
we feed many, the righteous do. You may be a father in your home,
you feed your wife and your children with the word of God. That's
so important. I've said this before and I'll
say it again. The children that are raised
in a home where mother and dad read the word of God, and pray
with those children. They have such an advantage over
children that are raised in a home where the gospel is not first
and foremost. The lips of the righteous feed
many. It may not be only your family,
but your neighbors, your people you work with, people you study
in school with. The lips of the righteous feed
many. And then that last one is, the
lips of the righteous know what is acceptable. The lips of the righteous know
what is acceptable. There are things that are going
on today. We're confronted with them in
just about every place we go and all the time. And some of
these things we just have to say, that's not acceptable. That's
not acceptable. Most of you know our oldest daughter
is a teacher. Well, our youngest daughter is,
too. But our oldest daughter was telling us something this
past week about an assistant principal telling one of her
co-workers, you write too many children up. Don't write anyone
up for using foul language. I thought to myself, boy, things
have changed since I was in school. There's no way. I mean, I still
remember the principal's name, Mr. Perkins. I saw him every
once in a while, and he had a big battle, I'll tell you that. And
he didn't have to use it all that much because everybody was
afraid of him. I'm in fear, yes. But what we see here, things
are acceptable today. The righteous realize these things
are not acceptable. I saw two men, probably many
of you saw them this past week, talking about abortion. And they're just talking about
abortion like they don't understand they're talking about murdering
a baby? About killing a baby? That's
not acceptable. That's not acceptable in our
society, or it shouldn't be. You know the nation of Israel,
you read through the Old Testament, you see they were influenced
by other pagan nations, and one of the things that they took
up and learned from others was making their children pass through
the fire. And that was just a way of putting
their children in that idol's arms burning hot iron and destroying
the lives of their children. They thought they were sacrificing
to God. They were doing something to
appease God. God said, that never entered
into my heart or my mind. I tell you, God punished the
nation of Israel for the evil doing. And our country, how do
we expect Not to experience the judgments
of God. There's some things that are
just not acceptable. Not according to the word of
God, not according to God. They're sinful. That's evil. That's iniquity. Yes. Well, here's the third thing. The righteous have this assurance
in verse 30. The righteous shall never be
removed. When a child is born, the father,
the mother, that child will always be your child. You will always
be that child's father and mother. It doesn't matter what you say.
It doesn't matter what they do. That child will always be your
child. You will always be that child's
father or that child's mother. And yet people want us to believe
that a person can be born into the family of God and then be
removed. No, no, that's not going to happen. That will never happen. No, the
righteous shall never be removed. Everyone who is righteous And
I've already explained and went over how a person is made righteous.
Everyone who is righteous was loved of God with an eternal
love, chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world and
converted by the work of the Holy Spirit. Every righteous
person, they're not going to be removed. The Holy Spirit actually
comes to live in us And we talk about being, or the scripture
does, about being sealed with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
is the seal. He is the seal. He lives in every
righteous being, every righteous one. He is the seal. And the
righteous shall never be removed. No, the righteous shall never
be removed because look at this other one in verse 25. It says,
as the whirlwind passes, so is the wicked no more, but the righteous
is an everlasting foundation. The righteous is upon one with
an everlasting foundation. And think about this, for a righteous
person to be removed, that is, he's a child of God today, and
then he's not a child of God tomorrow. for a child of God
to be removed, what would have to take place? Christ, who's at the Father's
right hand and has been there and will stay there until he
comes again. For one righteous person to be
removed, you'd have to remove Christ from the Father's right
hand. Because we are ascended in him. As he's a head, we're parts of
the body. For a righteous person to be
removed, Christ would have to be removed. And you know that's
never going to happen. Well, notice in verse 28, the
fourth thing, the hope of the righteous shall be gladness. The hope of the righteous. What is the hope of the righteous? What is it? Well, look back to
the Psalms again, Psalm 17 this time. Psalm 17 in the last verse of
the chapter. As for me, I will behold thy
face and righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake
with thy likeness. You know the word hope. We use
it all the time. And I suppose the meaning has
somewhat changed over the years since the scripture was translated
into English. The word hope in the Bible is
expectation. Expectation. A lot of people,
they say, well, I hope I'm gonna be okay. I hope God's going to
receive me. But their hope is the hope of
a hypocrite. No, the righteous have an expectation. And our expectation is that we
will be with Christ and we will be like Christ. And the scripture
here says at His right hand, there's pleasures forevermore. That's our hope. John in the
New Testament, he wrote it like this, Beloved, now, today, October
the 6th, 2024. Now, beloved, now are we the
sons of God. Now we're the sons of God. And
it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when
he shall appear, That is when the Lord Jesus Christ comes again. When he shall appear, we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is. That's our hope, that's our expectation. One day we will be with him,
we will be like him. That is the hope of the righteous.
I pray that the Lord would bless these thoughts to all of us. All of the scripture is given
by inspiration of God. And no matter what book of the
Bible we read or study from, we should always look for Christ,
first of all. We should always look how it
may point us to Christ. Because all of the scripture
is a hymn book. It's all about hymns. And I pray
the Lord would bless the word this morning, the message, that
we would think about the righteous, what is true here. The promise
of the righteous, the hope of the righteous, the assurance
of the righteous, it's all here in the word of God.