Discover how to integrate ancient biblical teachings into modern life and uncover the enigmatic power of God's instructions. By examining the true meaning of prosperity and reflecting on the delicate work of applying scriptural principles, this sermon offers a practical guide for enhancing one's spiritual journey. With vivid examples and relatable anecdotes, you'll see how routine meditation on these timeless teachings can radically enhance your wisdom, making you like a tree planted by waters that bears fruit in its season.
SPEAKER 01 :
My sermon today presents a small problem to me in the sense that it is almost too simple. And yet, it is a principle which can and will, if you can apply it, change your life forever. Now, are you interested? And I'm talking, of course, changing your life is no trick. You can change it for the worst almost any time, just like that. That part So obviously that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about changing it for the better. It is a principle that you can. It's just so easy. It is so simple. It's within the hands of every person here to apply what I'm talking about, and it will bear results. The principle is expressed in a psalm. It's a psalm that I suspect many of you in this room have memorized. Everybody knows it. And yet, somehow, the principle that I'm talking about in this psalm goes largely unnoticed. I'm not entirely sure why. The psalm is the first psalm. You remember it, don't you? Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scornful. Just such a simple principle. straightforward expression of the obvious. It's a good thing for a man that he not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. The counsel of the ungodly. The counsel of the ungodly. What does that mean? Well, ungodly men in our world today, by and large, adopt a rather cynical posture. It's a posture of looking out for yourself first. It's a policy of, fine, help your neighbor as long as it doesn't cost you too much. You know, it's a cynical, selfish advice about how a person ought to live his life. Counsel, that advice, that way. Nor, he says, stands in the way of sinners. That's not hard to understand. Sinners have a way that they live their lives. Interestingly enough, this verse, and people have pointed this out, I'm sure, before in sermons and sermonettes, it says, not only do you not walk in the way of sinners, You don't stand in it. You don't get out in there and stand and let the currents of that way flow around you. It's a bad place to be. Don't be there. Nor sit in the seat of the scornful. People who, you know, make fun of God. Who scorn godly conduct. These things are well known to all of us, aren't they? What is not so simply understood, though, is exactly how it is that you don't do these things. They are all basically negative, aren't they? The person who doesn't do these things shall be blessed. Okay, instructions on how not to do something are kind of hard to come by. You know, it's a negative. What is it exactly that a person should do with their life in order that they might be in this place, and what difference does it make if they are? Read on. His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law does he meditate. day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Now I ask you, are you interested in that last sentence applying to your life? So that whatever you do shall prosper. Well, who wouldn't be? Now, the problem, of course, here's another misconception. We often think of prosperity almost entirely in terms of money. If you want to prosper, that means when you write a check, it doesn't bounce. It means that when you get a job, it pays well. That's prosperity. But that's not really the sense in which this is used. If I were going to transfer or translate this expression into modern vernacular, I would say that this man, his life will work. His life works. And I know what it feels like. And I know you know what it feels like to have your life just not work. Things don't work out. Plans don't come to fruition. Things you hope for don't come to pass. Well, here is a very simple, as I said, it's tough to approach it almost because it's so simple. You say, well, what's he telling me this for? Everybody knows that. My problem is how do I do it? And what's funny about it is You've just been told. His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law does he meditate day and night. But there also is a misconception. Somehow or other, when we find ourselves back in the law of God, and we read along through Exodus or we read through Deuteronomy, so many of us are hung up on the idea of law as That the law is that the law prescribes, that the law limits, that the law locks us into a certain pattern of behavior. That the law is there to regulate the things we do. And therefore we feel that if the law says you're supposed to put a ribbon of blue on the fringe of your garment, well you sort of feel guilty when you read that scripture if you check, no ribbon of blue. Well, maybe we could wear it on our underwear. You know, maybe some of you do. I don't know. We won't go into that right now. But we look at the law in terms of prescription, in terms of regulation. What's interesting about this passage is that the word is Torah. We're familiar with the word. It's the word the Jews used to describe the first five books of the Old Testament, the Torah. It's the word consistently translated law. I think there may be other expressions for laws and commandments and statutes and judgments, but it is the definitive word for law in the Old Testament. It's Torah. And when you come to the New Testament and you find the Greek word that is used in the same way as Torah, the word is nomos, and it's almost exclusively translated law in the New Testament. What does it mean? Well, what do I mean? What does it mean? It means law, doesn't it? Well, not exactly. If you come down once again dealing with our language, And the way we look at things, and this is what we have to do if we're going to try to communicate to 20th century man. I'm going to try to communicate to you people out here. The problem is that with your background, and so many of you who have been a part of another religious organization which took a very legalistic approach to the law, when I say the word the law of God, something comes to your mind that may not be entirely accurate. The word means, the word Torah means, instruction. Now, let me ask you, do you see any difference between the word instruction, as you understand it, and the word law, as you understand it? Oh, yeah. You don't have a lot of trouble with that. There is a difference. There's a very strong difference. For example, you understand that the law says that you're supposed to drive 55 miles per hour. It's arbitrary. It could just as easily have been 57 or 58 or 54 or 62. And if you get the statistics, they might very well find that the most safe speed to drive is not 55, but it's 57 and a half. But you know, 57 and a half is hard to deal with, so the law says 55. And because it's hard to enforce that right to the line, most police will not pull you over unless you're doing 61 or 62 in a 55-mile-an-hour zone. And we all know that, so we all drive 60 in 55-mile-an-hour zones. What are you laughing about? Well, of course we do. Well, so this is law. It is rooted in what's good for us. It's rooted in these things, but it is regulatory. And if you drive beyond it, you get arrested. Now, when you come to the Old Testament, there are laws, of course, that we understand. You break the law and the death penalty ensues. We understand that law, thou shalt do no murder, be an absolute. And if you murder somebody, God says he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. All these things we understand. But you see... When the word that is used to gather all these laws together, all the way down to things like wearing a ribbon or a fringe of blue on your garment, all the way down to simple things like how do you handle things when you borrow tools from your neighbor, these laws are all grouped into the word instruction. Now, instruction, the problem with it is it's not always easy to apply in the same way at every time and in every place. You have to think about it. It says here, his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law does he meditate day and night. What does meditate mean? Think. So he thinks about it. Once again, the problem with so many of these things is that through the Judeo-Christian heritage that's come down to us today, We tend to think in terms of religious exercise. We think of Bible study as a religious exercise. We think of meditation as a religious discipline. We think of prayer as a religious discipline. And they are practiced as discipline. But there's nothing terribly complicated about this. You know what this verse is really saying? It's saying this man's delight or his pleasure is taken in the instruction of God and he thinks about it routinely. It's a routine part of his life. to think about, ponder the instructions of God. Now, is there anyone here who doesn't understand this simple little principle that we're laying out here before you? It's really easy, isn't it? But you see, there is one more misconception that hangs down in our consciousness about these things. Why is it or how is it exactly that it works? Picture yourself, let's say, somewhere around God's throne as maybe an angel standing in the wings or one of the 24 elders watching all the comings and goings of angels going back and forth to the earth. And they've been walking to and fro on the earth and going up and down in it, bringing back their reports to God. And, of course, God is handling prayers daily and routinely coming back and forth. Now, here's God looking down and he sees you. There you are studying your Bibles. And it's been six months now and you have not missed a day studying your Bible. And you have engaged in a religious discipline of meditation on that Bible every day for six months. And God looks down upon you and says, do you see what he's doing? Isn't that a terrific attitude? Let's reward him. What shall we give this person, this woman, this man, who is being so diligent in studying my word and reading the Bible and knowing what the Bible says? I know an angel standing by says, let's give him a new car. I haven't quite got it right. Who's that guy on Price is Right? He has it. You know, when he says a new car, he says it like that is absolutely the greatest prize that they could ever give to anybody, anywhere, anytime. Now, let me ask you this. Honestly, when you think the time for reward comes, reward, can you imagine God giving you a new car as a reward? Now, I will tell you, God's idea of reward is more along the lines of saying, you know, see what a good job he is doing? Let's reward him with more work. Well, now here you are laughing again. But, you know, you've read your Bible, and you know how God thinks. He says, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in a few things. I'm going to make you ruler over much. You take control of ten cities. Folks, that's work. He is not going to reward you with a trip to the Bahamas to lie around in the sun and soak up the sun all day. He may well reward you by sending a poor person to your door who needs help. He may reward you by getting to make a sacrifice. That's the way he rewarded Abraham. He was such a good man, he allowed him to go through the process of taking his own son up to a mountainside someplace and sacrifice him. That's what God's rewards are like. But you see, there's a funny thing about this. This is not a reward at all. It's not a reward, it's a result. And there is a difference. God in heaven... does not have to lift a finger to change your life if you do this. It's results. Look at what it says. He is like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit and its season and its leaf doesn't wither. Do you imagine for a moment that God Almighty in heaven has to lift a finger, say a word, direct a cloud, do anything at all to make a tree that is planted in the right place flourish. Now, he did that a long time ago. Why does he need to do anything else about it? That was all built into the design. The fact that the tree bears fruit and has great leaves is the result of where it's at. Now, can you understand where I'm going? That the man who takes great pleasure in the instruction of God and who thinks about it routinely, will see results in his life. Now, there's a different way of looking at this, and it's an important difference, because I'm afraid so much of the time, when we look forward to the reward of God, and we trust God to give us a reward, but we're anticipating that reward when Jesus Christ comes back to this earth. And we live a lot of our lives and we do good things and we look around and nothing happens. No gifts fall out of the sky. No checks come through the mail. No new jobs show up on the horizon. And while we don't necessarily lose faith in God, we don't have any sense of immediacy about a reward. But you can understand, can't you, the very slow, cumulative process of results when a tree is planted in the right place, in the right season. Can you see it grow? No. Can you actually see the progression of fruit? Can you stand there and watch the bud and see the change taking place? No. But can you come back tomorrow and notice a difference? Possibly. Can you come back the week later and see a difference? Oh, certainly. And when you see those first little green hard peaches on the tree, You can stand and watch it, you know, in vain. But if you come back, you will have a nice, large, yellow, and peach-colored peach. Because they're juicy and ripe. And all this stuff happens as results. And slow. And here it is telling you that the person who delights in the instruction of God and who routinely thinks about the instruction of God will see similar types of results in his own life. They are sure. They are certain. They are slow, but they are cumulative. And over time, they add up. It works. How does it work? Well, let's play a game with it if you want to. Let's work our imaginations a little bit. Let's say you're at home, wherever that is, and let's say that it's a Sabbath morning. And you've got yourself propped up in your favorite chair, your footstool in front of you, a nice hot cup of coffee on the table beside you, and your Bible open in your lap. And you turn your Bible back to what shall we say? Exodus, the 21st chapter, should put us right in the middle of the law. And that's what we're talking about. Exodus 21 and verse 28. And let's consider what we're looking at here and how this might work in your life. If an ox gore a man or a woman that they die, then the ox shall surely be stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten. But the owner of the ox shall be quit. In other words, not guilty, released, and left alone. Now, if the ox were prone or wont to push with his horn in time past, and it has been testified to his owner that he has done this, and he has not kept him in, and he has killed a man or woman, the ox shall be stoned, and his owner shall be put to death. My, that's serious. Now, you also understand, don't you, what you're reading here? It is a simple, basic law of liability. It says that when you know something that is a danger to other people and you neglect to do anything about it, you are liable. And the Bible seems to put you at extreme liability all the way down to life for life, although it does go on and mitigate that slightly. it says, if there be laid on him a sum of money, I presume instead of putting him to death, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatever is laid upon him. In other words, if they want every dime he has, every animal he's got, if they want his house and his land, it's gone. He will pay whatever is laid upon him, whether he's gored a son or gored a daughter, according to this judgment, shall it be done to him. Now, if the oxen goes on to talk about the some other things that are involved in it rather curious things having to do with men servants and men servants and the relative difference in value to sons and daughters that is also something to think about but you have to bear in mind it's another time and another place and that these are instructions now the difference really boils down to this I can see some people who are bored with all that and they say well it doesn't apply to me I don't have an ox now on the other hand While you're sitting there, if you just lay your Bible aside for a moment and pick up your cup of coffee and stare out the window for a while and think about this, let's imagine that it comes back to mind that two days ago your dog bit one of the neighbor's children. You know, broke the skin. We checked the dog out. He didn't have rabies and the neighbors weren't mad about it or anything. And then you also recall that the other night you were getting ready to move your dog's food bowl and he snapped at your hand and almost got you. You will remember as you read this that there is a principle of liability. Now you know that it is not only true in God's law, it's true in this world, right? So the next morning you get up, or maybe later that day you get up, load old Fido in the car, take him down to the vet, and have his teeth pulled. Well, that's a lot kinder than having him put to sleep, isn't it? And your neighbor's kids are not going to mind being gummed by your dog. And it would be a lot safer for you if you're moving his food bowl. It makes all kinds of sense to me. They say that a schizophrenic dog will do that kind of thing. And that if you don't want to have them put to death, you can keep them. But you've got to have those teeth pulled. And they'll be just fine. You can keep them for quite a long time. Let me ask you this. Could this dog biting a neighbor's child have any effect on you prospering? Uh-huh. I see heads nodding. You understand what I'm talking about, don't you? Nowadays, when somebody's liable to say, well, you know, you're liable to open the door in the morning, add to a knock on the door and somebody slaps a subpoena in your hands. What's this? Well, your neighbor down the road is suing you because your dog bit his kid. He said he bit him last month and you didn't do anything about it. Uh-oh. Your neighbor's going to own a whole lot more than your dog before all this is said and done. So here is just a simple biblical principle that for the person who sits and reads it, then sits back and thinks about it for a while, and how would this apply to me? How would it affect my life? What does it really mean? It could actually mean the difference between keeping the money you've laid up for your children and your children's children and losing your shirt because of a liability lawsuit. It continues. If a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, verse 33, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall in it, the owner of the pit shall make it good and give money to the owner of them, and the dead beast shall be hid. Oh, my goodness. I had been digging a hole in my backyard, you know, the guy says, for a septic tank. And a septic tank, you know, you dig it fairly straight down the sides, and it's not a very big hole. And while you're down there working on it, you may look at the sides of that hole every once in a while yourself and wonder, trying to save some money. And you went in last night and went to bed, you know, and cleaned up, went to bed, and didn't bother putting any barricades around it. You had some sheet plywood you could have put across the top of it over some tuba floors, and you didn't do that either. And here you are on a Sabbath morning, drinking your coffee and reading your Bible, and sure enough it says a pit. Not only could it be an animal that falls in it, it could be one of the neighbor's children that fall in it. Children can't resist a hole in the ground. You know, they can't resist things like they've got to look down in the bottom of it, they've got to drop stones down it, they've got to get close to the edge of it. And edges have a way of caving in. And then the kid gets down there and something could cave in on top of him. You could wind up very liable, and that could be the least of your problems. There could be your conscience that says, I could have done that. You know what's going to happen when somebody draws you into court and says, here it was, you had a pool put in your backyard and you didn't even put up a fence. Why didn't you put up a fence? You dug a hole in your backyard, you put no barricade or light on it, you did not protect it from neighborhood children. Why didn't you do that? You knew your dog was prone to bite. Why didn't you do something? Do you know what you're going to say to the attorney, to the judge, to your neighbor, whoever? I didn't think. Aren't you? You didn't mean to hurt the child. You didn't mean to be negligent. You didn't mean to cause a problem. You just didn't think. His delight is in the instruction of God, and he thinks about it. Routinely. One simple chapter of the Bible here that lays out principles of liability in living with neighbors, and every one of these principles is firmly rooted in our legal system. That we are held liable for things that we know and could have done something and didn't do anything about it. A heightened awareness of this could have more to do with your prosperity in direct financial terms than you can imagine, not to mention your peace of mind. Let's turn over into chapter 22 and take a look at verse 14. Another simple little principle. He says, If a man borrows anything of his neighbor and it be hurt or die, the owner not being with it, he shall surely make it good. Now, I am highly unlikely to borrow anything of my next door neighbor that is alive. But it's not inconceivable that if my lawnmower were broke, I could go over to my next door neighbor's house and borrow his riding lawnmower. I could. However, having just read this scripture, I recall that if this thing breaks while I've got it, I am responsible for making it good. It doesn't matter if his clutch was already nearly worn out. If it goes while I've got it, I'm going to have to make it good. Right? That's all very clear. Maybe what I ought to do Well, let's see what the rest of the scripture says, because actually there is a principle, you know, further than even this in it. Let's see, verse 14. If a man borrow anything of his neighbor, and he hurt or die, the owner of not being with it, he shall surely make it good. But if the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good. If it's a hired thing, it came for its hire. I know what I'll do. I'll let my fingers do the walking through the yellow pages, and I'll call up this guy and tell him to bring his mower over here, and he'll cut my grass, and I'll pay him for it. And if it breaks, it's his problem. I've sold up all my liabilities right there. I have to pay that amount of money to get my yard mowed, and if his equipment breaks, that's his problem, not mine. It came for his hire. You know, again, these are such simple things. I told you when I started out, this sermon had a problem with it. But it was so simple. And yet the principles that are being outlined here for us to live our lives by can affect our prosperity. You can understand why then he would say, That blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, who doesn't stand in the way of sinners, who takes pleasure in the instruction of God and thinks about it day and night. Whatever he does will prosper. It really will make a difference in his life. Come on down a little further. There are some more principles right in this same section that are really valuable. You shall neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for you are strangers in the land of Egypt. You know, I don't know why it is, but Down through history, men have been prone to take advantage of strangers, people who don't belong, people who are not part of their community. And these stories have been written time and time again. We are told that our forefathers were strangers at one time, and we have been strangers. Every one of us has been a stranger in a strange place. I thought I'd say a strange person, but not all of us are strange persons. But we've all been strangers. We've been in strange places, and we've been alone. And sometimes it can mean so much to stop by and ask someone directions who's standing alongside the road. and to have them, oh yes, and then give you directions and advice and so forth. Wouldn't it be awful, though, if a person sent you deliberately in the wrong direction, where it wasn't safe for you to go? Could he? Sure he could. We operate a great deal in our world on trust. Now, I know I really don't need to tell you folks to do that, but you see, one of the reasons I don't need to tell you is because you have already come to an understanding of this principle through the teachings of Jesus Christ. But nevertheless... It is something that as children oftentimes we engage in mischief deliberately with strangers. One of the reasons why children hate to change schools is because they know what children in their school have put new kids in their school through. It's a principle. Maybe we ought to consider teaching our children some of these principles. You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. This one is rather interesting. If you afflict them in any way, you know, it does not even say deliberately or intentionally or unintentionally. It just says if you afflict them in any way and they cry at all to me, I will surely hear their cry and my wrath will wax hot and I will kill you with the sword and your wives shall be widows and your children shall be fathers. Now, I don't know about you, but he's got my attention. on this one. A lot of you are probably in business situations or operating situations from time to time where you do encounter widows or fatherless children or helpless people of one kind or another. How do you respond to them? You know, it is so easy to take advantage of a widow. We had an interesting situation up in Minnesota this last summer where a woman whose husband had died and left her alone She was a member of the Church of God International, but she was over in, I forget the name, Bemidji, I think, Minnesota, a long way away from any minister, or as far as I knew, from any other members of the church. And she wrote down, she wasn't really asking me for anything, she was just concerned about her situation. This was Minnesota. She had no firewood in yet, and it was starting to get late in the summer. She had her husband's pickup truck that she was trying to sell, and she'd been around to two or three car dealers, used car dealers, asking what it was worth, and she had the very distinct impression that they were trying to steal her pickup truck legally. And she wrote, just kind of helpless and talking about being alone. So I wrote her back and said, well, now do you mind if I give your name? I said, are there people in your area that we know about? They were people on the extended church. Do you mind if I give your name to them? Because you've got to be careful nowadays. You can't just give people's names around willy-nilly because you never know what people are going to do. But I asked her, because of her situation, if she'd mind it, and she didn't mind, so I gave her name to two other people on the extended church who happened to be in Bemidji, and also let Scott Erickson know, who's a minister up in Orem, Minnesota. Well, between Scott and him going down there and working with her, and the other two members in the area helping her out, she's got a load of firewood in for the winter, they sold her pickup for $400 above wholesale, she's got everything all straightened out, and next summer she'll be able to move back near her friends and family back over in St. Paul. And, you know, this is the kind of thing, now, You might ask yourself, why should I need to do this? That's her problem, not mine. People can do that. I know you all wouldn't do that. Why wouldn't you do it? Because of the scriptures, one reason. I'm not bringing something to you that's new to you. You already know what your attitude and your response is supposed to be. But you know, in the various business situations we get involved in across the country, my wife is in real estate. And when she gets a widow... she bends over backwards to do what needs to be done to help. Because she doesn't want, you know, there's a selfish side of the thing of not wanting that widow to cry out to God and say, well, this person took advantage of me. That's one side of it. The other side of it, which is much stronger, is the care that gets bred in us over time because we are routinely delighting and taking delight in God's instructions and we are routinely thinking about them, builds in us an attitude of mind. Now, What do you suppose happens when a widow is helped? When somebody not only doesn't take advantage of her, but bends over backwards to help her in whatever way they can? Well, one of the things she's going to do is to pray and thank God for that person and ask God's blessing for that person. Is that worth anything to you? Another thing she's going to do is she's going to tell people about you. She's going to tell them how you helped her and how you took care of her. And your reputation is going to go up a couple of notches as a result of what you did. Did you ever hear of the law of 250?
SPEAKER 1 :
250?
SPEAKER 01 :
It's a salesman's law. It means for every person you make mad at you, you turn off 250 potential customers because that is the circle that most salespeople, I mean most people know, about 250 people. Which also means in turn that if you really build up a reputation for good, you also affect about 250 people because of the way people network in this world. And your reputation can get stronger and stronger. Now I ask, if any of you people here are in business for yourself, is your reputation worth anything in dollars and cents? Oh my, you know it is. You know how precious it is. And therefore the things that you do to build that reputation, and that's what, you know, some of this has to do with your reputation. And some of it has to do directly with God. I don't know which one you think is the more important. I think I do. But the fact is, if you don't care about anything else except your reputation, you're going to prosper because you think about this law routinely as a part of your everyday life. Notice what it continues to say, work our way down this. It says, if you lend money to any of my people who are poor by you, you are not to be to him as a usurer, neither shall you lay upon him usury. In many cases, the reason why people are in trouble financially is because they lack the discipline or the self-control or the knowledge in many cases to be able to keep their purchasing under control, and because of 18% and 24% interest rate on the things that they buy, they wind up going further and further in debt, and finally they get so far down, there is no way out for them. And so it comes to you and says, could you lend me some money? Now, if you then lend money to a person in that situation, charging interest, all you're doing, you are no better than the finance companies or the loan sharks that have been taking advantage of them and got them there in the first place. Now, you can, if you're dealing with a brother in the church who says, I'd like to borrow some of your money to help me out in my business, and he says, if I make any money, I'll give you some of it, that's okay to take interest in that kind of situation. We're talking about poor people. You are, A, to lend them money. You really aren't supposed to do it. And you're not supposed to charge them any interest. Well, can I take some kind of security, some kind of collateral? Oh, yeah, you can do that. Here it is, right here. If you at all take your neighbor's raiment, to pledge, you shall give it back to him before sunset. That's his covering. It's his raiment for his skin. What's he going to sleep in? It shall come to pass, he cries to me, I will hear, for I am gracious and you are not. That's what he's saying. I'm gracious and you're not, and I'm going to hear him when he cries to me. So, I would suggest you give it back. And since you're going to have to give it back tonight at sunset, what's the point in taking it in the first place? Now, this is not the kind of thing that if you just try to apply this as a regulatory law, you're going to run down more dead ends than you can think about. But if you can think about this as God's instructions, as I said, you can close your Bible and take another sip of your cup of coffee and stare out the window for a while again and think about what this means and how it would impact your life. and about the things that you have already done, and how it worked or how it didn't work, and what really happened when I lent my brother-in-law that $20, what sort of changes were made, and the way I handled it when I asked for it back. How am I doing this? Am I doing this right, according to what I'm told here, or am I running down some wrong pathways in the process? Continue with chapter 23, verse 1. You shall not raise a false report. Don't put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. What could that mean? Well, the one thing I think you could consider is not to be a participator in spreading a rumor. Now, you would say to yourself, well, of course I'm not going to spread it. Why would I spread a false report? Oh, if it was titillating, and if you didn't know that it was false but thought it might be true, and you thought the person you were going to tell it to would be excited by it, why, yeah, I might. Whoops. You shall not raise a false report. That's what you had in the first place. And you're not supposed to put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Don't help anybody out in this kind of thing. Don't spread this kind of thing around. Simple little principles that you ought to live by. Now, how could this affect your life? I'll tell you one way it can affect your life very directly. Have you ever sat with someone and listened to what they were saying about old Joe or Susan or Joanna and how they were running Joanna down to you? and wondered in your mind what they said about you when they were talking to Joanna? If you didn't, you're not paying attention. Because if they will say this about them, they will also talk about you. Now, that's this dirty old person that's doing this over here. Now we're talking about how does this affect your life? Do you want to be the kind of a person that people don't trust? Well, if you do, if you don't mind being a person that people won't trust, then feel free to talk about your friends to other friends. Feel free to run people down. Because in the process of running down Joanna over here to your friend, you are sowing distrust in your friend's mind toward you. Do you ever consider that? It's the way it works. It is the way it works. Now here's just a simple principle. There's nothing complicated. Just don't get involved in it. You shall not follow a multitude to do evil. Neither shall you speak in a cause to decline after many to twist judgment. Neither shall you countenance a poor man in his cause. That's a curious one. Not to countenance a poor man in his cause. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I think I know one way I would apply that. Some fellow comes along to me and he really doesn't have enough money. to go into business for himself and he wants me to invest and go into business with him. I think what I would probably do after hearing him out is say, friend, I think you ought to get a job and save up some money and maybe you'll be able to go into business for yourself. Because whenever you take a partner in, all you're doing is taking in somebody else that's going to try to tell you what to do. All you're going to have is somebody trying to direct your business. If you take in somebody that's lending you money and expecting to get interest back, you're going to give up so much of your profits it may not be worth it to you. I'll give him advice, but I'm probably not going to give him much else. I may give him a loan that I don't ever expect to see again, and therefore it needs to be of an amount that I can afford to give him, and so on. But to countenance him in his cause or to support him in his project or to finance him in his business, no, I think not. I think not. These are things that a person has to consider. Once again, it's not a part of the law, the Medes and the Persians that is applied in the letter and never altered. These are instructions that you're supposed to think about and find a way to apply them in your life. Now, since we're talking about instructions and not just laws, in a sense, let's move out of the law. Let's go back to the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is an incredible set of instructions. And I want you to imagine yourself once again this time. will have you propped up in bed at bedtime. You know, you've got up in bed, you've tucked your feet under the covers, you've popped up against some pillows, you've got the lamp on by the bed, you've got a glass of milk and two, not three, two of your favorite cookies. Not this kind either, the big, large, ten-inch diameter one, just two small cookies of your favorite kind. And it's bedtime. And I want you to open your Bible. as you propped up there in your bed, to the seventh chapter of the book of Proverbs. This chapter starts by saying, My son, keep my words and lay up my commandments with you. Keep my commandments and live, and my law is the apple of your eye. Bind them upon your fingers. Write them upon the table of your heart. Now, he's not talking about phylacteries. He's not talking about scribbling, you know, Ten Commandments and tying them up around your fingers. That's symbolic language or metaphor for really getting your fingers into it or having the law so close to you that it's on your fingers and it's written in your heart. How do you write things in your heart? You memorize them. That's simple. We all know how to do that. We learn how to do that as children. The book of Proverbs, these sections of these Proverbs and parts of the Proverbs and individual Proverbs cry out to be memorized. They're there for you, and you ought to memorize some of them, the ones that apply to you, that affect your life. You ought to sit there and repeat them over and over again until you can quote them, you know, without looking at the Bible, and so that you'll never forget them. Write them in your heart, because they affect the way you live. Bind them upon your fingers. Write them upon the tables of your heart. Say to wisdom, you're my sister, and call understanding your kinswoman, that they may keep you from the strange woman, the stranger that flatters with her words. For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, and I beheld among the simple ones, I beheld, discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding. Now, if you kind of get the picture of this, we've got this young oaf with big feet, big hands, and not very much gray matter between the ears. He is very unflatteringly described, but of course he is young and he is awkward and he has not learned a lot of things about life yet. Passing through the street near her corner, he went along the street toward her house. In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot. She had on a tight leather skirt that just was about this far below the waist, you know, a little short leather-type skirt, kind of the attire of a harlot. and a real tight sort of spandex blouse that revealed everything and concealed nothing. And she was also very subtle of heart, very smooth. It says she is loud and stubborn. Her feet abide not in her house. Now she is outside. Now she's in the street. She lies in wait at the corners. So she caught him and kissed him and with an impudent face said to him, I have peace offerings. That means stakes. I've got some stakes at the house. I have paid my vows this day, and I came forth to meet you. You're the one I came out here to see. Sure she did. Right. This young oaf, awkward, ungainly, not particularly handsome, she came looking for him. She just flatters him. She says, I came diligently to seek your face, and I have found you. I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry and carved works and the fine linen of Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh and aloes and cinnamon. You want to know what it smells like? She said and wafts her hand underneath his nose. Come, let us take our fill of love to the morning. Let's solace ourselves with love. The good man is gone. He's not at home. He's gone on a journey and taken a bag of money and he won't be home until the time appointed. We're safe. With her much fair speech, she caused him to yield and with the flattering of her lips, she forced him You know, most of us men think in terms of the reason why women are enamored of us is our macho. We're going to sweep women off our feet. We're going to waltz in and we're going to sweet talk this gal and she's going to go where we take her just because of our masculinity. Nah. She decided. She picked him out. She forced him. Now that's kind of humiliating when you think about it. It says he goes after her straightway like an ox goes to the slaughter, like a fool to the correctionist doctor. This woman reached out and with her little finger she could tuck it around his necktie. Just her little finger around the corner of his necktie and say, follow me. And he'll go anywhere. Anywhere. And so it says he'll go after her until a dart strikes through his liver like a bird hastens to the snare and doesn't know it's for him. she has cast down many wounded yea many strong men have been slain by her her house is the way to hell going down to the chambers of death do you suppose the night before if Jimmy Swaggart had read this scripture and thought long and hard about it the night before that he would have necessarily have been down that same street, at that same motel, with his car, with his license plate, parked out in front of him? Well, there's a chance that he might not have been there. You know, I heard something I have not known recently. Pat Robertson was being interviewed by Larry King, I believe, and he said, you know, that Jimmy Swaggart, when he was 12 years old, was taken to a house of prostitution by his cousins or his uncles, I forget exactly which it was, as a rite of passage. And it had an effect on his life from that time forward. And I can understand how that might well be, because when you're 12 years old, you've got all these things in your mind. You've heard all these stories from all your friends and cousins about what things are like, you know. And if somebody drags you down to a house of prostitution and you get involved in this, you're not able to, you know, to weigh this, to deal with it, to contemplate the implications of it. And I gathered that from this, you know, he has had a lifelong obsession with pornography. Perhaps it is a result of that, but of course, you know, We have, us human beings, have a natural preoccupation with sex. To be drawn, shall we say, to listen to someone or to see someone or to follow through on something like that is a normal thing to happen. And you can easily understand how child molestation, how introduction to sex at a very young age and where that type of thing can lead can cause problems. I don't say this to excuse Jimmy Swagger, but I got to thinking about it and I suspect, I mean, I may be wrong, But I have a feeling that there was a period of time in his life when he wasn't doing that. I have a feeling there was a period of time in his life, in his early ministry and his working toward the ministry, when he was immersing himself in the Bible, because Jimmy Swaggart does know the Bible. I have a feeling there was a time, because of the fact that he had his nose in the Bible, that he came to hate this obsession that he had. He came to loathe and despise many of the things that he had done, and there was no way during that period of time, because he was in the Bible. that he would have done those things I may be wrong but I suspect that that is the case because you know and I think that loathing I don't know if you heard Jimmy Swagger at any time before the scandal struck his ministry or not but I have heard very few people speak as vehemently in condemnation of sin as I have heard Jimmy Swagger and it was almost like a man who was preaching to himself it was like a man who knew the kind of pain and suffering and heartache that it could cause And he was vehement in his denunciation of it. And I suspect that it was because of the way it had affected and maybe even was affecting his life. But you know, men who think they know the Bible are very vulnerable. Because once you have come through the stage of learning it, once you have made those sacrifices and spent the hours in poring over the pages of the Bible, And you have in your mind, you're prone when you come to a scripture like this to pass to say, let's say, Proverbs 7, I know what's there, let's see what's in Proverbs 8. And not take the time to go back and routinely think about God's instruction. For had he done so, he probably, might not have at least, let's say, let's give him the benefit of the doubt, might very well not have been there that night. But of course it takes much more than one time. It takes a continual regular, consistent watering of your little plant for you to come to the place to where it's foreign to you, to where you don't feel like it. Now, maybe you have had this experience in your life to where, as a result of a period of time of Bible study or a period of time of really immersing yourself in God's Word and being aware of what He said, you actually surprised yourself one occasion to realize that some sin of yours, some problem of yours, some thing that had dogged your steps sometime for years, you found yourself surprisingly not even wanting. It was not a matter that you had to resist it, that suddenly for that one moment you didn't want it. Oh, a day or so later you probably wanted it again, and the problem went on. But you see, That closeness to God, to the mind of God, to the thoughts of God, to the ways of God, the teachings of God, has got to have an effect on your life. The book says, He who walks with wise men shall be wise, the companion of fools shall be destroyed. Whoever it is who is having the greatest impact on the way you think is going to have a profound influence on your life. Do you realize that this sermon as I've been going through it, is about something no more complicated than Bible study. Now, if I had started out today saying, okay, this sermon is about Bible study and how you all ought to start studying the Bible, I think I might have lost a few of you at that point in time, but you see, that's what this is all about. Reading your Bible, thinking about your Bible, so that you know the kind of things that God instructs man to do. That's all. And what comes from it It doesn't involve God being pleased with you because you study your Bible, although I'm sure he is. It involves results, like watering a plant, like fertilizer. It's nothing secret, nothing complicated, nothing difficult. Now, to make this work, you need five things. You need your Bible. You need a comfortable place. Like I said, it can be propped up in bed at bedtime, or it can be in the morning with a cup of coffee. You need peace and quiet. You need a system. And, of course, we've already provided for you. If you would like to have it, you can do your own, of course. But we have a Read the Bible in One Year little brochure that you can write in and get from us. We'd be glad to send you a copy of it. And fifth, you need something to keep you in focus. I suggest a pen or pencil and a pad, notepad, because occasionally you'll want to jot down things or you'll want to mark scriptures. I remember as students, Mr. Andy will remember this, back in the old days, some of us had, how was it, 16 colors of pens that we carried around in our briefcases. And I have a feeling if you could, I know you couldn't mind, I suspect also, Mr. Andy, if you could go looking through some of our old Bibles, you'd be rather fascinated to see some of the color codes that show up as we study through them. But you know, as silly in a way as that sounds, it was useful in another way. Actually, it was useful for reasons I don't know if we fully understood. It kept us in focus. Because while I was sitting there saying, let's see, now this particular proverb is about pride. and I'm using red for pride, and I pull my little red pencil out, and I mark all the way around that scripture, my mind is on it. There it is. I'm marking my way around that scripture. And it also served a great deal of benefit in this way. To this day, I can page through the book of Proverbs and find sequentially scriptures, you know, Proverbs about subjects without having to go looking it up in concordances. If someone called on me to give an impromptu sermon, I could open up this object to number one here and say, okay, this one's going to be on Or this one's going to be on zeal. And I can follow through it because of something I did when I was a student in college so many years ago. It helped keep me in focus. It helped me come back to it so that I could think about it and so that it could ultimately make a change in my life. You know, it's not difficult. It is simple. It's easy to do. And it works. You just have to want to do it. Now, I want you to put yourself back in bed again. Imagine yourself propped up on your pillows. Let's go back to that first psalm. The psalms are particularly good about this type of thing. It's a good place to start, and it's a good place to go through. Let's say, where do you want to start? Let's start with the psalms. Here we are, propped up in bed. Our pillows are there, and our glass of milk, and our two, not three, but two cookies. Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the instruction of the Lord. And in his instruction does he think routinely, meditate day and night. It's a part of his life. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he does shall prosper." The ungodly? The ungodly are not so. They are like the chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Now, finish your milk, turn out the light, pull up the covers around your ears and get comfortable. and think for a while about what you just read. The results start tomorrow.
Years ago, I used to enjoy going up on internet forums and discussing religion there. They had any number of them divided up by category. I tended to hang out on the Christian forums. What was fascinating to me, and something I did not really understand, was the degree of hostility expressed on Christian forums. It seemed a good thing that these people were separated by the anonymity of the forum. If they had been in the same room, they might have come to blows. And I wondered, What generates so much hostility in some people of faith? Why is it that, when faced with a different belief, people don’t adopt one of two rational responses: indifference, or curiosity.
Indifference—when I encounter someone with an off-the-wall religious idea, I can tell quickly enough whether there is likely to be any merit there or not. If the answer is not, I toss it in the wastebasket or click my mouse and go somewhere else. If I am face-to-face with an adverse person, I have a stock reply. You may be right. I’ll give that some thought.
And then I change the subject. Perhaps to the weather. Does that seem disingenuous? Not if you maintain an awareness that even you don’t have all the answers. And why get angry or hostile about it. That goes nowhere.
Curiosity—if I think there is merit, I want to know more, and so I pursue the matter. I may even pursue the matter when I disagree. If the person advancing the idea seems reasonable, well informed, intelligent, well then reason demands that I give him a hearing and try to understand him, even when I disagree with him. I discovered C.S. Lewis a little late in life, and I found that I sometimes disagreed with the man. This would not dismay Lewis in the least. But I never had any difficulty understanding why I disagreed because I tried to understand his point. When you think about it, what’s the point in only reading people you agree with?
Now, realizing that indifference and curiosity are reasonable responses, I wondered why some people found a third response—anger.
In this episode, we delve into practical financial advice rooted in biblical teachings. Ronald Dart unpacks Solomon's guidance on avoiding debt, embracing diligence, and the vital lesson of self-reliance. Learn how to navigate life's temptations and make prudent decisions that lead to long-term success and stability.
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The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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There are a lot of ways to mess up your life. It's frightening how easy it is, how one small mistake can carry consequences that last a lifetime. I used to know a fellow. He was about 30 at the time. Good-looking, drop-dead handsome. I mean, the girls really would have been chasing him. But for one thing, he was crippled. He dragged one leg behind him most of the time, and one of his arms didn't work right. I thought maybe he had had polio, but it turned out that what had happened is when he was a kid, one day he was showing off, and he dived into the pool in the shallow end and banged his head on the bottom of the pool. And the result was the crippling effect that I saw. He was lucky, I guess, that he didn't spend the remainder of his life in a wheelchair. You know, there's no way to avoid every mistake, and accidents will happen from time to time. But what happened in his case was a moment of reckless behavior. that wisdom would have kept him from, would have prevented, would have headed off some way along the line. Now, you know, kids don't have much wisdom. And so somebody else has got to have it for them. And some level of discipline has got to be applied to children so that they will learn not to run on the edges of pools, just to impress upon their minds that there are things they can do that can hurt them. because they can't see out there far enough like you and I can, and they don't know how much danger there really is. But if you can teach wisdom to a child early in life and begin to implant some of these lessons, it can make an enormous difference. But the problem is, most people assume that knowledge is wisdom, and it's not. Mere knowledge will not do the job. And the reason is very simple. Some things are so tempting that just knowing better won't keep you out of it. What you've got to have is wisdom. And wisdom is more than knowledge. Wisdom includes a sense of right and wrong, a set of values to go with knowledge that puts it together and helps you make the right kind of decisions in your life. King Solomon put it this way. In chapter 5, verse 1, he said, Pay attention. Bend your ear to my understanding, that you may regard discretion, and that your lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of a strange woman drop like a honeycomb. Her mouth is smoother than oil, but her end is as bitter as wormwood. It's as sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell. Do you understand what he's saying? He's saying, you better pay attention to me. Gain wisdom. For here is something that's going to be sweet like a honeycomb and smoother than oil. And the end of it, it's going to kill you. Wisdom has the ability to see beyond the moment, to know that some things are right and some things are wrong intrinsically. You know, when we're little kids and Dad tells us to do something, our favorite question is, well, why, Daddy? And Dad's favorite response, well, because I said so. I heard that more times when I was a kid than I'd like to think about, because I said so. I guess I heard it so many times because I asked why so many times. And you know, because I said so has to be good enough for us at certain times in our lives, but it won't carry you all the way. At some time, you have to come to the realization that Dad said no for a reason other than his own convenience. It wasn't just because your dad didn't like to see you running on the edge of the pool that he told you to stop it. So when you ask him why, he just doesn't want to take the time to say, because I'm tired of watching you risk your neck, you little twerp. Stop it. Solomon emphasized the power of the temptation. To help us understand the importance of wisdom and discretion and foresight, we need to understand the end from the beginning. And the problem with kids is that you just can't see very far. And as kids, we depend on people who can. Solomon chooses the strange woman only because she serves as a good example of all the things out there waiting, lurking to destroy your life. And there are more of them than we like to think about. Not only is this woman powerful, and not only is the end of fooling around with her destructive, she's deceptive. Solomon said in verse 6, Lest you should ponder the path of life, her ways are movable so that you cannot know them. She's tricky. And life is tricky. Temptation of all kinds are tricky. And they're sweet. And they're smooth. And you just have a hard time really getting and understanding which of the paths that lay before you lead to life because some of them look so good. Hear me now, therefore, you children, said Solomon, and don't depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your way far from this woman, the strange woman, and don't come near the door of her house. Don't even go down that street. lest you give your honor to others and your years to the cruel, lest strangers be filled with your wealth and your labors in the house of a stranger, and you mourn at the last when your flesh and your body are consumed and say, How have I hated instruction? How has my heart despised reproof? Why haven't I obeyed the voice of my teachers? Why didn't I listen to them that instructed me? Boy, this is a painful song, and it's one we have all sung at one time or another. How could I have been so stupid? It is all so easy to see after the fact. You know, when you're sitting in a doctor's waiting room and he calls you into the office and sits you down and says, Bob, I'm sorry, but your test came back, you're HIV positive. Oh, yeah, you slap your forehead then, and then at that time you're going to say to yourself, Bob, How was it I couldn't listen? How could I have imagined that I could get away with this? And you mourn at the last when your flesh and your body are consumed. Or when you're slapped with a lawsuit for sexual harassment and strangers are filled with your wealth and all your labors go into the house of a stranger. Oh, yeah. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so foolish? Where was the wisdom when I needed it? Why didn't I follow God's instructions? Why didn't I go in the right way? It is easy to see it then, isn't it? And don't we all know it? You know, there is always an alternative to evil. Solomon draws a really nice metaphor for faithfulness to your wife or faithfulness to your husband. In verse 15, he said, drink waters out of your own cistern and running waters out of your own well. Don't let your fountains be dispersed abroad in rivers of waters in the street. Don't take your resources and pour them out in the street. Let them be only your own and not a stranger's with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her be as the loving hind in the pleasant row. Let her breast satisfy you at all times and be you always ravished with her love. You know, the love of one man for one woman and one woman for one man is really a beautiful thing. the closeness, the love, the warmth, the being able to depend upon each other in times that are good and times that are hard, of knowing that when you're in the hospital and lying up there racked with pain, that there will be somebody somewhere who cares enough to come in and wipe your brow and sit beside you and hold your hand. One of the most tragic results of following the strange woman, condom or no condom, is that it takes this away from you. You can't have that kind of relationship with one woman when you're sharing it with another. And the same thing goes for women with men. And why will you, Solomon asked my son, be ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself. He'll be held with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction, and the greatness of his folly he will go astray. What Solomon is saying is it's so much better to learn this lesson beforehand and so much cheaper. Solomon will change the subject a little, and we'll talk about that right after these words.
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Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44.
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Wisdom is not that hard to come by. In fact, through experience, the kind of wisdom that comes from experience will catch up with you whether you like it or not. But sometimes that's a pretty expensive way to get wisdom. It's a whole lot better to learn from someone else's experience. Well, in the sixth chapter of Proverbs, Solomon gives us right off the bat two really important principles that could have an enormous amount to do with your net worth not that many years from now. In chapter 6, verse 1, he says, My son, if you be surety for your friend, if you have stricken your hand with a stranger. What's that? Well, to be surety for your friend would be something like to co-sign on a note with your friend. And to strike your hand is like, well, it's like signing, taking your hand and signing a loan document. And, of course, you're borrowing money from this bank. And you may think, well, he's your friendly banker and you know him. He's Bob or John or Phil. But you could go back there a month from now, and Phil has gone on to another job, and you're dealing with a whole different person in that job. If you go in and sign a note with a bank, you have stricken your hand with a stranger. You're snared, he says, with the words of your mouth. You're taken by the words. You've made a promise. You have to do it. Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself. When you are coming to the hand of your friend like this, you're actually in his power. in a way. You go and humble yourself and make sure that your friend makes that payment. Don't give sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids. Get yourself out of that like a deer gets away from the hand of a hunter, or a quail gets away from the guy with the double-barreled shotgun. Well, no, Solomon didn't use the expression double-barreled shotgun, but you know what I mean. Whatever you do, says Solomon, don't make yourself responsible for someone else's debt. If he can't afford it himself, let him do without. Now, a lot of people have gone contrary to that advice to their own sorrow and to their own hurt. You know, if I were giving advice to a group of young people today... I wouldn't tell them to never borrow money. That would be asking a little too much in our world. But I would tell them to only borrow for two things. Two things and two things only. They are basic housing and essential transportation. Now, the reason I think this is good advice is easy enough. You have to have a place to live, and you and your young bride, you're out there getting your life started together. If you rent a house, you're paying interest on the house, and you might just as well, if you can manage the down payment, be paying that interest against your own principal so that eventually you do own the house. That's easy to understand, isn't it? You are going to have to pay interest anyway, so you might as well pay it directly instead of through a middleman and let him make a profit on the whole deal. Second, you have to have a way to get to work. If you don't, if you have public transportation, don't even think about a car. But nowadays, most places in this country, you can forget about working if you don't have a car to get to work. But you don't need a new Firebird that goes 150 miles an hour to get to work. A jalopy will get you to work. My advice to kids is always go out and buy a cheap, ugly car with good tires and good brakes. And if that embarrasses you a little bit, get yourself a bumper sticker that says, don't laugh, it's paid for. And all your friends that are driving around their shiny new cars and making payments on them, you can laugh at them and say, ha, you're making those payments my car's paid for. The payments I'm making, I make to myself. There is a time, by the way, when you can buy a new car. That's when you can afford to pay cash for it. Now, I know that runs counter to what a lot of people think, but the truth is you'll come out way ahead of the game if you'll just follow that simple advice. Because when you have the cash, you've actually managed to save up, and you've put together $14,000, $15,000 in real hard cash in the bank. You're going to think a long time before you go down and you plunk that down all at once on a brand-new Belch Fire 8 special, right? Something about cash in the hand that conveys its own kind of wisdom. And another piece of advice, never finance consumer goods like clothes, CD players, and television sets. Save up and buy cash. Now, I'll give you a little exercise. I'm not going to do it for you. I'll let you do it for yourself. You know that you've got credit cards, and you know that those credit cards have spending limits, and you know that all you have to do every month is pay off a certain part of that debt that you have on the card, and if you pay off part of it, then you can spend that the next month and run your spending limit right back up. Right? Right. Now, let's suppose here you are. You're 18, 19, 20 years old, and you, the first month, you and your bride get a new place and You take your credit card down and charge it all up, and you get your maximum limit, say $2,000 that you can borrow on your credit card, and you buy some things you need to have for your little house. You get yourself a television set so you won't be bored in the evening. Think about that one for just a minute. You get yourself a CD player. You buy yourself some fancy expensive clothes and so forth. Wham, before you know it, $2,000 are gone. Next month, you drag out the checkbook when your bill comes in for the credit card, and you pay off the minimum that you have to pay. And that gives you that much money to charge against your credit card the next month, right? And so you go out and buy something else, keeping it up there. Now, just imagine that you kept your credit card right at the upper limit for the next 40 years, okay? Sit down with your pencil and piece of paper or your handy calculator, because I don't think very many of us remember the multiplication tables anymore, and sit down and work out for yourself, okay? on that original $2,000 loan that you made, how much interest do you pay at your credit card rate of interest over 40 years? And realize something. From that first year forward... Everything you have done has been done on a cash basis. For 39 years, you paid cash for everything. And you kept paying interest on that first $2,000 that you borrowed. Because effectively, that's what's happened here. And for the privilege of having all that stuff... A few months earlier than you could have if you just made the payments to yourself and then went out and bought them and paid cash for them. For the privilege of having that stuff a few months early, look at how much money you have paid out on $2,000 over a 40-year period of time. Can you think of anything that you could do with that much money? Solomon's not through giving advice in this area. In verse 6, he says this, Go to the ant, you sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, who having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provides her meat in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest. Now, right here is one of the great rules of life, and it is not very well understood. What would you say is the lesson that Solomon is trying to teach us with the parable of the ant? Go to the ant, you lazy lout. Consider her ways and be wise. She doesn't have any guide, overseer, or ruler, and yet she does her work. What is it? Zeal? Diligence? Well, not exactly. The lesson of the parable is that the ant is able to work without a supervisor, to be a self-starter. Now, with the ant, this is not a matter of character. It's a matter of genes. It's written into the ant's very being. But now imagine the value of writing this idea into your children's character. Let's see if we can understand why this is so. Imagine for a moment that you've got a job working in a factory manufacturing. I'd like to come up with a better name for it, but let's call them widgets. That's what everybody who uses illustrations like this calls them. And you make these widgets, and the widgets sell for $10 apiece. You can make so many widgets in a day, and as a consequence, you can earn so much money. Now, if you were reliable enough to come to work, set up your machinery, do all this stuff yourself, and carry it out and put it all out and get it ready for mailing and everything, and didn't need a supervisor, Why, you could have, let's say, a dollar each out of all the widgets you could make in a day, and that would make you a very good living. A hundred bucks a day, shall we say. Really good. But on the other hand, supposing you can't work like that. Supposing you've got to have a supervisor. Somebody's got to organize the work schedule. Somebody's got to solve your problems for you. Somebody to see to it that you're at work on time. Somebody to get you back from breaks on time instead of letting you linger at the coffee pot and so forth. Well, you see, if you have to have a supervisor, the $100 a day that you might have been going to make, some of that money is going to have to be given to the supervisor because the output isn't any higher, right? We're only doing so many widgets a day, right? And so consequently, if you have to have help to do that, well, then you've got to give up some of what you make. One of the reasons why we don't have any more than we do is because we have to share so much of what we produce with the people who help us produce it. So if you can teach your children early in life to do the right thing without being told, To be diligent in their work without having to have somebody make them go do it. To get up in the morning without having to have somebody kick them out of bed. You have put them a long way down the road to being wealthy. Because in the long run, if you can work without a guide or an overseer or a ruler, you'd only be working in a factory. You need to be working for yourself.
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in your own business. For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only and request the program titled Making Life Work, number 16. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791 or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44 and tell us the call letters of this radio station. How long will you sleep, you lazy lout?
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When will you get out of bed, asks Solomon. Well, let me sleep a little longer, you say, a little slumber. Let me fold my hands and snooze a bit longer. And Solomon says, so your poverty will come like a traveling man and your want like an armed man. Cause and effect, folks. Laziness, sleeping a little too long, loving slumber leads to poverty. Now, this isn't to say we don't need sleep. It's a follow-on to the parable of the ant that says we've got to be self-starters. We don't need to have somebody else wake us up and get us to work, not if we're going to be successful and fairly well-to-do. Well, I'm sorry, but that's the way of life. You've got to be able to get yourself moving. And unless you somehow teach your children that, well, you're neglecting your duty as a parent. A naughty person, Solomon continues, a wicked man. He walks with a twisted mouth. He doesn't just tell you the truth. He puts a spin on it. He's got to be clever in the way he puts things. He winks with his eye. He speaks with his feet. He teaches with his fingers. He's got all kinds of secret signs and symbols and movements. He's a fidgety kind of guy, these deceivers. Perverseness is in his heart. He devises mischief continually, sows discord. Therefore, his calamity will come suddenly. Suddenly, he will be broken without remedy. I think this is here to tell us to get away from people like that. Don't get sucked in by them, because they really are smooth oftentimes, and they can offer you this fine little dinner. You know, they say something about swindlers and con men. The saying is, you can't con an honest man. And the fact is that this type of man that's going out there looking for somebody to swindle is looking for someone who himself is trying to pull a fast one, trying to get away with something. And so he comes in and uses our own little criminal instincts against us, and we learn the hard way. Now, you may be under the impression that God loves everybody and everything. Well, it's not quite true. There are some things that God hates. In fact, there are some of them that he says are an absolute abomination to him. Now, I don't know about you, but it seems to me it would be a good idea that if there is something that God hates, that we knew what that was. Well, Solomon is kind to us. He gives us a list. These six things, he says, does the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an abomination to him. Absolutely despicable. Number one, a proud look. Second, a lying tongue. Three, hands that shed innocent blood. Four, a heart that devises wicked imaginations. Five, feet that be swift in running to mischief. Six, a false witness that speaks lies. And seven, he that sows discord among brethren. Well, you've got some attitudes here and some things that people do. And what's disturbing? You know, you always hear these people say, well, you love the sinner, but you hate the sin. Well, unfortunately, we get down to the fact that God also hates some sinners, I guess, because that's the way it's listed. First of all, he talks about the things sinners do, proud look, lying tongue, and so forth. But then he says, first of all, he said he hates a lying tongue. Then he comes back around to it and says he also hates the false witness that speaks lies. That's disturbing. And finally, he hates the man that sows discord among brethren. Now, I know that we could defend ourselves by saying, well, I was just telling the truth. But, you know, there is a time when telling the truth to somebody is going to separate chief friends and will actually do no good. I don't think we can justify ourselves in splitting up people or causing discord between people with the excuse, well, what I was doing, it was just the truth, and I guess people need to know the truth. I think the lesson in these six things, the seven that God hates, is pretty important. It is possible to get on the wrong side of God, and you do it with having a proud and haughty look about you. You do it by having a lying tongue. You do it by giving testimony that might lead to the shedding of innocent blood. You do it by devising wicked imaginations in your heart, so you ought to really give attention to your fantasies. You do it with feet that are in a hurry to run into some kind of mischief. And then the speaking of lies and the sowing of discord among brethren. These things are really important to God, and we ought to regulate our lives taking them into account. Solomon continues, My son, keep your father's commandment, and don't forsake the law of your mother. Tie them upon your heart. Tie them around your neck. When you go, it shall lead you. When you sleep, it shall keep you. And when you wake up, it will talk with you. You got these things in your mind, and they're so deeply ingrained in you that when you wake up in the morning, they come to mind. Folks, that's a recipe for staying out of trouble. For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is a light, and the reproof of instruction is the way of life. Only a loser looks at the commandments of God as shackles and the law as chains. The winners, well, the winners see them as a light in a dark place. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart.
SPEAKER 02 :
And you were born to win. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-877-7000.
SPEAKER 01 :
1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net Christian Educational Ministries is happy to announce a new full-color Born to Win monthly newsletter with articles and free offers from Ronald L. Dart. Call us today at 1-888-BIBLE44 to sign up or visit us at borntowin.net
This episode takes listeners on a journey through Solomon’s teachings on wisdom and financial prudence. The conversation begins with a gripping personal story that sets the stage to explore the distinctions between knowledge and wisdom. Listeners learn about the devastating consequences of lacking discretion and the vital need to navigate life with an understanding that goes beyond the superficial. Practical advice for financial stewardship, especially for the young, is discussed as Solomon offers timeless wisdom on borrowing and managing resources. With an engaging narrative on the parable of the ant, the discussion underscores the value of diligence and self-motivation. The episode also addresses the spiritual dimension of wisdom, cautioning against traits detested by God, such as a lying tongue and sowing discord. Through these lessons, the episode inspires listeners to seek a life governed by wisdom, illuminating their path with prudence and clarity.
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The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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There are a lot of ways to mess up your life. It's frightening how easy it is, how one small mistake can carry consequences that last a lifetime. I used to know a fellow. He was about 30 at the time. Good-looking, drop-dead handsome. I mean, the girls really would have been chasing him. But for one thing, he was crippled. He dragged one leg behind him most of the time, and one of his arms didn't work right. I thought maybe he had had polio, but it turned out that what had happened is when he was a kid, one day he was showing off, and he dived into the pool in the shallow end and banged his head on the bottom of the pool. And the result was the crippling effect that I saw. He was lucky, I guess, that he didn't spend the remainder of his life in a wheelchair. You know, there's no way to avoid every mistake, and accidents will happen from time to time. But what happened in his case was a moment of reckless behavior. that wisdom would have kept him from, would have prevented, would have headed off some way along the line. Now, you know, kids don't have much wisdom. And so somebody else has got to have it for them. And some level of discipline has got to be applied to children so that they will learn not to run on the edges of pools, just to impress upon their minds that there are things they can do that can hurt them. because they can't see out there far enough like you and I can, and they don't know how much danger there really is. But if you can teach wisdom to a child early in life and begin to implant some of these lessons, it can make an enormous difference. But the problem is, most people assume that knowledge is wisdom, and it's not. Mere knowledge will not do the job. And the reason is very simple. Some things are so tempting that just knowing better won't keep you out of it. What you've got to have is wisdom. And wisdom is more than knowledge. Wisdom includes a sense of right and wrong, a set of values to go with knowledge that puts it together and helps you make the right kind of decisions in your life. King Solomon put it this way. In chapter 5, verse 1, he said, Pay attention. Bend your ear to my understanding that you may regard discretion and that your lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of a strange woman drop like a honeycomb. Her mouth is smoother than oil, but her end is as bitter as wormwood. It's as sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell. Do you understand what he's saying? He's saying, you better pay attention to me. Gain wisdom. For here is something that's going to be sweet like a honeycomb and smoother than oil. And the end of it, it's going to kill you. Wisdom has the ability to see beyond the moment, to know that some things are right and some things are wrong intrinsically. You know, when we're little kids and Dad tells us to do something, our favorite question is, well, why, Daddy? And Dad's favorite response, well, because I said so. I heard that more times when I was a kid than I'd like to think about, because I said so. I guess I heard it so many times because I asked why so many times. And you know, because I said so has to be good enough for us at certain times in our lives, but it won't carry you all the way. At some time, you have to come to the realization that Dad said no for a reason other than his own convenience. It wasn't just because your dad didn't like to see you running on the edge of the pool that he told you to stop it. So when you ask him why, he just doesn't want to take the time to say, because I'm tired of watching you risk your neck, you little twerp. Stop it. Solomon emphasized the power of the temptation. To help us understand the importance of wisdom and discretion and foresight, we need to understand the end from the beginning. And the problem with kids is that you just can't see very far. And as kids, we depend on people who can. Solomon chooses the strange woman only because she serves as a good example of all the things out there waiting, lurking to destroy your life. And there are more of them than we like to think about. Not only is this woman powerful, and not only is the end of fooling around with her destructive, she's deceptive. Solomon said in verse 6, "'Lest you should ponder the path of life. Her ways are movable, so that you cannot know them.'" She's tricky. And life is tricky. Temptation of all kinds are tricky. And they're sweet, and they're smooth. And you just have a hard time really getting and understanding which of the paths that lay before you lead to life because some of them look so good. Hear me now, therefore, you children, said Solomon, and don't depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your way far from this woman, the strange woman, and don't come near the door of her house. Don't even go down that street. lest you give your honor to others and your years to the cruel, lest strangers be filled with your wealth and your labors in the house of a stranger, and you mourn at the last when your flesh and your body are consumed and say, How have I hated instruction? How has my heart despised reproof? Why haven't I obeyed the voice of my teachers? Why didn't I listen to them that instructed me? Boy, this is a painful song, and it's one we have all sung at one time or another. How could I have been so stupid? It is all so easy to see after the fact. You know, when you're sitting in a doctor's waiting room and he calls you into the office and sits you down and says, Bob, I'm sorry, but your test came back, you're HIV positive. Oh, yeah, you slap your forehead then, and then at that time you're going to say to yourself, Bob, How was it I couldn't listen? How could I have imagined that I could get away with this? And you mourn at the last when your flesh and your body are consumed. Or when you're slapped with a lawsuit for sexual harassment and strangers are filled with your wealth and all your labors go into the house of a stranger. Oh, yeah. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so foolish? Where was the wisdom when I needed it? Why didn't I follow God's instructions? Why didn't I go in the right way? It is easy to see it then, isn't it? And don't we all know it? You know, there is always an alternative to evil. Solomon draws a really nice metaphor for faithfulness to your wife or faithfulness to your husband. In verse 15, he said, drink waters out of your own cistern and running waters out of your own well. Don't let your fountains be dispersed abroad in rivers of waters in the street. Don't take your resources and pour them out in the street. Let them be only your own and not a stranger's with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her be as the loving hind in the pleasant row. Let her breast satisfy you at all times and be you always ravished with her love. You know, the love of one man for one woman and one woman for one man is really a beautiful thing. the closeness, the love, the warmth, the being able to depend upon each other in times that are good and times that are hard, of knowing that when you're in the hospital and lying up there racked with pain, that there will be somebody somewhere who cares enough to come in and wipe your brow and sit beside you and hold your hand. One of the most tragic results of following the strange woman, condom or no condom, is that it takes this away from you. You can't have that kind of relationship with one woman when you're sharing it with another. And the same thing goes for women with men. And why will you, Solomon asked my son, be ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself. He'll be held with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction, and the greatness of his folly, he will go astray. What Solomon is saying is it's so much better to learn this lesson beforehand, and so much cheaper. Solomon will change the subject a little, and we'll talk about that right after these words.
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Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44.
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Wisdom is not that hard to come by. In fact, through experience, the kind of wisdom that comes from experience will catch up with you whether you like it or not. But sometimes that's a pretty expensive way to get wisdom. It's a whole lot better to learn from someone else's experience. Well, in the sixth chapter of Proverbs, Solomon gives us right off the bat two really important principles that could have an enormous amount to do with your net worth not that many years from now. In chapter 6, verse 1, he says, My son, if you be surety for your friend, if you have stricken your hand with a stranger. What's that? Well, to be surety for your friend would be something like to co-sign on a note with your friend. And to strike your hand is like, well, it's like signing, taking your hand and signing a loan document. And, of course, you're borrowing money from this bank. And you may think, well, he's your friendly banker, and you know him. He's Bob or John or Phil. But you could go back there a month from now, and Phil has gone on to another job, and you're dealing with a whole different person in that job. If you go in and sign a note with a bank, you have stricken your hand with a stranger. You're snared, he says, with the words of your mouth. You're taken by the words. You've made a promise. You have to do it. Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself. When you are coming to the hand of your friend like this, you're actually in his power. in a way. You go and humble yourself and make sure that your friend makes that payment. Don't give sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids. Get yourself out of that like a deer gets away from the hand of a hunter, or a quail gets away from the guy with the double-barreled shotgun. Well, no, Solomon didn't use the expression double-barreled shotgun, but you know what I mean. Whatever you do, says Solomon, don't make yourself responsible for someone else's debt. If he can't afford it himself, let him do without. Now, a lot of people have gone contrary to that advice to their own sorrow and to their own hurt. You know, if I were giving advice to a group of young people today... I wouldn't tell them to never borrow money. That would be asking a little too much in our world. But I would tell them to only borrow for two things. Two things and two things only. They are basic housing and essential transportation. Now, the reason I think this is good advice is easy enough. You have to have a place to live, and you and your young bride, you're out there getting your life started together. If you rent a house, you're paying interest on the house, and you might just as well, if you can manage the down payment, be paying that interest against your own principal so that eventually you do own the house. That's easy to understand, isn't it? You are going to have to pay interest anyway, so you might as well pay it directly instead of through a middleman and let him make a profit on the whole deal. Second, you have to have a way to get to work. If you don't, if you have public transportation, don't even think about a car. But nowadays, most places in this country, you can forget about working if you don't have a car to get to work. But you don't need a new Firebird that goes 150 miles an hour to get to work. A jalopy will get you to work. My advice to kids is always go out and buy a cheap, ugly car with good tires and good brakes. And if that embarrasses you a little bit, get yourself a bumper sticker that says, don't laugh, it's paid for. And all your friends that are driving around their shiny new cars and making payments on them, you can laugh at them and say, ha, you're making those payments my car's paid for. The payments I'm making, I make to myself. There is a time, by the way, when you can buy a new car. That's when you can afford to pay cash for it. Now, I know that runs counter to what a lot of people think, but the truth is you'll come out way ahead of the game if you'll just follow that simple advice. Because when you have the cash, you've actually managed to save up, and you've put together $14,000, $15,000 in real hard cash in the bank. You're going to think a long time before you go down and you plunk that down all at once on a brand-new Belch Fire 8 special, right? Something about cash in the hand that conveys its own kind of wisdom. And another piece of advice, never finance consumer goods like clothes, CD players, and television sets. Save up and buy cash. Now, I'll give you a little exercise. I'm not going to do it for you. I'll let you do it for yourself. You know that you've got credit cards, and you know that those credit cards have spending limits, and you know that all you have to do every month is pay off a certain part of that debt that you have on the card, and if you pay off part of it, then you can spend that the next month and run your spending limit right back up. Right? Right. Now, let's suppose here you are. You're 18, 19, 20 years old, and you, the first month, you and your bride get a new place and You take your credit card down and charge it all up, and you get your maximum limit, say $2,000 that you can borrow on your credit card, and you buy some things you need to have for your little house. You get yourself a television set so you won't be bored in the evening. Think about that one for just a minute. You get yourself a CD player. You buy yourself some fancy expensive clothes and so forth. Wham, before you know it, $2,000 are gone. Next month, you drag out the checkbook when your bill comes in for the credit card, and you pay off the minimum that you have to pay. And that gives you that much money to charge against your credit card the next month, right? And so you go out and buy something else, keeping it up there. Now, just imagine that you kept your credit card right at the upper limit for the next 40 years, okay? Sit down with your pencil and piece of paper or your handy calculator, because I don't think very many of us remember the multiplication tables anymore, and sit down and work out for yourself, okay? on that original $2,000 loan that you made, how much interest do you pay at your credit card rate of interest over 40 years? And realize something. From that first year forward, Everything you have done has been done on a cash basis. For 39 years, you paid cash for everything. And you kept paying interest on that first $2,000 that you borrowed. Because effectively, that's what's happened here. And for the privilege of having all that stuff... A few months earlier than you could have if you just made the payments to yourself and then went out and bought them and paid cash for them. For the privilege of having that stuff a few months early, look at how much money you have paid out on $2,000 over a 40-year period of time. Can you think of anything that you could do with that much money? Solomon's not through giving advice in this area. In verse 6, he says this, Go to the ant, you sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, who having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provides her meat in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest. Now, right here is one of the great rules of life, and it is not very well understood. What would you say is the lesson that Solomon is trying to teach us with the parable of the ant? Go to the ant, you lazy lout. Consider her ways and be wise. She doesn't have any guide, overseer, or ruler, and yet she does her work. What is it? Zeal? Diligence? Well, not exactly. The lesson of the parable is that the ant is able to work without a supervisor, to be a self-starter. Now, with the ant, this is not a matter of character. It's a matter of genes. It's written into the ant's very being. But now imagine the value of writing this idea into your children's character. Let's see if we can understand why this is so. Imagine for a moment that you've got a job working in a factory manufacturing. I'd like to come up with a better name for it, but let's call them widgets. That's what everybody who uses illustrations like this calls them. And you make these widgets, and the widgets sell for $10 apiece. You can make so many widgets in a day, and as a consequence, you can earn so much money. Now, if you were reliable enough to come to work, set up your machinery, do all this stuff yourself, and carry it out and put it all out and get it ready for mailing and everything, and didn't need a supervisor, Why, you could have, let's say, a dollar each out of all the widgets you could make in a day, and that would make you a very good living. A hundred bucks a day, shall we say. Really good. But on the other hand, supposing you can't work like that. Supposing you've got to have a supervisor. Somebody's got to organize the work schedule. Somebody's got to solve your problems for you. Somebody to see to it that you're at work on time. Somebody to get you back from breaks on time instead of letting you linger at the coffee pot and so forth. Well, you see, if you have to have a supervisor, the $100 a day that you might have been going to make, some of that money is going to have to be given to the supervisor because the output isn't any higher, right? We're only doing so many widgets a day, right? And so consequently, if you have to have help to do that, well, then you've got to give up some of what you make. One of the reasons why we don't have any more than we do is because we have to share so much of what we produce with the people who help us produce it. So if you can teach your children early in life to do the right thing without being told, To be diligent in their work without having to have somebody make them go do it. To get up in the morning without having to have somebody kick them out of bed. You have put them a long way down the road to being wealthy. Because in the long run, if you can work without a guide or an overseer or a ruler, you'd only be working in a factory. You need to be working for yourself.
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in your own business. And tell us the call letters of this radio station. How long will you sleep, you lazy lout?
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When will you get out of bed, asks Solomon. Well, let me sleep a little longer, you say, a little slumber. Let me fold my hands and snooze a bit longer. And Solomon says, so your poverty will come like a traveling man and your want like an armed man. Cause and effect, folks. Laziness, sleeping a little too long, loving slumber leads to poverty. Now, this isn't to say we don't need sleep. It's a follow-on to the parable of the ant that says we've got to be self-starters. We don't need to have somebody else wake us up and get us to work, not if we're going to be successful and fairly well-to-do. Well, I'm sorry, but that's the way of life. You've got to be able to get yourself moving. And unless you somehow teach your children that, well, you're neglecting your duty as a parent. A naughty person, Solomon continues, a wicked man. He walks with a twisted mouth. He doesn't just tell you the truth. He puts a spin on it. He's got to be clever in the way he puts things. He winks with his eye. He speaks with his feet. He teaches with his fingers. He's got all kinds of secret signs and symbols and movements. He's a fidgety kind of guy, these deceivers. Perverseness is in his heart. He devises mischief continually, sows discord. Therefore, his calamity will come suddenly. Suddenly, he will be broken without remedy. I think this is here to tell us to get away from people like that. Don't get sucked in by them because they really are smooth oftentimes, and they can offer you this fine little dinner. You know, they say something about swindlers and con men. The saying is you can't con an honest man. And the fact is that this type of man that's going out there looking for somebody to swindle is looking for someone who himself is trying to pull a fast one, trying to get away with something. And so he comes in and uses our own little criminal instincts against us, and we learn the hard way. Now, you may be under the impression that God loves everybody and everything. Well, it's not quite true. There are some things that God hates. In fact, there are some of them that he says are an absolute abomination to him. Now, I don't know about you, but it seems to me it would be a good idea that if there is something that God hates, that we knew what that was. Well, Solomon is kind to us. He gives us a list. These six things, he says, does the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an abomination to him. Absolutely despicable. Number one, a proud look. Second, a lying tongue. Three, hands that shed innocent blood. Four, a heart that devises wicked imaginations. Five, feet that be swift in running to mischief. Six, a false witness that speaks lies. And seven, he that sows discord among brethren. Well, you've got some attitudes here and some things that people do. And what's disturbing? You know, you always hear these people say, well, you love the sinner, but you hate the sin. Well, unfortunately, we get down to the fact that God also hates some sinners, I guess, because that's the way it's listed. First of all, he talks about the things sinners do, proud look, lying tongue, and so forth. But then he says, first of all, he said he hates a lying tongue. Then he comes back around to it and says he also hates the false witness that speaks lies. That's disturbing. And finally, he hates the man that sows discord among brethren. Now, I know that we could defend ourselves by saying, well, I was just telling the truth. But, you know, there is a time when telling the truth to somebody is going to separate chief friends and will actually do no good. I don't think we can justify ourselves in splitting up people or causing discord between people with the excuse, well, what I was doing, it was just the truth, and I guess people need to know the truth. I think the lesson in these six things, the seven that God hates, is pretty important. It is possible to get on the wrong side of God, and you do it with having a proud and haughty look about you. You do it by having a lying tongue. You do it by giving testimony that might lead to the shedding of innocent blood. You do it by devising wicked imaginations in your heart, so you ought to really give attention to your fantasies. You do it with feet that are in a hurry to run into some kind of mischief. And then the speaking of lies and the sowing of discord among brethren. These things are really important to God, and we ought to regulate our lives taking them into account. Solomon continues, My son, keep your father's commandment, and don't forsake the law of your mother. Tie them upon your heart. Tie them around your neck. When you go, it shall lead you. When you sleep, it shall keep you. And when you wake up, it will talk with you. You got these things in your mind, and they're so deeply ingrained in you that when you wake up in the morning, they come to mind. Folks, that's a recipe for staying out of trouble. For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is a light, and the reproof of instruction is the way of life. Only a loser looks at the commandments of God as shackles and the law as chains. The winners, well, the winners see them as a light in a dark place. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart.
SPEAKER 01 :
And you were born to win. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-877-7000.
SPEAKER 03 :
1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net Christian Educational Ministries is happy to announce a new full-color Born to Win monthly newsletter with articles and free offers from Ronald L. Dart. Call us today at 1-888-BIBLE44 to sign up or visit us at borntowin.net
Join us as we unravel the core principles of living a life favored by God and men, as taught by Solomon. From the traits of truth and mercy to the essence of forgiveness, learn how these virtues can bring about harmony and respect in your relationships. This episode also addresses the significance of tithing and generosity, urging us to honor God with our possessions. Embrace these age-old secrets and find out how they can still bring richness and meaning to your modern life.
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The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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How long would you like to live in the flesh? It depends, doesn't it? It depends on whether that long life is free of pain and hurt and confusion and all that, or whether there's some joy in it. How would you like to have a little more peace in your life? And what if I could tell you of a way you can have both of these, long life and peace? Well, there is a way. It's found in the Bible. But the problem is that the theologians and the doctrinal teachers have confused the issue for us to where a lot of people somehow either miss it or don't understand it or don't deal with it. Take the book of Proverbs, for example. Right here in the book of Proverbs, there is a collection of wisdom from the wisest man who ever lived. His name is King Solomon. His wisdom was a direct gift from God. Now, what Solomon did in his life was to systematically collect all the wisdom he had been able to gather, and he wrote it down in a book for generations to follow. He basically says that there is a basis for wisdom, and hence there is a basis for long life. It is a special revelation about the way life works, a special revelation of God to man about man's nature and God's nature and how these two natures interact on a day-to-day basis. The fact is, human beings work in a certain defined and rather predictable way, And, of course, God is quite predictable. He never changes. Now, out of these two things grow a number of life principles, and this special revelation tells man what these things are. Don't you think it's worth knowing what those things are and what that revelation might be? Well, as I said, it's in the Bible. It's called the Law. And somehow, that poses a big problem in people's minds. Because they look at the law and they see it as a set of handcuffs or shackles around their ankles, and they don't really understand that the law is that special revelation of the way things work. And that being the case, it's really a pretty good idea to inform yourself about what it says. But the problem is, a lot of theologians want to argue that the law has been summarily abolished. Somehow there's an assumption made by many that in the Old Testament, salvation was by the law. But in the New Testament, salvation is by grace. They have it all wrong. Salvation has always been by grace. And the law has always been the basis of true wisdom. The law has always been a guide to life, a definer of right and wrong, and an explanation of the way the relationship between man and man ought to work, and more important, a definition of the way man can relate to and understand God. Listen to King Solomon speaking on behalf of God in Proverbs 3, verse 1. My son, forget not my law, but let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days and long life and peace shall they add to you. Oh, and what were we talking about? A long life and peace? How do you get them added to you? Well, you might get it added by not forgetting the law and by letting your heart keep, retain God's commandments. That's all. What is the law for? It's for long life and peace. It's to keep us out of trouble. It's to teach us about ourselves and about God, and to help us to have a better life. You know, the only sense in which the law has ever saved man is that it saves man a lot of trouble. That's why a Christian should study the law of Moses. Not because it will save you, but to learn about God's will for life, to learn wisdom, to learn the elements of love. What am I talking about? Well, look, all of us know that a Christian is to love his fellow man, right? That's our obligation. Jesus said of his disciples, By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. But love is more than a feeling. It's not just that I feel good about you. Love actually is a behavior or a set of behaviors. It has to do with the way we live our life. The law contains the elements of those behaviors. Do not steal, says the law, for no man who loves his neighbor would ever covet his neighbor's property and would ever take something that doesn't belong to him, right? Don't commit adultery, says the law. Love your neighbor, not his wife. Do not have any other gods, for love is not divided. You can't love God while worshiping an idol. Remember the Sabbath day. Take a day off work to meet with God. These are laws that reveal things to man that work as opposed to things that don't work. I heard a fascinating story the other day about this question of the seventh day and the Sabbath day and a day of rest. Someone was saying, you know about those rides down the Grand Canyon on the back of those mules? Yeah, I said I'd heard of that. He said they learned recently that if they will give those mules a day of rest once a week, the mules live longer. What a surprise. Even jackasses live longer when they get a day of rest every week. So what's the law for? Well, the law is to tell you how to live longer. How would you like to have favor in the sight of God and man? How would you like to have other men and other women to like you and to trust you and to respect you? How would you like to have favor with God who hears your prayers and really wants to grant your requests and to walk alongside of you? How would you like to have good understanding of the issues you're going to face today and the decisions that you have to make? Well, there's a way to that as well. Here's Solomon again in verse 3 of Proverbs 3. Let not mercy and truth forsake you. Tie them around your neck. Write them on the table of your heart. So shall you find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. There is a way to having favor in the sight of God and man. It's to not let mercy and truth forsake you. Now, they're not that hard to understand. They're not quite so easy to apply. The truth side of the equation is obvious. A commitment to truth and honesty is about as straightforward a commitment as anyone could ever make. The temptation to lie to gain favor is almost irresistible at times. The temptation to lie to protect your reputation is hard to resist. You know, you've gotten yourself in trouble. Things have gone wrong. And instead of standing up and saying, I did it. I'm sorry it won't happen again. You lie and say, I didn't do it. I don't know who did. But truth works better and is a great cleanser of the soul. It's a great antidote to fear and to shame. God's advice, tell the truth and get it over with. Get it off your chest. Tell the truth, say you're sorry, and get on with life. And there's one more thing. Having a reputation as a truth teller is worth its weight in gold. To have people say to you, look, I know you. Your word is good. It's not so hard to understand the value, then, of truth, is it? But the other side of the equation, mercy, is a little bit more difficult. Maybe an illustration from Jesus would help to clarify this thing. The illustration is found in the 18th chapter of Matthew, beginning in verse 21. Peter came to Jesus and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Seven times? Peter was, like a lot of us, gets a little bit concerned about people who just keep on making the same mistakes and saying, I'm sorry. I know that feeling very well from both sides, I might add. Jesus said to him, no, no, not seven times until 70 times seven. Now, that's mercy. 490 times, if necessary, you've got to forgive your brother. Mercy is the quality of withholding punishment from another person, even when the punishment is richly deserved. Now, he says, don't let truth and mercy forsake you. These are things that are going to help you. Now, Jesus went on to explain what he meant to Peter with a parable. He said, Folks, this is a parable, and so Jesus uses a huge exaggeration. That's a lot of money. But for as much as the man didn't have anything to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold and his wife and his children and everything he had and payment to be made. So you think you have it tough because they repossessed your car. How would you like to have this kind of banking system where they sell you, your wife and your kids and pay the thing off? That doesn't sound too good. Well, the servant fell down and worshiped the man saying, Lord, have patience with me. I'll pay it all. Actually, the way this thing is worded, the debt appears to be an impossible debt. Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion, Jesus said, and loosed him and forgave the debt. Now notice what happens. It was not restructured debt. It was written off, and it was huge. So our man, having been released and having been let go and now going out debt-free, goes out and finds one of his fellow servants that owed him a hundred pence. Now, you've got a debt considerably less than one ten thousandth of the one he had just had written off. You'd have thought this guy said, oh, hey, hey, forget it. I just had my debt wiped out. I can sure let that one go. But no, he took him by the throat and said, you pay me what you owe. And his fellow servant fell down at his feet and said, Oh, please have patience with me, and I will pay you all. You would have fought. He would have remembered those his own words to the other man. But no, he went and cast him into prison until the debt was paid. The first man was merciful. The second man was not. What happened? Well, his fellow servants saw what he did and And they were very sorry, and they came and they told their Lord what was done. Now, there's a little dynamic at work here that's worth really thinking hard about. Because other people see what you do. They notice your mercy. They notice your lack of mercy. And these things register on them, and they have an effect on the way they deal with you and the way they talk about you behind your back. Well, they told the Lord what was done. His Lord, after he called him, said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt for no other reason than that you asked me to do it. Don't you think you should have had compassion on your fellow servant like I had compassion on you? And he was angry, and he delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due to him. Then Jesus concluded by saying, So likewise shall my heavenly Father do unto you, if you from your hearts don't forgive every one his brother their trespasses. Or as James put it, He shall have judgment without mercy, who has showed no mercy. You know, this is really spooky in a way, because it suggests that having been forgiven, If we refuse to forgive others, we can bring our own sin back on our own heads.
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Think about that. I'll be right back. You were not born to lose. God has no intention of spending eternity with a loser. You can know what God is doing and why. Drop us a letter or give us a call, and we will send you a free CD introducing the series called Making Life Work. Our address is borntowin.com. Post Office Box 560 White House, Texas 75791 Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44 So how do we find good favor and good understanding in the sight of both God and man?
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Solomon says, Let not mercy and truth forsake you. Tie them around your neck. Write them on the table of your heart. That means get them internalized to where it's a part of your life. Truth, we understand. And when it comes to mercy, make it a principle of your life to give every man a break when it is in your power to do it. Oh, yes, I know you'll be disappointed once in a while, but you will be on the right side of the ledger of mercy. I guess there is one. James said that he will have judgment without mercy who has showed no mercy. And, of course, apart from God's ledger, You won't make nearly so many enemies. You'll make a lot of friends. Okay, what else does Solomon have to tell us? Well, here's a dandy, beginning in verse 5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord, and depart from evil. What's the result? It shall be health to your navel and marrow to your bones. I mean, we're talking about something to really help your health and to have God actually directing your paths. How do you do this? Well, the first way is don't be such a smart aleck. Take a little while and realize that you don't have all the answers and you're going to have to go somewhere for them. Trust God and he will direct your paths. Now, this is really a tough admonition to take to heart, especially when you're a born problem solver. You're one of these people that see a challenge. I've got to meet that challenge. I have to resolve it. I have to conquer it. But look, if you will just take a moment to consult God about it, it'll work a whole lot better. Now, do I mean in prayer? Well, yes, I do mean in prayer, but I don't mean only that. I mean, if you will just take a moment to consult the law, the teachings, the principles, and the character of God as they are displayed for you in the Bible, you will be much stronger in making your decision and solving your problem. You'll have tools to work with that you don't have right now. Don't lean to your own. Don't trust your own understanding. It can break on you. Trust God. Acknowledge Him. How do you do that? You flop open the Bible and say, how would God handle this? Does God have any instructions on this? Well, I can hear you saying right now, well, I don't know where to look. The reason you don't know where to look is because you haven't been looking. You can't just go to the Bible at some moment in time and you've got a problem, go thumbing through it and hope you fall on something. You've got to study the book as a part of your life. You've got to internalize it. You've got to write it on your heart, as the Bible says. That's how, when the tough problem comes along, you will know where to go in the Bible. Now, there is such a thing as supernatural direction from God. But as far as this proverb is concerned, it could be as natural as sunrise and sunset. There is a wealth of wisdom in print from God. Why in the world should you think you can come down here and whisper in your ear? when you haven't even dealt with what he's long since given you and put in print and have on paper right in front of you. Use that, and it will direct your paths. Read the Bible. Think about what you read. Try first to apply it to any problem you face. You do that, and you will always have a leg up on the competition. How would you like to ensure that you always have plenty of food and drink? That you always have enough of the things your family needs? I'm not talking about wealth. I'm just talking about security. Well, Solomon's got an answer for this one, too. Proverbs 3, verse 9. Honor the Lord with your substance, and with the firstfruits of all your increase. So shall your barns be filled with plenty, and your presses shall burst out with new wine." Oh, so I'll have plenty of food for my animals, my family, my wine, new wine being made from my wine presses. In other words, all my produce is going to be very effective if I honor the Lord with my substance. What does that mean? Well, it means giving something to God. You know, selfishness never works. The man who is trying to get and to keep everything he can for himself is going to end up spiritually impoverished and cramped little man. He will always be a loser, no matter how much money he's got. Whatever God gives to you as increase, honor him with the first of it. That's what Solomon is saying here. How much? Is there a standard somewhere? Yeah, there is. A tenth. A good old-fashioned tithe. Now, you say, well, that'd be hard to do. Give 10% of everything God gives me, I give it back to Him? I suppose it is. But did you ever hear of a thing called faith? You just have to sometimes do it because God says so and trust Him. That's what Solomon says here in Proverbs 3, 9, and 10. will come to pass. And Jesus said much the same thing. So don't just assume this is Old Testament. And Jesus, in Luke 12, verse 13, one of the company said to him, Master, would you speak to my brother that he and divide our inheritance with me? And he said, Man, who made me a judge or divider over you? And he went on to say, Take heed and beware of covetousness. For a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things that he possesses. Oh, you know, it's easy to forget nowadays when we have so much stuff. We have our houses and our cars and our stereos and furniture and everything around us is all, you know, accumulations of things. And it's easy to forget that those things are not your life. That life is something far more important than that. In fact, this may be the first lesson of tithing. Let go of something, would you? This stuff is not life. And he spoke a parable to them, saying, A certain rich man had ground, and it brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do? I don't have any room to bestow all the stuff my ground has brought forth this year. My barns are full. What am I going to do with all this? Well, I know what I'll do. I'll pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and I'll put all my stuff in there. I'll say to my soul, Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you. Then whose shall these things be which you have provided? And Jesus finished by saying, So is he that lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. The message? Look, friend, you can lie down and die tonight. Then where's all this stuff going to be? Who's going to get your stereo? Who's going to have your Pontiac Trans Am? Who's going to pick up all these things and maybe pick up the payments you've got on them? Where's all this stuff going when you die? It doesn't matter much, really. He that lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God... is a man who just doesn't understand that your life doesn't consist in the possessions that you own. I'll be back after these words.
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For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled Making Life Work, number 14. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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Now, you know as you walk with God that you are not going to get everything right. How would you like to have a little help with a course correction now and then? Maybe a little elbow in the ribs that says, don't do that. Perhaps an attitude adjustment. When you just can't find it in yourself to make the change that you absolutely know you must make, but you just haven't been able to do it. How would you like to have a little help? Well, Solomon suggests that you will get that help. But it's important, I think, for you to expect it and to be responsive to it when it comes. That's why Solomon in verse 11 says this, My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction. For whom the Lord loves, he corrects, even as a father the son in whom he delights. Ah, so there is some discipline in the walk with God. There is a little chastisement that comes our way from time to time. And I suspect that that chastisement is going to smart just a little bit. Now, here's the hard part. Of all the disasters that strike our lives, of all the pain, which of them are chastisement and which of them are just bad luck? You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's always been troubling to me. I've wondered when things weren't going right, is this my fault? Is this chance? Is it luck? Is it chastisement? What's going on here? And I've learned something. I'll share it with you. You can treat all these disasters that strike exactly the same. You take it. You pray about it. You think about it. You consider what you can learn from the experience. And you look at the changes you need to be making in your life, and you have a go at them. And you're in good shape if you do this. You will be in the shape of one who does not despise the chastening of God, and who isn't weary of God's correction. You're one who is really trying to get it right, and is willing to listen when God speaks, no matter how subtle He is when He talks. Now, all these examples I've given you are really good at helping you understand the importance of wisdom, of coming to realize that there is a way of life that works better than all other ways, that it really is good to gain wisdom. And Solomon goes on to say, happy is the man that finds wisdom and the man that gets understanding because the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold. There are a lot of reasons for this. One of the reasons for it is because you live better. You feel better. You feel better about yourself. You feel better about your neighbor. You're happier because your neighbors like you instead of being sullen towards you. You just get along better in the world. And the funny thing about it is you even tend to do better in the silver and gold department with wisdom. Wisdom, she is more precious than rubies. And all the things that you can desire are not to be compared to her. Really? Yeah. Length of days is in her right hand. You want to live a long time? In her left hand is riches and honor. You want to be respected and fairly well-to-do and to have enough money and food and so forth? It's wisdom. Her ways are ways of pleasantness. Oh, good aspects, beautiful views, instead of having to walk around in the sewers of life. And all her paths are peace. You don't have to fight with your neighbor. You don't have to be in bickering with people all the time. Wisdom, she is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her. And happy is everyone that holds on to her. You want to know how great wisdom is? The Lord by wisdom has founded the earth. By understanding, he has established the heavens. By his knowledge, the depths are broken up and the clouds drop down the dew. What an example of wisdom this world is that we live on. What an incredible balance. What a beautiful design. This is a real classic of someone who knows how to make things work. So when you get a chance to learn from the one that knows how to make things work, Solomon says, my son, don't let these things depart from your eyes. Hang on to sound wisdom and discretion. They're life to your soul. They're grace to your neck. They make you look good. You're going to be safe and your foot won't stumble. When you lie down, you won't be afraid. You'll lie down and your sleep will be sweet. Yeah. The winners get a good night's sleep. The losers get to toss and turn. You may have thought that some people are just luckier than others, that all these good things are handed to those people on a silver platter, and that you're just an unlucky slob. You would be wrong. You have choices to make, and it is those choices that can turn a loser wrong.
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into a winner. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560 White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
SPEAKER 01 :
Christian Educational Ministries is happy to announce a new full-color Born to Win monthly newsletter with articles and free offers from Ronald L. Dart. Call us today at 1-888-BIBLE44 to sign up or visit us at borntowin.net.
