SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter 5, which we looked at last Lord's Day, is one of the more infamous passages in Proverbs warning against adultery, warning the uh young person to not destroy his life with a stranger.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter six now turns and puts a focus not on being destroyed by a stranger, but being destroyed by a friend.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter six zooms in here and warns you not to let your life be ruined by certain kinds of friends.
SPEAKER_00: Now it does this in the form of warning the young person what kind of person to not become.
SPEAKER_00: You, I'm sure, understand this concept when somebody's thinking about whether or not they're gonna go to college or what they're gonna study at college.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes the guidance counselor will encourage the person to spend a day with the person.
SPEAKER_00: You want to go, you know, you want to go be a pilot, uh, go talk to a pilot, see what his life is actually like.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be a car mechanic, go to the shop, spend time with the mechanic, you like see what their life is actually like.
SPEAKER_00: So the more you're spending the time with the person, you start to experience what will that life be like.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be a school teacher?
SPEAKER_00: Go spend August 1st with the school teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a fun job.
SPEAKER_00: You got to project out though to what is the full life gonna be like?
SPEAKER_00: What are you actually gonna be like?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you think of a pilot who's gonna be traveling around and away from his family so much, but the flip side of that is, you know, different kinds of incentives and a different kind of lifestyle that some families are are drawn to.
SPEAKER_00: You you're allowed to choose that, but you want to choose it on the front ends, not on the tail ends.
SPEAKER_00: You know the kind of job where you punch in and keep certain regular hours, you leave home at the certain time, come back at a certain time.
SPEAKER_00: Is that the kind of lifestyle uh you want?
SPEAKER_00: And for some people that's attractive.
SPEAKER_00: Well, choose that kind of job.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the nature of choosing a career.
SPEAKER_00: And this is not just a purely American phenomenon.
SPEAKER_00: I know in the ancient Near East and even the Greco-Roman Empire, you often just took the career that your parents were, but that's not entirely true.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs is gonna make that clear.
SPEAKER_00: You have a little bit of volition in this and looking at what you can put your hand to, what kind of crops are you gonna plant, what kind of tasks are you gonna uh pursue, what kind of things are you gonna trade, what kind of person are you going to be?
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter six takes that mindset and applies it to character.
SPEAKER_00: Not choosing a major, but choosing a course in life.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of person are you going to be?
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, there's positive ways to say it, that you can work hard, you can be a good steward of your money, you can speak the truth, you can be faithful in your marriage, and some of that was hinted at the end of Proverbs 5.
SPEAKER_00: There's this whole negative ways to say it, and that's the way Proverbs 6 goes.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 6 puts the focus on the negative, that you don't want to be the kind of person that loans out money.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be a lazy person, you don't want to be a liar, you don't want to be a lustful person.
SPEAKER_00: I think the best way to bring this whole chapter together is to give you an outline that I'm gonna capture for inferior kinds of people.
SPEAKER_00: And that phrase inferior kinds of people can rub us the wrong way sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: You hear that phrase inferior kinds of people, you know, every person is equal in some sense, and that's true as far as being in the image of God, every person is the same value, worth, and dignity and such, and being the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: Yet, Proverbs 6 is going to make it clear that not every life is charted with equality.
SPEAKER_00: That some people make decisions often early in their life that will determine what kind of person they're going to be.
SPEAKER_00: And so Proverbs 6 is warning you about this, these different four different classes of people will come across in Proverbs 6, four different kinds of people that Solomon is describing as inferior.
SPEAKER_00: Don't become one of them.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at him one at a time.
SPEAKER_00: The first is I'm going to call the loner.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean the guy who's always by himself.
SPEAKER_00: I mean the person who is using his resources, using what God gave him to leverage attention, leverage friendship, to he's using it to put other people into his debt, but in a risky kind of way.
SPEAKER_00: You see it in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: My son, if you've put up security for your neighbor, you've given your pledge for a stranger, if you're snared in the words of your mouth or caught in the words of your mouth, then do this, my son.
SPEAKER_00: Save yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You've come to the hand of your neighbor, go hasten, plead urgently with your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Give your eyes no sleep, your eyelids no slumber, save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is the first real specific category of sin we're dealing with in Proverbs beyond just youthful indulgence.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier we had the guys that were going out to murder and uh to get wealth that way, and that was probably kind of hyperbolic language.
SPEAKER_00: We saw the sexually immoral person in Proverbs chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: But here we're getting pretty specific with a category of sin where Solomon's saying, don't be the kind of person that is lending out your money to put yourself at risk.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this seems so far-fetched to a typical American mind, it's tough to understand what is happening here because I don't know, hardly any Americans are ever in this situation where your neighbor comes and says, Would you co-sign my loan?
SPEAKER_00: Like there would be enough warning flags in your mind that if your neighbor asked you to co-sign your loan, you'd probably be like, uh no.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a very odd thing.
SPEAKER_00: It was much more common in the ancient Near East, much more common without a central banking system.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is the way people could afford for houses and fields, is to go in with other neighbors to get neighbors to co-sign and whatnot.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a place where this can be a good investment, of course, obviously.
SPEAKER_00: There's a room for investing in businesses, there's room for putting seed money in to watch a business grow.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, a shrewd person you're gonna see by the end of Proverbs does just that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you view your dollar bills as employees, your dollars work for you.
SPEAKER_00: Every dollar you have is one of your employees, and you want to send them out during the day and have them bring back friends by the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00: That's good investment.
SPEAKER_00: Of course it is.
SPEAKER_00: That a wise person knows how to invest that way.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: This is not shrewd investment to expand your wealth.
SPEAKER_00: This is hazardous investment.
SPEAKER_00: You know it's hazardous because the guy is compared to uh a gazelle who's about to get shot with a bow.
SPEAKER_00: What is this person doing?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's lending by co-signing to friends in risky investments, and he's putting his own property on the line.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why would somebody do a risky investment like this for one of his friends or neighbors?
SPEAKER_00: You want to be critically thinking here and figure out what's the heart issue with this person?
SPEAKER_00: And the issue, probably I'm guessing, is pride.
SPEAKER_00: You have your friend that comes to you and says, Hey, I'm gonna do this, you're a person of wealth, you're a person of power, and this is the way people often extort those kind of co-signing pledges, is you have a lot of money.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking for a loan, I'm just asking you to co-sign this.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, what cosigning means is when that person defaults, you're on the hook for it.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get a lot of leverage out of that, you don't get out a lot of profit out of that, even.
SPEAKER_00: Often in those kind of arrangements, you just get back what you invested.
SPEAKER_00: You're not even making a profit, an investment.
SPEAKER_00: You would make a profit on it.
SPEAKER_00: This year, just if all goes well, you might break even.
SPEAKER_00: Who would make that kind of loan?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you do it to your friends.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you make that kind of loan to your friends?
SPEAKER_00: Because you want them to respect you.
SPEAKER_00: You you want them to think that you're the person with money, you're the person who has the capacity to meet their problems.
SPEAKER_00: They have a problem, and you say, I have a capacity to meet it, so you sign on as a favor to them, but you understand just like a modicum of wisdom here, you realize that doesn't actually work that way.
SPEAKER_00: Those kind of business arrangements end up alienating friendships.
SPEAKER_00: It tanks both people.
SPEAKER_00: The person who received the loan puts them in an awkward relationship with the one who gave it.
SPEAKER_00: The person who gave it trashes their relationship with the one they gave it to.
SPEAKER_00: It's hanging over their relationship the rest of their life.
SPEAKER_00: And if the person defaults, the creditor is gonna come knocking on your door.
SPEAKER_00: The creditor is gonna be calling your cell phone number all the time.
SPEAKER_00: They probably had different ways to do that in Solomon's day.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is, it will tank your own relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Underwriting someone else's speculation.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of choice that results in ruin.
SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of financial choice that a young person makes.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why Solomon warns young people, warning his own son here, not to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be that kind of person.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you can give money to somebody, give money to someone.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs extols generosity.
SPEAKER_00: You know, don't call it, don't call it a loan, call it a gift.
SPEAKER_00: And that's I think that's that's good advice.
SPEAKER_00: When you're giving money within your family, it's probably best to frame it in terms of a gift and not a loan.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you start making loans inside of your family, it causes a million problems that will last for a generation or two.
SPEAKER_00: It is so tough to unwind.
SPEAKER_00: And Proverbs warns against exactly that.
SPEAKER_00: I could tell you illustration after illustration of families that I know that have tanked their relationship, siblings fighting against siblings, siblings fighting against parents, grandparents fighting against grandkids, so much strife and division because something that was bracketed as a loan or marketed inside the family as a loan turns out to be a gift, and lo and behold, it explodes the whole relationship time and time again.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have not encountered one of these, you might be rolling your eyes at this and be thinking, this is kind of a far-fetched scenario for the beginning of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on, who would do this?
SPEAKER_00: But if you have encountered one of these, you know how potent this is to wreck a family.
SPEAKER_00: So don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: You want to give your money away, give it away.
SPEAKER_00: You want to give money to the poor, give money to the poor.
SPEAKER_00: You want to give money to your son or daughter or your brother or sister, give it away.
SPEAKER_00: But when you start loaning inside of the family and putting property at risk and on the line, it is going to end up devastating you.
SPEAKER_00: If you have done that, Solomon's advice, get out of it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how do I get out of it?
SPEAKER_00: Go hound the dude you lended to.
SPEAKER_00: Go knock on his door.
SPEAKER_00: Call him every day, send him automatic reminders in your outlook.
SPEAKER_00: Email him every day.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, have you fixed this yet?
SPEAKER_00: Is this resolved yet?
SPEAKER_00: Now he doesn't use the language of automatic reminders and outlook, but look what he says in verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, go fix this now.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go to bed on this.
SPEAKER_00: How humiliating would that be?
SPEAKER_00: How humiliating.
SPEAKER_00: Save yourself, he says.
SPEAKER_00: How humiliating would this be?
SPEAKER_00: Because think of the hard issue.
SPEAKER_00: Why is the guy giving these kind of loans out?
SPEAKER_00: Why is he doing it?
SPEAKER_00: Because of his own pride.
SPEAKER_00: So now he's got to go back to the person and say, on second thought, this isn't going to work.
SPEAKER_00: That's humiliating.
SPEAKER_00: It lowers the person, lowers him.
SPEAKER_00: Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine who is a deer hunter said that he was hunting this week, and the most beautiful deer came up by him and just walked right up to him, put his nose right in his face, and looked at him.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I couldn't do it.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't do it.
SPEAKER_00: He's just cute.
SPEAKER_00: And he had a big white chest and huge antlers, but the white chest, he's like, most of the deer in our neighborhood, this is this is, you know, down the street from here, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the deer in our neighborhood don't have the, you know, the big white, they don't look that beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: But this guy, man, that was one lucky deer.
SPEAKER_00: That's the language Solomon uses here.
SPEAKER_00: Go look at the person and just present yourself to him.
SPEAKER_00: Like, don't shoot me.
SPEAKER_00: I need that money back.
SPEAKER_00: We need to unwind this.
SPEAKER_00: So the first person, don't be the kind of person that's loaning your money out.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is not uh uh dissuading you from investing your money.
SPEAKER_00: You want to invest your money, sure investments, make sure investments.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus extols that uses illustrations about the people who invest.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the guy with money, the steward with money who just buried it and didn't want to invest it, he is he's rebuked by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So Proverbs is not saying don't invest your money.
SPEAKER_00: Investments, good, loans to friends, co-signing for friends, bad.
SPEAKER_00: That's the difference.
SPEAKER_00: First kind of person you want to be is the loner.
SPEAKER_00: The second kind of person you don't want to be is the sluggard, the lazy person.
SPEAKER_00: Go to the ant, oh sluggard.
SPEAKER_00: Consider her ways and be wise.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs has a lot to say about the sluggard.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard is a person who doesn't want to do work.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 26, 14, one of the best verses about the sluggard.
SPEAKER_00: As the door turns on its hinges, so is the sluggard.
SPEAKER_00: As the door turns on its hinges.
SPEAKER_00: Just the door that swings open and close.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the a door never goes to work.
SPEAKER_00: I've lived a long time.
SPEAKER_00: I have never seen a door go to work.
SPEAKER_00: That door doesn't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: The door doesn't do the dishes, the door doesn't make breakfast, the door doesn't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: The door just sits there and goes like this, swings back and forth all day long.
SPEAKER_00: What a picture of the sluggard.
SPEAKER_00: That dude doesn't go to work.
SPEAKER_00: That teenager is just sitting in their bed.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is to teenagers, I have no teenagers in mind.
SPEAKER_00: This is to teenagers.
SPEAKER_00: The teenager just is in bed and flips over.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's time to do some work.
SPEAKER_00: I better roll over.
SPEAKER_00: Like the door.
SPEAKER_00: One hour later, oh, time to get going.
SPEAKER_00: Better roll the other way.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, for a door, that is a workout.
SPEAKER_00: Man, if that if that teenager was a door, he'd be breaking a sweat.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the sluggard is, like a door on its hinges.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard doesn't want to do work.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 26, 15.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and it wears him out to bring it back up.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of funny, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Going to breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, your cereal your spoon is in the cereal, and you're looking at the spoon in the cereal, and you think, man, that is gonna be a lot of work to get this back to my face.
SPEAKER_00: Man, those frosted mini wheats, they look so good down there.
SPEAKER_00: If only I could get them from here to here.
SPEAKER_00: That's the problem, though.
SPEAKER_00: It requires the elbow movement, and I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a sluggard really isn't too lazy to eat.
SPEAKER_00: If you've met a sluggard, this is one thing that will motivate them out of bed, is the food.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: I think it means that the sluggard is good at doing half jobs.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard doesn't finish the work, does half of a job.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard folds all the laundry except the socks.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard will mow the grass but not clean up the clippings.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard will wash the car but leave the the washcloth out and the hose out.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard will do most of the dishes, just not the pot.
SPEAKER_00: That's the sluggard.
SPEAKER_00: His hand is in the dish.
SPEAKER_00: He he just he won't finish the job.
SPEAKER_00: He's too lazy to finish it.
SPEAKER_00: He got motivated just enough to start it.
SPEAKER_00: And the sluggard loves his bed, loves his pillow.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard has a favorite Bible verse.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Don't worry about tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And the sluggard says, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I refuse to worry about tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Preach it, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's the sluggard.
SPEAKER_00: He loves excuses.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 22, 13.
SPEAKER_00: This is my favorite sluggard verse.
SPEAKER_00: My wife used it on me the other day.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lion in the streets.
SPEAKER_00: I used to wonder what that verse meant.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lion in the streets?
SPEAKER_00: Why does a sluggard say there's a lion in the streets?
SPEAKER_00: That's odd.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's not a lion in the streets.
SPEAKER_00: There's not a lion roaming in downtown Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta be kidding me.
SPEAKER_00: Even in her Solomon's Day, there's no lion in the streets of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: What a lame excuse.
SPEAKER_00: We had a bunch of wood that needed splitting in our driveway this week.
SPEAKER_00: I looked out a couple mornings ago at the wood.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, hmm, I should split that today.
SPEAKER_00: I looked up, but it might rain.
SPEAKER_00: And DJ, without missing a beat, said, Is there a lion outside?
SPEAKER_00: It might rain.
SPEAKER_00: What a lame you can't split wood in the rain?
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Johnson, get your head out there.
SPEAKER_00: That's the sluggard for you right there.
SPEAKER_00: And the sluggard lies inside of every one of us, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00: And so Solomon says, Hey, don't be that kind of person.
SPEAKER_00: Don't hug your pillow.
SPEAKER_00: Don't put off to tomorrow what you can do today because it might you might get rained on.
SPEAKER_00: Weak sauce.
SPEAKER_00: What are you supposed to do instead?
SPEAKER_00: Go look at the ant.
SPEAKER_00: Go study the ant, you sluggard.
SPEAKER_00: Consider her ways and be wise.
SPEAKER_00: Ants are hard-working creatures.
SPEAKER_00: Those guys work so hard.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing what they will do.
SPEAKER_00: It is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: I watched this ant, this is one of my excuses, I was procrastinating, but I justify it based upon this verse.
SPEAKER_00: I watched a big ant in our yard wrestle a wasp and win.
SPEAKER_00: The ant took down the wasp, the wasp couldn't quite sing it, the ant won, and the ant couldn't move the wasp, and the ant somehow called magically the way those ants do it, and I know biologists will tell you they've got like chemicals or enzymes they let out, and it's like SOS calls to other ants, but whatever.
SPEAKER_00: He's fighting a wasp, the dude wins, starts lugging it across my bricks in the morning, and all his friend ants come and they're carrying like triumphantly this wasp all the way back to their ant cave.
SPEAKER_00: I do not want to mess with those ants.
SPEAKER_00: They are hard workers.
SPEAKER_00: You know what's crazy about the ant that Solomon says in verse 7?
SPEAKER_00: They don't have sergeants.
SPEAKER_00: You've never met an ant sergeant.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have captains, they don't have lieutenants.
SPEAKER_00: The ant has needs backup.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't call a sleep advisor, the ant doesn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't he doesn't call his boss over, say, hey, I can't lift this.
SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us what to do?
SPEAKER_00: No, they just know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: You know what they do every time?
SPEAKER_00: You know what the ant's solution to every problem is?
SPEAKER_00: Work harder.
SPEAKER_00: That's the ant's solution.
SPEAKER_00: Can't lift this wasp.
SPEAKER_00: Try harder then.
SPEAKER_00: Consider those guys.
SPEAKER_00: What does the ant do verse 8?
SPEAKER_00: Prepares her bread in the summer, gathers her food in harvest.
SPEAKER_00: The ant is working hard.
SPEAKER_00: This is like Joseph's style.
SPEAKER_00: Seven years of good weather, seven years of famine.
SPEAKER_00: Work hard for the seven years of good weather, and then every other nation is panicking, freaking out in the famine, but not Joseph and his people.
SPEAKER_00: They're feasting.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's something that struck out to me recently, reading the Genesis account.
SPEAKER_00: It's the height of the famine, not the beginning of the famine, the height of the famine.
SPEAKER_00: All the hungry people came looking for food.
SPEAKER_00: That already happened.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph's brothers are on round two looking for food.
SPEAKER_00: And what's Joseph doing the second time they come back to him?
SPEAKER_00: But feasting.
SPEAKER_00: That's winter, the heart of winter, and the slugger doesn't have any food because the snow is outside.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's too much snow.
SPEAKER_00: I can't find food.
SPEAKER_00: But not the hard worker.
SPEAKER_00: There's snow outside, man.
SPEAKER_00: That means it's time to be warm inside.
SPEAKER_00: You know what ants actually do during the winter?
SPEAKER_00: They burrow.
SPEAKER_00: Most ants don't even die off in the winter.
SPEAKER_00: They burrow, they put little rocks and dirt under the opening of their hole.
SPEAKER_00: They all go down and their body temperature lowers, their activity lowers, and they live off the fats in their body and whatever food they have stored up to we or to waking up next summer.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, ants basically, when winter comes, wrap themselves in a blanket, put on PJs, slippers, drink some coffee, and watch Star Wars by the fireplace.
SPEAKER_00: That's what ants do during the winter.
SPEAKER_00: Why can they do that?
SPEAKER_00: Because they work so hard the rest of the year.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard wants to do that year round.
SPEAKER_00: Sluggard, you know, August 1st is like, mm, Star Wars time.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
SPEAKER_00: It's get outside and work time.
SPEAKER_00: Now you don't necessarily follow an agrarian calendar here in Northern Virginia, but the point is there is a time to work.
SPEAKER_00: And when it comes, you better work.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't do it, look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: A little sleep, a little sumber.
SPEAKER_00: That's all the sluggard says, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to sleep all day, just a little bit longer.
SPEAKER_00: A little folding of the hands.
SPEAKER_00: Aw.
SPEAKER_00: And poverty will come upon you like a robber.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Proverbs is directed to the teenager.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, I get it.
SPEAKER_00: Medically, teenagers need more sleep.
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's not saying tomorrow, you know, get up at this time.
SPEAKER_00: He's just telling the kid, listen, if you're gonna be that kind of person, a little folding hands, a little slumber, game that out.
SPEAKER_00: What's that like in 10 years?
SPEAKER_00: What's that like when you're 22?
SPEAKER_00: You're out of college, you don't have a job?
SPEAKER_00: I'll look for a job tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hug the pillow another day or two.
SPEAKER_00: I earned it after all of college.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that becomes your early 30s like that.
SPEAKER_00: That's Solomon's warning.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like that.
SPEAKER_00: If you eat like that and sleep like that and live like that, you, verse 11, will be a poor person.
SPEAKER_00: Poverty will come upon you like a robber.
SPEAKER_00: What that means, by the way, is it means suddenly and expensively.
SPEAKER_00: The robber ambushes you and takes what's you think is yours.
SPEAKER_00: Want will come upon you like an armed man, meaning it will take what it wants and you cannot fend it off.
SPEAKER_00: The sluggard may become a beggar, but he will not become a charity case.
SPEAKER_00: People won't give the sluggard money.
SPEAKER_00: They won't.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you know the bottom line is he's too lazy, you're not gonna give him money.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's people begging out at the corner right here at the intersection.
SPEAKER_00: And I I I kid you not, every single restaurant in the shopping center there's a help wanted sign on the window.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one.
SPEAKER_00: And people beg at the intersection.
SPEAKER_00: Are you supposed to have sympathy?
SPEAKER_00: It's, I mean, it's it's something for sure.
SPEAKER_00: Poverty will come upon you like a robber if you're unwilling to work.
SPEAKER_00: The third category of person to not be is the divider.
SPEAKER_00: The divider, the person who sows division.
SPEAKER_00: A worthless person, verse 12, a wicked man goes about with crooked speech.
SPEAKER_00: He winks with his eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the whole body is described here.
SPEAKER_00: His speech, he winks with his eyes, he signals with his feet, he points with his finger.
SPEAKER_00: This is all dishonest speech.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's innuendo, it's hinting, it's sarcasm, it's snide remarks in the room, it's it's not speaking the truth, it's it's sowing discord.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14 says it is just sowing discord.
SPEAKER_00: His heart desires evil, his words and his emotions and his fingers and his feet and his eyelashes are all sewing discord.
SPEAKER_00: He's causing division in whatever room he's in.
SPEAKER_00: But he won't stand up and cause division.
SPEAKER_00: No, he'll just he'll roll his eyes when the person in charge is talking.
SPEAKER_00: He'll plot things behind the leader's back.
SPEAKER_00: And if you were to corner him on it, he'd say, Oh no, I don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say anything.
SPEAKER_00: Just a little rolling of the eyes, a little tapping of the foot, a little nudging, and look at that guy.
SPEAKER_00: Those kind of things.
SPEAKER_00: And it's perverted, Solomon says.
SPEAKER_00: It's a heart that desires evil, it's souls, it sows discord.
SPEAKER_00: What happens to that kind of person who sows discord on a team, or you know, they didn't have team language here, but in a shared enterprise.
SPEAKER_00: You're working on a farm together, and one of the farmers is sowing discord among the others.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think will happen with him?
SPEAKER_00: He is gonna get kicked out.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think is gonna happen in Solomon's court?
SPEAKER_00: You got one dude who's sowing discord with everybody else, he's gonna find himself on the street.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, calamity will come upon him suddenly in a devastating way.
SPEAKER_00: You think that's kind of an overreaction for just being a divider.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you look at these words more carefully, you realize it's not an overreaction.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12, his essence is bad.
SPEAKER_00: Like this dude is bad in his heart.
SPEAKER_00: He's a worthless person, it says in verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: He's a wicked man.
SPEAKER_00: That word for wicked there is a word belial.
SPEAKER_00: It's what Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 6 as a synonym for Satan.
SPEAKER_00: The person who sows discord in a group is synonymous with the devil.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is a divider, the devil is a liar.
SPEAKER_00: Well, people do that in groups of people.
SPEAKER_00: They signal and divide.
SPEAKER_00: His demeanor, not only is his heart bad, but in verse 13, his demeanor is bad.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 14, his outer life is bad.
SPEAKER_00: He's continually sowing discord.
SPEAKER_00: In verse, the second part of verse 15, his final life is bad.
SPEAKER_00: His demeanor is bad, his essence is bad, his inner life is bad with his heart, his outer life is bad with his discord, his final life will be bad in verse 15 when he is wrecked.
SPEAKER_00: And there's no fixing a person like that.
SPEAKER_00: That's Solomon's point in verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot fix a person like that.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who sows that kind of discord and division among the brothers, he is beyond fixing.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do with him?
SPEAKER_00: Well, don't be him, is Solomon's point.
SPEAKER_00: Rewind the tape back to when you're a teenager.
SPEAKER_00: Set your heart not to be that dude.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like that guy.
SPEAKER_00: Because once you become him, there is no going back, is his language.
SPEAKER_00: He is beyond healing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 16 through 19, easily the most famous verses in Proverbs chapter 6, but it's often their connection to this discord person is often overlooked.
SPEAKER_00: It's a in in Hebrew when you say there's X number of things, oh, actually X plus one, it's the plus one part that has the emphasis.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: If I said there are two things, ah, make that three.
SPEAKER_00: It's the third thing that's most important.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way Hebrew works.
SPEAKER_00: So when Solomon says there are six things the Lord hates, you know, now I think about it for a second.
SPEAKER_00: There's actually seven.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon didn't really write six and then be like, oh, you know, now that I start to alliterate them, the one more pops into my mind.
SPEAKER_00: No, this is structured in such a way to drive home that the last one is more important.
SPEAKER_00: The last one overshadows the first six.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at them.
SPEAKER_00: Haughty eyes, that's pride.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, it's one of the sins of the New Testament that is condemned.
SPEAKER_00: One of the devastating sins, somebody who puts themselves forward, haughty eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Two, a lying tongue.
SPEAKER_00: This person who causes lies shows he's walking in the darkness and not in the light.
SPEAKER_00: Three, murdering hands.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be hands that shed innocent blood.
SPEAKER_00: Four, a heart that devises wicked plans.
SPEAKER_00: The heart of man is wicked above all else.
SPEAKER_00: Who can fix it?
SPEAKER_00: You can't change your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You have a wicked heart, you deserve God's judgment.
SPEAKER_00: This is mankind's condition.
SPEAKER_00: Every thought of man's heart is only evil continually.
SPEAKER_00: And some people, even though they know the Lord, keep devoting, they feed that wicked heart to devise wicked plans.
SPEAKER_00: Number five, feet that run to do evil things.
SPEAKER_00: This is like a broad category, right?
SPEAKER_00: So notice the first of these seven things here, the first five are all body parts.
SPEAKER_00: Eyes, tongue, hands, heart, feet.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even particular kinds of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Like pride would be a sin associated, I guess, with the eyes.
SPEAKER_00: You see things and you you want them, or covetousness, but it's putting yourself forward.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, lying is associated with the tongue, hands associated with murdering, wickedness with the heart in general, but the feet are doing all manner of evil.
SPEAKER_00: They're just running this way and that to do evil.
SPEAKER_00: There's no slowing those feet down.
SPEAKER_00: So he's describing the body of the person who does wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: Then, number six, you're moving into his ongoing practice.
SPEAKER_00: He's breathing lies.
SPEAKER_00: Out of that person's mouth comes lies.
SPEAKER_00: He is a false witness.
SPEAKER_00: He breathes lies.
SPEAKER_00: But the seventh, this is why it's fitting here in the book of Proverbs, chapter six, is one who sows discord among the brothers.
SPEAKER_00: That's the same word that's used in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Solomon is warning you against right here.
SPEAKER_00: The kind of person who sows discord in a group, often saying things that aren't true, breathing out lies, conspiring behind people's backs, winking, signaling, pointing the finger, rolling of the eyes.
SPEAKER_00: He's a wicked person with wicked speech and crooked speech.
SPEAKER_00: He's beyond healing.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like him.
SPEAKER_00: And then you get a little interlude here, a musical break.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20 through 23, my son.
SPEAKER_00: So we're dialing back in here.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, it's father, and the mother is going to make an appearance right here in a verse or two.
SPEAKER_00: Father and mother pleading with the young person, listen and learn, teenager.
SPEAKER_00: Listen and learn.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your father's commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Forsake not your mother's teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Bind them on your heart, always tie them around your neck.
SPEAKER_00: Here they're synonymous with the Torah itself.
SPEAKER_00: The rules of God are being taught to this young person by his parents.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea here.
SPEAKER_00: The parents' instruction here.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Christian family, and the parents' instruction matches what scripture says.
SPEAKER_00: And the parents are telling the kid, listen, you're growing up, eventually, the law, the Torah, in a very literal sense, the Torah is going to move from our doorposts to your doorpost.
SPEAKER_00: The Torah is going to move from being bound on our head and our tassels to bound on your head and your tassels.
SPEAKER_00: That's the transfer here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when the kid is living at home, it's Joshua's style.
SPEAKER_00: That's for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Joshua's kids are in the house and they will serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But at some point, we've seen this over and over and over again in Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: At some point, that kid is going to grow up, and the scripture on the doors of his household is not sufficient for him.
SPEAKER_00: He needs to get out and have scripture on his own head and on his own heart and on his own tassels and in his own house.
SPEAKER_00: This is the kid who's on the road where it divides, and there's the road of folly and the road of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, as a little kid, he believes in Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Of course he does.
SPEAKER_00: As a little kid, he's being taught the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Of course he is.
SPEAKER_00: But at some point he's at that divided road, and he says, My friends are calling me this way, and Yahweh's calling me that way.
SPEAKER_00: And we're back here again in 620.
SPEAKER_00: And now he's at that divided road, and the dad and the mom are telling him, Listen, son, daughter, you're about to head out.
SPEAKER_00: You're about to take the first step.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we can't control where you walk.
SPEAKER_00: And I want those words that have been pounded into your head.
SPEAKER_00: I want them to stay there.
SPEAKER_00: Bind them on your heart always.
SPEAKER_00: And what verse 22, when you walk, they'll lead you.
SPEAKER_00: When you die down, they'll watch over you.
SPEAKER_00: God made the family such that the parents actually want what is best for their kids.
SPEAKER_00: So hard for kids to understand that.
SPEAKER_00: Kids often feel like their parents are constraining them and don't want them.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm certainly there are some parents that are overly constraining their kids and all that and don't want them to fail.
SPEAKER_00: And of course that's true.
SPEAKER_00: But that is actually a virtue.
SPEAKER_00: It really is a virtue.
SPEAKER_00: But at some point, the kid is going to grow up to the point where he can no longer be constrained by his parents.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that point where that word of God has to have resided in his heart, or there will be failure.
SPEAKER_00: And this is like one of those last speeches to the kid.
SPEAKER_00: Like, listen, I'm telling you, you're about to go out, you're about to launch here.
SPEAKER_00: Don't leave the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be a light to your path.
SPEAKER_00: Reproofs and discipline are the way of life, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: God's going to punish you when you sin, of course, you'll sin.
SPEAKER_00: When you go out on your own, of course you'll sin.
SPEAKER_00: And God will punish you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way of life.
SPEAKER_00: However, Akama, don't be the loner.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be the liar, so to speak, the divider.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be the lazy man.
SPEAKER_00: And then fourthly, he gives, before he gives the fourth one, just one more appeal to you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like these three people.
SPEAKER_00: But now the fourth one, perhaps the most serious, the adulterer.
SPEAKER_00: You get this little interlude, verses 20 through 23.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like, you know, keep the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like those other people.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you one more example of how to just trash your life.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be the adulterer.
SPEAKER_00: When you keep the word of God in you, verse 24, it'll preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
SPEAKER_00: This is the person who's being seduced.
SPEAKER_00: This is a little bit different than Proverbs 5.
SPEAKER_00: In this chapter, it is apparently a married woman who is seducing the guy, luring him away.
SPEAKER_00: Why would he fall for it?
SPEAKER_00: Why would somebody have an affair with a married woman?
SPEAKER_00: Well, verse 25 says, She's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Don't desire her beauty in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Don't lie, do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.
SPEAKER_00: This reminds you of the divisive man.
SPEAKER_00: This person is sending the signals with the eyes to lure this young guy.
SPEAKER_00: This guy is so naive.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't know what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: He thinks she's attractive, she's batting her eyes, she's she's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Why wouldn't I go spend time with her?
SPEAKER_00: Not realizing, you know, this is the young person who says, Oh, she actually just wants coffee.
SPEAKER_00: So she's curious about what I'm studying at school.
SPEAKER_00: That's what she wants to talk about.
SPEAKER_00: She went to the same school.
SPEAKER_00: She's just curious at what things are like now.
SPEAKER_00: This is the this kid is so naive, he believes that.
SPEAKER_00: And here's his parents.
SPEAKER_00: Before they've even met the actual person, the parents saying there are people out there like that, and they do not want coffee with you.
SPEAKER_00: That's not their goal, son.
SPEAKER_00: Their goal is not to find out what you're learning or what school is like.
SPEAKER_00: No, it is not.
SPEAKER_00: Their goal is to destroy you.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's the contrast, verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: A prostitute costs a loaf of bread.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so currency is fixed for inflation here.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's saying a prostitute, kind of sexual morality, it's not that expensive.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean it's literally pegged to your loaf of bread because you're like, you know, bread's pretty cheap right now.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what a prostitute costs, but I bet it's more than a loaf of bread.
SPEAKER_00: The point is, bread was their commodity.
SPEAKER_00: Prostitution, relatively cheap.
SPEAKER_00: That's his point.
SPEAKER_00: That's only a loaf of bread.
SPEAKER_00: It's different than adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery will cost you your life.
SPEAKER_00: You'll die.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's not excusing prostitution here.
SPEAKER_00: He's just making an argument from the lesser to the greater.
SPEAKER_00: Prostitution is bad, obviously, adultery would be worse.
SPEAKER_00: Prostitution costs relatively little, adultery will destroy your whole life.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 27 Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned?
SPEAKER_00: That's a fair question.
SPEAKER_00: Could you get armfuls of fire?
SPEAKER_00: Walk around with it on your chest?
SPEAKER_00: What's going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: Of course you'll get burned.
SPEAKER_00: You're just going to go out for coffee with the married woman?
SPEAKER_00: What do you think will happen?
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to be able to parade around in fire.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to spend time with her without burning your clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Can someone walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?
SPEAKER_00: This is the guy who walks across the fiery coals and then is surprised that it hurts his feet.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, man.
SPEAKER_00: They're on fire.
SPEAKER_00: What did you think would happen?
SPEAKER_00: So is the person who goes into his neighbor's wife.
SPEAKER_00: None who touches her will go unpunished.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another contrast.
SPEAKER_00: People don't despise a thief if he steals.
SPEAKER_00: If he does it because he's hungry.
SPEAKER_00: And that's worth playing out for a second in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: Is that true?
SPEAKER_00: Like you see somebody, you see all the videos of the flash mobs, and you get angry at those thieves.
SPEAKER_00: They're obviously not hungry.
SPEAKER_00: If they were hungry, they wouldn't steal a hundred Nike shirts.
SPEAKER_00: If they're hungry, they wouldn't steal all the shoes from DSW if they were hungry.
SPEAKER_00: You get angry at them.
SPEAKER_00: But if somebody got arrested shoplifting a giant, and their you know kids or hungry kids are in the van and they get stopped by loss prevention at the door with a couple loaves of bread or whatever, and you saw this, and what would you actually do?
SPEAKER_00: You would probably buy them their food.
SPEAKER_00: You probably would.
SPEAKER_00: You would probably tell the security, oh, their kids are in the car and they're hungry, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Let him go, I'll pay for the food and no harm, no foul.
SPEAKER_00: That's probably what just about every human being would do.
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: If he asked you before he stole, should I steal?
SPEAKER_00: You would probably say, no, don't steal.
SPEAKER_00: Stealing's bad.
SPEAKER_00: But now that you've done it, let's fix this and move on with life.
SPEAKER_00: No reason to let it wreck your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's Solomon's point.
SPEAKER_00: If the guy's caught, he'll have to pay a fine, verse 31 says, no big deal.
SPEAKER_00: But verse 32, the person who commits adultery doesn't have any sense.
SPEAKER_00: Because he destroys himself.
SPEAKER_00: He's the guy carrying fire on his chest.
SPEAKER_00: He'll get wounds, he'll get dishonor.
SPEAKER_00: Why does he do it?
SPEAKER_00: His disgrace will never be erased.
SPEAKER_00: Why would a person do it then?
SPEAKER_00: It shows such an abandonment of sense that it's hard to justify.
SPEAKER_00: Adultery is punishable by death in the Torah.
SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 18 20.
SPEAKER_00: Leviticus 20 10, Deuteronomy 22, 22.
SPEAKER_00: It's a capital crime.
SPEAKER_00: So don't be that kind of person because you'll deserve death from the law.
SPEAKER_00: And even if the law doesn't catch you, the husband probably will.
SPEAKER_00: And when he does, what's he gonna?
SPEAKER_00: He's not gonna treat you like the thief who is hungry.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 34 jealousy makes the guy furious.
SPEAKER_00: He won't spare you when he takes his revenge, he won't accept compensation.
SPEAKER_00: That's the word for bribe, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna come after you, he's gonna find out you had an affair with his wife, he's gonna hunt you down, and you'll say, I'll give what do you need?
SPEAKER_00: Here's a thousand dollars, here's ten thousand dollars, here what do you need to keep this quiet?
SPEAKER_00: He will refuse everything, verse 35 says, even though you multiply gifts, he'll refuse it all.
SPEAKER_00: He refuses your money, what does that mean he's gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Solomon's implying strongly that he'll kill you.
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't mean that everybody who has an affair gets killed.
SPEAKER_00: This is the warning to the teenage son.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, listen, before you go down that road, get it in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: That road often ends in death.
SPEAKER_00: And when it does end in death, the guy who killed you probably is not even gonna get convicted, to be honest.
SPEAKER_00: So factor that in.
SPEAKER_00: This is why God wants the church free from that kind of sin.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, this is why God allows divorce in the context of adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 5, 32.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: This is why it's a foundational principle in the church.
SPEAKER_00: The church starts, they don't keep Torah, the church doesn't keep Torah.
SPEAKER_00: We don't follow the Torah and all the old commandment, uh, old covenant laws.
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
SPEAKER_00: But there are a few things that carry over.
SPEAKER_00: And Acts 15 says one of them is abstain from sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 5, verse 3, sexual immorality and all impurity and covetousness that must not even be named among you, as is proper among the saints.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 3, put to death therefore what is in you, especially sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire, covetousness.
SPEAKER_00: It's all idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: On account of these, God's wrath is coming.
SPEAKER_00: Jude 1, verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities indulge in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desires.
SPEAKER_00: They're an example of undergoing punishment by eternal fire.
SPEAKER_00: It's coming more common to say Sodom and Gomorrah were punished for the lack of hospitality to strangers, but Jude would take issue with that.
SPEAKER_00: Jude says they were burned for their sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 13, verse 13, let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies, but in sexual, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.
SPEAKER_00: Put on the Lord Jesus Christ to make no room for the flesh to gratify its desires.
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 2, at least two of the seven churches were condemned for their indulging of sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: Pergamum and thyatira.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Revelation 2, 21 says, I gave you time to repent, but you refuse to repent of your sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody this morning between services asked me, you know, when we do church discipline, I've noticed that most of the cases are about marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
SPEAKER_00: And there's 20 answers to that, but one of the 20 answers is because sexual immorality blinds people.
SPEAKER_00: It makes them so entrenched in their sin that they don't get.
SPEAKER_00: That's Revelation 2.21.
SPEAKER_00: I I called you to repent, you're penetrated from everything except the sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't do it.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, God avenges those who are wronged in that.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 4.
SPEAKER_00: This is the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, your sanctification, you abstain from sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6 of 1 Thessalonians 4.
SPEAKER_00: Don't transgress or wrong your brother in this matter, because the Lord will avenge these things.
SPEAKER_00: If the other spouses and kill you, the Lord will judge you.
SPEAKER_00: God has not called us to impurity but to holiness.
SPEAKER_00: There whoever did for whoever disregards us, disregards not man, but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
SPEAKER_00: So time and time the scripture makes clear that that kind of sin will burn your house down.
SPEAKER_00: It could cost you your life.
SPEAKER_00: And so now rewind the tape again.
SPEAKER_00: You're back to the 14-year-old, 15-year-old looking at his future in our American context, you know, maybe an 18-year-old about to graduate high school, looking at his future.
SPEAKER_00: And there's the parents who are saying, Listen, we can't control tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: We can't control what you're actually going to do when you go get a job or go join the military or go to college somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: We can't actually here we can more or less control you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we can have a circle to watch the internet and we can give you a curfew and we pay your insurance and we feed you.
SPEAKER_00: We've got some measure of control in your house.
SPEAKER_00: Man, tomorrow, all that's gone.
SPEAKER_00: When that happens, I hope the word of God is in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And there will be times you fail, of course there will be.
SPEAKER_00: But just game that out.
SPEAKER_00: You can fail in lots of ways, but if you fail in those four ways, those are the kind of failures.
SPEAKER_00: If you become that divisive dividing person, if you become that kind of liar, if you are, you know, signing on to other people's failures, if you're an adulterer, if you develop a life of laziness, oh what a what a tragedy that would be.
SPEAKER_00: What a tragedy.
SPEAKER_00: It's one thing to choose the the so-called wrong college, one thing to choose a career that is less than your preference, but it is another thing to become the sluggard, the lazy man, the liar, the lustful person.
SPEAKER_00: Avoid those things.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful that you forgive our sins through Christ Jesus, who makes atonement for them and forgives us at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: We know that there is no sin that you cannot forgive.
SPEAKER_00: There's no sin that wasn't paid for by Christ.
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, Lord, I think of the young people in our own families and in our own church, in our school.
SPEAKER_00: I think of the life in front of them, and I pray these truths would settle in their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: They would avoid becoming these kind of people.
SPEAKER_00: Give them the courage to recognize their own sin, give them the courage to repent from it, give them the humility really to identify it, to go to war against it in their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, show them favor in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: We want to launch our young people out into the world in a way where they are like arrows, as Solomon will say in Psalm 127.
SPEAKER_00: Arrows to take on the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we want them to be.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want them to be crippled by sexual immorality or foolish decisions or just a lack of work.
SPEAKER_00: God give them a good ethic to stand or fall on their own strength before you by your grace.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.