June 9th – Proverbs 9: The Woman Folly

“The woman Folly is loud; she is undisciplined and without knowledge.” – Proverbs 9:13

Wisdom is a woman (Proverbs 9:1), but so is Folly (Proverbs 9:13). Wisdom cries out (Proverbs 1:20), but so does Folly (Proverbs 9:15). One leads to life, prosperity and honor, the other to ruin. So how do we tell them apart?

The woman Folly is loud… Proverbs 9:13

Some of the loudest voices out there are the ones trying to lead you straight to hell. Volume is no indicator of who is right. It’s amazing, I see it every day on Facebook, people that have NO business instructing others violently, loudly and forcefully hammering their stupid opinion home on the unsuspecting and simple. The simple listen to Folly because she’s the loudest voice in the room. But remember Elijah? The Lord came to Him in a still, small voice. Wisdom many times comes in that still, small voice in the back of your head. Or sometimes she comes and warns you with a small warning in your spirit, you don’t feel right about a particular decision. Wise people listen to those promptings, the simple charge forward over their violated conscience to certain destruction.

She is undisciplined… Proverbs 9:13

The voice that speaks to you about your life, but has no power to change her own is a LIAR. Again, Folly will offer her opinion over the glaringly bad example of her own inability! An undisciplined life is the first sign and signal that what she’s saying is WRONG. Wise people are disciplined people. Foolish people are marked and identified by a LACK of discipline. So, am I saying that we should be offering our opinions until we have a degree of mastery in the area we are offering them? YES! But Folly completely ignores her own personal failure and offers you her advice that has produced the mess she now resides in. The examples are too numerous to mention: the woman with undisciplined kids offering child rearing advice, a fat person offering diet tips or one of my favorite, a broke person with financial advice!

The woman Folly is loud, undisciplined and without knowledge. Biblical knowledge is more than information, it’s the application of information. We think because we have HEARD something that we are DOING it. This is a profound deception! The woman Folly KNOWS information, she just doesn't do them. If she did, she would be quiet and get some discipline in her life.

LIFE LESSON:

“Listen to me, the loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room!” - Frank Lucas

June 8th – Proverbs 8: Finding Favor, Loving Death!

“For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD. But whoever fails to find me harms himself; all who hate me love death." – Proverbs 8:35,36

The person that loves wisdom and finds her (she’s a chick) finds life and receives favor from the Lord. The pursuit of wisdom is not a casual thing; it should be one of our chief life goals, to lay hold of wisdom and understanding. The benefits of knowing and understanding lady Wisdom are manifold and are revealed again in this passage; life and favor! People that find wisdom and possess understanding are truly alive! They aren’t living for themselves, but for the betterment of others. They aren’t selfish and self-centered but outwardly focused and God-centered. They understand the fear of the Lord and this governs their actions. It has been said:

“The glory of God is man fully alive.” - St. Irenaeus

I believe this is true. God is most glorified in us when we thrive in His life. To achieve this kind of life, we must lay hold of wisdom and the fear of the Lord. Favor is the delight of God upon our lives. When we lay hold of wisdom, God smiles upon us. He is blessed when we are blessed! I love that we serve a God that is fully engaged in our prosperity, blessing and glorification!

This proverb tells us that the person that does not find wisdom, loves death and harms himself! That’s harsh! When we don’t lay hold of wisdom and the fear of the Lord, either through passivity or simply ignoring her when she calls, we harm ourselves. I have told people for years that God’s ways are not made for His benefit only, but for ours! Many people seem to think that the Lord is a cosmic kill joy, stopping them from doing fun things they want to do. But that’s not so! When God forbids something, He does so for our benefit! By not laying hold of wisdom we harm ourselves. By simply not pursuing her, we show that we love death instead of life. Now who wants to stay there?

LIFE LESSON:

I love Wisdom because I love life and enjoy God’s favor. You?

June 7th – Proverbs 7: The Turning Heart

“Now then, my sons, listen to me; pay attention to what I say. Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths.” – Proverbs 7:24,25

This proverb is obviously talking about the adulteress. The writer gives us a detailed account of what motivates the adulteress and then also expounds on the mindset of the young lad that falls to her ways. Probably the most gripping part of the Proverb is the end result of falling into adultery:

“Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.” – Proverbs 7:26,27

Truly this is a result we want to avoid! But also interesting to note is what leads to this final end:

“Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths.” –Proverbs 7:25

Many times before our ACTIONS change for the worse, our HEART turns to wickedness. Our heart is the epicenter of our spiritual life and the engine of our actions. When our hearts turn to the Lord, our righteous actions reflect that turning. In the same way, before people start DOING crazy, sinful things, their hearts have ALREADY turned to wickedness. I don’t know one guy who got caught in adultery that didn’t have some kind of problem with lust or pornography. The direction of our heart will determine the direction of our walk. That’s why we are encouraged to GUARD our hearts!

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” – Proverbs 4:23

Before our actions change, our hearts already have! This proverb is telling us that we can control our behavior by directing our hearts affections. People that walk a lifestyle of righteousness have already turned their hearts to righteousness. People that walk in unrighteousness have already turned their hearts in the direction of wickedness. It’s not rocket science!

LIFE LESSON:

Your FEET follow your HEART. To change your WALK, you must first change your HEART.

June 6th – Proverbs 6: Simple Question, Simple Answer

“Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?” – Proverbs 6:27-28

Simple questions demand simple answers. Take this one for example: “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?” The answer is of course, NO. Yet so many people live their lives trying to disprove such simple, ironclad logic. We make these elaborate excuses and reasons to explain away our faults and sins. Most all of them will come down to a simple explanation. Get caught in adultery? It’s because you have been playing with fire: Sexual immorality. Sexual immorality has a unique attraction to men and that is the context of the Proverb we’re talking about today:

“So is he who sleeps with another man's wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.” – Proverbs 6:29

That immoral woman may look nice, she may talk nice and smell nice, but in the end, she’s another man’s wife! Touching her is like playing with fire! If you play with fire you WILL get burned, period. Why is it that we think we can flirt with danger and not get hurt? I’ve known men that feel good about themselves because they withstood a temptation that they should have run from! Many things that we are trying to bear up under simply need to be defeated by abandoning them!

I like what David Hogan said one time, “Things that have eaten my lunch in the past, I don’t let even sit at the table!” That is a wise position, if something has defeated you in the past, why even give it a chance in the future? If you struggle with sexual temptation, either in real life or with something like pornography, don’t try to bear up under the temptation, RUN from it!

“FLEE from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” – I Corinthians 6:18

Many men are frustrated because they can’t get and stay free from the temptation of pornography, largely because they are giving this DEMON too much of their time and energy. They have TONS of unaccountable time and energy and wonder why they fall into the trap? What’s happening is that they are dining with temptation instead of running out the door.

LIFE LESSON:

While playing with fire, you honestly can’t act surprised WHEN you get burned.

June 3rd – Proverbs 3: The Discipline of the Lord

“My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” – Proverbs 3:11-12

I believe that many Christians think that under the New Covenant there is no such thing as discipline… well, they are WRONG. Discipline isn’t as much about Covenant as it is about a relationship with the Father. God is a good father is disciplines His kids, therefore, GOOD father’s discipline. Some people think that disciplining your kids means you don’t love them, but the opposite is true!

“He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” – Proverbs 13:24

If you DON’T discipline your kids, you HATE them, but if you love them, you discipline them. Why is it that so many Christians talk about God’s love, while neglecting the Lord’s discipline? If God loves you as much as you claim (while you go around living a selfish, sinful life), He would be disciplining you!

“And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." – Hebrews 12:5-6

When we discipline our children here on earth, we use the rod of correction. It’s a very simple concept that says, “wrong behavior = PAIN”. All the psychobabble in the world can’t negate the simple logic involved here:

“Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” – Proverbs 22:15

So what is the discipline of the Lord? Obviously, God isn’t reaching down from Heaven with his Cosmic Heavenly Rod and spanking us. No, the Bible tells us:

“Endure hardship as discipline;” – Hebrews 12:7

In the New Testament, this word “hardship” is also called: chastening, education, training, correction. So the Lord is telling us to endure this correction as it is from the Lord. The word “endure” means: stay under, remain in.

Bottom line, DON’T RUN from correction and rebuke, receive it! If we don’t, I’m afraid the outcome is unfavorable:

“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.” – Hebrews 12:7-8

LIFE LESSON:

A God that "loves" you SO MUCH that He doesn’t discipline you isn’t the God of the Bible.

June 2nd – Proverbs 2: What’s In Store

“He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.” – Proverbs 2:7-8

Many believers walk around every day with a sense of dread. Conditioned by previous bad experiences and defeats, they seem to be waiting for “the other shoe to drop”. Even when good things occur, many Christians have the thought, “nothing good lasts forever”. In reality, bad things do sometimes happen and I think it’s generally a good thing to be prepared for the worst. But living in that sense of foreboding and dread is NOT the Lord!

In the book of Luke, we are given a promise concerning the New Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, the priesthood (those that served the Lord) lived under a continual sense of dread. Make one wrong move in the temple and you were DEAD. But in the New Testament, the High Priest Zechariah prophesied:

"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” – Luke 1:68-75

Under this New Covenant of faith in the blood of Jesus, we are empowered to serve the Lord without fear! Fear is NOT our friend! Instead of being convinced of the enemy’s ability to penetrate our defenses and ruin our lives, we should grow in confidence in God and HIS ability to “be a shield to those who are blameless” and “guard the course of the just and protect His faithful ones.” Instead of a sense of foreboding and doom, we should be confident that God has GOOD things stored up for us. In fact, “He holds VICTORY in store for the upright”. What’s coming upon us and what’s in store for us is GOOD!

LIFE LESSON:

Many people are trying to do the New Covenant with an Old Covenant mindset.

June 1st – Proverbs 1: "The View"

“My son, if sinners entice you, do not give in to them.” – Proverbs 1:10

I remember a sermon I heard in the mid-nineties like I heard it yesterday. It was a sermon by Roberts Liardon and it was called, “The View”. It dealt with the subject of this passage, being enticed or jealous of sinners and what they possess. It would be easy to be enticed by sinners if you didn’t consider the end of their lifestyles or the outcome of their way of life. He used Psalm 73 as a text. It reads:

“A psalm of Asaph. Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” – Psalm 73:1-3

The Psalmist considers the apparent prosperity of the wicked and is tempted to envy them. He notes:

“They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills.” – Psalm 73:4-5

He goes on and on noting the condition of sinners and begins to wonder if walking in righteousness was really a good idea at all!

“Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.” – Psalm 73:13-14

But then, the Psalmist gets a perspective that we as believers MUST have. It’s a long term, eternal perspective that considers the end of the matter and not just the beginning:

“When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.” – Psalm 73:16-17

He considers the end of their way of life and it’s not pretty:

“Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!” – Psalm 73:18-19

For several verses we see the final end of sinners. The psalm ends with these sobering words:

“Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.” – Psalm 73:27-28

LIFE LESSON:

If a wicked lifestyle seems enticing just consider the END RESULT.