[0:00] Please take your Bibles and turn to Proverbs chapter number 25. I'm going to start out tonight reading five different Proverbs. And as we've been going through different Proverbs, we find recurring themes.
[0:13] And so here in Proverbs 25 verse 16, we find a theme that I would like for us to focus on. And the title is, Lest Thou Be Filled. That comes from the end of the verse.
[0:23] Lest Thou Be Filled. How to identify and respond to cravings in our lives. Lest Thou Be Filled. Verse 16, Proverbs 25, it says, Hast thou found honey?
[0:36] Eat so much as sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it. I know we're not supposed to speak about vomit, but I'm reading a proverb here, okay?
[0:47] We're not at lunch. So, eat so much as sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it. Proverbs 12, 12, similar passage. The wicked desireth the net of an evil man, but the root of the righteous yieldeth fruit.
[1:03] The desire, the net, the gain of an evil man. So we're looking at gaining things that we are not, that should not be desiring. Desiring things in this world that were not meant for us, or desiring things in abundance that we should receive in moderation.
[1:21] Verse 23, 6, Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire this his dainty meats. And we looked in that proverb about putting a knife to your throat, and how when you can get consumed, that when you have an end, when you give yourself over, if you're eating with people, and you just give yourself completely, there's no self-control, that a lack of self-control in one area of life seems to leak into other areas of our lives.
[1:49] And verse 23, 3, Be not desirous of his dainties, for they are deceitful meat. Verse 21, 5, The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness, but everyone that is hasty only to want.
[2:03] Desire, want, lusting, having more. It's a very much part of our lives. It's even more part of our lives as Americans, where they have to convince us to not only have something that works, but to convince you that you now need something that's a better version of what you already have.
[2:22] It always amazes me here. If an alphabet, if we need something, if we have one of something, we wait long enough, and they're going to give us a better version of what we already had. Didn't even know there was a better version of it.
[2:33] But that's part of the selling they have to do, is not just convince you to meet your needs, but to convince you that you need something that you don't really need, and then give it to you, or you need a better version of it.
[2:43] And that's been happening all through the history of mankind, is to get us the desire, to lust, and to crave things that aren't meant for us, or to take something that is good, and to have it in abundance.
[2:55] Like the beginning verse we said, eat so much as sufficient for thee. If you have a kid that's at a table, and we put out honey, do any of y'all like honey? If you go with Chick-fil-A biscuit, if you never try getting honey on your Chick-fil-A biscuit, it's glorious, okay?
[3:09] I would recommend it. And so if you put a table where there's some biscuits on the table, and you put down honey, and you have Travis Snow and Paddington Bear there, and some other friends of yours, and then you just let them put whatever amount of honey that they would want, or marmalade, is that what we were doing in Paddington, all right?
[3:27] And you don't let a kid decide how much honey that they would want on their biscuit a young kid, because they think that they want it, but lest they be filled with it, therewith, and they'll get sick.
[3:39] They can recognize that something's good, but they haven't had the maturity yet to say, I need to step away from this. So just a little more. That's a longtime friend of many of ours.
[3:51] Maybe just a little more shows up at dinner, or maybe early in the morning when you're sleeping. One person says, we take in some delight that gives our senses a standing ovation, and they won't sit back down until they get an encore.
[4:07] We just enjoyed that so much, you know? That was such a great chicken sandwich. I just need one more. I'm thinking about chicken tonight, people, all right? It's one of the proofs that I truly, a Baptist, right?
[4:21] As I think a lot about fried chicken. We have a Popeye's coming in off of this exit here, and all God's people said, no, don't say that, okay, don't say that, all right? Yeah, but we have one coming in here. So it's like, you have something, you're like, I gotta have that again.
[4:33] You ever been anywhere? That pizza place at the Avalon? We were there the other day with some friends, and we immediately, when we left, said, we gotta get back to that place again. It needs an encore.
[4:44] And so you enjoy something. And so let's look at the nature and desire of cravings. A little more might lead to less and not actually be more at all. Proverbs 25, 16, hast thou found honey?
[4:57] Eat so much as sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it. So although the fence line between enough and too much is not always obvious, we often know when we begin to wonder outside of the bounds.
[5:10] And that's the problem, isn't it, with teaching kids when it comes to what moderation is and what they should do? Because it's hard to give a math formula for that. How do we tell you that that's too much ketchup or that's too much honey or whatever it is that's going on?
[5:24] Because you can't say that. You can't say, well, take your food item and weigh it, and then the amount of honey that you would put on top of it shouldn't be more than 10%, right? That's just not a way to live.
[5:35] And so there has to be growth in this area of discernment. But so many times when we see something that we're craving and we're wanting, we think, if I get more of this, it's going to be great.
[5:46] But actually more of that is going to cause nausea, right? A little Debbie cake is great. A box of little Debbie cakes is going to make you sick, all right? And food's the easiest one, but you can apply it to everything.
[5:59] There's times when more is not more. It's actually less. And then the temptation is incremental loss can become deadly. The first request is always a small one with no apparent danger in sight.
[6:13] Proverbs 6, 9, and 10. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.
[6:25] Just a little sleep, just a little bit more is that incremental loss. Can you hear your kids right now? Can I sleep just a little longer? Well, I mean, sleeping a little bit longer isn't probably going to cost you your job the first time that you show up late.
[6:42] Doing something just a little bit more isn't going to cost you something. So when that temptation, that craving comes, it doesn't come to you and say, Hey, why don't we oversleep today and ruin your career and just cause you to be homeless?
[6:55] You know, it would never show up like that. But it would come and just say, just a little bit more here, just a little bit more of this. And then when it takes a little incremental amount, then the desire will increase and end up taking everything from us.
[7:08] Proverbs 13, 4. The soul of the slugger desireth and hath nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. The slugger desires to have something, but the honey jar now is empty and it's not there.
[7:23] Have you ever been around somebody such addiction to drugs that they have nothing left they can take to the pawn shop? They have nothing else they can get. But the desire is now taking everything away from them and there's just nothing left of them.
[7:35] They've just been made empty by it. It causes numbness to the pleasures we once had. Proverbs 19, 24. A slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again.
[7:48] Completely, just no desire to move or to act. What was once enjoyable now has no pleasure to them. Just a numbness. I know we have kids in here, so I'm telling a little bit more stories about food.
[8:01] That's my inner dialogue that just came out. Sorry about that. All right. And how many of you remember Warheads, those little sour candies as a kid? And you thought you were so cool, right? Oh, this is so sour. I don't think they're sour.
[8:11] And you keep putting them on your tongue until they burn a hole in your tongue. And you're like, I can't even taste these anymore. Well, congratulations. All right. You can't taste that. You're not going to taste anything until you're in your 40s again.
[8:23] All right. You've just ruined your taste buds by giving it so much. Pleasure can do that. It can cause you to lose that. Food is obviously the easiest analogy for it.
[8:35] I remember going seven days without sugar one time. One time. All right. And remember how much everything tastes so much better after going seven days without sugar.
[8:46] All these types of sins, all these sins or all kinds of things that can become sin in your life. There's things in your life that you should have zero of, right? But there's other things in life that we're talking about that you can say yes to, but at times you'll need to say no to them.
[9:02] Increasingly reluctant to tame our desires and cravings with hard works. Proverbs 21, 25, the desire of the slothful killeth him for his hands refuse to labor.
[9:14] Now, speaking of this proverbial man here, he's first like just a little bit more sleep. Then he begins to give himself into these cravings. And then he finds himself running out of resources because he's been given into it.
[9:27] He's about to have a problem in his life. And then as this increases, the thing that he had that once gave him pleasure no longer does. It's actually turned around on him.
[9:38] It's become the enemy and it's destroying him. And there's no pleasure in it to him. And because he's not willing to do the work, it actually is going to lead to death. The death of relationships, the death of opportunities, and just the death of your life.
[9:52] Satan comes to steal and destroy and to rob from you. And one of the ways that he does it is that he'll just set something out in front of you and just say, why don't you just say a little more?
[10:02] Why don't you just do this just a little bit more than you know that you should? And so slothful kill. So we eventually give in to just a little more. We feed the sluggard within us. We dull our senses.
[10:14] We refine our selfishness. We take God's gift and we hold on to it. And what was once good, we now make bad. We train our bodies to fight against this self-denial that should be there.
[10:24] Satan robs God's children one indulgence at a time. Just a little bit at a time. Just a little bit. Have you ever read stories about somebody that robbed from a bank or a large institution and they just did it with the smallest of a fraction of a percentage over time?
[10:43] Because if you really want to get the big robbery, you don't just go and do it in one moment. You set it up so that over time you begin to steal. That's what Satan wants to do to you and to me.
[10:53] And so there needs to be times in our lives that we say, yes, but not today or right now. There's things that we can say yes to, but in saying yes to them, sometimes we need to say, yes, but not today or right now.
[11:09] Whatever that is in your life. Can you do this? Should you do this? Yes, but not today or right now. 1 Corinthians 6, 12. All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient.
[11:22] That really summarizes what we're saying right here, which is there's things that you can say yes to, but at times you need to say not today and not right now. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
[11:33] Meats for the belly and the belly for meats. That kind of word, weird kind of wording gives you the understanding that this is probably something that they said before. This was probably on the bumper sticker of their chariots, right?
[11:46] Meats for the belly and bellies for the meat. That's something they would have said together. It would have been at the end of a commercial, right? For kosher food. Meats for the belly and bellies for the food, all right? Or bellies for the meats.
[11:57] But God shall destroy both it and them. Now, the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And so he turns this saying around. And God has both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power.
[12:13] Speaking of the resurrection, we spoke about it on Easter Sunday. Speaking about the rapture, the resurrection of the dead. When we go up, we're transformed. Those that are dead, the resurrection of the body.
[12:24] And so let's read this backwards. Let's say this. The body is for the Lord. Your body has been given to you for one reason. To be an instrument for glorifying Christ.
[12:35] 1 Corinthians 6.20 For you are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your spirit. And in your spirit, which are God's. You've been given many great resources.
[12:46] You've been given things to be a steward of. You have talents and abilities. You have budgets to look over and what you're supposed to do with it. You have 168 hours in a week to be given there.
[12:57] It is 168, right? Some of you all looked at me funny. Okay, good. We're 168? All right. 168 hours in a week, people? Somebody help me out here. Thank you, Terry. See, I don't know if I'm right, but she's agreeing with me here.
[13:08] All right. You have 168 hours in the week to manage. You have all these great resources. And the Bible tells us that your body was one of those things that was given with the purpose of bringing glory to God.
[13:19] The Lord is for the body. So, first of all, the body is for the Lord. It belongs to Him. And the Lord is for the body. God is not against you. 1 Corinthians 6, 19. Why? Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not of your own.
[13:34] So, here's the contrast of meats for the belly and the belly is for meats. Now, Paul is saying the body is for the Lord and the Lord is for the body.
[13:45] He turned it around there because we were just living earthly. We're just living like this is all there is. And he said, that's not what it is. That your body is not just given to be the appetite and the cravings. Your body belongs to the Lord and the Lord is for you.
[13:58] Our bodies were made for a purpose. It's to glorify God. Do not believe your heart belongs to God but you can just do whatever you want with your body. He is the God of all or He is not the God at all, right?
[14:11] He is the Lord of all or He is not the Lord at all. So, we want to work and make sure that we are not brought under the power of anything or any person other than Jesus. 1 Corinthians 6, 12.
[14:21] All things are lawful unto me but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me but I will not be brought under the power of any. That's why at times you need to answer and say, yes, it would be lawful for me to do that.
[14:36] But no, I'm not going to do that because I am not going to be brought under the power of anything other than Jesus Christ. And so, we need to watch that.
[14:48] And there's different vices in our lives that others of us need to say no to. Yes, but not today to because we know that it could cause us to become under the power of that.
[14:59] My stepdad, we were at Dollywood. It used to be called Silver Dollar City, right? Am I right about this one? Look at you, Terry. You're the fact checker of the night, all right? Just nod. It'll work, all right? And so, there's a little game where you would throw a quarter up on a table.
[15:13] And I probably could have played that game and got bored with it very quickly. But not my stepdad. Family vacation, he just started throwing the quarters. And there goes our family's money on that vacation.
[15:24] Because maybe he could have said yes, but he should have said not today and not again. But I can't do this. Maybe you can, but I can't play this game. Because he knew that was a craving, that was something that wanted to steal.
[15:38] And it did. One quarter at a time, it stole enjoyment and pleasure and fun from a family. And how did Satan ask for it? Just throw a quarter in this direction, all right?
[15:49] But then do it one more time. Just a little sleep, a little folding of the hands. And so, how do we answer the request of just a little more? Yesterday, Greg sent me a text and it said, $30, all you can drink beer at the brewery in Halcyon.
[16:03] And I'll pause for a second, all right? Context. I'm going to get there, all right? I got context. What if Jesus would have taken me home right there? That was the last thing I said, context, Greg said.
[16:14] All right, so he sent that to me and I'm like, okay. All right, Greg. All right, we'll see what's going on here. And then the next thing, he sent a little emoji. And his phone has a lot more emojis than mine has, okay?
[16:26] The younger you are, the better your phone has emojis. And he sends me this green face guy. And he says, this feels like some kind of Old Testament story. The results have really have been bad so far.
[16:39] And it's always so bad. All you can is never a good place to be. All you can. And so, it's appealing to something that just says no restraint. And so, the answer to the question of how do you answer the request for just a little more?
[16:54] It's to say this, God's enough. A little more, God's enough. God's enough. Proverbs 1.7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
[17:05] So, how is the fear of the Lord to fill us with self-control? It trains us to listen to our Father. The next verse in 1.8 says, My son, hear the instruction of thy father and forsake not the law of thy mother.
[17:18] The fear of the Lord inclines us to hear our fathers just enough, as stronger, sounder, and altogether sweeter than just a little more. When the world says just a little bit more, we're able to say that's enough.
[17:32] That's just enough. Because what I've already had plus the sufficiency of Christ means I don't need a little bit more. I can walk away from whatever is there. We trust that God would know what is best for us.
[17:44] Proverbs 1.39. He has possessed my reins. He has covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And marvelous are thy works that my soul knoweth right well. I know right well that God the Creator, who I now indwell by the Holy Spirit, when He tells me that's enough, that's just enough, even if my cravings say just a little bit more, I'm going to trust Him.
[18:07] Because I feel like I know myself pretty good. We've been hanging out together for a long time. But my Creator always knows me better than I know myself. And so, if He says just enough, then it is just enough.
[18:18] Acknowledging once again that our bodies do not belong to us. It's a temple. We're bought with a price. Verse Corinthians 6.20. Therefore, glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God's.
[18:29] We have been bought by the blood of Christ. We're indwelt by the Spirit. And our desire for holiness is greater than our desire for the pleasures of this world. Young people, could I encourage you to know this about your life.
[18:45] That everything about you belongs to Him. Your body belongs to Him. He has bought it. It belongs completely to Him. And you should never give of yourself to anybody or to anything that would not be giving as unto the Lord.
[19:02] Because Satan wants to destroy you. He wants to come after you. He wants to create this false separation in your mind. Where He says, you can give your heart and your mind in this area. But you can give your body to the things of this world.
[19:15] And it is going to rob and steal you of your joy. You think that you're getting all the joy and excitement of the things of God. Plus a little bit more. But you're not.
[19:26] That little more is going to cost you so very much. We remind ourselves that God has not withheld any good thing from us. Psalm 84 11. For the Lord God is a sun and shield.
[19:37] The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will be withheld from them that walk uprightly. God has given us so much. So why would it be hard for me to say no to a little bit more when I turn around and realize all the things that He has given us.
[19:51] Somebody I love to read after says it like this. Chester then said, The more I considered Christianity, the more that I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.
[20:06] Let me make it a little easier together here. As a teenager, I was told it was a little dog that would run along a fence. A little chihuahua dog, right? Always barking and barking. Always wanting to get outside of that fence because it looks like it's more fun to play on the road.
[20:20] It looks like it would be more fun to be on the sidewalk. But that dog needed to turn around and see it had all these acres of land that it could run and play in. Have you ever seen that before? Have you ever been by a fence and saw a well-worn path of a dog running back and forth when the dog got to just like turn around like, oh, this is fun, you know, and run off.
[20:37] And so the saying no to yourself in your life and this discipline gives room for good things in your life to run wild. They have so much fun in the things of God. One of my favorite things about this church, which is a gift of God, is watching young people have fun doing godly things.
[20:55] They come in at 4 o'clock and see those young ladies practicing a song where good things in their heart are just running wild because there's plenty of things for us to do as a Christian. And we don't have to be running the fence back and forth, just asking what can we do.
[21:10] The Spirit trains God's people to walk in self-control and godliness, to enjoy God's gift instead of abusing it. Titus 2.11, for the grace of God brings salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
[21:26] The Spirit is teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly and righteously. And so I have a plead with you, simple ones. Proverbs 1.22, how long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?
[21:39] And the scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge. You may be young or you may be old, but if you are immature, I plead with you. You are trading just a little more for so much that God has for you.
[21:53] Of all the ways of dying that you could fear, one of my great fears of dying would be on a boat out in the ocean and die because I had nothing to drink. Because it would be so miserable to be surrounded by salt water, but to be so thirsty.
[22:09] But we all know in here that that is never going to satisfy your thirst. You would never be able to drink the water of the ocean and be satisfied by it, right? You would die.
[22:20] It would just bring you. And so just a little bit more. If you began to drink that salt water, it would just be a little bit more. But it's really going to bring death to you. And the young people, God knows He made you.
[22:33] Acts 17, that God made all things and the blood of all nations that dwell on the face of the earth. He knows your habitations. He knows your limitations. God knows that you have cravings. He knows that you have desires.
[22:43] And if you go outside of Him to meet those cravings, then you're going to find that it doesn't bring refreshment. And it doesn't bring life. But it's going to bring death.
[22:54] And in the moment, in the first drinks of that salt water, or in the moment when you're trying to live between satisfying your flesh by the things of this world and honoring God, you really believe that you have cheated everything and that you're getting both, that you're going to be the first person in the history to enjoy all the joy of the Lord and all the pleasures of sin for a season.
[23:16] And you're the first person in history. But that is rebellion. And it always ends the same way. And anybody in here can tell you, ask an adult if we've ever seen a person cheat this law in here, that you're either going to make Him the Lord of your life and serve Him, but you can't serve two masters.
[23:34] And so our desires are so easily turned into obsessions, leading us into wild consumption. James 4, 1 through 3. From whence come wars and fighting among you, come they hints even of your lust that war in your members.
[23:47] Your lust have not, you lust and have not, you kill and desire to have, you cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lust.
[24:00] When you're in the boat, going back to that, and you're craving something, remember, God knows how He made you. And you need to ask Him. Say, God, I don't feel like my life is all satisfying.
[24:12] I don't feel like what you've given me is all sufficient. But I am not going to find it in anything else. And you need to pray to God that He would give you wisdom and understanding and peace in those times.
[24:23] Our desire for more should cause us to search to know Him more. Psalm 16, 11. Thou wilt show me the path of life in thy presence of fullness of joy. And at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
[24:37] That that desire to have would cause you to pursue the presence and the fullness of God. He created you like that. Young men, when you get to the age and you say, I'm ready to be married, that desire you have is to cause you to go work 60 hours instead of 40 hours because you're supposed to save money so that you're able to have the wife that you want to have someday.
[24:57] It's to cause you to stay up late at night taking those courses to be ready for it. That's an energy that God has given you that's supposed to be directed towards something. It's not supposed to be satisfied right then.
[25:08] And then those of you that aren't as young in here, I pray that the greatest years of ministry for this church will come when some of you hit your midlife crisis and you decide that you need more Jesus.
[25:19] And not a new wife, not a new car, not a new motorcycle or whatever your cravings tell you the need. But you say, I need something and I'm going to find that in Jesus and in nothing else.
[25:31] You have a garden, so why do you need a tree? Better yet, you have a God, so why would you need anything in the garden? Adam and Eve did not decide that the tree was not good to look at. They saw it. They could have compared it to other trees and they could have looked at it and they could have tried many different ways to say, we don't need to eat this.
[25:48] We have something better already created for us. But what they should have said was, we have a walk with the creator of the universe that is far greater than this fruit and it's far greater than any of the fruits.
[26:02] And that's what I want. I desire to be in his presence. That's where the fullness of joy is. In this world gives us so many false kings. In closing here, 1 Samuel, Samuel's about to die.
[26:15] His sons are not in a place to lead a nation. And the nation says, we want a king like everybody else. We want to live like everybody else. We want somebody to protect us.
[26:26] We want to worship God, but we want a safe plan B in our life. And they are warned by the Lord that a king appointed by the people will take your sons and send them to war. You'll take their children and turn them into slaves.
[26:37] Take your daughters and put them into service. We'll take your crops to feed it unto their servants. So many things in this world promise you happiness, but it's just going to take from you completely.
[26:48] So we need to remember that the next time that we just say a little more. Do you have a need or craving that you think will satisfy with just a little more?
[26:59] And the answer is it never will. If you have a need or craving that you think is going to be met by just a little more of any substance or anything or any person on this earth, it will never give you the fullness of joy that you can find in the presence of God, but it will take you to the path of destruction.
[27:22] Do not try to meet your needs with anything of this world. You're created with needs and desires that only will be met by a relationship and the presence of God, and the world is not going to do it.
[27:35] I'm going to pray for us here. Give you a time to pray in your seats. And I'm going to ask those young ladies to come up and sing that song one last time here. But could I ask you to search your heart, or maybe some of you just know immediately, what it is in your life that you keep going back to, thinking that just a little bit more of it is going to meet your need, and tonight decide that that is not where you're going to go.
[27:59] Eat the honey that will suffice, but if you eat more than God has for you, it's going to bring you vomiting and nausea. Have it in its right place. And I plead with you, young people or immature older people in here, that you're not going to be the first person in human history that learns the joy, the fullness in God's presence and full obedience to Him, and also the pleasures of sin that can only be for a season.
[28:26] You have to make a decision. And if you don't, it's being made for you, that you will not be able to continue in that. And there ought to be repentance tonight. There ought to be, God, I'm not going back to that place for a little bit more.
[28:39] I'm not going back to that at all. In my life, I'm going to say no to that. My body belongs to God and not to anybody else. My body belongs to you. And if you don't give that fully to Him, then the things of this world are going to continue to take it from you and just leave you empty and filling with regret and sorrow.
[29:00] So let's pray together. Let's pray together.