[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfreda, Georgia. You will be listening to our monthly Thursday night men's meeting.
[0:14] Alright, I asked a pastor exactly what he's been teaching on during this breakout time, I guess the men's fellowship, and he told me he's going through the book of Proverbs, and he told me as of now he's finished Proverbs chapter 1 and Proverbs chapter 2, so I'm going to jump into Proverbs chapter 3, and if you've got your Bibles in Proverbs chapter 3, we'll underline just a few things.
[0:34] We're going to go through verse number 1 through verse number 4, and see a couple different things, and to be quite honest with you, I love the book of Proverbs. This is probably one of my favorite books of all the Bible. I went through in Argentina, I preached through Proverbs for probably two years, and I never finished it, and I love the book of Proverbs.
[0:53] It's got a lot of things, a lot of wisdom, so don't worry, I'm not going through two years, and I'll make this short this evening. But let's review a couple different things that you probably already know from the book of Proverbs.
[1:04] The book of Proverbs is called the book of wisdom, right? And you and I as a Christian, when we read the book of Proverbs, we can begin to walk in wisdom. God teaches us prudence, and justice, and equity.
[1:15] He teaches us all these characteristics that we need to know that they're not outer characteristics, rather they're inner characteristics. Somebody help me out here. Who wrote the book of Proverbs?
[1:25] Solomon, right? Solomon wrote three books in total. What were the three books? Okay, Song of Solomon, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.
[1:38] Good, you didn't think I was going to make you think this evening, right? Okay, the book, there are three different books, and they're not in any, right, in the Bible, it's Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. In chronological order, it's not that way, because the book of Song of Solomon, eight chapters is the book of love.
[1:55] And all throughout this, he talks about how he loves her, and how she's beautiful, and wonderful, and gorgeous, and la la la. And he, and she says the same about him. And it's the book when he was young and deeply in love.
[2:07] The next book he wrote is the book of Proverbs. And that's when he was at the height of his wisdom. In fact, we see from 1 Kings 4, 32, that he wrote over 3,000 Proverbs.
[2:18] Right here, we have 31 chapters. They're not all of Solomon. He was the one who compiled them together. But he wrote 3,000 Proverbs. So this is the book of wisdom.
[2:28] But the book of Ecclesiastes, the last one he wrote, that's the book of vanity. Now, throughout the book, 12 chapters, he says, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. In other words, he's saying, I had everything under the sun, and it really doesn't please you.
[2:42] It doesn't give you the joy and the peace that you really need. That's what he talked about. But now we're going to the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs, we saw that it's Solomon, who's the main writer here, who compiled this book together.
[2:54] But his father is who? David. And do you remember who his mother is? Bathsheba. A lot of times we think, well, it might be Abigail or one. But this is Bathsheba.
[3:05] The first child that they had when David was in adultery, they lost the first child. The next child that was born was Solomon. Solomon. And Solomon was raised up and used by God in a great way.
[3:18] Now, as we come through here, I want to show you a couple different things. The word Proverbs obviously means a pithy saying. You know, concise and short and to the truth, a saying. Just, you all heard of Japhat.
[3:29] This is a Chinese proverb, right? Or something like that. Well, that's what these Proverbs are about. They're verses that jump from one subject to another. There's no central pattern, so to say. And they jump from different things with great insight and thoughts for us.
[3:43] Just remember in chapter number two, very quickly, look at it. There's got some interesting things before we jump into Proverbs chapter number three. In chapter number two, verse number one, it says, My son, if thou will receive my words, hide my commandments with thee.
[3:55] Look at verse number two. So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thine heart to understanding. If you begin to maybe underline a few different of those verbs here, he says, incline and apply.
[4:05] And this is verse number three. Look at what it says here. If thou criest after knowledge, lift this up thy voice for understanding. Verse number four. Seekest her as silver. Searchest her as for hid treasure.
[4:17] Look at verse number five. Chapter number two, verse number five. The first word, what does it say? Then. In other words, if you do all of this, if you seek like crazy, like you're looking for gold.
[4:28] And if you cry after it, like you have to have it. And if you're looking for it and you're inclining yourself unto it. You're looking for everything. Verse number five says, then thou shall understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
[4:41] In other words, if you want God's wisdom and understanding, you got to look for it. You've got to go after it. You know, God does not make anybody a robot and God does not make force anybody to serve him.
[4:53] If you want to find wisdom, you got to go after it. I used to tell our people in Argentina, your growth does not depend on God. Your growth depends on your desire.
[5:04] Because if you want to grow, you can grow. You'll read more of the Bible. You'll come more to church. You'll do more things that help you grow and learn about God. So he says, do this, all these different verbs.
[5:17] And he says, then you'll find it. In verse number six, it's interesting. It says, for the Lord giveth wisdom. Just like it says in James chapter number one, verse number five, that God gives wisdom.
[5:28] Just ask of God. He gives it to all men liberally and abradeth not. So in other words, it's God who gives it. Proverbs is the book of wisdom. And he teaches us how to find wisdom. And he tells us we got to go looking for it.
[5:40] And so now as we jump into the book, and we're going to see chapter number three, just a few verses here. We find out how we can have this wisdom and how we can go through it. It's got some wonderful advice here in chapter number three. Look at verse number one, would you?
[5:51] The Bible says this, my son, verse number one and verse number two, Proverbs three. My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments.
[6:02] Very quickly said, right here we see that now David probably is talking to his son Solomon. He's saying, son, I want to tell you something. But the actual application could be that one greater than Solomon was said in Matthew chapter number 12, verse number 42 of Jesus Christ.
[6:19] That he is talking to us as children. He says, my son, forget not. Number one, if you want to fill this out in your outline. Number one, there says verse one, two. It's a reminder to not forget his law.
[6:32] God tells us, as David tells his son, forget not. Don't forget it. This is something that you must know. It says, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments.
[6:44] Quickly, let me say just a few things there before we jump down to verse number two. It says, don't forget. So we're not going to forget something. And it says, look at it. What does it say that needs to keep his commandments?
[6:56] What should keep his commandments? Your heart. Do you know there's a great difference between your head and your heart? The honest truth is many of us have God's word in our head.
[7:09] But there's a problem having God's word in your head and not in your heart. Because when you have God's word in your head, the memory fails. And number two, that knowledge puffs up. You know, some of our biggest problems in Argentina, in the church, you know, the people who gave us the bigger problems?
[7:25] The people who knew all the scripture. They didn't do squat, but they knew everything. They always said, pastor, you know what the Bible said? And I thought, you little sucker, if you ever came to church one time, it would be great.
[7:36] You know, you hear every Easter service and Christmas, but you know, you're never else. But buddy, he loves to judge everybody and, you know, condemn everybody and tell everybody what they... Can I remind you, even the devil knows the scripture?
[7:48] You remember Matthew chapter number four? Three times he tempted the Lord Jesus Christ. Bow down to me. Don't you remember Psalm 90, Psalm 91? That the angels will come and help you? The devil, Matthew chapter number 24, 25, 26.
[8:00] Even the devil knows of him and he trembles. So, we know that the devil has it here. But the Lord says, I don't want you to just have it here. I want you to have it here.
[8:11] And the difference between the head and the heart, the head is a process of learning. The heart is a process of knowing and growing. It's a process of loving.
[8:21] The great difference that we see between the head, the head says, you have to do this. You must do this. The heart says, I want to do this. I get to do this. It's a whole different way of looking things.
[8:34] And he looks at them and he says, son, now I want you to remember. We're going to go through this book, David says. We're going to go through here and I'm going to give you some advice. But I want you to know, as God would tell us, don't forget it.
[8:46] Hide it right here. Remember what the psalmist said in Psalm 119 verse number 11? He says, I have hid his word in mine heart that mine might not sin against him. You know, if you keep God's word in your head, when you confront the battle and the temptation and the hard times in your life, you're going to forget about it.
[9:03] But if you've got God's word locked in your heart, when you confront that strong time in your life, God's word is going to automatically seep out of your pores and you're going to do what's right because it's not here.
[9:14] It's right here. You do it because you want to do it and because you love it and because it's inside of there. But verse number two, look at it if you would. The Bible says this. Verse number one. My son, forget not my law.
[9:24] Let thine heart keep my commandments. Verse number two. For length, another word, here's some benefits. It says for length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee.
[9:35] It says when you keep God's word in your heart, not just your head, when you keep God's word in your heart, he says there's some wonderful things that will happen. It says length of days, long life and peace shall be added to you.
[9:47] The long days, how it goes, it says the length of days, the long life, the long life would be your time, right? In other words, if you keep it in your heart and not just in your head, you get long life.
[10:00] Everybody's got long life. I see people who don't even serve God and they live a long life. Long life, but there's also length of days. So long life talks about time.
[10:11] The length of days talks about the quality of time. God will give you not just time, but quality of time. And then peace. Peace is what only comes from God. You remember Philippians chapter number four, verse number seven.
[10:22] The peace of God, which passes all understanding. You probably heard of, you remember, uh, uh, bones de Leon, uh, the French guy.
[10:33] He went out. Do you, anybody remember what he went searching for in this, this fable that he was looking for? The fountain of youth. He never found it, right? But do you know, in our society every year, literally billions of dollars are spent on vitamins, on health, on gym memberships, on trainers, on absolutely anything to keep me in health so I can live longer.
[10:59] Do you know what the Bible says? You know what? I've seen people. Isn't it amazing? People are buff and strong and everything else. And, uh, they don't make it as long as somebody else. And you're thinking, for crying out loud.
[11:09] I had a great aunt that she loved, her favorite thing to eat. And she's still alive. I don't know. She's probably got, she's probably like 140 or something. I don't know how old she is. But you know what? She always, every time she cooked bacon, she kept the bacon grease out.
[11:21] And she loved to heat up the bacon grease. And with bread, she would eat bacon grease. I thought, I don't even think you have arteries for crying. I mean, they got, I don't know what the lady does.
[11:32] You know what? She's living strong. I mean, she is old. I'm thinking, how in the world is she doing that? I mean, you got some guys, you know, going to GNC every four days and they're pumping up their body. And this lady, good night, I don't know what she does.
[11:44] You know, the honest truth is the Bible says that he wants you to have his word in your heart. Now, let me think about this for a second. Why will it give you long life? Think about this. Do you know even the world knows that you'll have less life by having a hard, by living hard?
[12:00] In other words, have you ever seen somebody who smokes a lot or does drugs or have you ever? My sister was on drugs a while back and she got super skinny. She lost a lot of teeth.
[12:12] She was on meth and she lost a lot of teeth, got super skinny. She became very yellow and we were doing everything we could to get her off of it. You know what? It'll ruin your body.
[12:22] My sister's, she's probably 36. She looks like she's probably 56. I mean, it is really taking a toll on her life.
[12:33] And do you know actors and actresses and rock stars and in any, you know, this type of living, you know, at the end, it really takes a toll on your body.
[12:44] The stress levels and the people who say, man, this is crazy. Go to church, man. Forget that, man. I go out. I'm with any woman I want. And I do anything I want. Then afterwards, they have diseases and they have all kinds of problems.
[12:58] Bible says, you know what? Keep my word in your heart. It'll keep you from those, those, those sexual diseases because you're with one person. It'll keep you from, from the drugs, the abstinence of.
[13:10] It'll keep you from the liquor. It'll keep you from all these different things. Because when you hide God's word in your heart, you have much longer to live. But not only that, you have peace in your heart. And God wants to save you.
[13:20] God wants to give you that joy, which you can have, which is peace. There's nothing like it in the world. I heard, I don't even know where I heard it, but I used to tell our youth in Argentina, do you know what real fun is?
[13:34] Fun is when you wake up the next morning and you do not regret what you did the night before. I don't know about you, but I've regretted, I've, I've woken up or I've been in times that I regretted and I thought, oh man.
[13:45] Either I don't want the police to find me, or I don't want my parents to know, or I don't want my neighbor to know, or anything else. Boy, you think, man, that's cool, but all of a sudden you feel it's not so cool.
[13:58] But you know what, serving God, you can wake up the next day and say, praise the Lord, I still feel good. There's just something about it. It gives you an inner peace. That's what God wants you to have. But jump down, if you would, to verse number three.
[14:09] And it says this. So verse number one and two shares with us, let's not forsake it. Let's keep his law. Verse number three says this. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee.
[14:21] Bind them about thy neck. Write them upon the table of thine heart. Verse number four, if you would. So shalt thou find favor, good understanding, in the sight of God and man. If you've got a pen, let's write it down in the space here.
[14:33] Verse number three, point number two, verse number three says, let not mercy and truth. Now if you've got your pen, circle or underline in your Bible there, mercy and truth.
[14:45] And all throughout the Bible, I left some verses written down there underneath that. These are two elements that we find throughout the word of God that are connected. Characteristics of God. Mercy and truth. And mercy and truth.
[14:57] Mercy and truth. And they're repeated throughout the word of God. These are wonderful things. These are things that connect together. Let's read a couple of them if you would. Psalm 25, verse number 10. It's right there in your notes. Psalm 25, 10 says, all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.
[15:12] Jump down verse, you could read the rest of the verse. Psalm 57, verse number three. God just sent forth his mercy and his truth. Psalm 61, verse number seven. He shall abide before God forever. Oh, prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him.
[15:25] Psalm 69, 13. Oh God, in the multitude of thy mercy, hear me in the truth of thy salvation. Next one, Psalm 85, 10. Mercy and truth are met together. Psalm 86, verse number 15.
[15:37] But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. Psalm 89, 14. Mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Psalm 98, verse number three.
[15:48] Heath remembered his mercy and his truth. Psalm 100, verse number five. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, his truth endureth all the generation. 108, verse number four. Thy mercy is great above the heavens, thy truth reaches the clouds.
[16:01] Psalm 115, verse number one. For thy mercy and thy truth's sake at the very end. And then there's other passages that are noted down here and we can see throughout the book of Proverbs. In just a minute, we're going to see some others.
[16:12] But grab a hold of something. I want to explain this in a minute, but it's important that you grab a hold of this. Mercy and truth. They're met together. They're combined. He says, bind them about thy neck.
[16:23] When you talk about binding, you talk about wrapping something together. Making it one. When it says about your neck, usually, what does somebody wear around their neck? A necklace?
[16:36] Something that's worth anything. You usually don't wear, you know, when you're a kid, you might wear a string. You know, but usually, you don't see a woman or you don't see somebody who's got a lot of money walking around with a piece of string around their neck.
[16:48] You know, walking around with their soap saying, look at this. This is cool, you know. They usually walk around. When you've got a necklace, it's got either pearls or gold or some fancy stone.
[17:00] And the Bible says, let's grab mercy and truth. Let's put them together. Let's wrap them around it. This is something super important. A characteristic of God and a characteristic we need. So look down here if you would.
[17:11] Number one, under point number two. Number one, mercy. Write that in the space. And I'm going to give you a couple definitions here just for sake of understanding. And then we're going to go through and read a couple different scriptures.
[17:24] And that I believe will greatly help us understand. Mercy is this. It's compassion. It's written down there. It's compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.
[17:37] Think about it. You got the possibility to condemn or to hurt somebody. You show mercy. It's in your power. Mercy denotes all benignity, charity, and readiness to give to others.
[17:49] Truth or faithfulness, respect of all duties we owe to God or man, which we have special obligation from rules of justice. But look at truth. Number two would be the word truth. And put that in there in the space there.
[18:00] Truth is the quality or state of being true. That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality. You cannot deny what is truth.
[18:13] So we understand two definitions here. Truth, you remember over in Romans chapter number three. Romans chapter number three in verse number four, I believe it is. It says, let God be true and every man a liar.
[18:26] In other words, you hear people say, well, my opinion is we die and we come back as a monkey. Or my opinion is that when we die, we stay right there in the ground. Or my opinion is that we'll be in person.
[18:37] You know what? God says, look, think anything you want. It's not changing the truth. The truth is a truth and that's nothing changes it. But mercy is that's the truth.
[18:48] I'm going to let you get by. I'm going to be merciful to you. So grab a hold of the number three. Grab this and underline it or put a couple things in there. Mercy forgives and it gives.
[19:01] Mercy forgives and gives. Truth maintains what is just and right. So grab a hold of this because it's super important. We're going to come to a very important application that I believe can help you.
[19:13] But mercy is what forgives somebody and it gives to somebody. It's generosity. It's love. It's forgiveness. Truth says, this is just, you're going to pay for it.
[19:25] This is right. It's not changing. I don't care who you are, what you are, your position you have, the money you have. This is the truth. Now look at a couple different things here. Under number three, there's letter A through E.
[19:37] And I want you to put a couple things in there and we're going to look at the last one. Letter A, we should never separate these two from each other. Put the word separate. So we see here in Proverbs that you can't separate mercy and truth.
[19:50] Or at least we should not separate mercy and truth. Letter B, it is what we receive for thinking right, correctly. It says planning. And that we see in the verses are all right there.
[20:01] You can look them up later. These two elements, letter C, correct sin. Putting these two things together, we're going to see that. And they keep, letter D comes from Proverbs 20.
[20:12] They keep the king and they'll keep us also. Keep us away from sin. Keep us away from harm. Keep us away from trouble. And letter E, it's how we should deal with other people.
[20:24] Or treat other people, relate with other people, whatever you want to say. And here's what I want to spend just a couple of minutes if we could. And let's look for a few different passages here. 1 Timothy chapter number 2 if you would. Let's leave Proverbs for a second.
[20:35] Let's go to 1 Timothy chapter number 2 very quickly. 1 Timothy chapter number 2. I remember when I was in Argentina and I came through a couple, of course all of us have read different scripture.
[20:48] But then there's some times when we read it and boy it just really clicks. And we say, that's what it means. Or wow, what a wonderful thing. These two passages mean a whole lot to me. And I want to show you why.
[20:58] Because they talk about mercy and truth. 1 Timothy chapter number 2. And look if you would, verse number 24. 1 Timothy 2. I guess I should find it. 1 Timothy 2. 2 Timothy.
[21:10] My bad. 2 Timothy 2, verse number 24. The Bible says this. 2 Timothy chapter number 2. My bad. Verse number 24. It says, The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient.
[21:25] Okay? It's got some different ways we should be careful. And this is Paul talking to Timothy. So Timothy is a young man who's desirous of serving God. So he says, I'm going to tell you something as someone who wants to serve God.
[21:37] Be gentle. Be patient. Don't be a brawler. Don't be striving. Don't be fighting. Verse number 25. Here's what it says. In meekness. Okay, stop one second. Meekness is a characteristic of humility, of being merciful, of being humble.
[21:55] And it says, in meekness instructing. In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God for adventure will give them repentance to acknowledge of the truth.
[22:07] Look at verse number 26. And that they may recover themselves out of a snare of the devil who are taken captive by him and his will. Now look right up here. Think about this.
[22:18] There are people who oppose themselves. There are people who oppose the church and oppose all which is right. They go the other way. We know they're wrong. We know that they should assemble themselves together, as Hebrews 10.25 says.
[22:32] We know that they should live a godly life. We know that they should fill in the space. We know that they should do that. But listen. The Bible says, tell them. Instruct them.
[22:43] Give them the truth. It's only going to hurt them. It's going to harm them. Look at this. Give them the truth with meekness. Mixing the truth with mercy, with meekness.
[22:54] The Bible says, listen. It will, verse number 26, that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil. They'll repent and they'll get right.
[23:06] Now think about this for a second. Have you ever reprimanded somebody for doing something or seen somebody reprimanded for doing something? And the other person had all right, but you're feeling super bad because it was not the right way to do it?
[23:20] Boy, I have. I've been guilty of doing it many times. Saying, you're not supposed to do that and you are totally right. But you know that that's just going to drive the person farther away.
[23:31] How many of you ever talked to your wife and said something, it was the right thing to say, but it was definitely not the right way to say it? Oh, I have. Probably many times today. Good thing that I left this morning and didn't get home until, well, until tonight.
[23:44] Because I would have probably said more things. You know the honest truth is, there's a right, listen. How about this one? Honey, how do I look in my dress? Remember, it's true.
[23:56] Mix it with mercy. It'll help you a lot. Because if you're not careful, you will lose the whole fight, right? Here's what I'm saying. You can tell your children or you could tell your spouse or you could tell your friend or neighbor, co-worker, anybody else.
[24:11] I've got position. You better listen. But when you instruct, mix it with a little bit of mercy and meekness. You would be surprised. And the Bible says when you give the truth with mercy, the Bible says it is very likely that they will come back around.
[24:28] They'll repent. And it's obviously a devil's snare. They don't understand it because they're in the middle of it. But they'll obviously leave the devil's snare just because the way that you handled the situation.
[24:40] Use truth. Use mercy. Let's go to 1 Peter chapter number 3, another similar chapter. 1 Peter chapter number 3, another similar text, better said. 1 Peter chapter number 3, and look at this.
[24:52] This is an interesting one as well. 1 Peter chapter number 3, so we're mixing mercy with truth. And when we mix mercy and truth, it makes a big difference. Somebody really maybe comes back to God.
[25:08] All of us have seen people who have left church or left the path of God. Maybe children or maybe friends or maybe loved ones or somebody we knew or somebody we really cared about in church.
[25:19] And they've left the path. And we can, if we're not careful, we can go up to them. We can tell them, this is the truth and you better listen. But if you don't tell them the right way and mix it with a little bit of mercy, you're going to have a hard time.
[25:32] I many times made mistakes myself a whole lot in Argentina by telling somebody. I remember one specific time I was just learning Spanish. I was in Peru and I was just learning Spanish.
[25:42] And there was this guy who I was discipling. And I had no idea why I did what I did. But I told him that we were going through different lessons. And I was talking about different things.
[25:53] And we come across 1 Corinthians chapter number 11. And he had some questions. And so I showed him in 1 Corinthians chapter number 11. The Bible speaks right before it talks about the Lord's Supper. It talks to us about that the natural, it is even not natural for a man to have long hair.
[26:06] And so we began to talk about it a little bit. And I was just commenting, I thought, about some certain things. And so needless to say, my friend, whom I was discipling, went out and told his friend, who was super hippie, he said, that's ungodly and it's unbiblical and everything else.
[26:24] The problem is his friend wasn't even saved. And I told him, look, idiot, can we talk about something? You know what? Your friend will probably never come to church now. And your friend will never get saved.
[26:36] And you know what? It was my problem. I was the one at fault because I told him when we were passing through whatever conversations we were in. But I didn't tell him, you know, you don't exactly tell somebody like that.
[26:49] And I got myself in a whole lot of trouble. It was true. But buddy, it would have helped a whole lot with mercy and waiting a whole long time. So we got to be careful how we deal with people. Go to 1 Peter chapter number 3.
[26:59] Look at it very quickly. 1 Peter 3 verse number 15. The Bible says this. 1 Peter 3 verse 15. But sanctify the Lord. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with what?
[27:19] Meekness, fear. So listen to this. I've many times someone come up and they said, I got a question for you. How come in church and I automatically got on the defensive side?
[27:30] Buddy, I wanted to tell him, look, you know why we do that? I just told him and I gave him the scripture and everything else. I thought I was right. But you know what? I didn't help that person at all. I drew him farther away.
[27:41] So the Bible says, if any man asks of the hope that you have in you, let me ask you. What is the hope that's in you? Do you have hope that you're going to heaven when you die? Because the word of God tells us.
[27:53] Do you have hope that he blesses your life? Do you have hope because he's good to us? That's the hope that is in us. Listen, and many people will test you about that hope that's within you.
[28:04] I mean, I have a, have you ever had Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon knock on your door? Or I never could talk to those guys. Man, I got about blue and red in the face and I wanted to punch him at the end. I thought, I don't care about Joseph Smith.
[28:15] I don't care about anybody else. Come here, I'm going to kill you. I mean, those guys, I couldn't talk with them. Because I started talking and they said, well, what about this? And I couldn't hold it down and I wasn't patient enough. So I got mad.
[28:26] They got, you know, they kept throwing their stuff out. And I wanted to say, you know, let's burn your book right here. Have a big, you know, barbecue. And, you know, let's, I want to rip off the stinking elder tag they had on it. Man, I got mad.
[28:38] But you know what? I was telling them the truth. But the way I was telling them, it sure didn't help anything. A lot of times we tell people that we love the truth. We don't mix it with mercy. Now look, go back to Proverbs chapter number three real quick.
[28:53] So we're told to not forget some things. Not forget the commandment. Let's put it in our heart. There's some benefits about it. And then we're told to bind the mercy and truth together. And then look at it.
[29:04] If you would, number three, there's some benefits of having mercy and truth. There's some benefits of having these things. Just like there were benefits that they gave us, verse number two, of verse number one.
[29:15] There's benefits in verse number four, of verse number three. And look at the benefits. It says this. It says, so shalt thou, when you have mercy and truth. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of who?
[29:28] God and who else? Man. And so write this down. Letter A. Find favor and good understanding in the sight of God. Put God in the space and put man in the space. When you have mercy and truth, you find favor in the sight of God and the sight of man.
[29:44] How? Because in the sight of God, you're telling the truth. But you're doing it in a loving way. You're doing it in a right way. And who can go, who can get mad at somebody who tells you absolutely anything but in a loving way?
[30:01] God says, when you mix mercy and truth together, that's the kind of witness I want you to be. That's the kind of person I want you to be to help bring somebody back to the path. As James chapter five talks about, if you return somebody to the path of God, you've done, you've saved the multitude of sins.
[30:19] You've saved their life. Why? Because you're mixing mercy with truth. Many times today, we know the truth and we don't mix it with mercy.
[30:31] We hurt a whole lot of people. I guarantee if we go back to them and we just talk to them like human beings, we probably help a whole lot of people. Let's mix them together. The book of Proverbs have so many wonderful things.
[30:43] It talks to us about all these, this prudence and this wisdom, this justice, what we need. But it tells us how to do it. Just like a doctor would tell you, take so many pills maybe for your high blood pressure, whatever it may be.
[30:56] If you would read a Proverbs a day, God will teach you so much wisdom, prudence, justice and everything you need to know. Today is the 10th or 11th?
[31:07] The 11th. Okay, we're not in agreement. 11th? Well, you better know, right? Okay, today is the 11th. If you read Proverbs 11, tomorrow is the 12th, just read the Proverbs of the day with the date.
[31:20] You know what? It can help us a lot. Learn all these different things. It talks about our finances. It talks about our marriage. It talks about our friendships. It talks about our work ethic. It talks about everything.
[31:31] The book of Proverbs is the book of wisdom. A wonderful book. Let's go ahead and pray and then we'll finish. Father, we thank you for your goodness, for your love. Teach us and use us, God. May we put in practice your word. May we not have it in our heads, God.
[31:43] May we have it in our head and in our heart. Lord, may we not be hearers of the word. May we be doers of the word. May we love you, put you first. And God, may we not be like the publicans and maybe not like the religious group that went out and they wanted everybody to know and they had the right vocabulary.
[32:01] God, may we get alone with you. May we get what we need in the inside and then let the outside worry about it later. Lord, may we love you. May we be filled with you and be taught by you.
[32:12] We thank you. We love you. Thank you for another time we can come together. Teach us. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia.
[32:24] For more information, log on to www.visionbaptist.com where you can find our service times, location, contact information, and more audio and video recordings.
[32:36] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.es