[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfreda, Georgia. Please join us as we study through the book of Proverbs.
[0:15] I hope you enjoyed that. Say amen. All right, take your Bible. Let's go to the book of Proverbs, if you would. I hope that you'll think about helping us on Saturday. Lord willing, the tracks will be here.
[0:26] They have a tracking number. They're in Dorival, so they're close. And Trent said if they don't make it from Dorival, he will drive to Dorival and pick them up. So they were in Dorival, and the United States Post Office, UPS.
[0:39] No, I guess it's UPS. UPS has them. So somebody's got them, and so you pray that they'll get here. And Saturday, one hour of your time, if a bunch of people go out, we can cover a great deal of territory, get the gospel message at least stuck on somebody's door, and an invitation to church, and maybe reach more people with the gospel.
[0:59] So we're going to meet. We'll have breakfast. And we're having a real breakfast. They're going to cook bacon and eggs, and I don't know what all, but they're going to fix a real breakfast.
[1:09] And then we'll have a little devotional, and we'll go out for one hour. All that's asked is one hour, and then you get 15 minutes to 20 minutes to come home, and we'll see how much we can cover. I hope you'll come and help with that, and I hope that you'll realize it's not the job of the training center students, and you'll really get involved in that and help with it.
[1:24] You'll be given a map, and you'll be given everywhere you're supposed to hit, and all you've got to do is tag the door. You say, I don't know how to do it. But if you know how to stick a piece of paper on a door, you know how to do it.
[1:37] Because all you've got to do is go to the door and stick the little piece of paper on the door, then go to the next door and stick the piece of paper there. And it can be a tad scary when you walk up and the door is wide open. And so when I do that, I just throw it on the floor.
[1:50] And I did that the other day. I guess it's been two months ago now. We were walking out of there and walked up the next street, and I came back down, and this guy came walking out at me, and he had the track in his hand.
[2:01] And I thought, my goodness, what's about to happen? And he came out, and he said, hey, who are you? And I said, I'm Austin Gardner, pastor of Vision Baptist Church. He said, man, it's good. What are you doing there? He said, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses up the hill, don't let that scare you.
[2:14] You're going up there and take care of them too while you're here. They're not afraid to come to my door or something like that. And then he said he was going to call me, but he never did. But his door was wide open, and I just tossed the track there.
[2:25] I didn't know what else to do. So anyway, it's not hard. You'll enjoy it. Now, Robert and I were out one day. This has been a year ago, I guess, or more. And we were in my white car, and we were going by in his mailboxes that have a newspaper box under them over on the other side, more towards Jonesville Road.
[2:46] And so you could stick it in their little newspaper box. That's not against the law. And so it was raining. We were driving a car through there. We're sticking them in everybody's newspaper box. And so somebody called the church and said there was somebody in a dumpy old car sticking stuff in our mailbox, and we want to know who it was.
[3:05] And whoever answered the phone didn't say it was the pastor and Robert doing it. So anyway, but we'll just go door to door and see what God does and if he touches hearts and brings people.
[3:17] And it's, I just, I know this. It's my responsibility to get the gospel out, and the Holy Spirit convicts them, and they make a decision. All right, I have decided, because I really struggle knowing what I want to do with y'all every Thursday night that we do this, that we're going to go through the book of Proverbs.
[3:36] That way I figure I'm covered for about a year or two or three or 30. Let's see, if you do a chapter a week, it's almost three years right there, a chapter once a month.
[3:47] There's 31 chapters, and we're not going to get a chapter covered. Now, I'd like to talk to you just a little bit about men's ministry, and this is extra. And I want you to feel free to ask questions or discuss things with me.
[3:58] But I have a record, a track record, a past of trying to work with the men of a church, trying to train men and get them to train other men.
[4:13] That's who I've been. And in a lot of ways, I don't know that I've done as well a job here as I could have, and that's one of the reasons I wanted to start this. And so let me go over a few things with you.
[4:24] And it's all really, the first part's all going to come down to foundations. I'll just be honest with you. You need to be involved in discipleship so you can know the basic stuff so you can tell somebody else about it.
[4:35] You need to go through all the lessons that you can so you can train other men. And then I'm going to take you just past, even past foundations. One of the privileges, and maybe a little bit of a burden to you, is that our church is such a missionary church.
[4:52] Because that means a lot of people come in. A lot of them don't make it. They don't stay. They're here a month or two months and they leave. They quit. They say they're going to make it. They're not. But that's really good. They quit here.
[5:02] It's a lot better than them quitting after we put $100,000 in them on the mission field and them quitting. So it really works out better to know it up front. But I need your help to help me train men.
[5:14] I need your help to help me train men. And so I want to go over some of that with you. If you've got your Bible, go to Proverbs 27, 17. And you know this verse very well already.
[5:26] But the fact is, it's even been referenced in the debates. This is a passage of a scripture that's regularly referenced. And that is Proverbs 27, 17 says, And so I want to talk to you about us as men.
[5:47] Now, I grew up in the Southern Baptist Convention. And every month we had a meeting of the Brotherhood. That's what they called it back then when I was a boy. All the men got together.
[5:57] We had a Brotherhood meeting. The Brotherhood oversaw what was called back then. And Joe's shaking his head. I think we might have some of the same roots. They had a thing called Royal Ambassadors.
[6:08] And that was a teenage group. And you got started at it about 9 or 10 years old. It's basically the Southern Baptist Boy Scouts. And so I really liked that, just to be blunt and honest with you.
[6:18] I really liked it. I liked it. They used to have a men's meeting. A lot of times it would be a breakfast. And the men would come and they would fix a big breakfast. And it was usually once a month.
[6:29] And it was just a big men's fraternity. But here's what we need in our church. We need men who will help sharpen other men. We need men who will help sharpen other men.
[6:41] I grew up in a little country church. And as a preacher, they were really brutal on me, to be honest with you. I was a young preacher. Nobody else was a preacher.
[6:53] And so I always got, I'd lead singing when I was 7 and 8 years old. For real. They would have me lead singing. It was horrible. But it was a country church. I don't know if we ever had this many men in that church.
[7:04] You know, back then I thought it was a pretty big church. But when I drive by and see it now, I'm like, I don't know if it could have got that many men in there. But I used to, I remember them putting the piano upstairs.
[7:15] I remember smoking the Deacon cigarettes. I mean, I remember the whole nine yards, you know. And then when I was a little older, I started preaching. And when I would preach, some of those older people in that church, they thought they were Priscilla and Aquila.
[7:30] And they could correct the preacher. And so they would, after church, some of them would nail my hide. You said this. And you have no Bible grounds for that. Show me where you got that in the Bible.
[7:41] And they were, they didn't do it right. They didn't do it merciful. But, buddy, did I learn my Bible? Because I knew that every time I got up there to preach, it was going to nail my rear. So I would get me 100 verses.
[7:52] God said, I know Brother Frick's fixing to hit me right after church. I have 100 verses. And that helped me a lot. It made me learn where verses were. It made me learn. And they caught me a lot of times.
[8:03] But sooner or later, it started happening where when they came, they'd be like, all right, we already know you know. And so I want men to help sharpen men. I want you to sharpen. I want to do it spiritually.
[8:13] I want to do it a lot of other ways. And before we get to Proverbs, I want to just say a couple of things to you about that. So there's something special about having strong friends. Now, you know this to a degree.
[8:24] But, like, I'm very close friends with the young missionaries. And I speak to them. I work with them. I help sharpen them. I spend time with them. I won't be the only one. And I want us to do this with the other men in our church, the other young men as they come in.
[8:38] It's important that men that serve God learn how to have good Christian friends. And that's why sometimes the idea of a one-hour-a-week church service, and you run in, and you hear the preaching, listen to the singing, and go home, is not the best idea.
[8:53] Because a guy that just came out of the world doesn't know how to, he doesn't even know how to live the new life. He doesn't know how to walk it. He doesn't know how to talk it. He doesn't know how to do things. He hasn't learned how to walk with the Lord. Because most of everything we do is to learn somewhere.
[9:06] And so, the fact is, you know where you learn to cuss, don't you? You learn to cuss with your friends. You know where you learn to smoke. If we were, I'll be honest, every one of us learned, how many of y'all ever smoked a cigarette?
[9:17] Raise your hand. Now, the rest of you liars, raise yours. Okay. You know, I smoked my cigarettes. I did. I smoked them at church with the other boys. We'd get them from the deacons. They'd stand there, and they'd stand on the corner of the church.
[9:28] They'd get through. The pastor smoked with them, and they'd take it, and they'd flick that cigarette butt out there, and they'd use it to leave a little bit, and we'd suck the rest of it until there wasn't anything left. We'd smoke the filter. And then we thought we were so cool to do that.
[9:41] You heard about the kid from Saudi Arabia got kicked off the airplane today because he had one of them electronic cigarettes, and he wouldn't put it down. And he got arrested, and he kept saying Osama bin Laden or something.
[9:53] And so, they said he's schizophrenic, and he's arrested. Well, I would have been that way with my little—I used to take grapevines. Grapevines. Anybody ever smoke grapevine cigarettes? You know, the little grapevines that grow in the trees, we used to cut them into cigarettes and stick them in our pockets.
[10:08] All those little country boys, we'd take them around, and when everybody was to smoke, we'd put them. That's like burning wood in your mouth. But we were that dumb. You know where you learn that? You learn that from your friends. You learn that from the people you hang around.
[10:20] How's a guy going to learn to live a holy life? Yes, God does the work. Yes, preaching ought to take place in the pulpit. But friendships make more difference. Why do I invite you to come just to eat breakfast when we're not really going to do any business?
[10:33] And I don't care if it's breakfast or midnight or any other thing. You know why I do that? Because I know that if we can get men to have other men Christians that love Jesus and honor their wives and do the right thing, we will influence them because iron sharpens iron.
[10:49] Another verse for you. And you can just jot this one down if you jot stuff down. Amos 3.3. Can anybody tell me what Amos 3.3 says? How can two walk together except they be agreed?
[11:01] So, you know, a guy won't hang around a bunch of Christians unless he starts getting a basic idea that he wants to do that. A guy won't hang around with Christians unless that's in his heart. In English, we say birds of a feather flock together.
[11:15] In Spanish, the saying was, you tell me who you run around with and I'll tell you who you are. I like that one even better. You tell me who you run around with and I'll tell you who you are.
[11:26] And so as Christians, we need to work as men to build a fraternity, a group, a brotherhood, an attitude, a spirit of Christian men that will work together, love each other, sharpen each other, and help to serve the Lord.
[11:44] And these guys are going to need to learn how to prove all things. That's what it says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 21 and 22. They're going to have to learn to prove all things.
[11:54] And they don't know how to prove them. You know, it comes up on occasion. This comes up on occasion. A guy will be looking at porn and then they come to see me. Because even though we're Baptists, we tend to think of ourselves almost as Catholics and you can't confess things directly to God.
[12:09] You need to confess them to a man. You know that. And so I'm the kid. You don't really need to. But I'm just saying. And so they all come to me. And when they come to me and they talk to me, it is a chance for me to help them learn to figure out, is that right?
[12:21] Is that good? Is that wrong? Is that bad? How does that do harm to you? What ought you to do? What's your spirit? How should your attitude and your spirit be? And so I want to challenge you to help me train other men.
[12:34] And we've been over this a whole bunch of times. And I'm not going to read the verses with you. But Jesus chose the men that they might be with him. It's withness. It's withness.
[12:46] It is a bunch of us got in a car and drove to middle Georgia. About nine of us, eight of us.
[12:57] How many of us was there? Eight of us. Five of us fell down. I think five of us fell down. Can you believe it? A bunch of stumbling old men. I fell down. I tripped. I'm not going to admit that Andrew Pearson, he fell down too.
[13:09] And so we went from the young doll. We fell down. Robert, did you fall down? You wouldn't admit it if you did, would you? I didn't. Oh, yeah. So he just lied. You know that. But what I'm saying is that being together does something for us.
[13:23] I need good Christian friends. And Jesus practiced that. Look, if you went to Philippians chapter 3. If you want Philippians 3. I'm going to get to Proverbs in a minute. And we're going to talk about Proverbs. Philippians chapter 3.
[13:35] We've been through all this already. But look what Philippians chapter 3 says. And it's so important for us if we're going to really, if we want to work at helping build other men. What's wrong?
[13:51] What's wrong with most churches? Would you listen to what I'm fixing to tell you? And I've traveled a lot. In fact, if somebody just told me this week, man, you have a young church.
[14:03] Then they said, there's a lot of life at your church. Then they said, you guys have babies like no other church. Well, the reason, we really don't have that many young people here. It's just that it's different than the norm.
[14:15] The norm is you've got a whole lot of really old people where I'm the young guy. And you've got a handful of young people. So there's one, two, three. And you may have some children or grandchildren. But something bad's happened.
[14:27] And that is all the men are getting old and the churches are dying. And you may not know this. You may not believe it when I tell you. But the missionaries get letters that say stuff just like this. For real. That say, we're having to drop your support.
[14:39] Our best missionary supporter just died. He was 95. I mean, that's really what's happening. And I can take you to a church. And I walk in that church. I promise you, I'm like a kid at this church.
[14:51] I'm a kid at that church. I have 16 grandkids. And I'm a kid at that church. Well, something's bad wrong. We need men reproducing men.
[15:02] We need men reproducing men. We would be in sad shape in any battle in America if we had all World War II soldiers to fight it. We'd be in sad shape if we had to depend on the guys that are dead or dying right now.
[15:17] We need some young people in churches that don't do that. So I'm challenging you that. In Philippians 3, 17 through 19, Paul said, We've gone over this verse before.
[15:46] But I want you to get this into context. Paul said, guys, you just came out of paganism. And you got saved. And you need an example about how you're supposed to live. So I want you to follow my example.
[16:00] Look at what he says. He says, be followers together of me. Now, that's a pretty bold, blunt statement. Be followers together of me. But, but, if a guy learned, if a guy just learned to love his wife, like some of you, and I'm not going to use names because it's going on the internet.
[16:17] But some of you guys, I know your tenderness. I know your sweetness. I know your love for your wife. I hear you talk about it. I see the kindness that you accept. Young guys don't have that anymore. There's tons of information on the internet right now.
[16:34] And on the internet news, I read every day about the number of babies that are being born to unwed mothers right now. It is the norm now for people under 30 to not be married.
[16:45] A third of all babies are born without a married set of parents. At least a third. It's become normal. It has become normal.
[16:58] So, when I grew up, see, what happened was when you grew up, and you were old, you're from another generation, even the heathen didn't do the stuff that regular people do now.
[17:09] I mean, even the bad guys had a higher moral standard than what the United States has now, often among Christians. Now, you know I'm not preaching morality because it's the grace of God that saves and changes.
[17:22] But grace does produce morality. Grace does produce right living. So, Paul said, hey guys, watch me. Watch me. Watch the way I pray. Watch the way I, where was I?
[17:34] I just did this at a, I just did this at a marriage retreat at another church. And I told them about men getting together working. And one of the men told me, he said, you know where I learned to pray, don't you? He said, when the men got together and prayed, I didn't know how to pray.
[17:46] I just listened to them. And then I imitated them. I said, that's a good way to learn how to pray. That's a good way to learn how to pray. We just did it just now. Somebody might not really be a good prayer, but they might have learned how to pray just a little bit more because they heard you pray just now.
[18:00] Paul said, brethren, be followers of me. Do what I do. Do what I do. Handle your family like I handle my family. Handle your finances like I handle my finances. Be at church like I'm at church.
[18:11] Live a holy life like I live a holy life. Do everything. Follow me. But then look at what else he said in verse 17. He said, mark them which walk so as you have us for an example.
[18:22] Paul said, I'm an example to you. The words are an example. He said, I'm an example to you. Mark them that walk so as you have us. He said, you need to follow me and then find the other guys doing what I do.
[18:38] In Vision Baptist Church, it ought not be. Austin's up there and some of the pastoral staff. And everybody else is heathen. There ought to be a whole bunch of us that are given a tremendously good example of what to do.
[18:51] Verse 18 says, because I'm telling you guys, there's a whole lot of people that are just not doing right. And they're the enemies of the cross of Christ. And their end is destruction. They're not even saved. God is their belly, whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things.
[19:04] So we need to work. And I'm going to use Proverbs and maybe help that with our teaching of our children and the teaching of our families and how we do that. But we need to work on being those kind of men that are mature enough to help other men.
[19:21] You know that Barnabas helped Paul. And I think everybody knows that. Do you remember what happens when Paul gets saved? His name is still being called Saul. They're terrified of him.
[19:32] Nobody is willing for him to be around them. Ananias is going to baptize him. But Ananias is scared. And if it hadn't been for God pretty well directly looking at him and saying, well, he didn't look at him, but just saying to him directly, Ananias, don't be afraid of him.
[19:46] I got big plans for him. Go baptize him. Ananias said, ain't he the one that's been beating up our people? And he the one that's been doing us wrong? I'm preparing a message today.
[19:59] Just something beautiful I've never seen. You remember in John 11 where Thomas says, let's go die with him. You know, more I've thought and meditated on that and read about that.
[20:11] That's a fantastic statement. You know what Thomas was saying, don't you? He has kind of a pessimistic attitude. But he could have said, let's get out of Dodge while getting's good. But he was loyal.
[20:23] He could have said, let's get out of Dodge. But he had the courage to follow him. He could have said, let's don't go. But he was committed enough to follow him. He was honest enough to tell what he really felt.
[20:33] Because the rest of them were probably just as scared. They were all just acting like they weren't. But Thomas says, I tell you what, I know we're going to die. But let's go die. Let's go die.
[20:46] One, I think it was Boyce, a preacher, he put it this way. He's known as Dodding Thomas. But if they'd have read this verse, maybe if you could remember him for this verse, you'd realize this guy was one more courageous dude.
[21:01] Scared, silly, willing to go. Scared, silly, willing to go. So anyway, Barnabas. Barnabas goes, he talks to Saul.
[21:13] Brings Saul in the church. Gets Saul accepted by the church. Helps Saul get out of town. Goes and finds Saul later. Gets him put in the ministry. Leads Saul out and teaches him how to do the ministry. And before it's over, Saul is a big man.
[21:25] Paul is taking over. We need men. We need men. I didn't have any of that, basically. I grew up in a country church. They didn't believe in studying much.
[21:37] In fact, this is what they used to think about Bible study. They did not believe that a pastor should study his Bible. They said, everybody will read the Bible. But when it comes time to preach, you stand up and open your mouth and God will fill it.
[21:52] And so you couldn't have notes. You couldn't prepare anything. You couldn't write anything down. You were supposed to stand up and on the spur of the moment, the Holy Spirit of God would come on you. And the words you would say would be great, perfect words if you had the power of God.
[22:06] I can still remember when I first learned how to make notes and how to cheat. I would make my notes and I learned how to take my Bible and set them over there. And while everybody wasn't looking, I reached and pulled my notes out and I'd lay them over to the side.
[22:20] And then I'd do something where they weren't looking. I'd stick to them back in and pull out another sheet. I was scared to death. Then I met Vance Habner, who was a really famous preacher back then. Preached all over the place in Vance Habner.
[22:31] I asked Vance Habner. I said, Brother Habner, is it okay to use notes? And he said, well, the old Scottish and Welsh preacher were talking. And the Welsh preacher said, you can't catch fire on paper.
[22:41] And the Scottish preacher said, no, but you sure can start a fire with paper. And so I said, I decided fully on him. I'm just going to use paper. But the point is, the point is somebody needs to help Barnabas.
[22:54] He needs to help Paul or we're not going to get a Paul. And if there hadn't been some men coming along and helping me and showing me, I wouldn't be where I am. And some of you, if you were honest, I know this may be a, you don't want to really admit it.
[23:05] Somebody helped you. Somebody kind of guided you. And some kind of molded you. And somebody kind of showed you how to say the Bible. And somebody kind of showed you how to pray. Somebody kind of showed you.
[23:16] And if they didn't, you need it. So we need to work on getting that going here in our church. That's one of the reasons you got pastors. That's one of the reasons you got mature men that help each other.
[23:27] How about this one? Ecclesiastes 4, 9 through 10 says, Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.
[23:39] But woe to him that is alone when he falleth. For he hath not another to help him up. Everybody needs somebody to love them. Everybody needs somebody to believe in them.
[23:51] Everybody needs somebody to love them. We all need to be sharpened. We all need that. But there's a high cost. So I'm actually talking to you about a high cost. First thing, the first cost is this.
[24:02] You need to go through foundations. You need to go through the lessons. You say, I already know all that stuff. You know, the truth of the matter is, the truth of the matter is, if you were working in any company, if you were playing on any ball team, they'd say to you, this is how we feel like the best way to get it done.
[24:16] And so I happen to be the guy that's the coach. And you've allowed me to be the coach, the pastor, the leader of this. And I'm just going to tell you, I don't think my lessons have anything better than anybody else's. But I think that if you, if you, you need to learn how to teach another man.
[24:30] And I want to teach you how to teach another man. And I want to challenge all of you to teach other men. This is interesting. A guy told me this week about a church he's working in. And they've all been members of a very large church known for great discipleship, but they were never allowed to do anything at that church.
[24:47] Nobody that you might get to disciple somebody, but all these men came, they wanted to serve God. And so they'd moved over to get another church where they could do that. And they didn't get to do it again. And so this new preacher says, so hey, I'm going to help you get in ministry and they won't leave him alone.
[25:03] All every one of them are wanting to teach people. They're wanting to start churches. They're wanting to do anything they can do. They're hungry to be involved. I want to challenge you to get that way.
[25:17] I think I'll stop on that. I just go to Proverbs one with me and we'll start there. I'll take the next 15 minutes there. Just want to challenge you with this. Take this any way you want.
[25:31] Cause everybody says I shouldn't say it cause I'm morbid, but my wife turned 58 yesterday and I'll be 58 in a few weeks, six weeks, six months. I'll be 58 in six months. I know my time is limited and you can act like, well, we don't ever like to think like that, but a wise man once said, teach me to number my days, teach me to number my days.
[25:55] If the Lord lets me live, how long do I have to live? If the Lord lets me keep my mind, how long do I get to keep working? And if the Lord lets me be in ministry, what have I, what am I going to have accomplished when all this is said and done?
[26:08] And I would challenge you with this. Nobody's going to remember the land you owned in this presidential debate. They, you know that they found out who the richest president we've ever had was, right?
[26:21] How many of y'all know who the richest president we ever had was George Washington? He owned 60,000 acres of land. He owned 60,000.
[26:32] He had to borrow money to get to the capital to be sworn in. He had, he was land rich and money poor, but you didn't even know he owned that land.
[26:44] The guy ain't been dead that long. Come on. What's he been dead? A couple hundred years. And you already forgot. Uh, do you understand that what's going to count is not the vehicles we drive, the clothes we wear.
[26:57] What's going to count is not how much money we have in an account. Um, man, I got all kinds of friends. I got the spectrum of friends.
[27:07] I got, I got some guys that are convinced that the country is going to fall apart within two years, completely melt down. And they're buying food and guns for real and burying gold.
[27:23] I would do that, but I'd have to shoot you. When you came to my house to get my food, I'd be like, Hey, I got to take care of number one. Bow. That's a dead Joe right there. Come on behind him there, Robert. So I really don't think I could get involved in that personally.
[27:36] And then I got other guys that say, Hey man, the country's fixing to turn around. I got other, you know, there's all kinds of, there's all kinds of wild stuff, but I lived overseas. Did you know that in Argentina one day they froze everybody's bank accounts and everybody just lost everything?
[27:51] Everybody lost everything. The good thing was your debt was gone, but all your money is gone with it. And if you, they might've come and gotten your house. Some of the guys lost their houses. I've been watching on, I've been watching on public broadcasting, which is, man, it's horrible.
[28:09] You, have you ever watched all that public broadcasting about Germany and how those people lived? And we're treated. When Hitler took over and all the wicked and horrible things that could face us.
[28:20] But the truth of the matter is none of that really matters. Because when you're dead, it's not going to matter anyway. When you're dead, they're going to stack everything you want on a little table about the size of this little thing right here. And you're going to be laying in the hospital bed.
[28:33] And nobody's going to ask about the chicken houses. And nobody's going to ask about the sheep. And nobody's going to ask about the goats. And nobody's going to ask about the cows and the pigs. They won't matter. But what you've done for Christ, that's what lasts.
[28:46] So I want to challenge you. Who, who are you influencing? The number one person you ought to influence, obviously, are your children. But you are blessed that you get to influence others. Because if you haven't figured this out, your kids will soon quit listening to you for a while.
[29:02] And then even after that, they may listen, but they're going to listen a little half-heartedly. If you, if you've not realized this, you let your kids turn, I don't know, what was it?
[29:15] Mark Twain said, Mark Twain said, when a kid turns 13, you should put him in a barrel and feed him through a hole. Put a hole, put a hole in there and put a straw and feed him through the straw, but leave him in the barrel.
[29:27] He said, when he turns 18, pull the straw out and plug the hole. I'm pretty sure it was Mark Twain said that. The truth is that your own children won't listen that long.
[29:39] There'll come a day, maybe, you know, when you're dying, you're going to listen, but there'll come a day they won't, but there are other young men that'll listen to you. And there are other people that'll listen to you and that'll watch you and they need your time and they need your influence for the kingdom.
[29:53] And they're not going to be missionaries. You can't really teach them the things I can teach them, but you all can teach them how to be a husband. You can all teach them how to be a dad. You can all teach them how to be a prayer. You can all teach them how to be a giver.
[30:06] You can all teach them how to be a servant. You can all teach them how to do stuff. So they learn. So they grew up. Sometimes there are comments made by older Christians. These young guys, they don't seem to know that they ought to help with the chairs.
[30:19] They don't seem to know they ought to do this or this and this. Well, you know, there's only one reason they don't know how to do that. You know that, don't you? Because all you old people didn't tell them to do it. They learn from you.
[30:31] So help them. Let me say the first step for you, if you haven't done it, is to go through foundations. Foundations. I mean, learn so you can teach others.
[30:43] You say, that's all simple stuff. Boy, it's not simple. It is not simple. People have been in church all their life. Don't know it.
[30:54] One young lady got saved going through it. And she'd been in a good godly home. Good godly home. But the Holy Spirit helped her see stuff she hadn't seen. Praise God for that.
[31:05] I mean, that's fantastic. I guess there's two people that have made this. I can't remember. I'm just telling you that wonderful. Other people have been so terrified that they're going to lose their salvation and somebody sat down with them.
[31:17] And it's much more about, it's much more than a lesson. It's much more than you sit down and go over a lesson for an hour. It is that they really become your friends. They become your family. I just spoke at a church.
[31:31] And they run about 400, 450. And I made a joke that everybody in that church seemed to be married to somebody else in that church.
[31:42] And if they weren't married, they were cousins. The pastor's wife's brother is dad to some of the people on the staff.
[31:53] The pastor's mother is in a school. I mean, everybody was connected. You said, that's bad. No, really, it's not. You see, in real Christianity, guess what?
[32:04] A man gets saved and his household gets saved. Now, if you just keep it down to a handful, then that'd be bad. But if you keep extending it, and you keep extending it, and you keep extending it, that'd be great.
[32:16] In Peru, it was always a big and extended thing. Any question or comment or argument before I read from Proverbs 1 with you? I want to challenge you.
[32:29] I want to challenge you to share your life. I guess I'll give you one testimony about this before we go. When I was going to become a missionary, I'd been an independent Baptist by that time for over eight years, and I'd met dozens of independent Baptist missionaries, and I had met several directors and people, and I had no idea what the next step was.
[32:52] And so when God began to deal with my heart about being a missionary, I went out, and I decided to become a nurse because I would need to know medical stuff on the mission field because I read that in a biography from somebody a hundred years ago.
[33:04] And then I went down to the airport, the little private airport, and I talked to them about needing to learn how to fly an airplane. And then I contacted, I'm not teasing about any of this, all this happened within a year and a half of me becoming a missionary.
[33:20] Then I found out, I tried to find out how to be a welder. Then I went and bought me a whole bunch of woodworking stuff so I could work on wood. You got to understand, the brother Frick can take and build a boat and put 952 rivets in it and skin it and rebuild it and put it together.
[33:37] Not Austin. When Austin works on it, somebody's going to have to work on it and fix it. And so, but I knew if I was going to be a missionary, I had to learn how to make my own furniture, fix my own, heal my own people.
[33:49] I had to do all that stuff. And then I realized, man, I had a whole list of all these things. This is going to take me years just to get all my preparation. Then I found out I didn't need all that. So now I help missionaries and I walk them through all this maze and for them it turns out something easy because they got this guy who's been there, understands it and brings them through it.
[34:09] Paul taught me how to baby, you know, Paul and Amber had a baby last night. I guess somebody knows that but now I didn't announce it a while ago. But they're babies born. Do you know there's a little bit more to raising a baby than Paul probably knows about?
[34:21] I bet being a dad, would you say being a dad a tad tougher than you thought the first five seconds? No. No, it's a lot tougher. No, really.
[34:31] I want you to, seriously. You know, I think when you see the new baby, and by the way, if you think that, you think it got tougher because you had to change diapers, wait till they're eight. You ever had any heartaches with children in their brother of mine?
[34:47] Never. Joe, you ever been through anything with kids? Chuck, you had never had any problems. You're just a lucky dad. The truth of the matter is raising kids is not as easy as you think it is. Hey, everything from balancing a checkbook, nothing's like ever.
[35:04] Well, when you're a kid, you know, the joke is, the joke is that, the joke is a girl gets married and she burns water when she tries to boil it. But men aren't much better off.
[35:15] And we're not training them. So we need to work at that. I want to challenge you to help me. I want to challenge you to really feel like this is your church. I want to challenge you to help me train up young men. Hey, you train the missionaries in some stuff.
[35:28] There are things you don't know how to do. You can send them my way. There are a ton of things that we ought to be able to help guys with. If you've been through a divorce, you probably know the signs of divorce and you could help a guy not get to a divorce if you helped him quick enough.
[35:45] And you've been hurt enough, you probably could help him if you just love him a little bit. If you just love him a little bit. My father-in-law and my mother-in-law were both divorced.
[35:57] And they were married 55 years before he died. She's still living 54 or 55. I don't remember exactly. Married well over 50 years.
[36:09] And one day he was always so kind to her. There were times that I thought he should squeeze her neck and pop her head. There were times I thought he ought to just say, woman, I've had enough.
[36:23] So I asked him one day, I said, how can you be so patient? He said, well, when you're on your second one, you think things through a little better than you do. He said, I messed up the first time around and don't plan on doing it again.
[36:35] He used to go out in the car and sit in the car sometimes, 15 minutes of the motor running because she said they had to leave it. 10.15, he was ready at 10.15. 10.35, 10.40, she'd come out and she'd say, Reagan, why aren't you ready?
[36:48] And he'd be like, I'm sorry, baby. I was like, I'm going to show you a thing or two. But you could help. Do you see that at all?
[36:59] Go with me to Proverbs now. Let's talk about the book of Proverbs briefly and rapidly. Verse one. Good night. Verse one. The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of just, of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, equity, to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man, knowledge and discretion.
[37:24] A wise man will hear and will increase learning and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsel. Just real quick, because I spent more time than I meant to stay on that other stuff.
[37:34] let's go over a few things. These are Proverbs. Proverbs are not promises. They are sayings that express generalized truth.
[37:47] They're right. They're true. But for example, let me just, so maybe some of the, some things quickly to help you see that.
[38:00] How about this one? A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. Well, a soft answer doesn't always turn away wrath. It didn't turn away wrath for Moses when he talked to Pharaoh.
[38:12] It didn't turn away wrath when Jesus was talking to the guys that are going to kill him. So these are Proverbs. Or how about, or how about this one? A friend loveth at all times. And if any of you've been around your friends and had, had them have one day they weren't, you'd have to say, well, you must not be a friend because you don't love at all times.
[38:29] You seem to love sometimes. Or how about this one? When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Well, when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes his enemies to be at peace with him.
[38:41] But in Hebrews chapter 11, there's a whole bunch of people got killed by their enemies and their ways did please the Lord. So these are Proverbs. So what Solomon has done is he's collected wisdom and he's put it, this is wisdom literature and he's put all these Proverbs in here and he says to them, I'm going to teach you, I'm going to teach you these Proverbs, these pithy sayings to help you learn stuff.
[39:01] And he's talking to his son. He's talking to his son. Now the Solomon guy is the wisest man in the land. You remember how he gets started? He gets started and he can get anything he wants and he asks for wisdom.
[39:13] But by the end of his life, this guy's all messed up. By the end of his life, this guy's married to a thousand women, now counting concubines. And he's building temples to false gods.
[39:23] The guy's really messed up. But this book, he writes this, he's writing this and he writes most everything up. Chapter 25, verse one or so, I'm going to mention another guy. Then King Lemuel is going to write some other stuff.
[39:35] Many people believe that was just a pen name that Solomon used. Who knows? But whatever, the majority of them are Solomon's Proverbs that he's teaching his son. They're Solomon's Proverbs he's teaching his son.
[39:47] In this book, he's going to talk about fools. I don't have time to go through what I would have gone through. He's going to talk about fools. You know, a fool won't listen. He's going to talk about simple people, dumb enough to believe anything.
[39:59] Dumb enough to believe anything. He's going to talk about scorners that snarl their lip up, sneers, and smart like attitudes and they're going to get beat. He's going to talk about a wise guy.
[40:10] The wise man, not a wise guy like the bad term today, a wise person. A wise man who hears and obeys and sees God work in his life. So we're going to go through that.
[40:22] I want to try to help you. I want to try to help you. I want to try to help you apply that and learn something from it. I think the last thing I'll say to you today is if you go with me to Proverbs chapter one, I think this is kind of like a picture of Jesus here in Proverbs chapter one.
[40:43] That's kind of like wisdom. There's going to be like these two ladies that are courting everybody for the first eight or nine chapters. One is wisdom. And one is folly.
[40:54] One is, I think, Jesus would be the personification of that. It is a picture of Jesus, I think. And I want you to, I want you to see several things that are, I think, very beautiful.
[41:07] Go with me to verse 20. Wisdom cries out without. She uttered her voice in the streets. Now wisdom's feminine. And we as Americans don't understand how that works.
[41:18] But in other languages they have gender. Every word has gender. And so if you were talking in Spanish, one of the hard things for a guy who's learning Spanish to do is to get the right gender.
[41:30] You could say, Josh will be dealing with this, you could say a male article, meaning thee, you would say thee and use the male form of thee and hook it up with a feminine word and everybody would be like, what is he talking about?
[41:45] It's like saying boy, girl. And you're not, you can't say that. You got to say girl, girl. And you got to say boy, boy. And you got to say plurals and all that. Well, wisdom, wisdom here is, is because of the word, the word in the, in the, the Hebrew language it's written in.
[42:01] She cries in the chief place of the concourse and the openings of the gates and the city. She utters her words saying, how long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge.
[42:14] Turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you and I will make known my word unto you. I think there's two or three things that are interesting. I'm going to read several more of these verses and I quit.
[42:25] Two or three things that are very interesting. One is he's offering it to everybody. And that's the way salvation is offered to everybody. The scorner, the simple, the fool, he's offering it to everybody.
[42:37] And he says in verse 24, you are going to be judged because you refused because you chose to disobey. Wasn't chosen for you. That's for those of you that might have questions about that.
[42:51] Verse 24, because I called and you refused. I stretched out my hand and no man regarded. You have said it not all my counsel and would none of my reproof.
[43:03] I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind. When distress and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer.
[43:18] They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. They hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counsel.
[43:28] They despise all my reproof. Therefore, shall they eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
[43:42] But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear. And there's another word there, fear of evil. So, two things I would say.
[43:53] I think that's Jesus. I just think that. I'm not going to fight with you about that. I think it's a picture of Jesus. He's calling us to be saved, to trust Him, to believe Him. Regardless, it is wisdom.
[44:05] And no one can deny it's wisdom. And if we don't want to listen to God's word, we will suffer consequences, repercussions. You don't lose your salvation, but the twisting of the nose brings forth blood.
[44:19] That's a proverb. That's a proverb. Well, you know, we could probably find out if that's true. We could probably find out if that works. There might be a nose in here to toughen up and you could twist it and nothing would come out.
[44:31] But most of you, if we twisted our noses pretty good, blood would come out. And so, there are proverbs and what he's saying is, hey, I'm giving you wisdom. Don't be an idiot.
[44:42] Don't be an idiot. Listen to the wisdom. God has wisdom for us. Now, here's what I want to accomplish with you and I hope that you will help, you'll come and we'll talk and we'll learn and I just, you say, see, here's the thing that's really, to me, sad about church.
[44:58] I don't know if you'll pay attention to this at all, but you know, once you've been in church a certain amount of time, you've already heard all the stories. I don't know what you expect me to do.
[45:08] I can't make up new ones. What am I supposed to do? Samson 2.0? What am I supposed to do? Come up with a new David and Goliath story?
[45:18] The reason is that God didn't expect you to always stay on the receiving end. God didn't always expect you to stay on the milk end.
[45:30] God expected you to mature and teach somebody else. God expected you to be a dad and me to be a granddad and my children to be a dad and me someday to be a great granddad that will still help influence my children and my grandchildren and then maybe my great grandchildren and if the Lord lets me live that long.
[45:48] And as Christians, every one of us have got to say, I'm moving on up. I'm moving on up. I'm finding some ministry, some way. I used to tell them in Peru, I used to tell them to prove this, I'd say, you know, the old, old story, there's a song we sing in English that says, I love to tell the old, old story and they love to hear it like no other but the truth is they don't love to or the church is to be full.
[46:13] But the old, old story is a wonderful story when you tell it to new, new people. It's a lot of fun when you tell it to new, new people. So I want to challenge you to help me if you would. Father, thank you for the chance to serve you.
[46:25] I pray your name would be honored and glorified. You have been listening to Austin Gardner, pastor of Vision Baptist Church.
[46:39] For contact information, location, service times, or more audio and video recordings, log on to www.visionbaptist.com. You are my favorite characters from London.
[46:55] clogging time, approved interview every day after the ? fashioned by tep headset,