Proverbs 16 - Focus On God’s Goals

Hello, and welcome back to Strength for the Day.

And it's great to be with y'all again this morning. And we're going to be in Proverbs 16 again. And looking at kind of three separate parts of this chapter that all kind of have connected thoughts.

So we won't be going over any of the verses then. Pastor and Ms. Hannah went over on Friday.

But there are these three separate sections of Proverbs 16 that I think will really be an encouragement to us this morning. Good to see Brother Dennis Fountain, Fountain Senior on this morning.

And looking forward to, I know the recycled teenagers of MOVC this morning are going to be going over to, I'm going to butcher the pronunciation by Casa Herradora. And looking forward to, I know that's always a good time for them.

So if you are in the Moses Lake area, and you are a recycled teen, or maybe you feel exceptionally, you feel like a teen that's been recycled this morning, head on down to Casa Herradora at noon, and know that they're going to have a great time there

as always. So we're going to jump right into the passage this morning, and hopefully it will be an encouragement to you. And I've enjoyed getting to kind of dig into it a little bit already this morning. All right, Proverbs 16, verse number 10.

A divine sentence is in the lips of the king. His mouth transgresseth not in judgment. Verse number 12.

It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness, for the throne is established by righteousness. Verse number 13. Righteous lips are the delight of kings, and they love him that speaketh right.

14. The wrath of a king is his messenger's of death, but a wise man will pacify it. Verse number 15.

In the light of the king's countenance is life, and his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain. And with all of these verses, we've talked a bit about most of the verses in Proverbs. You don't really get a bunch of context.

It's just kind of one-liners, if you will. But here from verses 10 to 15, we read the word king a lot. And man, if God says something once, you know, it would be important.

It would be something that we should pay attention to. If God says something this many times in this few amount of verses, man, we should really focus and kind of dial in on what's God talking about.

So here we have in verse number 10, a divine sentence is in the lips of the king. His mouth transgresseth not in judgment. There's a consistent theme that you'll kind of see as you look at the book of Proverbs as it relates to government.

And that truth is the same truth that you would find in many of the major prophets.

So in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Daniel in particular, that the functions of government, that the choices that they make and the things that they decree are often either God's blessing on a particular nation, as we'll read here in a little bit later.

Sometimes if the king is a righteous king, those decrees will go through and it will be a help or a blessing to a nation, indicative of what God is doing in that country.

But oftentimes, there's also a punishment or a correction that comes onto a country as a result of what God tells the king to do.

And oftentimes, this isn't something as blatant as God going to, let's say, for the United States, as God going to President Biden and saying, hey, I want you to pass this law that permits these things instead, my thing is telling me I have a little

bit of a buffer, so if that happens, bear with us this morning. It's not as straightforward as that as God directly telling, but as we would read elsewhere in Proverbs, the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord.

As rivers of water, he turns it about whither soever he will. That God is the one that's in control of the governments of this world, that there is no one that's doing something that God's going, oh, no, I didn't see that coming.

It may not always be something that would be maybe in God's most desired plan. And otherwise, all the kingdoms of the world would do everything exactly how God wants.

Sometimes there are things that are God's blessing on a nation that the kings would decree or that the governments would push forward. And other times there is God's punishment on a nation because of their sin.

And man, for us as Christians, I think of even the story of Abraham and of Lot, that God said, okay, I'm going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham said, hey, if there's 50 righteous people, will you spare the city? And God said, yes.

And that number continued to go down until Abraham finally said, hey, if there's 10 righteous in this city, will you spare?

And man, no matter how much wickedness might be in our country, God is not looking to the righteousness of the unregenerate of those that don't know him as savior. He's not looking for their righteousness.

He's saying, hey, what are my people doing in this country that they're in? And that's very important to look at. Verse number 12 kind of continues this thought.

It's an abomination of kings to commit wickedness for the throne is established by righteousness.

Pastor Carlos and I on our Bible Babels Podcast went through the entirety of First Kings, and we saw this exact verse play out again and again and again in the Kingdom of Israel.

That these people, these kings in particular, would go into idolatry, would go into just a lot of fighting and a lot of things that went against God's law, and that their kingdoms were very, very short lived as a result.

Verse number 13, righteous lips are the delight of kings, and they love him that speaketh right.

Man, as it relates to people in government, people that have good mouths, that have clean mouths, that would speak truth, are so important in realms of government.

I'm very thankful for several government officials that I know of, and people that work in offices for governors and for congresspeople, for all of these things that are solid Christians, and that they would be some of these ones that would speak

rightly, that they would speak truth. And man, if that's true for government, it's true even on a lower level. In our families, in our jobs, in our churches, we need people that are going to speak honestly and that are going to have pure lips.

Anyone can be those that would slander others, that would curse, that would try and say things just to get our own selves ahead. Anyone can do that, but we as children of God need to be those that would speak right things.

Verse number 14, the wrath of the king is as messengers of death, but a wise man will pacify it. Man, here it says the punishment that government would bring would be very detrimental.

And especially during this time when you had maybe just one king that would be making these decrees, it says a wise man will pacify it, just like Daniel did with Nebuchadnezzar, when Nebuchadnezzar said, hey, we're just gonna kill all of these wise

men because they can't discern my dream, they can't tell me what it was or what it means. And Daniel pacified that anger and was able to save many lives as a result.

Verse number 15, in the light of the king's countenance is life and his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain.

There you just have, if you're on the good side of government, if the government's happy with you here, particularly if the king is happy with you, man, there's a lot of freedom that happens in that.

And if you have their favor, it's like a blessing to your crops and to your fields. And I think even of the story that we just went through of Nehemiah and how he had the king's favor and how so many great things happened because of that.

And man, maybe just a light application of that would be what's your testimony with those that maybe aren't believers?

What's your testimony with those who oversee you, maybe as a boss, maybe government, maybe whatever it is, what is your testimony with those around you?

So these first couple of verses are all about king's government, then verses eight, 16, 17 and 19 are all along one line as well. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.

How much better is it to get wisdom than gold and to get understanding rather than silver? The highway of the upright is to depart from evil. He that keepeth his way, preserveeth his soul.

Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide spoil with the proud.

In all of these verses, there's this one central thought of, hey, it's way better to be wise, to view things the way that God views things and to do things the way that he would do things rather than to be rich, to be powerful, to have silver, to

have gold, to be proud. In all of these things, God just says, hey, it is so much more important to look out for your soul than for your wallet. And man, it can be easy, especially in America.

We always think of America maybe as a land of opportunity. And oftentimes, we think of that opportunity as the opportunity to get wealthy.

And we spend all of our lives trying to get the most money possible, always trying to get that next rung, always trying to get that next raise. And God says, hey, I'm not against you providing for your family, looking out for your future.

I'm not against any of those things, but it is so much more important for you to look out for your soul. And man, being in God's word every day is such a great way to look out for our souls.

The last kind of section we're gonna look at today is verses 27 through 31, all kind of go through one thought, and you'll see it pretty quickly as we start reading here. An ungodly man diggeth up evil, and in his lips there is a burning fire.

A foward man soweth strife, or a perverse man sows strife, and a whisperer separates chief friends. A violent man entices his neighbor and leads him into the way that is not good.

He shutteth his eyes to devise foward things, moving his lips he bringeth evil to pass. And then kind of in contrast, verse 31, the hoary head or the gray head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness.

So here you have in verses 27 through 30, Solomon's going through some different people and their actions that go against God's plan. So we have an ungodly man that digs up evil, that he really goes to work to bring up evil.

And it says in his lips, there's a burning fire. I think of James 3 where it says, the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members that it sets fire and it is set on fire of hell.

That we need to be very guarded with our words because there's such power in them. And it can be power for good, but oftentimes we're warned in scripture of the harmful, the hurtful power that our words can have. It says a forward man sows strife.

That's a, it's a perverse man. It's someone that has things all twisted. He sows strife.

He's always picking fights. He's always causing others to fight amongst themselves. Man, may that never be us as Christians.

May we not be the people that are causing others to fight.

I think of several chapters earlier, it says that it is an abomination to the Lord to sow discord among brethren or family, that when we cause other people to fight, when we're causing fighting with others, man, that is completely against God's

design for the family, for friendships. It's just a wrong thing to do, and may we never be those that would do that.

It says, a whisperer separateth chief friends, that a person that's always telling everyone's secrets will separate even the closest of friends. And man, if someone tells you something in confidence, keep that confidence.

Don't be one that would constantly be trying to get in good with maybe, I think of teens, that they would try and get in with the cool crowd, and they would do that maybe by telling other people's secrets.

Man, I think all of us were on Facebook, so at least by some measure, we should be adults. As adults, as children of God, let's not be those that would be whisperers, as is mentioned in this verse.

A violent man entices his neighbor and leads him into the way that is not good. He shuts his eyes to devise foward or perverse things. Moving his lips, he brings evil to pass.

I think maybe most of us here on Facebook at 9.30 in the morning, we wouldn't necessarily be those that would be very violent, prone to violence.

But man, I think of even here in Moses, like many of us would know, some of the gang violence things that will occasionally happen. And the Bible says that this isn't the kind of person that a child of God should be.

And I think all of us would be pretty agreed on that. We shouldn't try. We shouldn't be violent people.

And, you know, with some of the other things that we've already read today, let's not be violent in our words.

Sometimes Christians can go, okay, I would never punch someone, but man, I'll post something on Facebook that says what I would do to so-and-so or this thing that so-and-so deserves. Man, let's not be violent in our words.

We wouldn't be violent in our actions. Let's not be violent in our thoughts and in the things that we post on social media. It's just not a good thing.

Then verse number 31. Man, this verse makes me think of a lot of our recycled teens. The hoary or the gray-haired head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness.

When you see a person that has lived their life for God, man, when you see, I think of maybe even some of the people that have been a blessing to me growing up, some of the bald heads, some of the gray-haired heads, these people have given their

entire lives to serve the Lord, to follow the Lord. And man, there is a crown, there is respect that comes with that. I think of Brother Fountain Sr. and all of his years of pastoring and his faithful testimony that he's had through all these years.

Man, that is a crown. It is something that has been given to him by God.

And man, just make sure that you're interacting with those kinds of people, with the people that have been there, that have lived lives for Christ, that have wisdom that you can listen to and be able to go, okay, what do I do in these situations?

What do I do with my family? What do I do in my job? What do I do with some of these friends?

Man, you can trust those that have lived their lives for God. And as the verse says, that their gray haired head has been found in the way of righteousness.

And it's always a good thing to get counsel from those that have been there and done that and done it right. Well, I hope this would be an encouragement to you. I believe we'll be in Chapter 17 tomorrow.

And I assume Pastor will probably be the one that's doing it tomorrow. And he may have guessed, he may have not. You'll have to tune in to find out.

But looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow. And on strength of the day, thanks for tuning in.