Episode Transcript
Proverbs chapter 10, verse 27.
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So if you're watching tonight, Brother Mike, I appreciate your hard work in getting that done.
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Proverbs chapter 10, God willing, will be expounding verse 27 tonight.
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The tie to the message tonight is the years of the wicked.
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The years of the wicked.
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When we're young, we like to imagine ourselves living to a ripe old age, you know.
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When we're young, we know we're going to die.
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Sometime we just kind of figure it'll just be on out there and we assume we'll grow old.
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At least we hope we grow old.
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I don't think anyone grows up thinking, "I sure hope I never make it out of my 20s."
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And the older we get, the easier it is for us to imagine our lives coming to an end.
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Suppose someone were to tell you that...and this happens to us all the time.
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Someone comes up and says, "Oh, did you hear about the guy down here, this fellow that
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died?"
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Or you say, "Well, you know, a friend of mine died," or something like that, and you don't
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know who that person is.
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The question that we always ask is, "Well, how old of a person were they?"
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We always ask that, you know, "Well, how old were they?"
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And you're not going to say, "Well, what did they do for a living?"
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That's not what we ask.
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You're not going to say, "Well, where were they from?"
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You're going to want to know how old they were.
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And when we ask someone, "Well, how old were they?"
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When we hear they passed away, if someone says, "Well, they were 90 years old," then
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we say, "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but you know, at least they lived a good, long
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life."
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That's what we'll say.
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But if they say, "Well, they were 32," we go, "Oh, so young.
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Man, I hate to hear that."
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And we respond differently.
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It's still a person.
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It's still a death.
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But there's something about it being what we would consider an untimely death that makes
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it more egregious when we hear that news.
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Of course, if we're a Christian, we want to always want to know what was a person today.
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But there's something about having the opportunity to have lived a full life, to get married,
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to enjoy a career, to have children and then grandchildren and hopefully accomplish things
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for God that makes dying not quite so harsh to think about.
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But a 23-year-old or a 32-year-old or whatever, they didn't have the opportunity to have lived
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a full life, and so the news is especially bad.
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Now there's many factors that cause a person to live longer lives or shorter lives.
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A lot of times when we hear someone died younger, we want to try to justify why they died younger.
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We want to say, "Well, they smoke cigarettes."
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We want to say, "Well, they should have lost some weight."
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And it makes us feel that, "Well, maybe that's not my category.
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Maybe I'll live past them because I'm not doing A, B, or C like they did."
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But God is the one who's ultimately in control of how long we live.
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And our proverb tonight gives us a principle that every one of us should apply to our lives.
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And I have to remind you tonight that a proverb is a proverb.
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A proverb is a general principle that's true, but it's not always applicable across the
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board.
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So understand that as we look at this proverb tonight.
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Solomon said in Proverbs 10, 27, he spoke of the fear of the Lord, the fear of the Lord.
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So let's break this down.
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I've said before when speaking of the fear of the Lord, the Bible is speaking of our
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reverence toward God.
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But since we're talking about something very practical tonight in this verse, I thought
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it would be great to give you a very practical illustration and explanation of the fear of
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the Lord so we can apply it better to this verse.
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The Bible says that Abraham's wife, Sarah, was a very beautiful woman.
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And if you know the story of Abraham and Sarah, you know he was always afraid of losing his
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wife and losing his life because of it.
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So as Abraham journeyed with his wife, Sarah, he had a fear of another man killing him,
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seeing his beautiful wife and saying, "I'm going to kill this Abraham and take this woman
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to be my wife."
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So Abraham, he had a sneaky way to work around that situation when he entered into a strange
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territory.
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He would tell people and ask his wife to tell people that she was his sister.
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And that way if they stole her and took her as his wife, at least they would feel the
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need to kill him being her husband.
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Well, that wouldn't work for me because I don't think I would want to live knowing some
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fellow had my wife.
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I'd die trying to make sure that didn't happen, Brother Shepherd.
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I'd die trying.
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Abraham was wrong, but he was a man and in his weakness as a man, that's what he did.
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Now in Genesis chapter 20, verse 11, Abraham explained his rationale for pulling that stunt
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and his explanation gives us some great insight into what the fear of the Lord is, especially
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when we compare it to another passage of Scripture in the New Testament, which we're about to
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do.
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Genesis chapter 20, verse 11 says, "And Abraham said, 'Because I fought surely the fear of
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God,'" and that's our key right there, "the fear of God is not in this place and they
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will slave me for my wife's sake."
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So Abraham was afraid that someone might kill him and take his wife away from him.
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"Because they did not fear the Lord."
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They did not have the fear of God.
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Now just keep that thought in your mind.
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Let's move now to the New Testament and let's compare what Abraham said about him being
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afraid they might kill him and steal his wife because they did not fear the Lord and compare
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that to what takes place with the parents of a blind man in the New Testament whom Jesus
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healed.
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In the Gospel of John chapter 9, verses 18 through 22, John 9, verses 18 through 22,
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the Bible says, "But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and
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received his sight until they called the parents of him that had received his sight.
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And they asked them saying, 'Is this your son whom ye, I'm sorry, who ye say was born
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blind?
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How then doth he now see?'
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His parents answered them and said, 'We know that this is our son and that he was born
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blind, but by what means he now seeeth, we know not.
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For who hath opened his eyes, we know not.
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He is of age, ask him.
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He shall speak for himself.'
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These words spake his parents because they feared the Jews."
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There's our little phrase there, feared the Jews.
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Think about comparing that now with Abraham concerned about someone not fearing God in
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Genesis with the parents of the blind man fearing the Jews here in the Gospel of John.
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We'll go on and let me read here.
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He says, "This spake his parents," these words spake his parents because they feared
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the Jews, "For the Jews had agreed already that if any man did confess that he was Christ,
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he should be put out of the synagogue."
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So the parents of this man born blind, they wanted to steer away from the question of
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Jesus being the Christ.
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They didn't want to go down that road with these Jews who were questioning him.
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That's why they said, 'Well, he's old enough, just ask him.
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Get us out of the middle of this conversation here because they feared the Jews.
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They did not want to confess Jesus as Christ because they feared the Jews who had warned
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the people that they would be kicked out of the synagogue if they did confess him as Christ.
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So the parents did not confess Jesus.
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Why?
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Because they were concerned about what the Jews would think of them and what their response
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would be if they confessed him.
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In the same way, Abraham was concerned that someone would kill him and take his wife because
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they were not concerned about what the Lord would think of them and what his response
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would be if they did.
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So this gives us a practical illustration of the fear of the Lord.
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People fearing the Jews care about what the Jews think about them and what their response
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would be to their actions.
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People who fear the Lord care about what the Lord thinks about them and what his response
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will be to their actions.
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You see the difference now.
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I don't care so much what people think about me.
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I don't want society to think bad of me.
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I think that's normal that we want to be respected in our community.
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I think in general we should be respected in our community.
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I don't want society to think bad of me and I don't want them to put me in prison for
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doing something wrong.
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But what really motivates me to live the way I do is not my fear of society.
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It's because I care about what God thinks about me and I care about how he would respond to
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what I do.
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That's what really motivates me.
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I told my wife, I think it was my wife I was talking to last night.
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I was talking to someone, maybe I was talking to her or someone on the phone.
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But I said, no I was talking to someone on the phone.
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It was about a particular city ordinance.
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I said, I don't want to break that city ordinance because I've spent my entire life enforcing
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the law and I'm just not going to do it.
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I'm not going to break the law and have that on my conscience.
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I stand for the law.
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But then I said, however, if the law ever tells me to do something against God's word,
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I'll break it with a smile on my face.
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I would.
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By God's grace, I would.
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I don't want to be like Peter and get all bold in the cockrove on me or something like
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that.
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But by God's grace, if they told me I had to marry a homosexual couple, just don't hold
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your breath, wait for it.
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Put me in prison or whatever.
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Don't hold your breath.
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I'd rather God strike me down dead before I did something like that.
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But we should care about what God thinks about us and how he would respond.
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If the whole world approved of a certain sin and it's getting to where the world is approving
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more and more and more of sin and where carnal churches are following the world's pattern,
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but if the whole world approves of a certain sin, people who fear the Lord will not want
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to commit that sin because they love the Lord.
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They don't want to disappoint God.
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I don't want to disappoint God.
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That should be our greatest fear is disappointing our Lord and fearing the chastisement that
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we might receive for doing so.
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Do you say, "Are you afraid of God discipling you, Brother Richard?
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You better believe I am.
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I sure am.
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And you're foolish if you don't."
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I do.
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The Bible says, "If any man be without chastisement, he's none of his."
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God chastises his own.
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Do you believe God would take a believer's life, Brother Richard, for chastisement?
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You bet he will.
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Example, "Mose is never made into the Promised Land."
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You better believe he will.
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And so here tonight, the Bible says, "The fear of the Lord," look back in your text now,
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in Proverbs, what's the fear of the Lord do?
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It prolongs days.
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Prolongeth days.
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Now I want you to listen to how this Hebrew word that's translated "prolongeth" here,
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listen to how it's used in Genesis chapter 4, verse 1 and 2.
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I think this is the first time it's used.
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If my recollection serves me correctly.
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In Genesis 4, verse 1 and 2, "And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain,
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and said, 'I have gotten a man from the Lord.'
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And she again bare his brother Abel.
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And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground."
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So here's Eve, she bears a son named Cain.
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She goes, "I've gotten a man from the Lord."
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What a blessing.
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And then she again bears another son.
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And that word translated "again" is the same word translated "prolongeth" in Proverbs
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chapter 10 tonight.
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He was blessed by God and that he gave her a son.
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Then after she gave birth to Cain, she again bare his brother Abel.
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When you think of "prolongeth," think of the word "again."
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I tell you what, man, I love kids.
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I love grandkids.
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I love my kids when they were little.
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And I love my grandkids now little.
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And there's a certain stage of a child that is just super fun.
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And I love, used to, when Gabriel and Leah were small, I'd get up here and I'd give
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them grandpa rides.
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Any of y'all ever see me give them grandpa rides?
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One sit on this hand, the other sit on this hand.
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They both wrap their hands around my arms and I'd just start spinning, spinning, spinning.
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And my arms go out wide.
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I'm just spinning them around.
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And I'd set them down.
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And as soon as I set them down, of course they're giggling and laughing as I'm going.
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As soon as I set them down, what do they say?
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Again.
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Last night, Tammy, our daughter-in-law up in Indiana, has got this beautiful little
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baby and she sent Tammy a video of her pretending to eat the baby's belly.
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She'd pretend to eat this baby's belly.
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And as she pretends to eat this baby's belly, what does the baby do?
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"Hi!"
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Just giggle, giggle.
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And I love to hear babies laugh.
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It's hilarious.
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And more than likely, whatever you're doing, you will get tired of making them laugh before
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they get tired of saying again.
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You know.
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Now this baby's too young to say again.
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But the laughter, the response is there when she laughs, she's saying again.
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And church, God loves to make His children laugh with joy at the blessings that He gives
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us.
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That's what the Bible says Sarah did.
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She laughed at joy at having her son Isaac.
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And when we walk in the fear of the Lord, which is what we're talking about tonight,
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the fear of the Lord, prolonged days, when we walk in the fear of the Lord, that's our
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way of saying to God, "Again."
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Do it again, God, in the ears of our Heavenly Father.
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That video was so cute.
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I enjoyed watching our daughter-in-law pretending to eat her baby's belly yesterday.
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And every time she did, that baby would laugh.
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So when the baby laughed, the mama did it again.
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But what if, what if instead of laughing, that baby pooped its diaper every time mama
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ate its belly?
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I venture to say that mama's probably going to stop eating that baby's belly.
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Right?
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Wouldn't you?
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I would.
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You see where we're going with this tonight?
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Our response to God's blessings in our life.
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God can bless people.
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He can bless people, and you know what they do?
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They turn around and soil the blessings, basically.
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They turn around and respond the wrong way.
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They responded ungodliness rather than gratefulness in the fear of the Lord.
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There's some people, they just don't fear God unless something bad is happening in their
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life.
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They get sick, now they're going to come to church.
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Now they're going to want to pray.
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Now they're going to get serious about God.
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You know what?
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They're going to fear the Lord, they're fearing getting sick.
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Solomon's not saying that Christians live longer than non-Christians.
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Nowhere in this proverb does Solomon say that Christians live longer than non-Christians.
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That people who live good live longer than people who live bad.
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He's not saying that.
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We know that's not always the case.
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Some God-fearing Christians don't live to be very old.
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Jesus never made out of his 30s, and there's nobody who feared the Lord more than him.
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And some people who don't fear the Lord do live to be very old, like liberal Supreme
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Court justices.
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Right?
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They just don't seem to die.
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So Solomon's not saying that if you live good, you'll live longer, and if you live bad, you'll
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live shorter.
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If that's what Solomon was saying here, and we interpreted this verse this way, then when
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someone died young, we would say they must not have been right with God.
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And if someone lived long, we'd say, well, they must have been right with God, or if
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:41,040
we knew they weren't right with God, we'd say, well, then the proverb's wrong, and we
00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:45,560
can't trust the Bible.
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But Solomon's not saying that tonight.
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Solomon's letting us know that our conduct can have an effect on how long we stay on
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this earth, and perhaps more for Christians than for anybody else, because judgment begins
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at the house of God first.
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The fear of the Lord tends to prolong days, but it never shortens days.
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And if you had a God-fearing person who happened to, let's say that they died because of their
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:21,500
faithfulness to God, maybe they were martyred for their faith as many as Jesus was, and
00:22:21,500 --> 00:22:28,320
as many of the followers of Christ have over the years, then their days aren't shortened
00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:37,560
as a wicked person's days are shortened, because they live forever in Jesus' kingdom.
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Jesus said, "He that lives and believes in me shall never die."
00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:48,920
So in that sense, whoever fears the Lord, their days are prolonged forever.
00:22:48,920 --> 00:22:55,880
Those who don't fear the Lord, their days are terminated.
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They shall not have everlasting life.
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But again, we're talking about a practical sense here.
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,080
It says, if you look back in your text now, "But the years of the wicked," and that's
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a whole different scenario now.
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We're talking about the years of the wicked versus the years of those that fear the Lord.
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It's a whole different story.
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Solomon now is comparing the two types of people, those who fear God, those who do not
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fear God, and again, I appeal back to Abraham to help us understand this comparison as well.
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:37,320
We had the example of Abraham talking about people who don't fear God when it comes to
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fearing people taking his life and stealing his wife, but now let's think about Abraham
00:23:41,540 --> 00:23:46,720
when he was talking about trying to talk God out of judging everybody in Sodom.
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In Genesis chapter 18 verse 23, the Bible says, "And Abraham drew near and said to the
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Lord, 'Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?'"
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Now the righteous, that's those who fear the Lord, the wicked, that's those who don't.
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And Solomon's asking God, "Are you going to treat them the same?"
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And here we see again the righteous and the wicked.
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:21,040
We see them in the same scenario at the same time, and we see that when the righteous and
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the wicked are in the same scenario at the same time, that God responds to one different
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:33,280
than the other.
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He treated Lot different than he treated the rest of the people in Sodom.
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Lot's years were prolonged.
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The years of the wicked, they were shortened.
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He rained brimstone down on them.
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So they lived fewer years than they would have lived had they not been living that wicked
00:24:53,480 --> 00:25:00,320
life.
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And Lot lived longer years than what he would have lived had he been living that wicked
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life along with them.
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Solomon said, "The years of the wicked," what?
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Look back in your text, "shall be shortened."
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And it's a fascinating word in the Hebrew.
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:21,120
The word translated "shortened" here, it has the idea of a harvest, of reaping a harvest.
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And you'll understand why here in just a moment.
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:33,080
In fact, in Job chapter 24, the book of Job chapter 24 verse 6, the Bible says, "They
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:41,760
reap everyone his corn in the field, and they gather the vintage of the wicked."
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They reap everyone his corn in the field, and they gather the vintage of the wicked.
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And that word "reap" is the word translated "shortened" tonight.
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Why is reaping important?
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:01,760
What does that have to do with it?
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I'm cutting out, aren't I?
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:04,440
I thought maybe I've got a battery that's going bad.
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I don't know.
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But what does that have to do with reaping and shortening?
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Well, it's springtime.
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I've got vegetables ready to plant this weekend at my house.
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And when you plant a seed or a little vegetable plant in your garden, that plant, just by
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the fact of God's design, of how he made that seed, and he has predetermined the life cycle
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:40,720
of that plant.
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How long it's going to take to grow until it reaches maturity.
00:26:44,380 --> 00:26:50,060
When the fruit-bearing time comes, how long the fruit-bearing time comes, how rapid, how
00:26:50,060 --> 00:26:55,880
much, how little of fruit that plant will bear.
00:26:55,880 --> 00:27:02,760
And then ultimately the plant will die.
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But I've had some vegetable plants come up before that were crowding each other.
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Beautiful plants, and you hate to pick them.
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:15,480
But you know, if you leave them just all bunched in, crowding each other, the roots aren't
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:21,800
going to be able to have enough nutrition to grow and bear fruit as they should.
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:28,600
And so in that case, do you know what I do?
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:31,640
I reap those plants before their full life cycle is completed.
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:36,760
I harvest those plants out of my garden.
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And sometimes God reaps rebellious people before their harvest season comes.
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That's what happened with Sodom.
00:27:52,120 --> 00:27:54,760
God didn't want to take those people's lives.
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,920
Had they not done that, they would have lived longer.
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:01,080
God had predetermined that they would have lived a certain length of time, and they determined
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in the interim that they wouldn't by how they lived.
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:12,340
Not every person who dies at a young age is a wicked person.
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Some of the plants in my garden, they simply die of natural causes.
00:28:17,900 --> 00:28:23,240
If you've ever had plants in your garden, they just die.
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:28,640
You don't reap them before the harvest.
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They just get a disease and they die, or a bug gets them and they die, or an animal eats
00:28:31,660 --> 00:28:36,520
them down and they die.
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It's just a part of living in a fallen world.
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So that occurrence is not what Solomon is talking about here.
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He's talking about when God steps in as the master gardener, and when he takes out a plant
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that unless he, if he would not have interjected his end in that garden, the plant would have
00:28:55,280 --> 00:29:02,600
continued to live.
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But for whatever reason, he chose to harvest that plant before its maturity.
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That's what Solomon is talking about tonight.
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:17,120
Some of the plants in my garden, they die of natural causes.
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:20,460
Some of the weeds in my garden, they live because of natural causes.
00:29:20,460 --> 00:29:26,840
Same thing with people.
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But you know what else?
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:32,080
Both the vegetable plants, some of the vegetable plants, and some of the weeds get plucked
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:39,080
by the gardener.
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I pull both.
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And if you garden, so do you.
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And that's what Solomon is talking about.
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:49,280
Our God is the master gardener.
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:54,200
And sometimes people get pulled by the gardener before their time.
00:29:54,200 --> 00:30:00,640
So let's make sure that if we die early, that our death is for God's glory.
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:07,600
That is due to natural causes, or due to the glory of God like the death of Jesus, or the
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:14,760
death of some of the apostles who were martyred for their faith.
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:20,040
But not due to our chastisement.
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Not due to our disorient.
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Not due to our sins.
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Let's live in the fear of God so that every step we take as we walk in the Holy Spirit,
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:36,520
every step we take in our Christian journey cries out again, "Do it again, Father!" in
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:44,040
the ears of our God.
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God's kingdom blessings keep coming as we keep walking in the fear of the Lord.
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:52,600
With that, we'll go ahead and close tonight.
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:57,280
And Father, we thank you so much for your precious Word.
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:03,880
Thank you, Father, for letting us understand these words.
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:11,160
Reaping.
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:13,600
Harvesting.
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Thank you, Lord, for letting us understand what it means for days to be shortened.
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:22,920
I pray, dear Father God, that we won't be people who go around fearing what people think about
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us and how they'll respond to our actions.
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:34,240
But we will care how God thinks about us and how you respond to our actions.
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:40,160
Help us, Lord, for our conduct to cry again to you.
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:45,960
We'll hear our joyful laugh, our joyful response of obedience, Father, so that you will have
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:54,720
great joy in blessing us again and again and again.
00:31:54,720 --> 00:32:01,640
That every day we live, Father, may be to your glory and to our joy to walk in the fear of
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:09,920
the Lord that our days may be prolonged.
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:13,520
In Jesus' name, amen.
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:15,040
