Episode Transcript
If you take your Bibles, turn to the book of Proverbs, Chapter 11 please.
Proverbs, Chapter 11.
And while you're turning there, I was troubled tonight.
And I've been troubled here recently by some of the things I've been learning.
A lot of the doctrines that are coming up out there, you know, Paul always had to deal with false doctrine popping up.
And there's a lot of false doctrine popping up within the free grace theology movement.
And although I'm a great proponent of many of the things they believe and teach, boy, a lot of them are really kind of getting on out there.
So I say that because I know there's some here and online who follow some folks from the free grace movement.
And I'll reiterate again tonight, I am not free grace.
I am not Baptist.
I am a Bible believing pastor.
That's it.
I don't want to be labeled with anything but scripture.
And because you get one Baptist and you know what, you got a hundred different varieties of them.
You got free grace, you got a different varieties of those things.
You got one free grace group attacking another free grace group because they're not free grace enough.
It's just ridiculous the squabbles that I'm beginning to see out there and a lot of attacks.
And so I just want to encourage everyone, you know, don't get on some bandwagon.
Just get on the scriptures.
Hold to them.
We're not going to ride any hobby horses here at this church ever.
We're going to teach the scriptures like they're written.
But I heard this this very popular free grace teacher condemning Brother Jesse Martinez tonight who he was one of the ones that interviewed a man that was saved coming into the Know I'm Saved website.
Some of y'all may have watched his interview a while back.
Brother Jesse's promoted my books and the website and all on his program.
And it was so sad that he was getting attacked because one free grace group says that grace is so free that everything's free.
That once you trust in Christ as your Savior, from there on everything's free.
Your rewards are free.
Your everything, there's no real fear of discipline from God and that the concept that a Christian may sin and God actually chastise that person and actually take their life sooner than otherwise would have been is heretical and that your rewards are free because Jesus lived a perfect life for you.
Well, we don't all get rewarded the same folks.
I hate to disappoint you.
There is real practical righteousness and God will judge us according to how we lived and what we did and what we didn't as far as our rewards go.
And as far as God chastising a believer and actually maybe taking their life sooner than otherwise would have been expected.
Moses, hello, you know, Ananias and Sapphira.
How about the Apostle Paul when he wrote the Corinthian Church and told them because of their misconduct and communion for many of those reasons some were sick and even some slept because of that.
So God's a God to be loved, to be trusted, but never mistake, he's still a God to be feared.
We don't fear being condemned because we're justified by grace through faith.
But I tell you what, don't go out there and start living like the world and not expect God to chasten you because whom the Lord loves he chastens.
And if you're without chastisement the Bible says you're illegitimate and you're none of his.
So just be careful when you're reading and listening to people online.
Be very careful.
I don't listen to many people online.
I don't have time for it.
But a lot of our folks make time for it that they don't really have and it gets them all wapchod doctrinally.
So stick with the Scriptures.
I learn my Bible in my personal study.
I teach it there.
I teach it here twice a week.
And when I listen to my Bible study, I listen to Brother Shepherd usually twice during the week.
And that's enough for me, you know.
So it should be enough for all of us.
Proverbs 11, 17, the title of the message tonight is, "It's Good for You."
It's good for you.
I felt I needed to preface everything I said or about to say with that because I don't want you to get caught off guard and not know how to digest some of the things you may see online.
When I grew up, I ate spinach.
How many tell me, "You like spinach?"
I didn't think you would.
I didn't think you would.
I didn't like it either.
But when I grew up ate spinach, that's exactly what I expect a little boy to do, shake his head, "No."
But I ate spinach because I was told it was good for me.
Has your mother ever told you spinach is good for you?
I figured parents haven't changed a bit.
I tell you what, man.
But I ate spinach because, papa, I ate spinach and everyone told me it was good for me.
My grandmother, she made these big meatballs, homemade meatballs and pasta with them.
Well, I just wanted to eat the meatballs and she told me, "No, I've got to eat the pasta."
And I would be like, you know.
And well, she told me that it was good for me and I could jump high and become a good basketball player if I ate that pasta.
So I just started shoving it in there.
And my other grandmother, my dad's mother, God bless her, she liked cod liver oil.
But why?
Because it's good for you.
It's good for you.
And so as a child, you learn pretty quick that most of the things that are good for you are not good to you.
And you kind of learn that.
And that's just the way it is.
Sometimes the things are supposed to be good for you.
They don't seem good to you when you take them.
And such is the case with our proverb tonight, which we'll get into here in just a minute, because our proverb tonight, it highly recommends something that is good for us that doesn't always seem to be good to us.
Solomon talks to us tonight about, if you look in your text, the merciful man, the merciful man.
Now there's two types of men in this passage.
The first, if you wanted to score, that's the merciful man.
Can anyone guess what the second man is?
The cruel man.
The cruel man, if you go down a little bit further, you can underscore the cruel man.
Now when I was growing up, and I couldn't think of a better illustration than this, when I was growing up there were twin boys.
They were older than me, so they were bigger than me.
And even for their age, they were big for their age.
They were big guys.
They were a lot bigger than me.
And one of those twin boys, they were identical twins.
One of those twin boys was just as nice as he could be.
The other one was as mean as he could be.
He was mean, and he loved to pick on younger kids.
And he would bully those younger kids.
I was scared at any time I saw one of them, because you didn't know which one was which.
They looked the same.
It wasn't until you got around one, if one said hello to you, you knew, well that was a nice one.
If one said he was going to beat you up, you knew that was the evil twin.
I mean literally, that is the truth.
They still live in Athens to this day.
But they've all grown up now.
They're nice now.
But at the time they weren't.
One of them wasn't.
And every kid my age knew these twin brothers on site.
And you didn't know, you always hoped you were running into the nice one.
And one day I ran into both of the twins at the same time.
The mean one picked on me.
The big one was nice to me.
And one day I ran into both of them at the same time.
And immediately the mean one started picking on me.
And when he did, his twin brother took up for me and said, leave him alone.
And boy, I sure was thankful for that.
And the Hebrew word translated merciful tonight.
Has the idea of someone being kind to someone.
That nice twin, he was a merciful man.
He was kind.
And when you think of this merciful man, it's contrasted with the cruel man.
That other twin, he was cruel.
He was just downright mean.
And they had the same parents.
They had the same DNA.
They had the same choices in life.
One loved to terrorize kids while the other chose to befriend them.
And the Hebrew word translated merciful tonight has the idea of being kind to someone.
Being kind to someone.
This is the same word that Joseph used.
Remember when Joseph was down in that dungeon and one of Pharaoh's servants was about to get released from prison, Joseph said, hey, when you get up there and you see Pharaoh, you tell him about me.
I'm falsely accused.
I'm in here for something.
A crime I didn't commit.
And maybe Pharaoh will have mercy and he'll bring me.
Put in a good word for me.
He said, do this kindness for me.
It's in Genesis chapter 40 verse 14.
Joseph told Pharaoh's servant, but think on me when it shall be well with thee and show kindness.
That's that same word translated merciful tonight.
Show kindness I pray thee unto me and make mention of me unto Pharaoh and bring me out of this house.
So a merciful man is a kind man.
It's the same word.
Joseph was someone who needed someone to show him a little kindness.
He needed someone to consider the situation that he was in and to try to help him out of it.
And we learn a little bit from that too.
Kindness is a beautiful thing.
And not only that kindness is a holy thing.
The Hebrew word translated kindness or merciful here tonight.
The vast majority of the time this word is used.
Guess who's being kind.
Guess who's being merciful.
It is God.
This word in the majority of the time is referring to God's behavior toward us.
Now the only way you can be kind in the sense of this Hebrew word here is to consider the welfare of someone other than yourself.
It's the only way.
I was on the elevator yesterday with a man who works in my building and I've known this man.
Did you know Randall McGee?
You know Randall McGee?
He was a, okay, he was a trooper in Athens and he retired commercial vehicle enforcement.
And he works in the same building as me doing commercial vehicle stuff.
And I was on the elevator with him visiting with him and I did not know this.
I've been seeing him almost every day, you know, for a while.
And I just learned yesterday that his son who was a record driver in Dallas, three years ago he got killed by a drunk driver.
And last week was the trial for that woman that ran over and killed his son.
And when he went to that trial, it just brought all those memories back up again.
Made him relive it all over again.
I said, "Randal," I said, "to the woman showing remorse," he said, "not one bit.
She has no remorse at all."
And I felt so sorry for him.
You know, I never knew the pain this man was going through when I would see him outside.
And I'd say, "Hey, Randall, how are you?
Hey, Mr.
Fulton, how are you?"
You know, and everyone's cordial to each other and you don't know the grief someone's going through.
You just don't.
Don't know what someone's facing in life.
We do know this.
Everybody could use a little kindness.
Everybody could use a little consideration.
And now, lest there be some misunderstanding tonight, we need to understand that a merciful person is someone that, look back in your text, "doeth good, doeth good."
And I'm going to put the emphasis where I'm trying to do with good.
Joseph wasn't asking Pharaoh's servant to be polite to him.
When he says, "Show me kindness," he wasn't thinking, "speak respectfully to me, please, and open the door for me if you don't mind and say after you, sir."
That's not what Joseph was asking for.
Joseph was asking for Pharaoh's servant to do something on his behalf, to intervene on his behalf.
It would be a particular action that that man would take.
A merciful man does good.
James 2, verse 15 and 16.
James 2, verse 15 and 16 says, "If a brother or sister be naked in destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, 'Depart in peace, be warmed and filled.'
Notwithstanding you give them not those things which are an evil to the body."
What does it profit?
Or what good is it?
Telling someone to be warmed and filled, that's politeness.
You have a blessed day.
I love how people say that.
You have a blessed day.
Well, you better do something to bless them too.
Don't just say, "You have a blessed day."
That's all the same.
Be warmed and filled today, okay?
Be warmed and filled.
It's okay to say that sometimes, but that's just politeness.
It's not kindness.
Telling someone to be warmed and filled is politeness.
Warming and filling someone is kindness.
You see the difference?
In the Hebrew, that would be the equivalent.
Warming and filling them would be doeth good.
Kindness doesn't just sound good.
It does good.
The merciful man that Solomon is describing tonight is someone who does good to another person, and whoever does good to another person, Solomon says, does good.
Look back in your text, to his own soul.
What a powerful statement for Solomon to make.
The merciful man does good to his own soul.
Here's a kingdom and truth for you tonight.
What you do to others, you're doing to yourself.
What you do to others, you're doing to yourself.
When you do good for someone, you're doing good to your own soul.
The definition of the Hebrew word that's translated doeth here, it means treat.
Treat.
You know, you're talking about how you treat someone.
You treat them good.
You treat them bad.
You're treating a person good.
You're treating yourself good when you treat somebody else good.
So if you want a blessing, then be a blessing to someone else.
If you want to be a blessing to yourself, then be a blessing to someone else.
The better you are to others, the better your being to you.
Like spinach, I mean, you're helping others may not seem so pleasant at the time.
You may think, "Well, I'm putting myself out here.
I could be focused on me for a while."
So it may not seem so pleasant at the time, but it's good for you to be good to others.
Why?
Because God will reward us according to how we treat others.
Whatever you do to others, there was a saying we had when I was a kid.
Let's say Brother Shepherd said something mean to me.
I would say, and this children, this is parental guidance suggested here, it's a little rough.
I would say, "I'm rubber and you're glue.
What you say bounces off me and sticks to you."
Boy, I would really get them there.
I'd put them in their place.
But the truth is, when if Brother Shepherd were to do something good to me, that good would bounce off me and stick back on him.
It's a powerful statement to make.
God will reward you according to how you treat others.
Write this down in your notes, your margins.
Psalm 18, verses 25 and 26.
Listen to what the Bible says.
"With the merciful," that's the merciful man we're talking about tonight, right?
"With the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful."
So if you're merciful to others, God will show himself merciful to you.
What that means is, when we're looking at the Hebrew, remember what we learned so far, if you treat others good, God's going to treat you according to how you treated them.
He's going to treat you good back in return.
It doesn't mean God's not going to be good to you if you're not good to someone else.
But it means God's going to recompense your kindness that you gave toward others.
He's going to pay that back to you.
He always pays it back.
"With the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful.
With an upright man thou wilt show thyself upright.
With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure.
And with the froward," that's what we don't want to be, "that will show thyself froward."
It'll come right back at you.
And because with the froward, God will show himself froward, Solomon not only says, "The merciful man does good to his own soul," look back in your text, "but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh."
That goes back to him too.
He troubles, and that word trouble means to disturb like troubled water versus still waters.
Trouble takes the tranquility from someone, and if you take the tranquility from someone, you're troubling someone, you're bringing trouble into their life.
You're disturbing them by being harsh to them, unkind to them, by putting them under unnecessary stress.
When you do that, God's going to trouble you.
Whatever you invest of your life into somebody else will get returned to you.
How you treat others, you'll be treated.
He says, "He that is cruel troubleth his own flesh," you know what we learn from that?
If I invest goodness toward Brother Shepherd, and I am kind toward Brother Shepherd in doing something good for him to help him, or kind to someone else, that labor, that effort on my part, that investment on my part is never lost.
It's an investment.
It's never an expense.
How you treat someone is always an investment.
That should have been a kingdom truth.
How you treat someone is always an investment.
It is never an expense.
Why?
Because however you treat them, guess what?
God pays it right back.
It's a loan that keeps giving.
So if I gave Brother Shepherd $100, God, in equivalent, let's say he gives me $100, well, he doesn't take it back from Brother Shepherd to give it to me.
He says, "Well, he gave Brother Shepherd $100.
I'm going to bless him according to his heart."
Doesn't mean he's going to give me $100.
But in his grace and his mercy, he will equivalently treat me according to how I treated him.
So I invested in Brother Shepherd.
Brother Shepherd retains that investment, and then God returns that investment to me.
So it's never an expense.
When you treat someone, it always gets paid back to you by God.
So it can be a really great motivator to do good, and it can be a really great motivator to not do bad and not be cruel, because God will repay that investment of cruelty and trouble back to you as well.
The bullying will come back to the bully.
The unkindness will return unkindness.
"For the foward thou wilt show thyself foward," the Bible says.
No wonder Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke chapter 6 verse 31, "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."
No wonder he said that.
As I was meditating on this amazing truth this week, it really encouraged me to do good to people, knowing that I was investing that goodness in myself.
Kindness is never wasted.
It's invested.
And God will always make sure that you get a good return on your investment.
Father, we thank you so much for your practical truth tonight that you've given us.
Lord, help us to meditate on this scripture this week.
Help us, Lord, to commit it to our memory.
That, Father, when we would treat someone a certain way and when we're about to confront someone or we're about to make a decision, Father, on how we behave to someone, let us remember that the merciful man doeth good to his own soul.
And we pray, Father God, that we'll show mercy as we've been shown mercy and do to them as we would have it to be done to us.
In Jesus' precious name, we pray also tonight, again, for all the prayer requests that were made.
And we pray a special prayer, Father, for the next day at Vacation Bible School tomorrow and all the workers and for those children, Father, learn your precious word.
In Jesus' name, amen.
