Episode Transcript
I was about to say something, but anyway, Proverbs chapter 11 verse 5.
00:00 --> 00:03
I remember we apologize for the technical difficulties and those listening online tonight,
00:03 --> 00:08
but I know you were praying with us in spirit for the announcements that were made.
00:08 --> 00:13
The title of the message tonight is "With All Our Might."
00:13 --> 00:18
With all our might, and that is not a misspell. The M-I-T-E is not a misspell.
00:18 --> 00:25
But play on words. And by God's grace and I, we'll get to chew on another verse of chapter 11,
00:26 --> 00:36
and touch a little bit on the next verse, perhaps, but at least be here in verse 5 tonight.
00:36 --> 00:47
And oftentimes in the Proverbs, we see repeated Proverbs or something similar to what we've read
00:47 --> 00:56
before, and it looks like it's just a repeat. And I've told you tonight that whenever you see
00:56 --> 01:03
repetition in the Proverbs, then think of that repetition like the chorus in a song,
01:03 --> 01:08
which is repeated to celebrate and emphasize the heart of the song's message.
01:08 --> 01:14
And similar or repeated Proverbs not only remind us of key truths that we've learned in the book
01:16 --> 01:22
of Proverbs, but they also allow us to meditate on the divine nuances of the statements that are
01:22 --> 01:30
being repeated, giving us a richer, fuller understanding of the Proverbs.
01:30 --> 01:36
Now, as we begin in verse 5 tonight, the Lord will have us to consider, look in verse 5,
01:36 --> 01:41
the righteousness of the perfect, the righteousness of the perfect. Underscore the word perfect,
01:41 --> 01:50
please, if you have your Bibles open. And I hope you do the righteousness of the perfect.
01:50 --> 01:57
Now, if you look down real quick in verse 16, and you don't have to have that on the screen,
01:57 --> 02:03
but if you just look at me real quick in verse 16, if you have your Bibles open, you'll see the
02:03 --> 02:08
righteousness of the upright. So you see there's a slight difference there between the two.
02:08 --> 02:15
And that gives us a couple of truths that we can deduct. And number one, perfect people have
02:15 --> 02:22
righteousness and upright people have righteousness. It's not that some people are perfect while
02:22 --> 02:29
others are upright. If you're one, then you're the other. And if you are either, then you are
02:29 --> 02:34
righteous. Nevertheless, uprightness and perfectness are not the same thing. So when we look at these
02:34 --> 02:42
over the next couple of weeks, understand there are these divine nuances, there are these differences
02:42 --> 02:49
that God wants us to consider. They're not the same thing. Solomon first wants to talk to us about
02:49 --> 02:55
the perfect person. And the word perfect means entire. It means complete. And the word perfect
02:55 --> 03:06
isn't something that we generally use to describe people, is it? Usually we'll all agree there are
03:06 --> 03:11
no perfect people. So how can imperfect people like us be perfect in the sense that Solomon is
03:11 --> 03:21
talking about tonight? Because indeed there are some perfect people in the sense that Solomon is
03:21 --> 03:28
talking about, not in the sense that we understand it in our everyday language today. Luke chapter
03:28 --> 03:34
21 verse one through four tells us about Jesus watching people while they were putting money in
03:34 --> 03:41
the offering plate. Luke 21 verse one through four. And he looked up and saw the rich men casting
03:41 --> 03:48
their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither
03:48 --> 03:54
two mites. And he said of a truth, I say unto you that this poor widow hath cast in more than they
03:54 --> 04:02
all, for all these have cast, I'm sorry, all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings
04:02 --> 04:10
of God. The she of her punery hath cast in, here's the key word, all the living that she had.
04:10 --> 04:18
The widow was poor. Her purse wasn't full of money. It was lacking money. Yet her offering was perfect
04:18 --> 04:29
because she cast in all the living that she had, everything she had to spare.
04:29 --> 04:36
So how can imperfect people be perfect? Jesus said of her punery that is from her extreme
04:37 --> 04:44
poverty and destitution, she cast in all. She didn't cast in most of what she had, she cast in
04:44 --> 04:52
all that she had to give. She casted in the complete amount, the entire amount, thus from her
04:52 --> 04:59
imperfection of wealth she gave the perfect offering. Make sense? This is the kind of
05:00 --> 05:10
perfection that Solomon is talking about, not perfection, the sense of being sinless before God,
05:10 --> 05:16
but perfection, the sense of being perfectly devoted to God and God alone.
05:16 --> 05:21
Like the widow or like Peter, for example, Lord to whom shall we go?
05:21 --> 05:26
Right? Peter's devotion wasn't divided. Peter was devoted to Jesus in his spiritual poverty.
05:27 --> 05:35
Nevertheless to Jesus alone was he devoted. And like the widow, we are spiritually poor,
05:35 --> 05:42
but we can give all that we have to God out of our punery, our spiritual poverty.
05:42 --> 05:50
I love how the Bible tells the good and the bad about the patriarchs. Thank God it tells the bad
05:51 --> 05:58
about the patriarch. It gives me hope when I read their blunders in the Old Testament.
05:58 --> 06:05
Probably does you too. The King David didn't always make the best choices.
06:05 --> 06:10
He was a poor sinner like the rest of us. Sometimes he made big blunders. He committed
06:10 --> 06:17
adultery. He committed manslaughter. He was a poor sinner, but from his poverty,
06:17 --> 06:23
he gave what he had all to God and to God alone. King Solomon was a much wiser than his father,
06:23 --> 06:30
but in his old age, his heart was not completely devoted to serve God because he built worship
06:30 --> 06:38
centers for false gods for his foreign wives, which David would have not allowed. David did not do.
06:38 --> 06:46
1 Kings chapter 11 verse 4 says, "For it came to pass when Solomon was old that his wives turned
06:47 --> 06:57
away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect for the Lord his God, as was the heart
06:57 --> 07:09
of David his father." So here was David, a sinful man, an imperfect man, yet David had a perfect
07:09 --> 07:16
heart before God because David was devoted wholly to God, not partly to God and partly to something
07:16 --> 07:24
else. So in his punery, he gave all that he had to God and Solomon in his abundance, in his riches,
07:24 --> 07:33
and in the abundance of the wealth of wisdom that God gave him, he reserved some of his devotion
07:33 --> 07:43
in his wisdom and applied it to something other than God. So his heart was not perfect toward God.
07:44 --> 07:53
Solomon was a believer, but he didn't cast in both mites to the Lord. The widow cast in two mites.
07:53 --> 08:00
Solomon didn't do that. He didn't cast in both mites to the Lord. Our prayer to God should be,
08:00 --> 08:05
"Oh Lord, I am a poor and needy sinner in heart, but let me in my spiritual poverty give my whole
08:05 --> 08:16
heart to you." Not for salvation, but we're talking about our practical daily walk with God. When a
08:16 --> 08:24
person serves God with his whole heart, the righteousness of his obedience to God's word,
08:24 --> 08:30
Solomon says, look back in your text, "Shall direct his way." Man, I enjoyed studying this.
08:30 --> 08:40
"Shall direct his way." Now this direct isn't talking about giving directions per se. It's not
08:40 --> 08:48
talking about giving guidance per se. When I was young, the older people, and I say it every now and
08:48 --> 08:56
then, just out of love for my grandmother, she's the one I remember hearing her saying it the most,
08:56 --> 09:06
but the older people, if they were going to do something immediately or as soon as possible,
09:06 --> 09:12
they would say, "I'll do it directly." Remember that? Did you ever say that, Ms. Ann?
09:12 --> 09:17
Huh? You still say it? We need to bring that back. We need to bring that back. Except they'd say it
09:17 --> 09:25
with the East Texas accent. I'll do it directly, directly, but it was supposed to be directly.
09:25 --> 09:31
Well, when they said they were doing it directly, this word direct in the Hebrew means straight.
09:31 --> 09:39
Like John the Baptist, make his way straight. Make straight in the highway, earn the desert
09:39 --> 09:49
a highway for our God. So direct, he shall direct his way, he shall straighten his way.
09:49 --> 09:57
The word direct means straight. Now, the shortest point, and thus the quickest point or distance
09:57 --> 10:07
between two points is what? What kind of line? A straight line. A straight line is a direct path
10:07 --> 10:16
from one point to another point, so it is the quickest path. So the righteousness of a person
10:16 --> 10:25
that has their whole heart devoted to God, they have that perfect heart like King David toward God
10:25 --> 10:32
that directs their path. It straightens it. It makes it quick. It shortens that path. In other
10:32 --> 10:42
words, it expedites the will of God in our lives. Disobedience brings delays in our walk with God.
10:42 --> 10:53
I did not mark that down as a kingdom truth, but it is. You can take it to the bank.
10:53 --> 10:58
Disobedience always brings delay. Israel's lack of commitment to God's word. I actually did put
10:58 --> 11:06
it down as a kingdom truth. Disobedience brings delay. Israel's lack of commitment to God's word
11:06 --> 11:14
added 40 years to their nation's journey from point A, Egypt to point B, Canaan.
11:14 --> 11:25
40 years it added to it. But had they been devoted to do God's will, had their heart not been between
11:25 --> 11:33
Egypt or a golden calf or something else, had it been devoted to God, they would have had a direct
11:33 --> 11:41
path to Canaan, not wandering round and round and round in the desert. It was God's will for those
11:41 --> 11:52
people to have come into the promised land, but their heart wasn't perfect with God, so they died
11:52 --> 11:59
halfway between Egypt and Canaan. They had a half hearted devotion that only brought them halfway
11:59 --> 12:09
to God's perfect will for their lives. And that applies to us as well. Here's a kingdom truth for
12:09 --> 12:18
you tonight. A whole heart will bring us the whole way God wanted us to go in life, but half heartedness
12:18 --> 12:29
will only bring us halfway. God never meant for Samson to be defeated by the enemy like he was.
12:30 --> 12:37
He never meant for him to die tied up with his eyes poked out.
12:37 --> 12:40
But the problem was Samson, Samson was a believer. Samson is in heaven right now,
12:40 --> 12:48
but Samson's heart wasn't wholly committed to being the judge of Israel. Like Solomon,
12:48 --> 12:58
he let Delilah distract him from God's will in his life and steal his heart from the ministry
12:58 --> 13:06
that God had called him to do. He knew not to mess with that woman. He did it anyway, and he was
13:06 --> 13:15
known more for his physical strengths and being a playboy than he was for his judgment of the nation.
13:15 --> 13:23
He didn't cast in his two mites seeking to please that woman. He wasn't wholly committed to pleasing
13:24 --> 13:31
God. So he never got to experience everything God made him for. This obedience brought delay.
13:31 --> 13:39
Samson died in the desert. He died a prisoner of the enemies who had blinded him when he should
13:39 --> 13:49
have been winning battles by helping Israel to see the judgment of God. Solomon built God's temple,
13:49 --> 13:57
and only God knows what all Solomon would have done for God before he died had he not wasted
13:57 --> 14:06
God's precious time and resources building temples for other gods. And only God knows
14:06 --> 14:13
what we could do and what our forefathers could have done if we would cast in our two mites to God
14:14 --> 14:23
out of our poverty, give all we have and be wholly devoted to seeing God's will accomplished in our
14:23 --> 14:32
lives and not have a divided attention, but have a perfect heart before God. The righteousness of
14:32 --> 14:42
the perfect shall direct. It shall straighten his way. Look back in your text now. But the wicked,
14:42 --> 14:50
not the perfect, but the wicked shall fall. The wicked, those who've turned from God's path,
14:50 --> 15:01
the wicked may outlive the righteous on this earth, but they won't outrun them. I won't say
15:01 --> 15:06
that again. The wicked may outlive the righteous on this earth, but they won't outrun them.
15:06 --> 15:11
They will fall in the wayward journey of their lives. They'll never make it to the place that
15:12 --> 15:17
God created them for. The wicked are like people who live their entire lives playing baseball.
15:17 --> 15:26
Thought of this analogy last night and ran it over in my mind.
15:26 --> 15:32
But they are. They make the team life, the world. They work their way up the ladder. They promote
15:34 --> 15:45
from the water boy maybe to the captain of the team, maybe to the owner of the team.
15:45 --> 15:49
They manage the team. In their life, they played on the team. They took care of the baseball field
15:49 --> 15:58
and the bleachers and they spent their entire lives devoted to playing ball, but they never made it
15:58 --> 16:04
on first base. Never made it to first base. The wicked play life, but they never score.
16:04 --> 16:13
That's the way they do. The wicked play, but they fall on the field because their heart
16:13 --> 16:21
fails to recognize the object of the game. The object of the game is to be accepted by God and
16:21 --> 16:31
to follow Him all the way to the land of rest, to the land of milk and honey, to make straight in
16:31 --> 16:40
the desert a highway for our God. No delays, no rocks to stumble over, but a heart that's perfectly
16:40 --> 16:50
devoted to Him and committed in our poverty, in our sin, in our fumbles in life. Nevertheless,
16:50 --> 17:02
what we have, we give it all to God. At first, their disobedience brings delay and then persistence
17:02 --> 17:12
and that disobedience brings denial. Then ultimately for the wicked, it brings death. They die on the
17:12 --> 17:20
field and never score in the game of life. They don't fall by accident. They don't fall because
17:20 --> 17:29
they were unfortunate and didn't receive the gospel. They were born in a land where they
17:29 --> 17:40
didn't have the Bible and churches and good influence or anything like that. The Bible says
17:40 --> 17:47
the wickedness fall, how? The wicked fall, how? By their own wickedness, by His own wickedness.
17:47 --> 17:55
For the wages of sin is death. So they fall in it. His refusal to acknowledge the will of His
17:55 --> 18:05
Creator took Him out of the way rather than straightened it. You ever been with someone
18:05 --> 18:15
before and you're trying to go to a specific place and they say, "Well, I know a shortcut."
18:15 --> 18:21
Famous last words. Back in the day when they didn't have cell phones, gas stations everywhere,
18:21 --> 18:31
they take that shortcut, they may find themselves hitchhiking out of gas, having to walk to the
18:31 --> 18:37
nearest town, the nearest payphone or something like that. That's the way the wicked are. They
18:37 --> 18:44
think, "I've got a shortcut. I've got a better way. This is going to give me to where I need to be
18:44 --> 18:48
and give me happiness in life." So they fail to consider the will of God. They take their own path
18:48 --> 18:54
and all they're doing is just wandering around, just dying on the field, dropping out.
18:54 --> 19:02
With that, we'll go ahead and close with a poem that I wrote last night to summarize.
19:02 --> 19:12
You weren't writing one too, were you, Brother Shepherd? Okay. Oh, why not tonight, Brother
19:12 --> 19:17
Shepherd? Oh, why not tonight? All right. To summarize the message tonight. "Let me be perfect,
19:17 --> 19:27
O Lord. Make my heart complete. In my poverty I give my all straight in the way of my feet.
19:27 --> 19:37
No delay on the way, but committed each day while the wicked fall in defeat." Let's pray.
19:37 --> 19:45
Father, we thank You so much for Your precious Word. I thank You, Lord, that
19:45 --> 19:50
when we read in the Bible
19:50 --> 19:54
about men like David who served You with a perfect heart,
19:54 --> 20:01
sometimes, Lord, that can be intimidating when we read it, but then when we study the man's life,
20:01 --> 20:08
it gives us hope that we can have a perfect heart too.
20:10 --> 20:15
We can be like that. And then when we see the widow, Lord,
20:15 --> 20:22
the widow, Father, who made Jesus stop and comment, the widow who gave less
20:22 --> 20:28
gave more.
20:28 --> 20:32
She didn't have much to give, but she gave what she had. She gave in her poverty.
20:35 --> 20:41
And, Lord, I know me and I know I'm like that widow.
20:41 --> 20:47
Lord, we're spiritually bankrupt people. In those who fancy themselves to be wealthy spiritually
20:47 --> 20:57
are probably the ones that have the least. They probably don't have too much to rub together.
20:59 --> 21:06
But, Lord, we confess our poverty tonight. We confess our sinful flesh.
21:06 --> 21:15
But, Lord, one thing we know, and these are our two little mites belong to You.
21:15 --> 21:25
Not to the world. Not to false gods.
21:27 --> 21:30
Not to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
21:30 --> 21:37
Lord, help us, I pray,
21:37 --> 21:40
with all the rust and the wear on our little mites,
21:40 --> 21:48
help us to cast them into Your treasury.
21:48 --> 21:52
Help us to be like David, Father, even in our sinfulness and our weakness and our blunders in
21:54 --> 22:01
life like David had. Help us, Lord, I pray, to reserve those two mites for You.
22:01 --> 22:08
In Jesus' precious name, that You may direct our way and not live in delay,
22:08 --> 22:16
but march forward, Father, to the goal You've set for us. In Jesus' name, amen.
22:16 --> 22:23
