Episode Transcript
All right, so good to be with y'all tonight and to see the good online presence as well.
We'll be in Proverbs chapter 11.
God willing, we'll be expounding verse 7 tonight, Proverbs 11, 7.
The title of the message is "When Wicked Men Die."
When wicked men die.
I enjoyed my study on this.
When wicked men die, people like to avoid the topic of death.
It's kind of funny how we handle the topic of death.
We like to avoid talking about it.
I've gotten better about talking to people about dying when I'm visiting with them.
I was really afraid of offending people, especially if they were in the hospital.
They don't want to talk about them dying because they're talking about when they get out.
But there's a reality that they might not get out and you want to deal with the possibility of if they don't and are they ready to go.
I've gotten better about being more plainly spoken to people.
The Bible is an encouragement to me because it plainly speaks about death.
People like to avoid the topic of death.
When an insurance salesman tries to sell you a life insurance policy, he may say something like in the unfortunate event that something would happen to you or should something unforeseeable happen to you in the future.
The Bible just comes out and says, "When you die."
When you die.
Sometimes I don't know if it's the generation of people and how society has treated people over the past few decades.
I'm really not sure.
I know in the previous generations there were really, really, really tough people.
They lived in solid houses.
They dealt with children dying all the time.
They were very hardened internally.
I'm not sure if that's why people have a hard time dealing with confrontation with plain speech today, but a lot of people have a very difficult time dealing with reality and plain speech.
They get hurt.
They get scared.
I understand sometimes we get hurt and scared, but plain speech is necessary.
We need not necessarily rude or mean speech, but plain speech is necessary.
The Bible just says, "When you die."
Have you ever thought about why they call it life insurance?
We have flood insurance.
We have terrorism insurance.
I've got earthquake insurance on my house.
Why don't they call it death insurance?
I think it's because no one would want to buy a death insurance policy.
They call it life insurance.
No one alive can collect on it.
Who owns the policy?
If the policy is on you, you can't collect it while you're alive.
It's only good when you die.
I think it's because life insurance sounds so much more positive than death insurance.
I'm glad the Bible's real.
It just comes right out and says what it needs to say.
Any sugar coating on it, in Proverbs 11, 7, it says, "When a wicked man dies."
I love the clarity of Scripture.
We're just going to hold this Scripture tonight, kind of like a little diamond, and just put it up in the light and turn it and look at all the little brilliant things about it.
The Bible speaks the truth, and this is one of the things we see about this verse tonight.
The Bible speaks the truth whether people like it or not.
The Bible deals with topics whether the topics are comfortable or not.
It just comes right out and says it.
Did you realize that Solomon just came right out and called somebody wicked?
A wicked man.
That's really not acceptable today.
In my policy at work, we're not allowed to say anything negative about anybody's lifestyle.
Nobody's lifestyle.
Well, that's kind of hard if someone's a serial killer.
How can you not say something negative about that when you're prosecuting them for it?
That's the way our society has gotten.
But Solomon, I think he's a pretty judgmental person here, just to come out and call somebody wicked.
There's no sugar coating on that.
Earlier this week, a person I'm familiar with said that she was so thankful that she had non-judgmental parents and siblings who checked on her every week.
Non-judgmental parents and siblings.
When I grew up, people appreciated good judgment.
Today they want no judgment.
Things have just gotten upside down, but they want no judgment.
They just want people to care about them.
They want people to be compassionate about them, to be empathetic towards them, and have no accountability and nobody to call them on the carpet for what they're doing wrong.
And if you do, they go, "Oh, how offensive, how judgmental, how mean-spirited you are."
But a biblical person, biblical love is clear love.
It is outspoken love.
It is love that speaks the truth and speaks plainly like Solomon is speaking tonight.
When judgment is lost, immorality is gained.
You can take that to the bank.
When judgment is lost, immorality is gained.
And when immorality is accepted, then judgment becomes immorality.
I'm going to say that again.
When judgment is lost, immorality is gained.
And when immorality is accepted, then judgment becomes immorality.
Anyone who says anything against it and points out wrong, they're the immoral person.
They're the haters.
She's so thankful to have a non-judgmental family.
I tell you, I'm thankful to have a judgmental family.
I'm thankful to have a godly family who would love me enough to say, "You're wrong, Richard.
What you're doing is wrong.
I love you, but what you're doing is wrong."
I'm thankful to have a godly church.
I know there's people in this church who would love me enough to tell me the same thing.
I say, "Brother Richard, you're wrong.
You've taught God's Word all these years.
Why would you go against it?
You know this is not what God's Word says.
If you love me and I was going the opposite way of God's Word, you'd tell me."
Just like someone came and told David, "You're the man."
When wicked men die, wicked men, I'm glad to have a church who wants to be told the truth, who wants to be told, "This is wicked if it's wicked, and if the shoe fits, then it fits, right?"
I get up and I pause a minute ago and say, "Don't say anything about obesity."
But you know what?
If I love you, why not?
If it's true and it would help you, wouldn't it be wrong to withhold that information?
I think so.
So I tell it.
And then you can choose if it fits you, if it doesn't, fine.
If it fits you and it would be beneficial to you, you can choose whether or not to take heed to it or not.
Just like everything else that we preach.
But I'm glad to have a church who wants to know the truth about sin, whether the world agrees with it or not, and none of this would be possible.
It would be absolutely impossible to be judgmental in that sense if we did not first have a God who loved us enough to speak out and call a wicked person wicked.
I like it.
I like speaking out against somebody's lifestyle.
I love the freedom of being a pastor and being able to say, "That is wrong.
That's wrong.
The Bible is my solace."
Sometimes I reach out to my wife or I reach out to Brother Shepherd or Jimmy at work or something.
When I deal with crazy in life, I mean just crazy stuff.
Sometimes it's good to speak to someone who's not crazy and get a reality check.
You bounce something off of someone just so you can hear them say, "Man, that's crazy."
No, you're right in that situation.
Yes, this is what should be done.
It's just so good to have a reality check.
Well, the Bible is my solace in life because I can go to the Bible and every time I go to the Bible, I get a reality check.
If something's wicked, I get the Bible saying, "That's wicked.
That's wrong."
It doesn't care about how anybody reacts to it.
Doesn't care.
It always points out the wrong for me, whether it's mine or somebody else's.
It always tells me the way things really are.
That's the way we should want our Bible.
That's the way we should want our pastor.
That's the way we should want our friends.
The Bible speaks the truth to me and it speaks the truth to you because we need the truth.
It speaks with authority.
It speaks with boldness.
It speaks with clarity and reality.
When a wicked man dies, not if he dies.
I love the wording here, not if he dies, when he dies because death is only a matter of time for all of us.
I got asked to preach another funeral this week for the man who built the pulpit Brother Shepherd used to teach off of.
You know what I plan on doing?
I plan on taking that pulpit from the church and preaching his funeral from that pulpit.
Nobody doesn't know it yet, but that's what I plan to do.
Give him one last good honor.
Not if he dies, but when he dies.
When a wicked man dies, Solomon says, "If you look back in your text, his expectation shall perish."
The word expectation, if you're taking notes here, if you want to write this out in your margin.
The Hebrew word transit expectation, it literally means a rope.
A rope.
If you were to look in a dictionary, a Hebrew dictionary, it may say cord, but it's a rope.
You've heard a cord of three and all that.
It's just a stranded rope, but that's all this is, is a rope to put in our good local language here.
In the book of Joshua, there's a famous passage of Scripture, a famous biblical scene before the Israelites invaded Jericho.
You all have heard me preach on this many times concerning Rahab, where those spies went to Rahab and she let those spies down from her window.
They climbed down that town wall using a scarlet red rope.
In Joshua chapter two verse 21, tells us a little bit about it.
It says, "And she said," because remember the men said, she says, "You give me a true token that you're going to save me and my house alive when you come."
And so they said, "Okay, we'll take this red rope that you let us down by and you tie it in your window and we come.
We'll make sure that'll mark your house and we'll know who not to destroy whoever's in your house."
Joshua two, 21, "And she said, 'According unto your word, so be it.'
And she sent them away and they departed and she bound the scarlet line in the window."
And that word line is the same word translated expectation here.
Line is a rope.
It's the same word translated expectation.
She bound the scarlet expectation in the window.
You think, "Man, how do we get expectation in rope?"
Well, the reason is because a rope, when you look back at the root and what it all means, it means the word rope here, it has the idea, has she bound the scarlet line in the window?
It has the idea of attaching that rope to something because that's what a rope does.
A rope's no good, well, unless you're skipping rope, but a rope rope is no good unless it's tied to something.
You've got a rope, what do you do?
You tie it to a bucket, then you let the bucket down the well.
You got a rope, you let men down from the window, you tie it to the window, you tie it off to the wall.
You hook it to a car and you tow the car, but it has the idea ropes are made to attach to something.
And so this attachment here is the idea.
She bound the scarlet line in the window.
She attached it to the window.
You see, we grow attached to things here in this world, don't we?
We may have someone we're rather fond of and a little grandchild or someone who can say, "I've really grown attached to that child."
That's the idea behind this word rope.
That's the idea behind this word expectation.
You see, the idea is that a wicked man can become very fond of particular things in this world.
Things that he has his heart set on, goals that he has, things that he wants to keep, things that he acquires and wants to retain.
He says, "Well, I'm going to accomplish this in life.
I'm going to buy this piece of land.
I'm going to live this many years.
I'm going to accomplish all of this and have all of these things right here."
And so what he's doing, he's taking the rope of his heart and he's attaching it to things.
But when he dies, the rope that's attached to his possessions, to his desires, to his plans in life, that rope breaks.
I mean, when the spies were coming down the window and they were coming down that wall, if that rope breaks, they're no longer connected to that wall.
They're no longer connected to the window that's holding them up.
And so they set their heart upon things.
They tie a rope to what they expect to get out of life and then the wicked man binding his heart to what he hopes for, he then dies, his rope breaks, and he loses all hope of enjoying what he set his heart upon.
He tied himself to his dream, but his rope, if you look back in your text, his rope perished.
It perished.
And literally that means it got itself lost.
His rope is lost and there's no getting that rope back.
Think of somebody that's on a mountain and they're trying to climb the top of that mountain.
They've got a rope attached to something that someone drove in and they're going to try to climb the rest of that mountain with that rope.
And they reach up and they get their feet and they give it a nice stiff tug to make sure it's on there real good before they start to climb it.
And when they do, they tug, it comes out, it slips out of their hands and it falls down that mountain.
It's gone and they're up on the mountain and there's no getting it back.
That's what happens when a wicked man dies.
His hope is lost.
There's no getting it back.
And the reason it's lost is because the man used the wrong rope.
That's simple.
That's simple.
Israelite spies, had they been tied to the town wall by a fishing line?
I wouldn't have held their weight.
That line would have snapped and it had been done.
Their hope of getting down safely from that wall would be over with.
But they used the wrong rope.
But they were tied to the town wall when they were let down by Rahab's rope in a fortified town wall.
It's a strong enough thing to be let down by.
It's a good thing to be attached to if you're coming down there, but your attachment to that wall is no better than the rope that you're attached with.
Your attachment to this world, your attachment to your hopes and your dreams, your expectations in life, you can have the best expectations there are, but you better have a good rope to tie yourself to them.
You better be attached to those expectations well and if you're not, then your rope is going to perish when you die and the expectations are going to be lost.
You got a ship.
It's tied to a dock.
You may have a strong dock, but the dock is no better than the rope that the ship is attached to.
When the storm comes and it snaps the rope and you're going to lose the ship.
Solomon said when a wicked man dies, his expectation perishes.
It's lost.
Here's a kingdom truth for you tonight.
Death destroys every rope, but God is a rope that destroys death.
Death destroys every rope, but God is a rope that destroys death.
You never thought about God being a rope before, did you?
We think of him being an anchor.
We think of him maybe being the dock that we tie ourselves to, but he's not just the dock.
He's not just the anchor.
He's the rope as well.
Psalm 71 verse 4 through 5 says, "Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man, for thou art my hope."
We wouldn't want to do this to God's word, but you could grammatically take the H in hope and fill it in with a little curve at the top and turn hope into rope, because that's what the psalmist is saying.
"God, you're my rope."
You're my rope, O Lord God.
Isn't that great?
God's a rope that will never break.
He's saying, "God, you are what binds me to the great expectations I have in your word."
A lot of times we think, "Well, my faith is my rope, and I hope my faith holds out."
Man gods our rope.
God is our expectation.
The expectation of the wicked man shall perish.
Look back in your text, and the hope of unjust men.
Let's look at the hope of unjust men.
Now, here's the difference between expectation and hope here.
They're the same, but they're not.
Again, we're holding it up to the line.
We're looking all the little facets of that diamond.
The expectation here has the idea of binding, of attaching.
The word hope here is a different Hebrew word, and it has the idea, not of attaching, but the idea of waiting.
Waiting.
The Hebrew word translated hope here has the idea of waiting for what you're hoping in, waiting for what you're hoping for.
In this proverb, we're talking about binding and waiting, binding and waiting.
It's what we do as believers, isn't it?
Sometimes as a believer, that's really all we have.
We have a storm in life that is shaking our world.
The only thing that can keep us sane is knowing, "You know what?
I'm bound to God's promises and His word, and I'm waiting on Him to fulfill them."
Sometimes it's all we have.
All we can do when this world is falling apart around us, when we get the bad diagnosis, when we get the dreaded phone call of our loved one passing away, when everything crumbles around us in life, sometimes all we possess are those two things, binding and waiting.
A wicked man binds, but his rope breaks.
A wicked man waits, but his ship never comes in.
His help never comes.
He waits for nothing.
His ride never shows up.
Praise God our ride's going to show up in the clouds.
We're bound because God's our hope.
He is our rope.
And death cannot break Him.
He breaks death.
So we're attached to our hope by God, our rope, and we are waiting on Him to fulfill the promises He's made us.
And I tell you what, if that's all you have in life, that's enough.
And when you feel like you're losing your mind and you're scared and you're depressed, just remember, you know what?
I've got a rope.
You're down in a deep, dark well.
And there's bugs and it's scary down there and it's dry.
You're not in that well.
You're down in that well like this.
You know what?
You've got a rope around you.
It's tied to something great above.
And you're down in the well, but you know what?
As long as you have that rope and you know that rope's on you, you can wait.
You can wait when you know there's a strong hand on the other end of that rope that's going to pull you out in the end.
The wicked man doesn't have that.
Praise God we've got it.
We've got it.
Binding and waiting.
Man, if Abigail's dad were to say Abigail...
Now you're 18, right Abigail?
Not yet.
You're 17?
How many months?
17 and a half. 17 and a half.
Let's say that your dad says, "Abigail, when you turn 18, your mom and I are going to take you down to the car dealership and we're going to let you pick out any new car that you want."
Has he told you that yet?
Not yet.
He hasn't broke that news to you yet.
But let's say he did.
From that time forward, Abigail would be waiting for that wonderful day.
That wonderful 18th birthday to come.
She'd be waiting based on the promise that she received from her dad.
In unjust men, they wait for great things.
They wait for great promises to happen.
They wait for great hopes and ambitions, but they don't hope in their father's word.
So they wait just like we wait.
But they wait in vanity.
We wait in joy with great expectation because our rope won't break with what we're waiting on.
We're attached with God's rope.
It would be exciting because for Abigail, she would have good grounds to base her hope upon the word of her father after she checked to make sure he wasn't running a fever.
But we have hope in our God.
So we wait patiently for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ based on our father's word.
Romans 8, Romans 8, 24-25, "For we are saved by hope."
But hope that is seen is not hope.
I'm in the well.
I've got the rope around me.
I can't see the hand at the other end.
So it's hope.
I have to wait.
I don't feel the tug.
I'm not going up the well shaft.
I'm having to wait for it.
For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
So there's the sense of hoping and waiting.
It's the same thing.
You're waiting.
Abraham waited for God's promise to give him a son Isaac.
That was the hope that we're looking at here.
And now we're waiting for God's promise to send his son back.
That's our hope.
Our hope is based on God's words.
We do not hope in vain, but an unjust person's hope, if you look back in your text, perisheth.
It wanders away and gets lost.
In the word unjust here, remember I said they wait in vain?
The word unjust here means just that.
It means vanity.
Someone who is unjust, it doesn't have the idea of breaking God's law, it has the idea of absolute vanity.
Someone who's tied with a rope that's made of nothing and attached to nothing.
They spend their entire life waiting on their ship to come in, and their ship never comes because they do not base their eternal hope on God's word.
So their hope is in vain, and thus their hope will perish with them.
Us, on the other hand, we're tied to a rope, and we're waiting on our great hope, and we with patience do wait for it.
Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for the principle of binding and waiting.
The Lord reminds me in the book of Acts when the Apostle Paul was on a ship in the middle of a storm, and they threw out the anchor, and they waited for the morning.
He bound himself to the rock below and waited for the day.
And Lord, I thank you, Father, that we're not like the unjust, the vain people, Father God, because there's no vanity, there's no emptiness in Your Word.
We're not like, Father God, the wicked Father God who depart from the way of life, but we trust in the way of life.
And Lord, our rope will not perish in death because You're our rope, and You can never perish, so we can never perish.
So Father, unlike the unjust person, we, Father, with patience, bind and wait, and we're grateful, Father, for what we're bound to, what we're bound with, and what we're waiting for.
In Jesus' precious name, amen.
