Episode Transcript
Alright, if you'll take God's precious Word.
Turn to the book of Proverbs, please.
Chapter 9. Proverbs, chapter 9.
God willing we'll be expounding verses 7 through 9 tonight.
The message is pearls and stones.
Pearls and stones.
Today we had a lady come through the courthouse and she had a big necklace with these big balls
of gold here on.
She asked the gentleman as she was coming toward the metal detector and she said, "Do
I need to take these off?"
He said, "Well, are they metal?"
She said, "They're gold."
He said, "Well, you better take them off then."
I thought, "My goodness, as big as those are."
That's a lot of money right there.
He ran them through the x-ray machine and I thought, "I just got to fill that."
and I picked them up and they were plastic.
(audience laughing)
And the thing behind, the woman behind her,
after she, I didn't say anything about them being plastic,
but I knew they were, and of course the person working,
the x-ray knew they were.
She put them on and she walked down the hall
and the lady behind her commented to us
and she said, "I can't afford real jewelry."
And we never said anything to her either.
But she thought they were real.
And the woman pretended like they were real. She knew they couldn't have been gold, not that light sheet plastic
pearls and stones, you know, there's a big difference between the two.
We'll be looking at the difference tonight.
We finished up in verse 6 last week talking about
"Wisdom's house."
And those particular verses were very rich and edifying to me. I enjoyed that study so much.
I'm thankful for the truths God gave us.
And now as we move on to our next verse is tonight Solomon begins a new subject
Which is both very insightful and very instructive for us in
Verse 7 Solomon says he that reproveth a scourner
Getteth to himself shame
He that reprove with a scourner
Getteth to himself
shame
So the Hebrew word translated scorn here or scourner here
It's very interesting. It has the idea of the effort that's given
When you try to pronounce a foreign language you ever had someone you say well, how do you say?
good morning in
German or good morning or thank you very much and
Lahelia or someone you're talking to that you you see from another country and they tell you and that you think it's going to be something
kind of simple and
It ends up having a bunch of syllables in it. It doesn't sound anything like what you're used to saying
and so you try to repeat the words back in your
And they go and they they're trying to correct you and you're trying to repeat them back
That's where this word scorn or scourner comes from the effort in trying to speak
a foreign language. Kind of interesting, isn't it? And because it's taken from the effort
of trying to speak a foreign language, it's often translated as interpreter in the Old
Testament. And so you have to think, well, what kind of word is this that can mean both
interpreting and scorning? How is that? Well, we can definitely understand the interpreting
since it means the effort of trying to speak in a foreign language, but think of it when
someone tries to speak that foreign language. Have you all ever done that before? Or you've
heard someone try to say something in another language before and they're not pronouncing
it right, it sounds pretty silly. And they look pretty silly. And if you think of it
like that, I believe the visual that Solomon is trying to give us tonight is that of a
person stupidly mocking a speaker of the truth. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about
now when I do this. Let's say that Brother Jess over here were to say something and try
to correct me. And let's say that I'm having nothing of Brother Jass and his
correction and his holier-than-thou stuff, and so I mock him and I go, "Nah, nah, nah."
Right? Isn't that what people do? I believe that's exactly what the
visual is here. That someone, you have someone out speaking the truth, they're
They're intelligent, they're articulate, they're telling the Word of God like it is.
And instead of someone giving them the consideration of the argument, you know how people do when
they're, especially if they're politicians, and someone's making a great argument against
them?
And a lot of times they'll just, instead of trying to rebut their argument because they
can't, they just go, "I saw Joe Biden do that the other day."
asked him something and no it wasn't Joe Biden, excuse me. It was the Republican that had the
like little mini strokes. Turtle, huh? No, not fertile. Redham is not Republican, but
he's the, huh? He's Mitch McConnell. Yeah, he's the one that's been freezing up with
his brain freezing up and someone said, "Sir, you know, the doctors have told us what you
don't have.
They haven't told us what you do have.
Do you know what's wrong with you, sir?"
And he just goes, "Ha ha ha ha."
And next, and he went to another question.
Well, he was mocking that man.
By doing that, he was trying to let the whole world know that was such a stupid question.
Such an uneducated question.
It's not even worth my time.
I just laugh at it.
And if Brother Jaz were to correct me and I'm going to really belittle him, I'll go,
"Nuh, nuh, nuh."
Something like that.
And just mock him.
Just scorn him.
"Ooh, you think you're something, you know, you Christians are really..."
Whatever, you know, and I just mock him.
And so that's the idea of a sconer here.
A sconer is someone trying to argue with a sconer is like trying to argue with one of those politicians
who's going to laugh at you and they just turn to the next reporter who's going to be more friendly to them.
You're not going to get truth with them. They're not interested in truth.
Scorners don't sit idly by and pay no attention to Christians.
A lot of times when we see people doing things that we disagree with, we may think in our
minds, "Oh boy, you know, you see someone they're used to, it was really bad."
It seems like it's gotten a little better.
Used to people would go around with their britches down around their rear ends.
And I'm glad that it seems to be going a little bit out of style.
But it was really bad and you would see things like that.
You don't necessarily go over there and say, "Hey, pull your pants up," or "Hey, this
or that," you know.
But scorneders aren't like that.
They don't mind their own business.
Scorneders jump at the chance to mock a Christian.
They jump at the chance to mock someone who's confronting them with the truth so they can
belittle them and try to make them look ignorant.
Solomon says, "He who reproves a person like this
"gets to himself shame."
And to reprove someone means to correct them,
to see them walking in disobedience to God's word
and to tell them, "Hey, you're wrong.
"This is wrong what you're doing here."
If you correct a scourner,
the scourner is not going to admire you.
Even if you use the most brilliant arguments
with the scourner, if you use logic and science
so that you thoroughly prove the sconer wrong, he will not politely debate you, he will not
acknowledge the truth you spoke, he will not say, "Well, that's a good point there, but
I will just politely agree to disagree."
Sconer's not going to do that.
Instead, the more truth you tell that sconer, the more he'll despise you.
You see, a sconer despises truth.
They hate it.
If a person accepts truth,
then he's not gonna scorn the truth.
So if you're talking to someone and they're scorning you
when you're telling them the truth,
it doesn't mean they misunderstand.
It means they despise the truth you're telling them.
A scourner hates truth.
So if you correct his false ways with the truth,
then the scourner will hate you.
You see?
They hate truth, so if you confront them with truth,
that scourner's gonna hate you.
The Hebrew word translated shame here in this verse
because if you reprove a scourner,
you rebuke a scourner, you're gonna get shame.
And the Hebrew word translated shame in this verse
comes from a root word that means light,
meaning having very insignificant weight,
just like the person that asked,
the reporter that asked the question,
and the politician going, ha ha ha ha ha ha.
You see, what happened to that reporter then?
They got to themselves shame.
And they said, hey, you said this,
you said what's not wrong with you,
you haven't told the American people what is wrong with you.
They just got confronted with a truth bomb.
And instead of confronting truth and saying,
well, yeah, I'm really not fit for service,
yes, I've got this terrible disease or whatever,
Instead of acknowledging these things and confronting the truth, that reporter gets
to himself belittlement, lightment, considered it's something so insignificant it's not even
worth paying attention to.
That's what you will get if you reprove a sconer.
If you correct a sconer, that sconer is going to think very little of you.
If you correct a sconer, Solomon says, look back in your text, "And he that rebuketh
a wicked man getteth himself a blot."
Now, a sconer is a wicked man.
So he's saying the same thing two different ways, kind of like repentance and faith.
So you rebuke a sconer, you're going to get shame.
If you correct this corner, if you rebuke a wicked man, you're going to get yourself
a blot.
Now the word blot here means a blemish.
In the book of Leviticus, this should ring a bell to you, Leviticus chapter 22 verse
20, when they offered a sacrifice in the Old Testament, what could that sacrifice not have?
It could not have a blemish.
If it had a blemish, it was not acceptable, right?
God could not accept it.
Leviticus 2220 says, "But whatsoever hath a blemish," that's the same Hebrew word
translated "blot" here in the book of Proverbs, "whatever hath a blot, that shall ye not offer,
for it shall not be acceptable for you."
So if you rebuke a wicked man,
then you get yourself a blemish.
In other words, you're not acceptable to that person.
That person rejects you.
That person can't have any dealings with you.
You're not acceptable to that person anymore.
Like the sacrifice in Leviticus 20.20,
you literally become unacceptable
in that wicked person's eyes.
You see, when God sees a blot,
He says, "Ooh, I can't have that." Unacceptable.
When a wicked person sees righteousness, to that wicked person that righteousness is a
blot. To God's sin is a blot. To a wicked person, righteousness is a blot. And they go,
"Ooh, don't want any part of that." That's how they think.
So if you rebuke a wicked man, you're going to get yourself a blemish.
You're going to be unacceptable.
You don't become unacceptable to God.
You become unacceptable to the wicked person.
A wicked person hates righteousness.
To a wicked person, what is bad is good.
What is good is bad.
To rebuke a wicked man means to point out to him what is right.
literally means to be right. So if a wicked man is not doing right and you say, "Well
now, here's the way this should be done. Here's the right way. Here's what God's word says."
Well, you go pointing something out about his life that's wrong and you show him the
the right way, the God-ordained way to live and to be,
then that wicked person is gonna consider you
to be unacceptable.
So if a wicked person enjoys being a sexual pervert,
and you tell that wicked person that God made one man
for one woman 'til death do they part,
if you tell that wicked person that so-called
transgender, transgendering, or a cross dresser,
or something like that, that can't be a real woman
or a real man because they're not biologically
a real woman or a real man.
If you tell them something like that,
he's not gonna look up to you as a God-fearing person.
He's gonna think of you as wicked in his eyes,
blemished in his blinded wicked eyes. We have to understand that tonight because right now
our nation is wicked. Our nation is, they're full of scorners. They hate Christianity.
They hate being confronted with truth.
We have to understand where the passion is for them.
When we look at these people, we see them doing violence.
We see them being very proactive.
We see them being very passionate about what they're pushing.
We have to understand that when they look at us, they hate us.
They do.
They hate us.
people see righteousness is bad, thus they see righteous people is blemished.
If you rebuke a wicked man, then get ready, because your rebuke will be viewed as a blot
on you by all who approve of the wickedness that man performs.
You'll get yourself marked.
Do you want to know why liberals want so-called hate speech laws?
Canada they have hate speech laws.
Thank God we don't hear yet, although in a way they're trying to enforce them in places
like universities and sororities and things like that.
To them, Christians are a blemish on society and they want to shut them down.
This is important for us to understand.
You see, there are some people you just can't help.
He says, "Don't rebuke them.
Don't rebuke them.
If you do, this is what's going to happen."
There's some people you cannot help.
In fact, the more you try to help them, the worse they're going to hate you for it.
So don't fool yourself into thinking.
And a lot of Christians, a lot of Bible teachers, they've adopted this unbiblical way of thinking.
They've adopted this thinking, "Well, if only I would have worded it more nicely, maybe
they would have listened to me."
No.
Not a scourner.
If only I would have used a better argument, maybe they would have believed me.
Perhaps I'll get a book from somebody and let them read The Expert.
They're not interested in what the expert has to say.
Doesn't matter how good your argument is framed.
They don't want the truth.
If only I would have been more bold or more kind, maybe they wouldn't be so angry at
me and they wouldn't hate me.
Maybe my loved one wouldn't hate me so much.
Yes, they would.
Here's a kingdom truth for you tonight.
No amount of kindness or persuasion can make someone like the truth.
No amount of kindness or persuasion can make someone like the truth.
A lot of people have the idea that if you just show people the love of Jesus, I hear
that all the time and it makes me sick, just show people the love of Jesus and they will
accept your Christian witness and they'll turn their lives around and be saved and that's
not true.
Not true at all.
No amount of love can make wicked people like you and accept your message.
Sir, Brother Richard, I disagree with that.
Hang on, I'm about to prove you wrong.
No amount of love can make wicked people like you and accept your message.
Here's the kingdom truth for you tonight.
a lack of love was the cause of rebellion and unbelief, and that would make an all-loving
God responsible for the rebellion of Satan, Adam, and Eve, and everybody else after them.
No amount of love can make people like you and accept the truth.
Who loved the world more than Jesus Christ?
Nobody.
Their love has no man than this that he laid down his life for his friends.
Nobody could have loved the world more than Jesus.
And they still hated him.
They still rejected his message.
They still killed him.
Why?
Because to hit to them, he was a blot.
They hated him for the truth he told.
They didn't like light.
They'd rather have darkness.
If people don't love the truth, they won't love the truth teller.
So don't go around feeling guilty because, "Well, I tried to speak to my son or my daughter.
I tried to speak to my aunt or my mother, one of my loved ones, and now they won't even
talk to me because I tried to tell them about Jesus and now they shun me."
And you go around feeling guilt and wringing your hands thinking, "Oh, what could I have
done wrong?
What?"
No.
It's not you.
It's not you.
If you rebuke a scourner, you get a blot.
So we're told, look now in verse 8, "Reprove not a scourner."
Reprove not a scourner.
And don't get Solomon wrong here.
Solomon's not telling us to not speak against sin.
I mean, God sent the prophets to rebuke sinners that God knew would never accept the truth,
right, of those prophets.
He sent prophets knowing that they would kill the prophets and they would not repent.
So we're not talking about that.
We're not being told to not take a stand against sin.
We're being told to not reprove a scourner.
In fact, if notice it doesn't say don't reprove scourners, plural.
Says don't reprove a scourner, singular.
We're looking at individual rebuke, not national rebuke.
There's a time to stand up and tell the world this is wrong.
You've got to.
You've got to be light in the world.
You have to be a city set on a hill so your light won't be hid.
But we have to understand that the purpose of reproof or reproving someone is to point
out someone's wrong so they can in the end think and do right.
It's not to point something out to them to try to make them angry or try to make yourself
look better.
A lot of people, and I hear preachers do this a lot.
I hear Christians do this a lot.
They'll try to point out sin,
kind of hoping to get someone angry,
so they can tell them off and then walk around thinking,
"I've done God a favor here."
That's not, Jesus didn't do that.
That's not what we're here to do.
The whole purpose is try to change someone's thinking
so they can think and do right,
but the problem is a scourner doesn't want to do right.
A scourner hates what is right,
So don't reprove a scourner, look back in your text,
lest he hate thee.
He hates what's right, so don't go off reproving a scourner
'cause all he's gonna do is hate you too now
when you tell him what's right.
And I believe there's two main things
that we should deduct from this.
And the first is this, if a person is incorrigible
and they won't listen to reason,
then don't cast your pearls before swine.
Now what the Bible says,
Don't cast your pearls before swine.
They'll trample over your pearls,
and they'll come back and trample over you.
Don't take something so precious
that you know someone's not interested in.
You know the despised truth.
Don't go take God's precious word
and invest your time in those people
when you know the response is going to be,
what does a pig think about pearls?
Nothing.
They're gonna run over those pearls just like mud.
They have no admiration for pearls whatsoever.
They cannot see the value of the pearls.
Pearls have zero value to them.
So if you take your pearls and you cast it before the swine,
you're going to have to expect them
to trample over the pearls and then be mad at you
for putting bad pearls in their good mud.
And now they're gonna trample over you.
That's what you do with a scourner.
You're putting your pearls before the swine.
The Bible says in Romans chapter 16 verse 17, "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them
which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and
avoid them."
The Bible didn't say mark them and try to develop meaningful relationships that may
build bridges with them.
I hear Christians talk that way all the time.
It's just like mamsy-pamsy stuff.
It says avoid them.
And so if a person rejects the truth, then it's better to avoid conflict than to cause
it.
You see?
If a person rejects the truth, it's better to avoid conflict than to cause it.
And I believe the Lord just gave me a wonderful example.
When I was a kid, me and a friend of mine, it was winter and we were at a pond.
The pond was frozen over.
I don't know about you, but didn't you all like ice skating when you grew up?
Nobody?
That's because you all are from the South.
You did?
You did?
All right.
You fell too much.
Well, you should have been with us at the pond.
We would have helped you.
So we're out playing on this frozen pond and it's so fun when you're a kid and you're
flexible and you can fall down and it doesn't hurt you.
It's so fun to get out there and slide across that ice and have fun like that.
And we were having a good time out there on that ice.
And then my friend saw a cat coming our way.
My friend thought it'd be a good idea to pick that cat up and let the cat enjoy ice skating.
After all, we were enjoying it.
My friend knew that cat was not going to enjoy that ice.
He took that cat and gave that cat a good dose of ice skating on that pond.
He went across that ice and all you could see was claws and cat and spinning around
like that and you could see claw marks going in circles or down across that ice.
He knew the cat was going to react bad.
He knew it was against that cat's nature.
And so does it make any sense saying, "I skating is very enjoyable.
I think I need to teach this cat how to skate.
No.
So you can say Christianity is true,
Christianity is good.
If this person would quit acting this way
and quit living this way
and start doing what God's word says,
that's gonna be really good for them.
They're going to enjoy that
and you know that they're a scourner,
that they're incorrigible.
You know they hate the truth.
Then if you go and you confront them,
and you waste your time trying to point out they're wrong,
you're doing no different than what my friend did
chunking that cat across the pond.
It's better to avoid the conflict than to cause the conflict
even though you have a good reason for causing it.
There's really not a good reason to cause the conflict.
And so, you know, you pick your battles,
you pick your arguments,
and I believe that's what he's saying here.
If a person gets angry when you tell them the truth,
their problem is with the truth, it's not with you.
That's the other thing that I want you to see tonight.
If you talk to a person about the truth
and you try to correct their ways,
and it doesn't matter how sweet and kind you say it,
and they get angry at you,
their problem is not with you, it's with the truth.
Don't go around feeling guilty about that.
Don't go around harboring guilt,
and a lot of Christians, they harbor guilt
because the person who hates the truth
will try to make that person feel guilty for offending them.
'Cause that's the only power they have.
I'm wrong, I know I'm wrong,
but I don't want to be told I'm wrong,
so I'm gonna make that person feel wrong
for telling me I'm wrong.
and they try to use that to manipulate
that person that loves them and told them the truth.
It's not you, it's them.
So let your conscience have a break on that.
Solomon said Luke back in your text,
rebuke a wise man.
Now there's someone you should rebuke,
there's someone you shouldn't rebuke.
Rebuke a wise man.
A wise man is someone you want to rebuke.
If someone's wise, then all means,
by all means, rebuke that person.
If you can't lovingly correct that person
than that person is a foolish person.
If you lovingly correct someone, they accept your correction,
they're a wise person or they don't, they're foolish.
And if you can't be lovingly corrected,
then you're a foolish person.
Don't be that person that someone can't come up to
and say, "Hey, brother, hey, sister,
"or hey, sweetheart, or whatever, I love you.
"Could I just share this with you right here
and just think on it, just think on it if I'm wrong,
I'm sorry, but would you think on this,
you're doing this and this is wrong,
and God's word says this,
and you're not right with God on this.
If they're a wise person, they'll accept your rebuke,
because they want to know truth.
We rebuke wise people.
Now a wise person isn't always right,
or else you wouldn't have to rebuke a wise person, right?
Wise people aren't always right.
Wise people are people who always want to be right.
I don't always do right, but I always want to do right,
you see, and that's the difference.
A wise man isn't always right,
but he always wants to be right.
So the difference between a wise man and a scourner
is not their conduct, it's their attitudes.
Everybody's gonna do wrong,
But it's the attitude is of,
it's not my will to do wrong, I want to do right.
A wise man loves the idea of pleasing God,
so rebuke a wise man, look back into your text,
and into verse eight, rebuke a wise man
and he will love thee.
If you love the idea of pleasing God,
then if someone tells you something in your life
that is displeasing to God,
then you'll love that person for telling you.
That's what the Bible's saying.
So if a person doesn't love you for telling them the truth,
then they don't love the idea of pleasing God.
Solomon said, verse nine,
give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser.
How about that?
So here's another person we invest our time in.
You give instruction to a wise man,
a very wise man, and what happens?
He gets even wiser.
Every person needs to walk in a state of humility.
We all need to be both ready to be corrected and ready to correct, no matter how wise or
how experienced we are as Christians.
Underscoring your word, "Be yet wiser."
Underscoring in verse 9, "Be yet wiser."
I love that phrase.
No matter how long you've been a Christian, no matter how much experience you have, how
much knowledge you have, or what status you hold in the church, no matter how wise you
are you can be yet wiser.
Never quit learning.
Never think you know it all.
Please be instructable.
Never get into the position of being unteachable.
Solomon said, look back in your text, teach a just man.
A just man means someone who follows God's word.
Teach a just man and he will increase in learning.
And I love this.
When should you stop learning?
Never.
Never.
So pay a close attention here.
I believe this is the main point of what Solomon is saying.
There are people we are not supposed to rebuke and teach.
And there are people we are supposed to rebuke and teach.
We are told to teach adjustment, he will increase in learning.
And I believe the Bible is telling us that these are the people that we should be investing
our time in.
These are the people we should be investing our resources in.
The principles that we're learning here in Proverbs tonight should determine who churches,
pastors, teachers, and evangelists should be investing their lives in.
I tell you what, I would rather pour my time into a small church that's hungry to learn
God's word than pour my time and life into a mega church that has no heart for it.
I would rather go overseas and spend years of my life teaching the word of God to people
who crave it than to people who despise it.
I'm not interested in that.
I've heard missionaries talk about going overseas for years and years and years and never have
a convert.
They stay in the same place and no one's interested.
You know what that person needs to do?
They need to get out of town.
They need to go somewhere where they are interested.
If you rebuke wise people, they're going to be yet wiser.
So I'd rather send my money to an area where the people are receiving the gospel instead
were they're not receiving the gospel.
In the book of Acts, the apostles didn't waste their time
laboring in places where God's word was rejected.
They invested their time where it was eagerly received.
You send doctors to people who are sick.
You send food to people who are hungry.
And you send truth to people who are wise enough
to love you for giving it to them.
Don't cast your pearls to people who are casting stones.
And with that, we'll go ahead and close tonight.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
Father, it's difficult for us when we read passages like this
because we're to go into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature.
Yet at the same time, if they're picking up stones to stone us
for telling them the gospel, we don't stick around if they reject the Genesis of Jesus,
we don't stick around to teaching the building on Jesus.
Even as you do, Father, with the heathen, you give them the light of nature.
Many people are given the light of nature in which your word says the Creator is evidently
and they reject the light of the Creator, so you never send them the light of the Redeemer.
So Father I pray Lord that you'll give us wisdom as your hands and your mouth and your
feet to be wise Lord, to always be willing to speak the truth, to stand for the truth,
but also to be wise enough to not invest our time by casting pearls before people who are
casting stones at us.
And I ask these things in Jesus' wonderful name.
