Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello and welcome back. It is Sunday, and lemme tell you, yesterday, Sunday, June 8th was Saturday. We had men's Bible study yesterday. It was yesterday, and Mark Kogan was supposed to preach at men's Bible study, but for circumstances beyond his control. He couldn't show up and do it. Was it really beyond his control? I feel like he was encouraging Julia the whole time. I mean it's 'cause his text here, I got the text, I woke up, I got the text at 5:28 AM Yeah, so Julia woke up a few minutes ago with painful contractions. That's what he said. What he didn't mention is what I suspect. He shoved her awake and said, Julia, get up, have some contractions. It's time to go fed her spicy food. Maybe. Who knows what he did? I don't know. I don't wanna ask. I just know that she got. She started getting in the groove of things and next thing a few hours later they got a baby. Yeah, a baby a baby that's half the size of most of my kids already. Dude, Warren's got big things ahead. He's a beast with the size and scope of his person. One would expect great things to come forth with. Totally. Yeah. Mark is a big Churchill fan, I think, And what did they call Churchill? The lion of something. Tribe of Judah. Was that it? Yeah, I think it was that. Something like that. Yeah. I don't know. Anyways, congrats to Mark and Julia. If you guys love Mark and Julia and have access to a text or something like that, shoot 'em a text. Just say congrats. We're thankful for them and excited to meet. I almost called 'em Little Warren, but we're excited to meet Warren. Warren is he's two feet tall. He's two feet tall already, man. Yeah. That's crazy. Warren is a substantial man. Good job, Julia. Yeah. Yeah. Really, that's when you really feel for the moms, like they, I don't wanna imagine it. I just know Julia's a rock star. That's what I'm gonna say. She's a rock star. Totally. Yeah, but that left men's Bible study in need of somebody last minute to step up and preach a message. And here's what I was thinking about, man. This was not just Hey, can you take the next section of John for me, where you've got one passage that you can look at and come up with a quick outline in your mind and sticking one passage and preach it. You had the challenge of taking one verse that listed. Four attributes that we condensed into three, rightly I think, and then take a topical approach to preach those topics. I thought you did a great job and I appreciate that. Yeah, I did on Thursday, since I knew that there was a possibility, I did at least start tinkering in my mind saying, okay, if I had to do this, what would I do with it? So I had some on-ramp, but as somebody once asked either John MacArthur or John Piper, I don't know, maybe both. Someone asked, how long did it take you to write that sermon? They tongue in cheek, say. Sad all my life. Yeah. And I, the longer I do this thing called ministry and preach and teach and all those things, the more I understand, oh, that wasn't a joke. He really meant that. Totally. Because so much of what you do when you're preaching is it's coming through all of your study, all of your thinking, all of your praying, everything just comes to the head. So even though I did have a lot less time to put something together, it was still because. Of who God has made me to be and the things that I've studied in the past that I was able to put something together that was at least, I think, cohesive enough to be helpful. So to that end, I give glory to God. I think it, it was helpful for all of us in some way, shape, or form to say all God provided I. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. In fact, I was talking with my son on our way back up about that and and right now Josh has aspirations for ministry. We'll see what the Lord does with his life. But one of the things that I've been working on him with is, man, you've gotta be a reader. Like you've got to just take in books. And one of the things I noticed during your preaching, I. Today was, and I don't know if they were in your notes, but you had quotes at the ready. And so even with short prep time, you had quotes at the ready from things that you had read because they stuck with you. And that's part of what you're driving at there your whole life. Everything that you're taking in throughout your whole life, your time in the word, your time reading these other books helps you to be able to think on your feet. And that is not just true for a preacher, but that's true for all of us. If you're reading good material, if you're engaging with the word on a regular basis, you're gonna have those things at the ready for. Extemporaneous conversations that pop up with a coworker or a family member or somebody who has a question about something about Christianity. Your answers are going to be informed by the depth that you've given yourself over to studying the word and studying other books and resources and stuff. Saw that live in the men's sermon. It was great. Oh, thanks brother. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, let's jump into our reading for the day. We are in Proverbs chapter 16, 17, and 18 today, A couple more days of undisturbed proverbs. Yeah. Which I've been enjoying. I think they're, they've been helpful. Do too. Again, too fast from my taste. Yeah. But I love it. And I'm also thankful that scripture is. A library of different kinds of genres. Yeah, I appreciate that. Now that I'm spending a few days in the proverbs, I'm like, I just need some, I need a break. I love it. It just feels like it's too much too soon. I need a break. And so I'm thankful that there's narrative and there's poetry and there's proverbs and there's all sorts of different genres that make interest make scripture far more interesting to me at least. Yeah, for sure. In chapter 16 I think we get three key verses here, dealing with the sovereignty of God. And so we see that number one, you see the plaintiff. The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. You see something similar down in verse nine, the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. And so there we're dealing a lot with the same concept there, that God is the one guiding, God is the one leading. We have plans, but God is gonna give us the direction, the answer of. The tongue that's gonna come from him. The other place though, that we see God's sovereignty that's a little bit more uncomfortable is verse four. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. We've talked about this in past episodes of the Daily Bible Podcast, even last year, and we probably will again. I imagine when we get to Romans nine 'cause it's a similar idea here, and that is this. Concept that uncomfortable as it is that God is sovereign over the the destruction of the wicked, over the judgment of the lost. And this is another place that we see this in scripture here in Proverbs 16, four, that he makes everything for its purpose, even the wicked purposed by God for the day of judgments. Romans nine would tell us that is so that we as vessels of mercy might give more glory to God because we. Appreciate his mercy. All the more, it doesn't make it more comfortable or palatable to us, but it does give us at least a framework to try to wrap our minds around it. Yeah, and that's the beauty of scripture is that if you're not constantly challenged by what scripture says, then it might be that you're actually reading scripture through the wrong lens. Yeah. You're reading it through your own life and saying this is how I would do it. This is clearly what it means. So I appreciate when scripture confronts my sensitivities and challenges my thoughts and says, this is the way that we should understand who God is and this verse to your point is uncomfortable, but it is who God is. I love verse 20. Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord. Our trust in the Lord will be evidenced by how much thought we give to the word, easy to read. And this is probably my contention with reading so many proverbs so quickly, is that I don't have enough time to give thought to the word, but a person who truly trust the Lord is spending time to consider and weigh what God is saying. So it says here, whoever gives thought. And if you give enough thought, if you spend enough time with scripture. Here's the promise or at least the proverbial promise. It's no guarantee, but it is the general way that things work. Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good. That is true for every text of scripture, even those that are especially challenging. So don't give up if you're finding yourself weary of reading, don't give up. Don't just read, think and trust that God will help you discover good through that. Yeah, that's good that one's interesting because. It, I had questions when I got to that verse. Okay. Is this about the word of God or is this, 'cause it can also mean matter. Somebody who gives thought to a matter, we'll just give for good. Who gives thought to the thing? Is that to you? To the thing? Yeah. The issue at hand. The word that, yeah. Yeah. The devar. Yeah. But devar can also mean word of God, and so I think it's right to see that in here as well. It's just, I guess my question would be what was that for Solomon? What's the, because for him, he had the rah at this point. Yeah. And, as the king. He was supposed to be well versed in it and have it read every year and everything else. And we know that eventually fell into neglect and led to a lot of debauchery and everything else. But what did that mean for him? Because we read this through our New Testament eyes, which is appropriate. That's part of progressive revelation. We can look back at a verse like this and understand something even deeper than perhaps the original author intended by it from a human perspective and his recipients understood by it from their human perspective which is a, the part of the privileged position that we enjoy as the church. I think it's hard to guess what Solomon had in mind, but I think he was masterful with the word that he did have whatever that was. Yeah. Clearly he was able to apply justice because of his understanding of the word. And I would lean on the word just because it makes better sense of the verse itself. Whoever gives thought to the thing or the matter, we'll discover good. Maybe that's true, but it is certainly true that whoever gets thought to the word will discover good. And it's evidence of our trust in the Lord. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we can move on to 17. Just one more quick note on 16 and this is a repeated theme in Proverbs, just God's hatred of pride. Verse 18, pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before the fall. Verse five. Everyone who's arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Be assured he will not go and punished. I think this is one of the hardest. Things for us to, to battle as human beings. I think our natural proclivity is to be prideful people, arrogant people. I know that I can fall into that myself and that's why it's so good. And Proverbs talks about having people, we talked about this recently, who aren't afraid to call you out and to keep you humble in a good way and. And that's good. If you don't have friends like that, find some friends that will lovingly help you pursue humility. That's a good good thing because it's dangerous to be somebody who is given over to Pride and unchecked in their pride. Chapter 17. It is and. This morning in Amos, we're preaching about this idea that God cares for the needy and he cares that we care too. That's the idea this morning and so many times reading Proverbs. I guess because I've been in Amos and focused on this idea of justice and caring for the needy, it shows up all over the place in Proverbs too. It's. Replete with Solomon saying you need to care about people who are less fortunate than you. Verse five, whoever mocks the poor insults his maker and he was glad at calamity, will not go and punished if pull up to the stoplight and see the panhandler and you take jabs at that person and mock that person. And this is one of the points that I want I hope to make this morning, is that part of our call to, to care for those less fortunate than we are, is to honor the image of God in that person. And I think that's what is going at here. What Solomon's driving at when we. Mock somebody who's in a position less well off than we are for whatever reason, or we take shots at them. And even sometimes our cynicism, we need to be careful about cynicism towards people that are in unfortunate positions. It's to degrade somebody who's been created in the image of God. And I think Solomon is saying we need to be careful about that because to mock them is to mock their makers. They've got somebody who created them, and as such there's worth in them that we should recognize and even support and help in whatever means that we're able to. Amen to that. I like verse six here. Grandchildren are the crown of the aged and the glory of children is their fathers. You might connect that to what you read in chapter 16, which says, gray hair is a crown of glory. It is gained in a righteous life. And so one of the cool things that stands out here is that God is okay with bestowing glory and honor. Where it is due. God is not stingy with it, even though he's the only one who deserves all glory and honor. God crowns us in many ways with the kind of glory that's befitting of a creature. And here he's saying grandchildren and gray hair are a crown. It's a noble good thing that bestows honor to a people that deserve honor, in this case, grandchildren and the aged or rather grand grandchildren and gray hair. It's speaking to the aged. So if this is your stage of life and you have grandchildren and you have gray hair or maybe one or the other. This is a good thing. Yeah. And here's the interesting thing too, because it's the Old Testament. There is a more, a stronger connection between a long life and obedience to the word. Yeah. Under the New Testament, we don't get that same promise. And so you have to read Proverbs with the eyes of the Old Testament saint who under the Abrahamic covenants was promised a long life. If they kept the scriptures. Yeah. If they were obedient to the law. So this is not quite a one-to-one correlation for us, but it is something worth understanding. Oh man, God honors gray hair and grandchildren, or God honors gray hair. And the grandchildren that come from them. So that's a really cool feature. I think that's neat. You should pay attention to that. Yeah. Verse 14, we referenced this verse and so a couple days ago, here it is for us, the beginning of strife is like the letting out of water. So quit before the coral breaks out. You preached to today as we're recording this, but yesterday as you're listening to this, everybody at men's Bible study about one of the qualifications of a man of God is that he's not ignatious. He's not a fighter. He's not. Somebody who's picking fights and coralling but he's one seeking to find peace whenever that's possible. And here that's I think what's in view here. You have an opportunity to stop the fight before the fight breaks out, is what he's basically saying here. You're saying you've got the opportunity, even if it means, you're gonna walk away going, man they're believing something. That's not true. Okay, but if that's a small thing, if that's a minor thing, theological triage you referenced with with Al Moler right then we can agree to part ways. Disagreeing on that matter and not create a fight, not create tension. And I think this plays a huge role in marriages too. Not theological triage, but maybe it's just domestic triage. It's is this really worth the tension? Is this really worth the fight right now? Or can we just let this go and agree to disagree or have different perspectives on this and realize it's not gonna change anything about the rest of our lives at all. So we can walk away and not feel like we've gotta get the last word. And I think fourteen's a huge help for marriages and just friendships, relationships in general. Yeah. Such a helpful reminder in today's day and age when being provocative and creating con contention and consternation, I. It gets clicks and views. Yeah. It is one way that people can get themselves notoriety if they're known as being a fighter, especially if they're a good one. If you're good at debating and good at doing a verbal one-upmanship to some other guy or some other group you're given a prestige. It's an honorable thing, but scripture says it's honorable to be a peacemaker, and so the beginning of strife is like the letting outta water. It starts out small, like a little stream, but soon that thing can be like a flood that overcomes people and damages and destroys all the things in its past. So there's certainly a time to fight. There is a time to have it out and to hash things out like men. But by and large the default posture of a godly man and woman is not to be pug nastious, but to be a peacemaker. That's what qualifies the sons of God. Maybe we need to be more, those that drop the mic before the mic drop. Maybe that's a good, that's a good point right there. Sermon title, maybe. It could be. Yeah. 28 is always one that, that is is humorous. And I think everybody can say, man I, there's a little bit of me there. Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise. When he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. And so that, that's a good word. Sometimes it's better to just say, you know what, I'm just gonna keep quiet and let everybody think that. That I understand what's going on here. Maybe I don't. Opening your mouth and removing all doubt that you know nothing, right? Yeah. Alright. Chapter 18. Yeah, 18 one. Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire and he breaks out against all sound judgment. Just another reminder that Christianity is meant to be lived in community. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are meant to be a family together. We are not meant to isolate ourselves. We're not meant to withdraw and say that, that we can do this part of our life on our own. And so as much as you possibly can. Bring your life into the church and into community with other brothers and sisters in Christ. That's a good thing. You should be doing that. Church is not something we add to our family's life. We add our family to the life of a church. And this is the principle here. We don't wanna seek our own desires. We don't wanna be, self-serving. We want to. Come into the community of Christ where we can know others and be known by others, and that's gonna benefit us as believers. Amen to that man. I we could talk a lot about this because we're, we are so isolating in our current culture. Yeah. Western culture encourages this mindset mentality. So much so that I don't even think that we notice it. We are individualized that we rarely give. Do attention and time to the communal aspect that scripture speaks to us in. In fact, it assumes community every time it talks to us. By and large, the imperatives are plurals. They're not, Hey, you personally, you do this, although it's obvious, yes, you should do that, but it's always the plural you all must do this. The one anothers are considered important because that's so much of how the New Testament is littered with commandments. Yeah the one anothers of the faith. Isolating yourself and being a loner, it's easy to justify that and say that's just my personality. I think you need to let your personality be shaped by Christ instead of shaped by your preferences. I would prefer. To be alone most of the time. That is my personal proclivity. But I have learned by God's grace that I need people. We need people, and scripture tells me this, which is why even if I don't feel like it, I'm still gonna say, my default should be, I wanna be around people because this is good for me and good for the body of Christ. They need me, I need them. Yeah. Yeah. And by and large, you're gonna see the model throughout scripture. Is that God leads us into community rather than lead leading us into isolation. Jesus did withdraw and there are times for us to withdraw and there are times for us to be alone totally. To focus on our walk with Christ. Amen. By and large the natural course of life is meant to be lived with other people. That's why when Adam was in the garden, God said it is not good that he should be alone from that point forward. The ideal was, and the clear direction was we were meant to live in community with each other. And that begins, yeah, husband and wife and so forth and so on. But that's all realized in its full realization in the church itself. Yeah. Let us encourage you, if you're an introvert. Let us encourage you start small. You don't have to start by being an ex extrovert or pretending that you're an extrovert. Yeah. Come to things early and stay later. Be one of the last people to leave. That's a really good, easy way to start inviting more community into your life. Yep. Yep. Yeah. This chapter in 18, just in general, I think is such a good communication chapter. There's so many principles in this chapter that just speak to how you have good communication between two people. And if that's an area that you struggle with in your marriage or you struggle with your family or you just struggle with at work, there are so many good points in this chapter to, to read through, to say, okay, yeah, I could start doing that. Like verse two, A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in, in expressing his opinion. When you're in a conversation with someone in an argument a conflict, a debate, are you trying to understand what they're saying or are you just. Only interested in making your point known. Verse six, A fool's lips walk into a fight and his mouth invites a beating. That kind of goes back to what we were just talking about letting out the strife and you're able to stop things if you need to stop things. There, there's just so many good points in Proverbs 18. It's the communication chapter. If this is an area that you're weak in or need to grow in, and this is a good chapter to, to hang out and marinated. And on that note, let's. Let's quickly identify what's being said in verse 21. This is one of those verses that's often utilized but let's make sure that we're on the same page here. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. I've heard it utilized by some teachers name it and claim it. If you speak death into your life, you should expect. Death, you'll enjoy the fruit of death if you're speaking death. So make sure that you're speaking life. There's even a famous song, speak Life. Speak Life by Toby Mac. Toby Mac. I don't think he's, I don't think he's trying to misuse the verse, but I think a lot of people might misunderstand the nature of verse 21. Yeah. Because they're being informed by pro prosperity teachers, by and large. That's who I'm thinking about. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Manifest that. Yeah. That's not what it's about. Yeah. Alright hey, let's what else? Anything else in, in chapter 18 there that you wanna hit on before we wrap up? It's not what that means. Verse 21, just to be clear let's say what it does mean. I was giving you a chance to throw to, to throw it down and tell us what it does mean. Oh, I'm sorry. It does not mean that you can manifest things into your life. True. It does not mean that in fact. Look at verse 20 as you read, verse 21, and maybe that'll help you understand it. From the fruit of a man's mouth, his stomach is satisfied, he's satisfied by the yield of his lips, death and life from the power of the tongue. And those who love it will eat its fruits. In other words, those who love using their words, your words are gonna catch up to you. So we're not saying it's altogether. I impossible to influence your surroundings by the words that you use, but we're not saying it's a one-to-one correlation. You can't say, if I speak positive words, positive things are gonna happen. Or if I speak negative words, only negative things are gonna happen. Our words do shape our reality, but they're not promises. They're not little vessels or containers that manifest certain activity on your part. This is not what was that famous book that came out? The Secret? Remember the Secret? Yeah. This is not the secret. This is God saying, look, if you love using your words. Things are gonna happen for better and for worse. If you don't use your words if you don't use your words, and the fruit of that's gonna be experienced as well. So whether you're a big talker or a little talker or somewhere in between, the way that you use your words will have consequences. Yeah. And even as far as your relationships go, you can be life-giving in your words to another person by building them up, encouraging them, confronting sin. That's life-giving even. Absolutely. Even there, right? Or you can be somebody that brings destruction to relationships. If you are critical, if you are harsh, if you are an angry person, bitter person with your words. And so you're going to experience life and death in your relationships and you're gonna eat of the fruit of your tongue in that. If you find that you. Don't have close friends anymore. Maybe you need to start with the types of words that you're saying and how you're communicating with other people. Precisely, yeah. Yeah, for sure. You used the word in nine's Bible sa say Sadie. Sadie say You were talking about food satiety. Yes. I, it was a new one for me. Oh. I get it from satiate or, yeah. To be satisfied, but I'd never heard it in that form. Satiety. Yeah. I learned it because I, I did a little bit of reading in food science and how they designed foods to overcome your satiety signals. Yeah. And that's what makes a Dorito so delicious is that there are people that are making it to be hyper palatable so that you want to eat the whole bag. You never feel satisfied. You never feel satisfied. And that means you buy more that's Lays, but you can't eat just one Pringles, I think it's, is that Lay's? I think it's Lay's. I don't know. Yeah, I know. They all taste amazing. They do. Yeah. Chips are my downfall, man. Oh, good chips. So good. Chip will end me. Nachos, some brisket, nachos especially. I've gone, I've grown accustomed to brisket nachos in Texas. They're good. All right. Let's pray. God, we we are grateful for the trees that we are able to draw out of your word. We, we wanna stop right now and just give you thanks for the birth of Warren Kogan. I. And we are thankful for the Kogan family and that it was a healthy labor and delivery. And we are just looking forward to them getting back in and getting to meet Kogan and see Kogan or Kogan getting to meet Warren and see Warren grow up before us as a part of our church family here too. God we're thankful for the proverbs and the wisdom that we get to draw from it, and we just pray that we would be people that do seek. To communicate well in that our speech would be seasoned and in evidenced of the word of God that dwells deeply within us. And so help us to be a people. The words that we can speak life in one another's lives as well. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Keep reading Bibles, tuning again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Congratulations, Kogan family. Only three more to go. Bye.

thanks for listening to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about ourChurch@compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review to rate to share this podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening on, and we will catch you against tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said