—
Proverbs 24:33-34 teaches us that you can’t be lazy!!!
A little extra sleep, a little more slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest—
34 then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit;
scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.
Proverbs 24 New Living Translation
Proverbs 24New Living Translation
24 Don’t envy evil people
or desire their company.
2 For their hearts plot violence,
and their words always stir up trouble.
3 A house is built by wisdom
and becomes strong through good sense.
4 Through knowledge its rooms are filled
with all sorts of precious riches and valuables.
5 The wise are mightier than the strong,[a]
and those with knowledge grow stronger and stronger.
6 So don’t go to war without wise guidance;
victory depends on having many advisers.
7 Wisdom is too lofty for fools.
Among leaders at the city gate, they have nothing to say.
8 A person who plans evil
will get a reputation as a troublemaker.
9 The schemes of a fool are sinful;
everyone detests a mocker.
10 If you fail under pressure,
your strength is too small.
11 Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die;
save them as they stagger to their death.
12 Don’t excuse yourself by saying, “Look, we didn’t know.”
For God understands all hearts, and he sees you.
He who guards your soul knows you knew.
He will repay all people as their actions deserve.
13 My child,[b] eat honey, for it is good,
and the honeycomb is sweet to the taste.
14 In the same way, wisdom is sweet to your soul.
If you find it, you will have a bright future,
and your hopes will not be cut short.
15 Don’t wait in ambush at the home of the godly,
and don’t raid the house where the godly live.
16 The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.
But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.
17 Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall;
don’t be happy when they stumble.
18 For the Lord will be displeased with you
and will turn his anger away from them.
19 Don’t fret because of evildoers;
don’t envy the wicked.
20 For evil people have no future;
the light of the wicked will be snuffed out.
21 My child, fear the Lord and the king.
Don’t associate with rebels,
22 for disaster will hit them suddenly.
Who knows what punishment will come
from the Lord and the king?
More Sayings of the Wise
23 Here are some further sayings of the wise:
It is wrong to show favoritism when passing judgment.
24 A judge who says to the wicked, “You are innocent,”
will be cursed by many people and denounced by the nations.
25 But it will go well for those who convict the guilty;
rich blessings will be showered on them.
26 An honest answer
is like a kiss of friendship.
27 Do your planning and prepare your fields
before building your house.
28 Don’t testify against your neighbors without cause;
don’t lie about them.
29 And don’t say, “Now I can pay them back for what they’ve done to me!
I’ll get even with them!”
30 I walked by the field of a lazy person,
the vineyard of one with no common sense.
31 I saw that it was overgrown with nettles.
It was covered with weeds,
and its walls were broken down.
32 Then, as I looked and thought about it,
I learned this lesson:
33 A little extra sleep, a little more slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest—
34 then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit;
scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.
—-
How to Guard Your Heart
Adrian Rogers
| Love Worth Finding
2021
26 Apr
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil (Proverbs 4:23-27).
How does God intend for us to live? The book of Proverbs beautifully takes practical matters, interweaves the spiritual, and makes life the beautiful thing God wants it to be. When a person knows God and is right with God, they will find they live a perfectly natural, intensely practical, and deeply spiritual life all at the same time. That’s what God intends.
What Does it Mean to “Guard Your Heart”?
In the Old Testament the word “heart” is used more than 800 times, but more than 200 times it deals with one’s thought life, emotions, the wellsprings of life, those things that motivate and mold us. The Bible calls that the heart. I’m calling it the thought life.
Why is the thought life so important? Why did Solomon tell his son, “above all else, guard your heart; for out of it are the issues of life?” Because the thought life controls the rest of your life.
If you tell me what you think, I’ll tell you who you are and the life you live. What you think is what you are. The thought life controls you. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).
Your thoughts—positive, negative, good, or bad—control your attitudes. Your attitudes are the sum total of your thoughts. Your attitudes lead to your actions.
Your Thoughts Control Your Actions
All good psychologists will tell you that. Someone once said, “Sow a thought, reap a deed. Sow a deed, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.”
Before you can do a thing you have to think it. Your thoughts lead to attitudes; attitudes lead to actions; actions lead to those achievements. It all begins with the thought life. Your achievements will be the sum total of your thoughts.
This is so fundamental that God destroyed an entire civilization because they had “heart trouble.”
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil continually before God” (Genesis 6:5).
God said, “The thoughts of their heart are so evil, I’m going to have to destroy them,” and He sent the floodbecause of the thoughts of men’s hearts. The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. We’re still having the same problem they had. Do the follow questions give you pause for the condition of the heart?
- What lies do I believe about myself or the world around me, and how is that affecting my relationship with God?
- What sins or bad habits in my life are weighing me down from a higher moral conduct?
- What behaviors or habits do I know to be right, and yet avoid or ignore?
- Am I selfishly trying to find physical or emotional fulfillment through my relationships?
How to Guard Your Heart
“Be not conformed to this world; but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
When God gets ready to change someone, how does He do it? By changing how they think. God changes the thought process.
What Solomon said to his son was, “Son, guard, protect, and be careful of your thought life. Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” The Lord Jesus Christ wants us to present our bodies to Him, including our minds, that He might transform us. No wonder the devil battles for the mind. How important that we learn to keep our hearts, because a fierce battle is raging for the control of your mind.
When God is in the heart, then we think right, live right, do right. When God is absent, we think wrong, do wrong, live wrong.
Be careful what comes into your mind. You have to think pure thoughts. Now, a text without a context is a pretext, so context is important. In this passage Solomon is talking about the sexual affairs of a young man. Solomon is warning his son about having impure, immoral thoughts in his heart and life.
Let me tell you something wonderful. God made you where you can’t think two things at one time. So how do you keep from thinking what’s wrong? Just think what’s right. And if you’re thinking what’s right, you cannot be thinking what’s wrong.
It’s another way of saying, “Just load up on My Word. Get My Word into your heart.”
- “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
- “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.”
- “I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.” (Psalm 119:9-11)
Store up the word of God.
How are you going to think pure thoughts? By thinking positive thoughts. Not thinking about flowers and birds and trees, but the mighty Word of God. “The Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). Get it in your heart. It has power to cleanse and keep you.
From your thought life and through your thought life God wants to minister to you. A God-controlled thought life will—
- Govern your speech (v. 24)
- Guard your sight (v. 25)
- Guide your steps (v. 27)
If you want to know what is in your heart, just listen to what escapes your mouth. Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). As they say in the country, “What’s down in the well comes up in the bucket.”
When your mind is clear and right with God, when you think the thoughts of Christ after Him, when you have the mind of Christ, when you’re being transformed by the word of God and the power of God and the Spirit of God in your thought life, then you’re going to be doing the will of God.
God has a plan for you, a wonderful plan. The book of Proverbs shows you His plan for having health, wealth, and wisdom. It begins in your thought life.
Sermon Overview
Scripture Passage: Proverbs 6:16-19
Proverbs 6:16-17 says, “These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood…”
Every day in America, thousands of innocent babies will be slain as a result of the grizzly abortion industry. They will have no chance or trial; no jury or lawyer to argue their case, and they will be executed in a cruel and inhumane way. No matter the vocabulary social engineers use to soften it, abortion snuffs out innocent lives. A baby is not an extension of the mother’s body; this child is a new life, and the object of God’s love and affection.
God determines when life begins, not the Supreme Court. And in Jeremiah 1:5, God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
Abortion transgresses the Golden Rule, which is to do to others as you want others to do to you (Matthew 7:12). It also goes against our God-given natural instinct to protect the unborn. To destroy that instinct is to go against God. Abortion is also primarily rooted in selfishness and greed.
No matter the explanations we receive from those who advocate for “choice,” we must stand our ground. We must speak up for the unborn child who cannot speak for himself.
We must also forget our self-righteousness and have more compassion toward unwed mothers. We should so-cover them in grace and prayer that our judgment never chases them into the abortion clinics.
Finally, we must pray fervently that God will have mercy on us and give us time to repent.
Adrian Rogers says, “I’m living for that day when we have a revival of righteousness in America. I want to believe it’s coming—that God, not any preacher or president, will do something in America; God is our only hope!”
Apply it to your life
We must stay informed about the shedding of innocent blood in this nation. As we work for and pray for a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion, let us also see to it that sexual morality is being taught at home and in the church. Pray that God will have mercy upon us and give us space to repent.
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