Bible Guys Classics: Proverbs 13

You're listening to the Bible guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways.

Hey, good morning everybody. We're the Bible guys.

Yes, yes we are.

Yes, that is who we are. And today we're going

to start out with a segment. Oh.

I thought I was going to be listening to an

episode of This Old.

House, right, but it actually says you're listening to the

Bibble to the Bible guys. That's right, a podcast where

a couple of friends talk about the Bible and fun

and practical ways. So anyway, Desiree put together a segment

called Stump the.

Pastor and Dump the Pastor.

These are fun.

These are fun.

Man, you like stump the Pastors?

I do. I like it a lot.

I think that people probably wish for more of them,

depending on the question.

So the day that we're shooting this episode, I'm with

our Young Adults Ministry.

Yeah.

Yeah, and a big part of the event tonight we're cooking.

Yeah, they're going to do questions.

But it's open form Q and A. It's literally you

can ask any question, right, Yeah. Do you like that?

Do you like the open forum?

I think it's great.

I think that there are times where somebody will ask

you a question that requires a very long answer, and

and it's usual.

You don't like long answers. I like long answers.

I just think that, like sometimes the questions, the multitude

of questions is what's interesting to me, not necessary, not

necessarily a twenty minute answer to one question that ten

percent of the room is interested, That's all I was

trying to say.

So when they ask questions that.

Require a really long discussion, I'm like, oh, I would

have preferred to have ten more other questions.

Oh yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, I like

the long ones because I think one of the arguments

is a lot of times, you know, for people who

struggle with the church or struggle with faith, they'll say, well,

you know, I used to go to church, and then

when I had questions, they were like, just believe it

because it's in the Bible.

Yeah.

Right, Well that's not a bad answer, or it's not

a wrong answer, it's just a bad answer, right. So

I love it when when we can just go, okay,

there's a reason less you're going to ask a question

to take a long time. You guys want to take

a long time on this one.

Yes, okay, And so what I do, what I've what

I've done, I've only done it once actually, But what

I've what I've done is I've been in those situations

where I've said, hey, uh, I probably assume there's about

ten people in this crowd that are interested in this answer.

I was like, so, after we're done and we dismiss,

I'm gonna be right over here in this corner. I'll

give the long answer to the to anybody who wants

to listen, because they want to waste the crowds time.

So and it turns out there was like five people

and they were riveted, you know, by the answer. But

I just didn't feel like, you know.

Not me.

Everybody's getting it. Everybody's getting it's open for him.

Yeah, that's right.

And by the way, that's how you manage and control

open form. Yes, that's rights wax ally coin on this stuff.

That's not going to get you eaten alive.

That's true.

Okay. So anyways, here we go stump the pastor.

Yep, this is this is from Tim R.

Hi Tim R.

Yes, and he wrote in a question her you can

Tim Nope, it's Tim R.

Kim R.

Timmy Tim.

Uh hey, he actually wrote in uh something that anybody

can write in and you you want to, you want

to email us email us at info at the Bible

guys dot com with any of your questions and we

might use them in the future episode. Tim writes this,

if big extravagant miracles were regular occurrence in the early church,

why don't we see them as frequently as today or

frequently today?

Well, God fell asleep.

God is in the restroom.

He's not paying attention.

That's what That's what Elija said.

That's what I just said that when he was haunting

the prophets of Ail.

Is God in the restroom? Uh.

That's a great question, Tim, because we do see miracles

today for sure. But the big extravagant miracles is what

he said, right, which is take up your bed and

walk kind of miracles. Right.

Uh. You know your daughter's not dead, she's only sleeping,

that's right. Right.

So, so so where are they today? So I got

to tell you something. It's an interesting thing for me. Uh.

You and I both just went to a conference by

the Timothy Initiative in Florida, and it's interesting to me

how you.

Which is a church planting movement all around the world. Yes,

in the least reached people groups around the world.

Yes, and and and and I have a tendency to

be around some of those things. And you always hear

of extravagant miracles around the world. So you always hear

of like, for instance, when we were there, Uh, these

people who I believe in and know personally and trust

stand up there. And there was this one one Indian

pastor who shared a story Reggie about a guy who

became a Christian but he couldn't read and uh and

he and he prayed that God would uh uh you know,

give him the ability to read and uh and he

prayed for a long time, and everybody knew in the

village that he number one one grew up not being

able to read. And number two, they also knew that

he had been praying this prayer and he was praying

this audacious, radical prayer of he just wanted God to

give him this ability to read.

And they actually have it on video.

They showed it on video where he actually picked up

the Bible and one day just started reading.

Yeah, but only the Bible, but only the Bible.

Can't read anything else, can't read a newspaper, can't read

anything else, and this and this Indian pastor, Reggie, was

just you know, shouting this thing.

And then.

And then and all of a sudden he shows this

video and this. You know, here's this guy sitting in

this plastic chair in this dusty old room and he's

reading this Bible. And then all of a sudden, ninety

eight percent of the village became Christians because of the miracle,

the extravagant miracle.

That God did.

And so you and I hear of these miracles, and

so as being a skeptic, and I don't think people

truly understand the word skeptic because when I say I'm

ask people think, oh, okay, yeah, I have my doubts too,

And I'm.

Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No, that's not what a skeptic is. A skeptic is

I don't believe you. I flat out do not believe

that sentence. That is what a skeptic is. Until you

prove to me that that is true. I don't believe it.

And so, because I'm a skeptic at heart, there's always

something in me that goes come on right. It's not

that I doubt God in fact, ironically, when I take

my spiritual gift test, you know what, My number one

spiritual gift is faith.

Faith.

So it's like it's like it's like I'm a skeptic.

God made me a you know why am I a

skeptic God? But at the same time, I have faith.

So when it comes to me serving God, faith is

just it comes to the surface immediately.

But when it comes to you.

Know, hearing other people around the world going I just

started to read, I.

Go, come on, And I don't know why I'm that way,

but I sure am.

Well you saw the video of that one.

Well not only that, but here's the thing you have

to have to ask yourself, do I believe that this

person is trying to lie?

And what do they have to gain to lie? And

and you know, and.

Here are they creating a lie? Where here's this man

who just becomes a Christian. He's known throughout the village

of not being able to read, and then all of

a sudden I see him reading. It's like he would

have to have a lifetime, quite literally, a lifetime of

pulling that prank, right, And so then you're just sort

of forced to look at the evidence to go it

is a miracle, and it's an extravagant one, and it

happens around the world.

So I had a professor who was a missionary. He

was in his eighties, in nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety,

he was in his late eighties. So he was a

missionary in those explorer missionary times. Yes, in the twenties

and thirties. Right, Yeah, it's really really.

Where the missionary gave up their lives and talked to cannibals.

Well back when you got on a boat, right and

went to where you were going, right, that's where. And

he always was in places where there had never been

the gospel. And so somebody, a student asked the same

question in one of the classes.

So the same question, we're the same same.

Question tim is asking here, right, And that is I

read the Book of Acts. It's miracles all the time. Which,

by the way, there's about sixteen or seventeen miracles depending

on how you count them, maybe twenty miracles in the

twenty six chapters of the Book of Acts. So they're

recorded because they're so out of the ordinary, just to

point that out, by the way. But anyways, doctor Champlain said,

so when the student said, you know, why don't we

see miracles today? He said, Oh, where the Gospel is

moving for the first time, it's still always only miracles.

That's what's happening all the time. He said, if you're

living a life that needs miracles, God will give you miracles. Right.

But what you think is you're asking for miracles to

make your personal life better. But God, if you read

the Bible, miracles are always happening on the front lines

of where the Gospel is moving. So if you need

miracles and want miracle in your life, you need to

be on the front line of the move of the Gospel.

So God's agenda for miracles is to further his word

so that people would not go to hell and go

to Heaven.

That's right, Yeah, that's right. And so that that's the

story Reggie told, or bekaylay Shenko told the same story. Right,

he's the vice president of a similar story. He's vice

president of the crew in charge of church planting around

the world. And it's the story of his father who

I mean Bekaylay and his father served the witch doctor,

most powerful witch doctor in Ethiopia and on top of

the mountain's that's what they did. And then Bekaylay's father

became a Christian, began to beg God to teach him

how to read because he couldn't read. And then God

miraculously gave an ability to read. And now in their

tribe of over a million people, ninety eight percent of

the people are Christians, over a million, over a million,

that's yeah. Yeah, they're building the largest cross in Africa

on the mountain where that witch doctor.

Used to be Wowah used to be.

You know, called down lightning from the sky. It was

pretty pretty incredible, right, So it's neat stuff. Well, there's

lots of those. I mean, I've heard of people, you know,

being given their sight back. I've known of people that

were completely unable to walk that God restored their strength

in order to be able to get to the next village.

And I've seen people that it just so many stories.

I've heard so many stories and I met so many

people where it was the first move of the gospel

in that village or the first move of the Gospel

in that tribe. And God did miraculous things. So God

does miracles for his purposes, and what we want is

God to do miracles for our purposes. Well, when you

align your purpose. In God's purpose, you'll see miracles. But

when it's your purpose apart from God's purpose, well you

may or may not, because God's going to say, I

gave you my word, and I gave you the wisdom

of the word. You know, yeah, work it out well.

When I traveled in Africa and I went to with

Julius Morgre and we went up to the regions of

the Pocot and he wanted me to preach under this

tree this tree church, and the pastor Solomon I met.

Sulomon said, hey, by the way, these men are going

to heckle you, and remember this story, and anyway, I'm

not going to retell the whole story.

But the men came to Christ that day, which was amazing.

But when he said they're going.

To heckle you, he told me the backstory, and he

told it as if it were just an average every

day Tuesday, he said, yeah, he said, they came out

tried to kill me. I was injured to where I

couldn't even move to go to the hospital, and we

were in the tent and these men who left me

to die under this tree, thought I was dead. But

the women rescued me, dragged me back to the tent,

and they did so because he was bringing the gospel

to that village, that's what he was doing. And so

then all of a sudden, the men came into the

tent where he was being protected by the women.

And the men.

The elders of that village laid down offerings of sugar

bags of sugar, and said, we feel as if we

have angered your God, because God miraculously caused all of

our sheep to go blind. And so all of the

sheep imagine.

You know me there are village right, there's one hundreds,

especially among the pocuts, because that's what they are, is

they're herders.

Yes, yeah, yeah, So he said, all of our sheep

went blind. They're all blind. Think about that. And he

goes and so he goes, and this happened right after we,

you know, tried to kill you. And they said, so

we bring this offering of sugar to you, uh, and

and that we want you to accept and forgive us.

And he said, I'll forgive you on one condition that

that I am able to uh plant a church here,

and that I have a tree. I have a church

underneath the tree that you left me under that that

that that you want to kill me, and and they said,

we have to talk about this, and they left. They

went back, had a meeting, came back and said, okay,

we'll let you have church under one condition, as long

as the men attend and we're able to navigate and

monitor everything that you're saying to our to our village,

to our women.

And he's like, uh so, then, so the condition is

you attend the church.

He's like done, And he said then, and then here's

the best part. And he says, and then right after that,

all the sheep were going to regain their sight.

Now come on, now, he told me this. I was there.

I was literally spoken the church there.

I spoke in the church.

And then when I spoke, all I said was is

that the Gospel is not proven with just words, It's

proven with sacrifice. And I talked about how Julius Morgart

sacrifice his life. I talked about how our team was

there to figure out how to get them water, which

means that love is proved not with action or not

with words, but just action.

And then I used Pastor Solomon as an example.

Right, you know, he says he loves you, but guess

what he does because of these actions.

And then I used the cross.

Right, and then Jesus love does and then all of

a sudden the men came up and they all turned

their lives over.

And here I am lucky enough to, you.

Know, reap the harvest of all the watering that Solomon did, right,

and then all of a sudden they all come to

Christ underneath that tree, and I'm just like, this is miraculous.

And I guess I ended up did telling the whole story,

just not in great detail. But so the only part

that I left out was before every church service, they

all had tea, and Solomon would walk around with that

bag of.

Sugar, sugar and spread, and he would.

Put it in everybody's tea and he'd say, the sweet

forgiveness of God, the sweet forgiveness of God.

That's powerful.

Makes me want to cry.

So those kind of miracles happen all the time, every

day at the cutting edge of where the gospel is spreading.

So you want more miracles in the life, get a

part of that, right, And we have the benefit of

being a part of that. God does other miracles. I mean,

I've prayed over people that the doctors said there's no

hope he's going to die this afternoon. That one of

the guys. He's on our safety team, And this was

ten years ago, right, and he's up and walking around,

And I don't think this guy's ever going to die.

It seems like he just it's like the energizer bunny. Now.

So I've been around lots of really incredible miracles. We

played prayed for a tornado one time, and God gave

us a tornado seven days later tore down a building

we needed torn down. Oh that's right, right, that's a

whole other story. I've been around incredible miracles that God does.

Those are are few and far between, but they're always

in alignment with His purposes, not just with our appetites

or what we want. Right, and so that would be

it so great question, Tim. Let me encourage you to

get involved with organizations and things and places that where

miracles are happening. That's that's what you want to be

part of, yep, because that's where God's working. Instead of

asking God to work in me, I want to work

on what God's doing. Yeah, right, that's what I want.

Well, we took extra time for that, but now we're

going to launch End of Proverbs chapter thirteen.

This is good. Yeah, so the reason why we took

time on that one is because this is more of

the same, and you're going to notice the same themes.

Yeah, in these right that that was a fantastic stump

the past.

Your corredulous question.

Here you go.

A wise child accept us, accepts a parent's discipline. A

mocker refuses to listen to correction. Wise words will win

you a good meal, but treacherous people have an appetite

for violence. Those who control their tongue will have a

long life. Opening your mind mouth can ruin everything. That's

a good that's good marriage counseling, right there. Yeah, lazy

people want much but get little, but those who work

hard will prosper. That verse three, those who control their

tongue will have a long life. Opening your mouth can

ruin everything. These genes make my yeah, make me look fat.

Yeah right right, well, actually, yes, right right, so funny. Anyways,

I'm sorry, that's how my brain works. Lazy people want

much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper.

There's that hard work theme again. The godly hate lies man.

There's his honesty theme again. The wicked cause shame and disgrace.

Godliness guards the path of the blameless, but the evil

are misled by sin. Some who are poor pretend to

be rich, Others who are rich pretend to be poor.

The rich can pay a ransom for their lives, but

the poor won't even get threatened. The life of the

godly is full of light and joy, but the light

of the wicked will be snuffed out. Pride leads to conflict.

Those who take advice are wise. Wealth from get rich

quick schemes quickly disappears. Wealth from hard work grows over time.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled

is a tree of life. People who despise advice are

asking for trouble. Those who respect the command will succeed.

The instruction of the wise is like a life giving fountain,

and those who accept it avoid the snares of death.

A person with good sense is respected, a treacherous person

is headed for destruction. Wise people think before they act.

Fools don't even brag about their foolishness. An unreliable messenger

stumbles into trouble, but a reliable messenger brings healing. If

you ignore criticism, you'll end in poverty and disgrace. If

you accept correction, you will be honored. It is pleasant

to see dreams come true, but fools refuse to turn

from evil to attain them. Walk with the wise and

become wise. Associate with fools and get in trouble. Trouble

chases sinners, while blessings reward the righteous. Good people leave

an inheritance to their grandchildren, but the sinner's wealth passes

to the godly. A poor person's farm may produce much food,

but injustice sweeps it all away. Those who spare the

rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their

children care enough to discipline them. The godly eat to

their hearts content, but the belly of the wicked goes hungry.

There's a bunch of good ones.

In there, yeah for sure. Yeah.

And I've heard you quote hope deferred makes the heart sick.

I've heard you quote that one hundred times.

Oh, people get angry and upset is because they were

expecting something that didn't happen, right, And so you just

kind of have to be patient in that moment and

just understand, Hey, they were hoping for something that didn't happen,

and they're blaming your.

Right and so there's wisdom and trying to not be

the person that gives them false hope.

Right, right, So you shouldn't be the person to give

somebody false hope because hope, I heard it makes the

hard sick.

That's right. It's hard to lead long term if you're

constantly making people sick instead helping fulfill the dreams. Right

to the other side of.

That, Yeah, right, that's really cool.

Have you noticed how often he talks about accepting criticism

wise people accept criticism wise people?

He said two weeks ago or last week, I think

maybe you mentioned about Dave Harrington.

What would you say? He made a comment something is love?

Was it criticism?

Candor? Candor is love?

Candor is love?

Yeah, Candor is caring? Yeah, can is caring, that's.

What he said.

Yeah, yeah, and uh and and by the way, that's

assuming that the person who's being you know, giving you

the candor is uh saying the right thing, and they're

a godly person, right and their wives.

That's that's probably what you have to sort wisdom out.

And the only way you can sort out wisdom is

first of all, does it align with scripture? Does it

go against scripture? And secondly, how often does he mentioned

common sense? Right? So does it? Does it make sense?

Because we've all received criticism from a fool and that's

not what it's talking about out here, right, He's not

talking about Hey, pay attention to the criticism from a fool, right,

because that's not going to get you.

You know, poverty versus prosperity.

You have to sort out. Are they a wise person?

That's right? That's right. So I was.

Going to say, I saw verse twenty here walk with

the wise and become wise, and I was thinking, you

have just gotten wiser and wiser and wiser as I've

known you.

Chad so much time.

Chad, you got me, you got me.

Oh there you go. Hey, you finally you finally, Uh

you didn't play the higher road.

You got me, You got good Chad like that too, Chad.

Absolutely take one for the team. I want to I

want to point out one. And this might be contrary

from a pastors from what you would think of pastors say,

but verse twenty two says good people leave an inheritance

to their grandchildren. King says leaving inheritance to their children's children. Right,

But the sentner's walk passes to the passes to godly.

You know, we have this tension of Jesus, you know,

tells us to be generous. All these things the Bible

tells us to be generous. The Bible commands us to tithe.

Ten percent of our resources should go to God's kingdom. Right,

that's rent for living on the planet. God promises us

to bless us when we'd get there. He doesn't pronom

us to bless us when we're not there. So tithe

is the beginning. But then above our tithes and offerings,

he tells us that we should be generous people. And

so Christians have a hard time. Does that mean I

should give everything away? I feel guilty?

Right?

I feel Oh, I got so much blessed it. Never

feel guilty about God's blessing in your life. And as

a matter of fact, it says a good person is

going to build generational wealth, right right. So what I

found is, as we've obeyed God with our tithes, God

has blessed us beyond my comprehension to this point. As

we've stepped out and been more generous the bo over

and above our tithes and we begin giving offerings, God continues,

I can't outgive God God, but He's also given us

the opportunity to begin to build wealth that would go

beyond us. Right, And there is something about that that

you should have a good plan. A lot of Christians

have no financial plan. You don't have and there are

so many mechanisms to be able to give God even

more if you knew about how taxes work, and how

inheritances work and all these things. There's so many things.

But we need to be diligent in that area. And

the huge majority of Americans have not been diligent in

planning for what happens after them. And so I just

want to encourage Christians that are listening today if you

need help, we have a team at Heritage at our church.

If you're here in southeast Michigan, we have a team

that's moving into this area to help people make good

plans for the future. Not to get money from you,

but just we believe that this is a biblical idea. Right,

It's a biblical concept to prepare to leave in inheritance

to your children's children. Yeah, and there's something about that well,

preparing for the future.

Yeah.

And I got to be honest when I when I

went into ministry, it was a small this church, you know,

and Liz, my wife, looked up to our lead pastor

at the time and his wife. They were sort of,

you know, who she wanted to be, and they were

wonderful people. And I remember surrendering to ministry. I use

that word surrender, right, you know, instead of volunteering a

ministry or call to ministry. We back then we said

surrendered the ministry, as if as if it was a

struggle and as if like you're gonna have a life

of difficulty, right. And I remember them sitting me down,

and this is what they said. They said, if you

go into ministry, you will be poor. They said, you

will be prepared to cut coupons, be prepared to live

on nothing and have hand me downs and make your

own clothes. And I'm not even kidding, I'm not even

saying things that aren't true. I'm legitimately telling you that

they said you will be poor. And that's the way

that ministry is, and so just expect it. So when

I went to my first job and they said, you know,

the church of one hundred and eighty people, and they said, okay,

we're going to hire you at twenty eight thousand dollars

with no insurance. We're not going to pay you any insurance.

I said, okay. And then over the next seven years

when I worked there, I put like twenty thousand dollars

on my credit cards for every medical need that we had,

just because I was always taught from the very beginning

that you know. And yet you know, it took me

a long time to figure out. It's like, oh, that's

not the way that you know. There's not the biblical model, right,

right Jesus. It says that Jesus didn't have a place

to lay his head, but it didn't mean that he

was poor, right, right, right?

So anyway, Well, one of the wisest Christian men I've

ever met challenged me when I was younger, with the

idea of building a life ten ten to eighty. You

ever heard that, yep? And so he said, give God

the first ten percent, save the second ten percent, and

then and then live on the eighty percent, right, And

he said that sets you up to be able to

fulfill this verse. And he quote this verse specifically you

if you don't begin planning today to put money aside,

you will never have the ability to fulfill Proverbs, chapter

chapter what thirteen, verse twenty two. Yeah, leave inhering to

your children's children. You have to make that plan, so

prepare and I said, okay, that's what I want to do.

And I haven't always been perfect at it, but we're

getting there.

That's awesome way.

That is our time, and so hopefully we will see

you tomorrow on the Bible gush