Bible Guys Classics: Proverbs 11

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Hey, everybody, Happy Friday, the day after Thanksgiving? Yes,

everybody is looking forward to leftovers, turkey sandwiches, Yes, and

heating up everything.

And big screen TV's Big Screen TV sales.

Oh black Friday.

That's what you met spending money like crazy?

Yeah, people do that, they do.

Have you ever done, although although it's not what it

you used to be. No, right, back in the old days,

we should tell all the young whippers that people used

to go to the stores. That's right, and we would

we would camp out on the sidewalks like four in

the morning.

No, not we day Yeah yeah, oh you never did.

No, oh, we used to do it. No fun.

It's fun, but like Bonnie and I miss it. We

used to it was so much fun. Oh yeah yeah, Wow,

plot your your spending because we would get most of

our Christmas shopping done on Black Friday back then.

I think I would.

I think I did Black Friday one time just to

experience it, and I was like, I could do without this.

Yeah yeah, wow.

I think I saved it was it was a TV actually, yeah,

but I think I saved something like sixty five dollars.

Oh well, then you didn't do it right, Yeah, but

it was.

It was not a big TV.

But I actually thought to myself, I would pay sixty

five dollars not to do that again.

Wow, it was that bad.

I just didn't like it. I just didn't like it.

We liked it.

Yeah, okay, so but not anymore now you just sit

on your all stuff.

Haven't it is? Yeah?

Way, today we're going to do a segment what.

This is great? What made Chris happy this week?

Happy this week?

I know?

So we we're forsaking everybody's favorite segment, What made Chris

mad this week? Yeah, instance, it's Thanksgiving. We thought we'd

give you one week, yes, one week this year to

be happy. Yes, one week, just just just this one day.

Can you muster it in your heart to find something

to be happy and thankful for?

Well?

Thanksgiving weekend?

Well, Jeff, I thought about this because I looked at

it mere moments before we started recording. Yes, and I

realized that I had to come up with something that

may be happy this week.

Realized he had to come up with something.

Oh no, I got to think of something that made

me happy. It's so foreign to your to you every

day living.

Now, wait a minute, that is not true.

I had to I had to think of something quick.

I am often happy. Okay, you have been happy in

the past, but at point there have been happy moments.

Yes, there have been. So here's what made me.

Here's what stood out in my mind is, of course,

what may be happy this week is the Lions victory

on Thanksgiving Day, how they destroyed the Bears.

Wow, right, that's that's impressive. Yes, considering they haven't played yet.

That's a prediction. Yeah, that's a prediction. You're predicting, So

listen you realize how clever this is.

So clever we are recording a week before Thanksgiving, that's right.

And yet what I'm doing is I'm celebrating that when

this airs, by the way, that the Lions have won

with confidence, Jeff, that we won, like.

You remember that we destroyed those stinking Bears.

You remember the hang on the two interceptions that our

defense had that was incredible, really one of them by

number zero?

Wow?

Really right? Yeah? The safety whatever is yeah?

Yeah, wow that guy? And then you also remember that

forty six yard run by Gibbs.

Wow.

Okay, hey, hey, just somebody buy a watery day.

Play the number.

So the game, but just for those you're listening, the

game has not played yet. Yes for us, you're listening

now it did you know whether or not Chris.

And the score is going to be or no? It was.

Go he's gonna call a score too.

Du Bears scored ten points and the Lions scored thirty five.

Oh youth to go three games of fifty three.

I'm going to say I'm gonna split the difference. I'm

going to say I'm going to say forty.

Forty two.

Oh okay, okay, okay, wow, all right, well, there you go,

two to ten, there you go.

So you're kind of a prophet, Yeah, I am a prophet.

Yeah wow.

So do you know what the Bible says that if

a prophet lies, they're supposed to be put to death.

Oh well that is not a fly in the New Testament,

because yeah, that's that's really bad.

If he prophesies false prophecies.

Yeah, okay, okay.

Well they have to claim it's from God.

I'm not claiming this is just the top of your head.

This is yeah, this is me being clever. Okay.

And by the way, that means like if I were

to literally say this, I have a friend, a good friend.

In fact, she's listening right now, but my good friend.

But but she she always would go like, if there's

like some magical thing that happens, to go and play

the lottery. Oh no, yeah, she does all the time.

She's a good friend. So she's one of those people

who just can't, you know, get.

Away from that. Now. Granted not a lot of money,

but she's like, oh, must best be lottery.

It's a lucky day. Yeah yeah, well Chris used up

all the good luck just right here.

Yeah, that's right, that's right.

Okay, so don't don't don't use him as excuse to

go blow all your money.

That's correct, that's correct. Anyway, Hey, it's funny. I'm thankful

for the lions that.

I hope.

I hope your predictions are correct. Yes, we will find out.

Well, Jeff, to be honest with you, I'm happy thinking

about it right now.

So so let me get this correct. So you're a prophet,

and you're prophesying these things. And secondly, yes, in a

segment that said, what made Chris happy this week? Yes,

you had to scramble to think of something, and you

thought of something that has not yet happened, and it

makes me happy. Nothing this week made you happy. You're

guessing next week made you happy.

How clever I am in this segment makes me okay.

Okay, there you go.

Yeah, well I'm proud of you too, Chris, job, good job.

I hope I hope that you are correct on this prediction.

I know I am.

Okay.

Yes, So speaking of.

Uh, come on, I don't know.

I'm looking for some thing.

Speaking for speaking, we're trying to think of a terrible

I don't have one here. Speaking of winning scores, winning scores, Solomon.

Is about to give us the formula on how to

win on life.

I was thinking about dishonest measurements. But there's that.

Oh come on, yeah, keep it posuad, keep it positive.

Okay. I don't know, I don't know.

I already did it.

You already found it. You already found it.

No, thank you, it's it, Okay. I came up with

the winning scores.

Winning scores.

So we're going to be We're continuing with Proverbs and

just downloading more wisdom for a little while. And Proverbs

chapter eleven, verse one says the Lord detests the use

of dishonest scales, but he delights and accurate weights. I

feel like I've heard that verse before. Yeah, like yesterday. Yes,

pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. Honesty

guides good people. Dishonesty destroys treacherous people. Riches won't help

on the day of judgment, but right living can save

you from death. The godly are directed by honesty. The

wicked fall beneath their load of sin. The godliness of

good people rescues them. The ambition of treacherous people traps them.

When the wicked die, their hopes die with them, for

they rely on their own feeble strength. The godly are

rescued from trouble, and it falls in the wicked instead.

With their words, the godless destroy their friends, but knowledge

will rescue the righteous. The whole city celebrates when the

godly succeed, they shout for joy when the wicked die.

Upright citizens are good for a city and make it prosper,

but the talk of the wicked tears it apart. It

is foolish to belittle one's neighbor. A sensible person keeps quiet.

A gossip goes around telling secrets, but those who are

trustworthy can keep a confidence. Without wise leadership, a nation fails.

There is safety in having many advisers. There's danger in

putting up security for a stranger's debt. It's safer not

to guarantee another person's debt. A gracious woman gains respect,

but ruthless men gain only wealth. Your kindness will reward you,

but your cruelty will destroy you. Evil people get rich

for the moment, but the reward of the godly will last.

Godly people find life, evil people find death. The Lord

detests people with crooked hearts, but he delights in those

with integrity. Evil people will surely be punished, but the

children of the godly will go free. A beautiful woman

who lacks discretion is like a gold ring and a

pig snout.

That's awesome.

Away with words.

Yes, the god that can look forward to a reward,

while the wicked can expect only judgment. Give freely, become

more wealthy, be stingy, lose everything. The prosperous or the

generous will prosper. Those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.

People curse those who hoard their grain, but they bless

the one who who sells in time of need. If

you search for good, you'll find favor. But if you

search for evil, it will find you. Trust in your

money and down you go. But the God they flourish

like leaves in spring. Those who bring trouble on their

families inherit the wind. The fool will be a servant

to the wise. The seeds of good deeds become a

tree of life. A wise person wins friends. If the

righteous are rewarded here on earth, what will happen till

wicked sinners? Well, there you go.

There, it is.

So.

A beautiful woman who.

Lacks I know you're going to that one first is

like a.

Gold ring and a pig's snout, And what a vision.

He's not speaking about women, he's just talking about beautiful

people in general.

Well, he's talking about how, first of all, pigs are

were an unclean animal. That's correct to those who are Jewish,

right and still are by the way, And so a

gold ring and a pig snout is probably one of

the visual aids that he could muster up.

That is like the thing that doesn't belong.

Ye, what in modern times we say, it's like putting

lipstick on a pig, right, right, same same idea. It's

the same concept, you know, you.

Know, an unclean animal in the mud having a gold

ring in the snout.

It's really you know, he's trying to come up.

With extremes there, right, A beautiful woman who lacks discretion,

it's just yeah, it's it's like it's like the the

beauty is is made dirty and made unattractive by her

lack of discretion. Right, that's what it is, right, So yeah,

that's it's pretty pretty incredible. Hey, you know what, you

know what verse I like? Actually the one that stood

out to me, which one vers no tell me, Chris, Yes,

I was about to vers over twenty. The Lord detests

people with crooked hearts, but he delights with those with integrity. So, uh,

I did a message one time, I think I I

think I made it when I was a youth pastor

in the nineties, and I still remember it, and those

who are in my youth group could probably still tell

you about it because because I did a whole series

on it and everything else. But anyway, it was called

the Rise of Personal Integrity. And the idea is that

when you lack something, let's just say, like you're having

a moment of temptation in this area, because everybody has

different areas that they're weak at, right, So you know,

let's just say you lack something in this one scenario. Well,

if you have integrity, integrity will rise to the surface

and it will fill in the gap in which you lack.

So I did was I did like this series in

Daniel and so like member in Daniel chapter one where

he lacks instructions from parents, right, and so he lacks

it good advice. And so what ends up happening is

is you know, here he is, he's captured, he's taken

the Babylon. He's put into a scenario where he's like,

oh no, he doesn't have parents around to advise him.

Then all of a sudden, what happens, void of instruction,

What happens is is I built the case that integrity

rose to the surface, and it came out of him, uh,

through the you know, through the lens of him saying,

I will not defile myself, right and then uh, and

then and then I then I built another case where

it says, uh, you know, uh, he doesn't have any

pastoral guidance from a pastor, he's gotten no spiritual advisor.

Then all of a sudden, because he lacks that in

his life, uh, you know, it's the rise of personal integrity.

Uh.

You know when when he lacks uh uh you know, discernment,

you know, and he prays or whatever he's going to

do or no, no, it's it's the it's the entrapment

of the king. And then all of a sudden, you know,

his his integrity rises. Anyway, I built all these scenarios

where he lacks something, something's missing, and then integrity rises.

And and so what I did I remember this, This

is the illustration that sticks out in my mind so.

Do you know what blood type you are? No, you

do not.

You really need to find this out because I think

I've mentioned this before.

But uh have like red blood?

Yeah, yeah, I've seen it plenty of times.

Yeah.

Did you know that in the old in the olden times,

they thought that blood was blue because your veins were blue,

and then when it hit the air it was red.

But that's not true.

It's not true.

No, not a long but anyway, and by the way,

Mary Poppins even things that underneath your blood is blue

and then take fandic goes common knowledge. Anyway, The point

is is that I have oh positive blood. And what's

interesting is is, let's just say you have like a

negative and if you give a blood transfusion to somebody else,

you could only give it to people who are a negative.

But because I'm O positive and oh negative is the

is the best. Oh negative is universal, but positive, I

can give it to like four different people. And because

my blood contains more factors of what that person lacks.

And so, my, my, that's why I keep you wrong.

That's right just in casese you're like a mag of

blood everywhere.

That's right.

So so but but but so I contain more factors

of what people lack, right, And that's what integrity is.

It's the universal donor.

So no matter what it is that you lack in

your life, you may be in a situation where you

lack strength, or you lack wisdom, or you lack instruction,

or you lack accountability.

That's what it was accountability of friends.

Right, because because because Daniel no longer had his friend

Schick Meeksheck and Mendigo with the lion in chapter six, that's.

What it was. It was you lacked accountability. Right.

And yet what happens uprises personal integrity. So all that

to say, that's a big long explanation to say that

he delights with those with integrity. Integrity is a word

that when you have integrity, it really is almost everything.

Right.

It's like it's you know, you.

Want wisdom, you want discipline, you want uh, faithfulness, you

want all of these things. Well, integrity is one of

those words. If you have integrity, it's sort of like wisdom, right,

it's the wisdom of character. Right.

And you need.

God's integrity, yes, right, you need the way that God

would do a thing, the right way, integrity meaning doing

the right thing the right way, Yeah, consistently.

I've got another fun story. I remember my good friend

Chris Driscoll. He since then passed away, but he was

my volunteer in my youth group at the time, and

we were racing to go to AMC to race to

a movie. It was both he and I were in

the car. We were late, and we walked over and

we had these little ATM things where you can just

go boop and you hit it, then you select the

movie and you do everything else. Well, back when they

had those kiosks when they first came out, you could

literally hit student discount or senior says a discount and

nobody checked you and you would get like a five

dollars discount or whatever it was, right, And I remember

we joked about it and I said, hey, let's go

to the chios I said, you can hit that student discount.

We both laughed, but I wasn't really serious, but we

ran over and we were such a rush.

He went to one ATM and I did the other one,

and we both hit boop, and then we said movie

time boop. Just los in the movie boop, And then

then it came up and we both look each other

and I go student discount boop and I hit it

and he looks at me and goes, integrity boop a

whole thing, and I go Pastor Chris, Pastor Chris, and

I go and I go cancel boop, you know, card

boom boe time boop. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like Slythering in the humiliation because I'm joking crooked

hearts right, I'm joking, like thinking it's so funny, like, oh,

I get a discount and he's like integrity and he

shouts it out, and I'm like, I cannot have good

for him?

What dude.

It's it's literally twenty eight years later and I still

remember it. It's like a moment of complete and utter failure.

Good for him, you know, the one that jumps off

for me. And I may have told this story. I

don't know if I've told this story on on the

podcast this podcast or not.

But I grew up.

My whole life was with these proverbs that it's so

weird for me. How often circumstances in my life come

up and there's a proverb for it. Oh, sure, this

God's wisdom thing. So we were serving at a church

in Texas, and we went out. I took my family

out to Big Ben National Park, which is giant desert.

It's stunningly beautiful. I love the desert anyways. But we

were camping up at about six thousand feet in the

Chizos Mountains, and then we go down in the valley

during the daytime do all kinds of fun things along

the Rio Grande River or whatever. And there's a canyon

called Bokias Canyon, and it's stunningly beautiful. And there's a

little village called Bokias on the Mexican side of the river.

And Bokias was at that time kind of isolated. There

weren't any good roads that came in and out on

the Mexican side, so the citizens of Bokias would come

across the river. This is back in old days, before

nine to eleven, before all those things. They come across

the river, go down the road and then cut back

into Mexico in Santa Elena that village and then be

able to go do their business. So because of that,

there was a kind of the National Park rangers would

kind of wink at the fact that Americans and Mexicans

go back and forth in that little village, and so

really the only economy there was farming and like tourism stuff.

So I actually had a couple of park rangers, go,

have you guys gone across Bokis? He said, there's a

you go down and you know, my boys were like

two years old, go down.

To the river.

Pay like a dollar per person. They'll row you across

the river. And then there's a guy Pedro. He has

some donkeys. You can pay for real guy, I promise you,

And he has some donkeys. You can ride the donkeys

into the village. And then there's an amazing restaurant sells

these incredible tacos and burritos. Sitting on a hill. You

can look right into the end of this.

I want to go there.

It was magnificent. The music's playing, the guys are playing guitars.

I promise you, sombreros the whole nine yards. It was

unbelievable experience. So that's what we do.

We get on.

Well, my boys were like three and four, and they

had water bottles because we're out in the desert. It's

one hundred and ten degrees during the daytime, so we're

carrying water with us. And my boy said, water, and

they keep squeezing their water bottle, spraying at each other.

So finally I said, listen, if you square water is life.

If you waste water, we can be in a lot

of trouble physically, and so you're going to be in

trouble if.

You waste any more water. You understand, Okay, yes, sir,

you're right. So we go in.

We have our tacos, we buy some little trinkets in town.

We come back and they row us across the river

and we're getting ready to hike into this valley and

this Mexican man steps out of the bush with a

like a soup can and he asks for agua, and

Jonathan pulls this He was like four. He pulls his

can back and he goes, no, we don't waste water,

and I said, no, come here, and I filled his

thing with water. He thanked me. We go on in

this hike. Well, I only had like twenty four ounces

of water off for each of us, and our water's

mostly gone. We hike in to this canyon and I

didn't realize it's substantially hotter in the canyon than it

is outside. We get to the end of our hike

and there's nothing there. You're just trying to walk back out.

We're two three miles into the canyon and we're out

of water. And I looked at my wife and my sons.

Their faces were red. They were You ever see somebody wilting,

You think, yeah, they're in trouble. And I realized they

were in a lot of trouble. We'd only pass one

tree in the canyon. So I get them back into

that shade, and then I said, I'll walk out. We

had some jugs of water in our car, so I

walk out. It was a couple more miles and I

come around the corner and these big, tall blond men

and this tall blonde woman come on the corner. And

this guy has an igloo cooler, one of those big

orange and yellow coolers on his shoulder with five gallons

of ice water. I can hear the icewater clank like

he's three miles in and he's carried, you know, five

gallons is forty pounds of ice water on his shoulder.

And they're just.

Walking along like nothing. And they see me. I look

like I'm all ready to die. They come running back

with their water to my kids. They soak us, They

fill our water bottles with ice water. They soak their hats,

They give them bandanas to put around their necks, and

they refresh them. And one who carries forty pounds of water,

you know, eight gallons of ice water into this place.

Well maybe that was their mission for the day. Yeah, yeah,

let's let's let's go carry some ice water into the canyon.

Find some dummies. Yeah, y dummies.

They were like angels. Right, So we're walking out of

the thing. Well, when I had given the water to

that Mexican man, Jonathan said, Daddy, why'd you waste that water?

And I said, well, Jonathan, the Bible says, if we

refresh people, God will refresh us, so you never have

to worry about being generous to other people.

God will take care of us.

Well, then we get in trouble in this canyon just

an hour later, two hours later, and we I thought

my family was going to die. I thought I've crossed

the line. Honestly, it's one of the it's the only

time in my life that I felt like I killed

my family. And so I'm barely making it out. And

God has these people, angelic beings in my mind carrying

this ice water, and they totally refresh. So my son's

four years old. We get to the car and Jonathan goes, huh, Daddy,

God did refresh this, didn't He got in the car

and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, because I hadn't

put the two and two together. So I just quoted

this verse because I'm a Christian dad that quotes Bible

verses to his kids. But my son, at four years old,

picked up. God took care of us in that moment, right,

and he gave us water. So I don't believe these

verses are only figurative. I believe them to be literal. Yes, right,

And you can't outgive God. So he says, the generous

will prosper, and those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.

The verse before, give freely and become more wealthy, be stingy,

and lose everything that doesn't make sense the way that

we know the world works. All I can tell you

is the older I get. When I've been reading these

verses since I was eight years old, they didn't make

sense to me. How do you give freely and get

more wealthy? And all I can say now at fifty

three is it's absolutely true, absolutely true, and then he says,

you know, you you refresh others, and you'll be refreshed.

It's absolutely true. These aren't just nice ideas and cute concepts.

I believe these things to be absolutely true.

Yeah yeah, yeah, well.

You know, giving freely it's it's uh, it's I think

I you know, this will air a week from now,

but we're wrapping up a series that's talking about generosity

and uh. And and one of the statements that I

made last week, which would have been two weeks ago now,

was that we are designed to give our lives away. Right,

So God, so God, you know, he actually made us

that way. Relationally, financially, we're supposed to give. And so

so I built the case and said that that if

you live your life for yourself and you're the main,

you know, priority, and you look out for yourself more

than others.

And you die, it is a wasted life.

Yeah, right, because in every single way, relationally, financially, and

everything else, we are just designed to give our lives away.

And only when we do that we actually discover life.

We discover life. And that's a financial principle, but it's

also a relational principle.

Absolutely, So it's awesome. And I think the principle is

God is a generous god, and you can't outgive God.

That's right.

So when he sees you acting like him, you choosing

to be generous, God goes, oh, I'm gonna be generous

to that one. Because God's looking for conduits to pour

his blessing into the world around us. And when we

hang on and that can't flow through us, but when

we let go, it flows through us. We'll always have

enough even while we're supplying and providing for others. So

that's awesome, incredible, awesome.

Well, hey, that is our time, and so thanks for

being here this week with us, and hopefully we'll see

you on Monday on the Baba Gosh