513. I'm saved. Great! Now what? (#2) March 20, 2024

[00:00:00] Welcome to Wisdom Today. My name is Bill Kelley and I'll be your host. In this podcast

[00:00:12] we will be exploring the book of Proverbs. Let's open in prayer. Oh, there God I thank

[00:00:24] you for anyone listening to this podcast today. Lord, I pray that you would give everyone

[00:00:29] ears to hear and a heart to receive everything you have in store for them today. I ask this

[00:00:36] in Jesus' name, Amen. This is Proverbs 20 beginning in verse 1.

[00:00:43] Wine is a macaer, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.

[00:00:51] The wrath of a king is like the roaring of a lion, whoever provokes him to anger sins

[00:00:59] against his own life. It is honorable for a man to stop striving since any fool can start

[00:01:07] a quarrel. The lazy man will not plow because of winter. He will beg during harvest and

[00:01:15] have nothing. Council in the heart of man is like deep water but a man of understanding

[00:01:24] will draw it out. Most men will proclaim each his own goodness but who can find a faithful

[00:01:33] man. The righteous man walks in his integrity, his children are blessed after him, a king

[00:01:42] who sits on the throne of judgment, scatters all evil with his eyes. Who can say, I have

[00:01:51] made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin, diverse weights and diverse measures they are

[00:02:01] both alike and abomination to the Lord. Even a child is known by his deeds whether

[00:02:10] what he does is pure and right. The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made

[00:02:18] them both. Do not love sleep, lest you come to poverty, open your eyes and you will be

[00:02:26] satisfied with red. It is good for nothing cries the buyer but when he has gone his way

[00:02:35] then he boasts. There is gold and a multitude of rubies but the lips of knowledge are a precious

[00:02:43] jewel. Take the garment of one who is surety for a stranger and hold it as a pledge when

[00:02:51] it is for a seductress. Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man but afterward his mouth will

[00:03:01] be filled with gravel. Plans are established by counsel, by wise counsel wage war. He who goes

[00:03:12] about as a tail bear reveals secrets therefore do not associate with one who flatters with his lips,

[00:03:23] whoever curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in deep darkness and inheritance

[00:03:32] gained hastily at the beginning will not be blessed at the end. Do not say I will recompense evil

[00:03:42] wait for the Lord and he will save you. Diverse weights are in abomination to the Lord

[00:03:49] and dishonest scales are not good. A man's steps are of the Lord, how then can a man understand

[00:03:59] his own way. It is a snare for a man to devote rashly something as holy and afterward to reconsider

[00:04:10] his vows. A wise king sits out the wicked and brings the threshing wheel over them. The spirit of a man

[00:04:20] is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inner depths of his heart. Mercy and truth preserve

[00:04:29] the king and by loving kindness he upholds his throne. The glory of young men is their strength

[00:04:38] and the splendor of old man is their gray head. Blows that hurt cleanse away evil as do stripes

[00:04:49] the inner depths of the heart. Friends today I'd like to take a closer look at verse 7 and

[00:04:57] proverb 20 verse 7 says this, the righteous man walks in his integrity his children are blessed

[00:05:07] after him. Friends we will take a closer look at that verse prior to closing today but what I'd like

[00:05:15] to do right now is to continue where I left off on Monday's podcast and on Monday's podcast I titled

[00:05:25] I'm saved great now what. And friends as I have gone over testimonies on this podcast on Tuesdays

[00:05:37] and for any of you listening today if you've never had an opportunity to listen to one of the testimonies

[00:05:45] that I have every Tuesday on this podcast I highly would recommend that you do that but as I have

[00:05:54] gone over about 90 of these testimonies and a lot of people have the same story that when they first

[00:06:05] received Jesus as their Lord and Savior that they did not know exactly what they meant and a number

[00:06:11] of people have said it took years for them to really understand the concept of how much God truly

[00:06:20] loved them but one thing that I really would like to get across to anyone who is a new Christian or

[00:06:30] it hasn't been that long since you said the sinner's prayer is that we have two things that we need

[00:06:39] to be aware of and that are going to come against us if we receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior

[00:06:49] but before we do that I'd like to go over the two foundational verses for this week and the first

[00:06:57] one is found in the book of Romans chapter 10 verses 9 and 10 that if you confess with your mouth

[00:07:06] the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved

[00:07:14] and we talked about that on Monday that most of you have done that now and if there's anyone

[00:07:21] that hasn't I will give you an opportunity to do that later and the second one is found in

[00:07:26] second Timothy chapter 2 verse 15 and that says be diligent to present yourself approved to God

[00:07:39] a worker who does not need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth and friends on Monday's

[00:07:48] podcast I said that once we received Jesus as your Lord and Savior you were now considered the righteous

[00:07:58] of God and you have now become the righteous because of the work that Jesus did on the cross

[00:08:07] now friends prior to becoming a Christian Satan was after you and whispering in your ear quite a bit

[00:08:17] and at that time a lot of times we would listen to what he had to say and he would tell us that we're not

[00:08:24] worthy he would tell us that we're basically worthless people we're not good enough for this we're

[00:08:30] not good enough for this and he basically makes us feel like we don't have much value

[00:08:38] and friends once you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior he is going to come in and try to attack you

[00:08:48] he's going to tell you that what you did was stupid that it was wrong that you don't need this

[00:08:55] that you don't truly believe this do you so any way I'd like to go to the book of first Peter

[00:09:02] chapter five and what I'd like to do is begin in verse five and I'm going to read through verse 10

[00:09:10] but this particular passage of scripture is entitled submit to God resist the devil

[00:09:19] likewise you younger people submit yourselves to your elders yes all of you be submissive to one

[00:09:29] another and be clothed with humility for God resist the proud but gives grace to the humble

[00:09:40] therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time

[00:09:49] casting all your care upon him for he cares for you be sober be vigilant because your

[00:09:59] adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he made of hour resist him

[00:10:09] steadfast in the faith knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in

[00:10:18] the world but may the God of all grace who called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after

[00:10:28] you have suffered a while perfect establish strengthen and settle you now friends once you say that

[00:10:40] sinners prayer it is a process before you become a changed individual now we are made of a spirit

[00:10:53] that is the primary person that we are is we are spirit now we have a soul and we live in a body

[00:11:07] once you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior one third of you the spirit that now dwells within

[00:11:16] you is totally changed it has been perfected and you now have the same spirit that actually resides

[00:11:27] in Jesus himself that part changes automatically but friends your soul which really is your mind

[00:11:39] your will and your emotions does not change automatically and Paul tells us in the same book of

[00:11:48] Romans is that we need to be renewed and basically what that means is everything that we have thought

[00:11:57] and believed our entire lives needs to change we have to start gravitating towards what the word of

[00:12:10] God says and especially living in the present world which we do today because our world is telling us

[00:12:18] all kinds of things that go totally against what the Bible teaches us most people today our world

[00:12:29] would have a say what's in it for me and the Bible tells us that we are to love God and love people

[00:12:37] so if we love people we are concerned about other people as well so how do we make that transition

[00:12:47] and friends a lot of it has to do with the word faith and once again at same book Romans is such a

[00:12:57] powerful book but what I'd like to do is go to the 10th chapter the same chapter that said that

[00:13:04] we can be saved and verse 17 says that faith comes by hearing so friends once you make that decision

[00:13:15] to become a Christian there are two things that really you need to do number one is you need to

[00:13:22] ground yourself in a good church a church that opens up the Bible and you can hear the Bible being

[00:13:33] read to you you need to kind of shop around which I suggest you do and kind of shop around and meet the

[00:13:41] people but you want to be around people that are like-minded and you want to hear or be in a church

[00:13:51] where they speak directly from the Bible and they do not shy away from it but you want to surround

[00:14:01] yourself with people you do not want to be isolated because once you receive Jesus as your Lord

[00:14:08] and Savior you need people to converse with people to share with that you have taken this step

[00:14:18] people that will gather on your side and work with you to help you through this Christian walk

[00:14:26] but what I'd like to do for the next couple minutes is think about how you can draw closer to God

[00:14:34] and to increase your faith it has to be through his word so if you've never read the Bible

[00:14:42] and you look at that great big 1,500 page book where do you begin? Friends I believe the book of

[00:14:52] Proverbs is a very good place to start and that's what this podcast is predicated on is the entire

[00:15:02] book of Proverbs what I do is read the proverb of the day every day and the book of Proverbs is basically

[00:15:10] an instruction manual it's kind of like the the guide so whenever you buy something and you have to

[00:15:19] put it together you look at the guide and that is what the Bible is the Bible is now our guide

[00:15:27] for how to live our lives and Proverbs does that so I would recommend you either listen

[00:15:34] to this podcast on a daily basis or the very minimum is to read a chapter of Proverbs and

[00:15:43] read the chapter of the day so if it's the 19th read the 19th chapter of Proverbs I also would

[00:15:51] suggest that you go to the book of Psalms and read a Psalm or two every day many people

[00:15:59] like the book of Psalms because a lot of them remind us of situations that we are going through

[00:16:08] and the Psalms the the theme of most of the Psalms is that we can rely and put our trust in God

[00:16:17] another thing on Monday's podcast I recommended that you can do a topical study so if you have

[00:16:27] something going on in your life a particular area that you're struggling with look up and Google

[00:16:35] verses that have to do with that emotion and learn and meditate on them but another thing you can

[00:16:42] do is pick a particular book in the Bible now I've suggested Proverb and I've also suggested

[00:16:52] Psalms but then I probably would recommend that you go to the gospel of Luke first now I'm not

[00:17:01] going to go into a great deal of detail because my next study that I'm going to be doing is this

[00:17:09] gospel of Luke so on Friday's podcast I'm going to give an introduction to the gospel of Luke

[00:17:18] but Luke would be a wonderful book for you to open up and try to read a chapter or so a day

[00:17:28] so that is my recommendation for today tomorrow I will pick up here and go over one other thing

[00:17:37] that we need to be mindful of if you are a new Christian but before we close I'd like to go

[00:17:45] back to our verse of the day we are in Proverbs 20 and in verse 7 it says this the righteous man

[00:17:55] walks in his integrity his children are blessed after him so friends this is one of the benefits

[00:18:04] that you now have it's a promise that you can take to the bank and rely on because now

[00:18:14] you are in the family of God the righteous man walks in his integrity integrity is a very very key

[00:18:23] component to be in a Christian I like the definition of integrity is this that you do the same thing

[00:18:33] whether people are watching you or if you are all alone I want you to think about that because a

[00:18:42] lot of times people will do totally different stuff if they know someone is watching them

[00:18:49] they do a lot of things in secret a lot of people don't want people to know what they're looking at

[00:18:56] what they're doing and the other thing is that his children are blessed after him friends that

[00:19:03] is such a good promise everyone likes to hear the fact that your children will be blessed

[00:19:11] and being in the family of God that is a promise that we can be thankful that we have my call

[00:19:21] the action is very simple today I don't know if you have a program right now I don't know if you

[00:19:29] have a particular process or if you're reading the Bible at all but I just want to review if you don't

[00:19:37] know where to start in the Bible I suggest that you get a red letter Bible if you don't have a Bible

[00:19:47] and the red letters represent the actual words of Jesus so you will find a lot of red letters in

[00:19:56] each of the four gospels I have suggested that you begin with a gospel of Luke but friends look at

[00:20:04] Proverbs make a habit of visiting that on a regular basis read the Psalms get in touch with them

[00:20:14] and try to get in to the gospels beginning in Luke friends I will never end a podcast without

[00:20:23] giving anyone an opportunity to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior if there's anyone listening

[00:20:30] today and you've never taken that step I'm hoping that you will take that step now and be bold

[00:20:38] the promises of God that if you believe in your heart and confess the Lord Jesus and believe

[00:20:47] that He was raised from the dead you shall be saved it's all you have to do so if you would

[00:20:56] repeat this simple prayer after me Jesus I believe that you are the Son of God I believe you came

[00:21:03] to earth and died on a cross for me I believe you were buried and on the third day you rose from

[00:21:10] the dead and all of my sins have now been forgiven Jesus I invite you to come into my heart

[00:21:19] I ask that you lead me and guide me from this point forward I make you my Lord and Savior

[00:21:27] now may the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord make us stay shine upon you and be gracious to you

[00:21:35] the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace friends please join me again tomorrow as we

[00:21:44] further explore wisdom today

[00:21:56] you