Welcome to Wisdom Today with Bill Kelley. Today we will be going over Proverb 22. I will then key in on verse 6 - Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it. Friends, this week we have gone over next steps for people who have made the decision to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I went over the fact that satan (our adversary) will not be happy that you made that step and will try to have you "jump ship", so to speak. I also mentioned that you have to be ready to accept the fact that there may be people in your immediate family or some of your closest friends that will reject you for receiving Jesus and may want nothing more to do with you. Then I went over the importance of getting into the Bible and beginning to learn more about this God whom we will now be serving. On today's podcast I will go over a brief overview of the Old Testament and where you might want to begin in your reading process. Prior to closing I go over the importance of leading and guiding your children in the ways of God and of living your life for him.
Call to Action - Have you begun a plan of getting into Scripture on a regular basis? (If not, I suggest you follow the recommendations mentioned on this weeks' podcasts.
Suggested Scripture reading - Reread our proverb of the day, Proverb 22; read Proverb 23 on Saturday; and read Proverb 24 on Sunday.
[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.
[00:00:22] Open in prayer. Father God, I thank you for anyone listening to this podcast today.
[00:00:27] Lord, I pray that you would reveal to everyone listening how much you truly love each and every one of them.
[00:00:34] I ask this in Jesus name, Amen. This is Proverbs 22 beginning in verse 1.
[00:00:42] A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, loving favor rather than silver and gold.
[00:00:51] The rich and the poor have this in common. The Lord is the maker of them all.
[00:00:58] A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.
[00:01:07] By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life.
[00:01:14] Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse. He who guards his soul will be far from them.
[00:01:22] Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
[00:01:29] The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.
[00:01:36] He who soes iniquity will reap sorrow and the rod of his anger will fail.
[00:01:43] He who has a generous eye will be blessed for he gives of his bread to the poor.
[00:01:51] Cast out the scoffer and contention will leave. Yes, strife and reproach will cease.
[00:01:59] He who loves purity of heart and has grace on his lips, the king will be his friend.
[00:02:07] The eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge, but he overthrows the words of the faithless.
[00:02:15] The lazy man says there is a lion outside, I shall be slain in the streets.
[00:02:22] The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit. He who is abhorred by the Lord will fall there.
[00:02:31] Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of correction will drive it far from him.
[00:02:40] He who oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he who gives to the rich will surely come to poverty.
[00:02:51] Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge,
[00:02:58] for it is a pleasant thing if you keep them within you. Let them all be fixed upon your lips so that
[00:03:07] your trust may be in the Lord. I have instructed you today, even you, have I not written to you
[00:03:18] excellent things of councils and knowledge, that I may make you know the certainty of the words
[00:03:26] of truth, that you may answer words of truth to those who send to you. Do not rob the poor because
[00:03:35] he is poor, nor oppress the afflicted at the gate, for the Lord will plead their cause and plunder
[00:03:43] the soul of those who plunder them. Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious
[00:03:52] man do not go. Lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul. Do not be one of those who
[00:04:02] shakes hands in a pledge, one of those who is surety for debts if you have nothing with which to pay.
[00:04:11] Why should he take away your bed from under you? Do not remove the ancient landmark which your
[00:04:18] fathers had set. Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings,
[00:04:27] he will not stand before unknown men. Friends today I'd like to take a closer look at verse 6
[00:04:37] and Proverbs 22 verse 6 tells us this, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old
[00:04:47] he will not depart from it. Friends we're going to take a closer look at that verse prior to closing
[00:04:55] today but what I'd like to do is thank anyone who is with us today and there may be somebody
[00:05:02] listening for the very first time and you're kind of wondering what this podcast is about
[00:05:08] and what I'd like to do is review what we have learned this week. And my number one priority
[00:05:15] for everyone listening any single day is that they come to the knowledge of how much God truly loves
[00:05:23] them and that they have need of a Savior. I am so intent on the souls of people. I want everyone to
[00:05:36] come to the knowledge of who Jesus is and receive Him as their Lord and Savior. And this week we've
[00:05:44] been talking about that. When you say that sinners' prayer exactly what does that mean? And what
[00:05:53] that means is we no longer have to be concerned with going to hell when we die. We know we are going
[00:06:03] to be going to heaven so now that we've been relieved from that anxiety we now can begin to devote
[00:06:12] our life towards Jesus Christ and living for Him. We owe Him a debt, a debt that we could not pay.
[00:06:24] He paid our debt on the cross by dying for us. And so now it is up to us to live our lives
[00:06:37] for Him. And one of the things we've talked about this week is what happens now that you receive
[00:06:45] Jesus. And I went over two things that I want everyone to really think about. First of all
[00:06:53] we do have an adversary known as the devil and he is going to come against you if you take that step
[00:07:05] to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior. We talked about that in the book of 1st Peter chapter 5
[00:07:12] and it says he's going to come after you and he's going to try to devour you and to steal
[00:07:20] and kill and to destroy from you. The second thing that we are assured of is that some people in our
[00:07:28] immediate family or some of our best friends are not going to be happy if we choose to receive
[00:07:36] Jesus in to our lives and become Christians. And you may have to make that very difficult decision
[00:07:45] that you are no longer going to have certain people in your life including people in your immediate
[00:07:53] family. And I talked about the importance of learning to read the Bible. I mentioned earlier this
[00:08:03] week on one of the podcasts is that I believe that the reason why many people never open a Bible
[00:08:11] is because they are intimidated by the sheer size of it. So I gave a few recommendations.
[00:08:18] I mentioned that you could begin with the book of Proverbs and that's basically an instruction manual
[00:08:27] for how we can live our lives every day. I talked about the importance of getting into the book of
[00:08:33] Psalms and Psalms a lot of times goes over the things that happen in our lives and Psalms give you
[00:08:43] the thought that regardless of what is going in your life and how much you're struggling
[00:08:49] if you put your trust in God eventually things will work out for you. But what I'd like to do today
[00:08:58] is to basically give you a brief glimpse of the Old Testament. Some of you may not know where
[00:09:07] to open up your Bibles and what I'm going to do on today's podcast is basically give you an
[00:09:14] overview of the Old Testament. And the Old Testament has 39 books in it and the 39 can be broken
[00:09:25] into five categories. The first one is five books and the first five books at the Bible
[00:09:33] Genesis Exodus, Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy are known as the Pentateuch. All of these books were
[00:09:42] written by Moses. So let's briefly look at these books. The book of Genesis has 50 chapters.
[00:09:51] If you want to read some of the best books in the Bible the book of Genesis is a good place to go to.
[00:10:00] It talks about the creation of the world. It talks about Adam and Eve in chapters two three and
[00:10:07] four. It talks about Noah, a man who built an ark in chapters six seven and eight. We are introduced
[00:10:15] to a man named Abraham in chapter 12 and we go all the way through chapter 18 or 20 and then we find
[00:10:23] out that in his old age at age a hundred he had a son named Isaac and now we're going to learn
[00:10:31] about Isaac and him growing up. And then Isaac had two sons named Jacob and Esau and we're
[00:10:40] going to find out that Jacob ended up having 12 sons. The one who is most known to us is a man
[00:10:48] named Joseph and the last 14 chapters of Genesis refer to the story of Joseph. It's a great book
[00:10:59] next we go to Exodus and in the second chapter of Exodus a man who we're all familiar with named
[00:11:07] Moses is born. So we go through that Moses is called by God to take the country of Israel his
[00:11:19] chosen people out of the land of Egypt. The book of Exodus has 40 chapters next we're going to go
[00:11:27] to Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy and these three books talk about the introduction to the law
[00:11:36] and rules that we are to follow if we're going to lead the good Christian life.
[00:11:44] Next we have 12 and these next 12 books are called the historical books beginning in Joshua. Joshua
[00:11:55] took over when Moses died he was the one that was called to lead these relights into the promise lands.
[00:12:04] Next we go to the book of Judges. Two people found in the book of Judges are Gideon and
[00:12:13] Samson. These are people you may want to check out and you may want to read their story.
[00:12:20] Next we go to a young woman named Ruth this is a short four chapter book basically talking about
[00:12:29] love and it's a wonderful book. Next we go to first and second Samuel and we are introduced to a young
[00:12:37] man named David and David is chosen to be the next king of Israel and we know him because as a young
[00:12:49] boy he slew the giant Goliath if you're not familiar with where that is that is found in the book
[00:12:58] of first Samuel chapter 17. Next we have first and second kings and first and second chronicles.
[00:13:07] This is a history of all the kings of Israel and Judah and the exploits of those people.
[00:13:16] Next we have Ezra and Nehemiah and we close with the book of Esther and Esther is a wonderful book
[00:13:26] talking about the saving of the Jewish people. The next number is five and these are the books
[00:13:34] of wisdom and this includes Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Job is another
[00:13:45] 42 chapter book and what this is we're talking about wisdom here a lot of good stuff in Job. Psalms
[00:13:54] I've asked you to look at Proverbs I've talked to you about Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon,
[00:14:03] King David's son in his old age and Song of Solomon is a book about love. And if you want to talk
[00:14:13] about love and actually sex this is the book for you a wonderful book. The next five is broken down
[00:14:23] into four major prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. And in between we have a five chapter
[00:14:36] book called the Lamentations which was written by Jeremiah. And finally we close with 12 minor
[00:14:47] prophets and those are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nehum, Habakkuk, Zeffaniah, Haggai,
[00:15:00] Zechariah and Malachi. I am going to talk about a couple of those Hosea, a 14 chapter book
[00:15:10] and I want you to think about this because God called Hosea to marry a prostitute.
[00:15:18] I want you to think about this and the message of this book is about the fact that the country
[00:15:26] of Israel has basically committed adultery against God. They have fallen away from God
[00:15:35] and they're not following the commandments which he's given them. So what he does is go through
[00:15:43] this story and remind us that we are to follow God. And I want to mention the book of Jonah, a great
[00:15:55] four chapter book. So if you don't know the Bible take a look at the book of Jonah. It's a short
[00:16:04] book and this is talking about salvation. And Jonah was a minor prophet, God called him to go
[00:16:14] to a large city where the people are not following God and they're not doing what they're supposed
[00:16:21] to be doing. And Jonah rebelleds and he goes in the opposite direction. And so what happens
[00:16:29] is that Jonah is swallowed up by a huge whale and he lives inside that belly of the whale for three
[00:16:38] days. And eventually he is spewed out onto the shore and then he does go and preach to the people
[00:16:48] of Nineveh. And they are saved for a time. But in the book of Nahum the city of Nineveh is actually
[00:17:00] destroyed. Finally we go to the book of Malachi which closes out the Old Testament, another four
[00:17:07] chapter book and in between Malachi and the beginning of the New Testament the gospel of Matthew
[00:17:16] we have a four hundred year period. Before we close today I'd like to go back and look at our verse
[00:17:24] of the day, Proverbs 22 verse 6. And that verse tells us to train up a child in the way he should go
[00:17:35] and when he is old he will not depart from it. So friends this week I have talked about the
[00:17:42] importance of receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And one of the most important things we can do
[00:17:50] is once we take that step if we have children we need to turn our children to God. And we need
[00:18:01] to teach them the ways of God and the way that God would have us to live.
[00:18:09] Friends my call to action is very simple. Have you developed a plan when you read the Bible on
[00:18:19] a regular basis? If you have not taken that step I invite you to review some of the things that I
[00:18:29] have suggested this week on this podcast. You can go into Proverbs, you can go into Psalms, I ask
[00:18:38] that you take a look at the gospel of Luke which by the way we will be getting on Monday's podcast
[00:18:47] but then also as time allows. And if you have an extra 15 or 20 minutes check out some of these small
[00:18:57] books in the Old Testament of these minor prophets or for example the book of Ruth. All of these stories
[00:19:07] will help increase your faith by reading them. They are all wonderful stories. Friends I will never
[00:19:14] end a podcast without giving anyone an opportunity to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
[00:19:22] If there is anyone listening today you've never taken that step I invite you to repeat a simple
[00:19:28] prayer after me today. Jesus I recognize that I am a sinner. I need a Savior. I believe that you
[00:19:40] are the Son of God. I believe that you came to earth and died on a cross for me. I believe that
[00:19:47] you were buried and on the third day you rose again according to the scriptures and that now you
[00:19:56] abide on the right hand of God. Jesus thank you for forgiving me of all of my sins. I ask that
[00:20:04] you come into my heart. I ask that you lead me and guide me from this point forward in my life.
[00:20:12] I make you my Lord and Savior. Friends if any of you repeated that prayer I invite you to go to my
[00:20:20] webpage wisdomtodaybk.com if you would click on the contact tab simply give me your name there is
[00:20:32] a place for you to write a brief description that you said that prayer I would like to welcome you
[00:20:38] to the family of God and friends if you've enjoyed this podcast today and you've never taken the
[00:20:45] step of rating this podcast I invite you to do that as well simply go to wisdomtodaybk.com
[00:20:56] there is a place for you to rate the podcast if you would give me a thumbs up give me a five
[00:21:04] let me know what it is that you're enjoying about this podcast so more people can find out about
[00:21:12] and tune in. Friends today is the weekend I invite you to take out your spouse go out with your kids have a
[00:21:22] nice family outing let them know how much God loves them and how much you love them and I will see
[00:21:30] you back on Monday morning now may the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord make his face shine upon
[00:21:39] you and be gracious to you the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace friends please
[00:21:48] join me again on Monday as we further explore wisdom today