Welcome to Wisdom Today with Bill Kelley. Today we will be going over Proverb 27. I will then key in on verse 27 - As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. Friends, we will find out in today's lesson that both John the Baptist and Jesus would often tell people things that they didn't necessarily want to hear (but that they needed to hear). By the end of today's lesson there are two things that I ask that you consider:
1. The tax collectors embraced John the Baptist's message that they needed to repent.
2. The lawyers and the Pharisees did not.
Call to Action - Ask yourself if you live your life (as a Christian) differently that the main stream population?
[00:00:06] and I'll be your host. In this podcast we will be exploring the book of Proverbs.
[00:00:21] But in prayer, Father God, I thank you for anyone listening to this podcast today. Lord,
[00:00:27] I pray that you would reveal to everyone listening how much you truly love each and every
[00:00:32] one of them. In addition, I pray that everyone listening would have favor with those
[00:00:37] God and man. I ask this in Jesus name, amen. This is Proverbs 27 beginning in verse 1.
[00:00:47] Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Let another man
[00:00:55] praise you and not your own mouth, a stranger and not your own lips. A stone is heavy and sand is
[00:01:05] witty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than both of them. Wrath is cruel and anger-atthorent,
[00:01:13] but who is able to stand before jealousy? Open review is better than love carefully concealed.
[00:01:23] Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. A satisfied soul
[00:01:32] loads the honeycomb, but to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. Like a bird that wonders
[00:01:41] from its nest is a man who wonders from his place. Ointment and perfume delight the heart,
[00:01:49] and the sweetness of a man's friend gives delight by hearty counsel. Do not forsake your own
[00:01:57] friend or your father's friend nor go to your brother's house in the day of your calamity.
[00:02:06] Better is a neighbor nearby than a brother far away. My son, be wise and make my heart glad
[00:02:15] that I may answer him who reproaches me. A prudent man for sees evil and hides himself. The simple
[00:02:26] pass on and are punished. Take the garment of him who is surety for a stranger and hold it
[00:02:34] in pledge when he is surety for a seductress. He who blesses his friend with a loud voice
[00:02:43] rising early in the morning, it will be counted a curse to him. A continual dripping on a very
[00:02:51] rainy day and a contentious woman are alike, whoever restrains her restrains the wind and
[00:03:01] grasps oil with his right hand. As iron sharpens iron so a man sharpens the countments of his friend,
[00:03:13] whoever keeps the fig tree will eat its fruit so he who waits on his master will be honored.
[00:03:21] As in water, face reflects face, so a man's heart reveals the man. Hell and destruction are never
[00:03:32] full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied. The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold.
[00:03:42] An man is valued by what others say of him, though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle,
[00:03:51] along with crushed grain. Yet his foolishness will not depart from him. Be diligent to know the
[00:04:00] state of your flocks and attend to your herds for riches are not forever. Nor does a crown
[00:04:10] endure to all generations. When the hay is removed, all the tender grass shows itself and the herbs
[00:04:19] of the mountains are gathered in. The lambs will provide your clothing and the goats the price of a field.
[00:04:28] You shall have enough goats milk for your food, for the food of your household and the nourishment
[00:04:36] of your maid servants. Friends today I'd like to take a closer look at verse 17,
[00:04:44] and proper 27 verse 17 says this, as iron sharpens iron so a man sharpens the countments of his friend.
[00:04:57] Friends we will take a closer look at that verse prior to closing today,
[00:05:03] but what I'd like to do is begin the week by continuing our study in the gospel according to Luke.
[00:05:12] Last week we began chapter 7 and we had Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and we had separate
[00:05:21] passages of scripture each day. Today we will be going over a portion of scripture beginning
[00:05:29] in verse 29 in chapter 7 of Luke. And when all the people heard him, even the tax collectors
[00:05:40] justified God having been baptized with the baptism of John. So friends, the first point that I'd
[00:05:50] like to bring up today is that the tax collectors embraced John's message to repent.
[00:05:59] And I'm going to be totally honest with you, I have probably read the entire Bible.
[00:06:05] Maybe about 20, 25 times, but I don't ever remember these next two verses, verses 29 and 30.
[00:06:14] And this is one of the reasons I think it is so important to read scripture.
[00:06:20] As you draw closer and closer to God and become more familiar with scripture,
[00:06:26] you're going to read something and you'll convince yourself, wow, I've never read that before.
[00:06:32] Even though I know I have, but it never struck me like it did today when I read these two verses.
[00:06:42] So anyway, the tax collectors, now I'm going to go to Matthew here because Matthew was a tax collector.
[00:06:52] And when Jesus went to Matthew and at the time he was called Levi when he went to his tax collection booth,
[00:07:00] he had been watching Jesus. He had been observing him, listening to the stories,
[00:07:07] and when Jesus said follow me, he immediately got up. Also later in the Gospel of Luke,
[00:07:16] we're going to find out about a man named Zacchaeus. And the same thing happened with him when Jesus
[00:07:25] talked to him and he was a chief tax collector immediately. Zacchaeus repented of what he had done
[00:07:34] and he embraced the message that Jesus and John the Baptist were giving. But let's look at verse 30,
[00:07:45] but the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.
[00:07:58] So, friends, the second point I'd like to bring up is the Pharisees and the lawyers.
[00:08:05] Now we don't often talk about the lawyers in the Bible but you know what lawyers do.
[00:08:12] Lawyers battle with the law. They always bring up the law. That is their major defense.
[00:08:19] Whenever they have a case, is they bring up the law. So the lawyers and the Pharisees wanted to stick
[00:08:29] to the letter of the law. And Jesus I have brought many times went against the law.
[00:08:37] A matter of fact his message was follow me instead of following the law.
[00:08:45] But I would like to bring up the commentary and friends I am reading out of the Nelson study Bible.
[00:08:52] What I'd like to do is read the commentary for verses 29 and 30. I think this is a very good explanation.
[00:09:03] Luke in and aside, and when they say at aside you will not find this message in either of the other
[00:09:12] gospels you simply won't. Contrast the responses to John's message. The tax collectors justify God,
[00:09:23] which means that they responded to John's message by submitting to John's baptism and what he was saying is
[00:09:33] you need to repent. You need to repent of your sins and the lives that you were presently living
[00:09:42] and you need to turn to God. The Pharisees, however, rejected the will of God, which means
[00:09:52] that they refused to listen to John and were not baptized. So it is very easy to understand why they
[00:10:03] did not receive Jesus either because John basically said the same message that Jesus did.
[00:10:12] You need to repent of your sins and turn to God, and that is what Jesus' message was.
[00:10:20] We need to repent from our sins and turn to God. And the Pharisees and the lawyers were both
[00:10:29] unwilling to do that. They wanted to adhere to the law at all costs. Let's go on to verse 31.
[00:10:39] And the Lord said, to what then shall I liken the men of this generation? And what are they like?
[00:10:49] They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another saying,
[00:10:57] we played the flute for you and you did not dance. We mourn for you and you did not
[00:11:04] weep. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say he has a demon.
[00:11:17] The son of man has come eating and drinking and you say look, a glutton and a wine bipper.
[00:11:27] A friend of tax collectors and sinners. Friends, listen to this commentary for verses 31
[00:11:38] through 34. I think this explains some of the questions that some of you may have.
[00:11:45] Jesus made a comparison between children playing a game in the marketplace
[00:11:53] and the present generation of Israel referring especially to the Jewish religious leaders.
[00:12:03] The leaders were like the children in that they complained no matter what tune was being played.
[00:12:11] John the Baptist refused to eat bread or drink wine, and the religious leaders dismissed him as
[00:12:21] being demon possessed. In contrast, Jesus the son of man was accused of living loosely
[00:12:31] and associating with sinners. No matter what the style of God's messenger was,
[00:12:39] the religious leaders complained and rejected him. Now what I would like to do
[00:12:47] is go over a couple things that I found on the internet as I was doing research for today's message.
[00:12:57] And listen to this it says both John and Jesus are condemned by the lawyers and the Pharisees.
[00:13:07] Though both lived opposite holy lights, now they both lived holy lives, but John and Jesus
[00:13:16] were on different ends of the spectrum. Jesus associated with sinners. He wanted to
[00:13:23] commune with these people. He knew that they had need of a Savior. He knew that they were sinners
[00:13:32] and he wanted to get them to realize the error of the ways that they were living.
[00:13:38] John on the other hand was basically living almost like a monk. Let me go on.
[00:13:46] The proverb of Luke chapter 7 verse 35 means that the right or wise way to live is not governed by rules,
[00:13:59] but by results. Before I leave this particular topic of discussion, I would like to go over something
[00:14:09] that a pastor named Jeremy Myers wrote in a sermon way back in 2005. And here we're talking
[00:14:19] about John the Baptist and we're talking about Jesus. I just mentioned how they were different.
[00:14:26] So listen to that what he had to say, how then should we love? It doesn't matter.
[00:14:34] Pick away either John's way or Jesus' way is fine, but whichever way you choose, don't be like
[00:14:44] the children who complain that people won't play their games. Don't criticize,
[00:14:50] don't condemn, don't accuse. Such things are the children of self-righteous religion.
[00:15:00] God's way is a life that is lived both in righteousness and in relationship with sinners.
[00:15:10] John and Jesus did both. Though both of them approached it in different ways. The religious leaders thought
[00:15:19] they were righteous, but since they kept themselves from sinners proved that they were only
[00:15:26] self-righteous. And I think that is such an important point to understand and to come to grips with.
[00:15:37] And what I'd like to do is read one verse in Scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 11,
[00:15:45] listen to what Paul talked about when he talked about acting as a child. He says,
[00:15:53] When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child,
[00:16:03] but when I became a man, I put away childish things. The apostle Paul's admonition to believers
[00:16:13] is to put away childish things, childish speaking, childish thinking and childish
[00:16:22] reasonings are to be put away. And yet that is how the lawyers of that time and the Pharisees
[00:16:33] were acting. They were acting like children in a little school yard that were not getting their way.
[00:16:41] Friends before we close today, I'd like to go back to our verse of the day. And I mentioned
[00:16:48] last week that I often try to pick a verse that talks about the lesson that was talked about
[00:16:56] on that particular podcast. And we are in chapter 27 of Proverbs and I'm going to look at verse 17.
[00:17:05] And it says, as iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.
[00:17:14] And friends, this is a wonderful verse for today because we're talking about John the Baptist
[00:17:22] and we're talking about Jesus. And both of them their message was the same, repaint,
[00:17:29] that turn from your sins and turn to God. And they often had the same message. They often told
[00:17:37] people things that they didn't necessarily want to hear, but that they needed to hear.
[00:17:45] They weren't always welcomed that much because they had some things to say and made people
[00:17:54] realize that they needed to change their ways. But John the Baptist was kind of harsh and he just told
[00:18:01] people the way that it is. Now Jesus was a little bit more refined and he had away with people
[00:18:09] and he gave them a message and he often spoke through parables and he would find a way around a
[00:18:17] particular topic and he stated it in such a way that he would not offend people. But he would
[00:18:26] bring it down to their level so they could understand the point that he was trying to make.
[00:18:34] Friends, my call to action today is very simple. What I really like for each of you to think about
[00:18:41] is how much do you live like a Christian? I believe that as Christians today, we are to go against
[00:18:50] the nature of society. We're to be going upstream instead of downstream like everybody else.
[00:18:58] We need to be different. So my question to you is are you living a life that is different
[00:19:06] than the mainstream population? The Bible tells us that we are to be the salt of the earth
[00:19:13] and the light of the world. The Bible tells us that we are in this world, but we are not of
[00:19:21] this world. The Bible also tells us that we are a peculiar people. In other words, we are to be different.
[00:19:31] If you were charged with being a Christian, would people be able to find enough evidence to say yes,
[00:19:41] he is a Christian? Just something to think about. Friends, I will never end a podcast
[00:19:48] without giving anyone an opportunity to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. If there is anyone
[00:19:55] listening today and you have never taken that step, I invite you to repeat a simple prayer
[00:20:00] after me today. Jesus, I confess that I am a sinner and a need of a Savior. I believe that
[00:20:08] you are the Son of God that you came to earth and died on a cross for me. And yet, I recognize
[00:20:17] that I have a deeper need for you. I ask that you come into my heart. I ask that you lead me
[00:20:25] and guide me from this point forward in my life. I ask this in Jesus name, amen.
[00:20:33] Now, may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His day shine upon you and be gracious to you.
[00:20:41] The Lord liftoff is countenance upon you and give you peace. Friends, tomorrow is
[00:20:49] testimony day. Please join me at the special guest as we further explore wisdom.