610. God resists the Proud, but gives Grace to the Humble - August 2, 2024

[00:00:06] Welcome to Wisdom Today. My name is Bill Kelley and I'll be your host. In this podcast, we will be exploring the book of Proverbs. Beginning in verse 1. My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you so that you

[00:00:50] incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. Yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for

[00:01:06] her as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives Wisdom from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound

[00:01:23] wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk uprightly. He guards the paths of justice and preserves the way of His saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path.

[00:01:44] When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you. Understanding will keep you to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness.

[00:02:08] For rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perversity of the wicked, whose ways are crooked and who are debvious in their paths. To deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words, who forsakes the companion of her youth

[00:02:31] and forgets the covenant of her God. For her house leads down to death and her paths to the dead, none who go to her return nor do they regain the paths of life. So you may walk in the way of goodness and keep to the paths of righteousness.

[00:02:54] For the upright will dwell in the land and the blameless will remain in it. But the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.

[00:03:10] Friends, today I'd like to take a closer look at verses 1 through 5, and that's quite a few verses, so we will revisit those prior to closing today.

[00:03:23] What I'd like to do today is close this week with something that I want to make people aware of. This is a sad story. This is about somebody who was so filled with pride, that he ended up having a statue all himself built.

[00:03:50] And friends, of course I am talking about the king of Babylon back in the Old Testament and his name was never canesir. Let's visit this king beginning in Daniel chapter 3. Now this is entitled The Image of Gold.

[00:04:12] I am going to be reading the first seven verses of Daniel chapter 3.

[00:04:19] Never canesir, the king, made an image of gold whose height was 60 qubits, meaning 90 feet tall. And it's with six qubits, meaning it was nine feet wide. He said it up in the plain of dura in the province of Babylon.

[00:04:43] And King Nebuchadnezzar sent word to gather together the sat traps, the administrators, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image which King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

[00:05:08] And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then a herald cried aloud to you, it is commanded to be the king of the city of Babylon.

[00:05:22] The King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then a herald cried aloud to you, it is commanded peoples, nations, and languages that at the time you hear the sound of the horn flute, harp, liar, and sal tree,

[00:05:50] and Sultry in Symphony with all kinds of music. You shall fall down and worship the gold image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up, and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

[00:06:16] So at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the horn, flute, harp and lier in symphony with all kinds of music, all the people, nations and languages fell down and worshiped the gold image, which King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Now friends, before we begin,

[00:06:40] I want to camp here for a few minutes. Now I know that many people listening today may sometimes get a little bit full of themselves. And before we get into too much detail, what I'd like to do is refresh some of your memory

[00:07:04] of James chapter four beginning in verse six. I'm gonna read verses six and seven. Now take a listen to this, but he, meaning God gives more grace. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So God is very specific here.

[00:07:32] This is James the half brother of Jesus, who lived in the house with Jesus while he was growing up. This man knows Jesus probably better than any of his disciples. Let's look at verse seven, therefore submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you,

[00:07:59] draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Clens your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded, lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to morning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord

[00:08:25] and he will lift you up. Friends, God absolutely abhores the sin of pride. Now let's visit first Peter chapter five beginning in verse five. Likewise, you younger people submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothe with humility.

[00:09:00] I absolutely love that phrase. Friends, if we are to be humble, we need to literally put it on. We have to put on humility because that is not our true nature. We have to want to humble ourselves. Let's go on.

[00:09:26] God resist the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Friends, that is the same exact words that James used in chapter four of his book. Now Peter is telling us the same exact words. So we have two very important authors of the Bible.

[00:09:53] And these books are right next to each other. And I believe there's a reason for that. God knew James, James understood who God was. The value of having God in your life. And he understood that we have to submit ourselves to God.

[00:10:14] We need to get rid of all of pride in our life and we need to humble ourselves and recognize that God is God. And we are not. And Peter is telling us the same thing here. So now let's revisit our story and Nebuchadnezzar.

[00:10:39] Nebuchadnezzar was so full of himself. He was not seeking God at that time. He was the king of Babylon. Babylon, you remember, and under the power of Nebuchadnezzar had taken that Jews living in Jerusalem captive. And he took them to the country of Babylon

[00:11:06] for a period of 70 years. And at that time, they were allowed to go back to the city of Jerusalem. But during that time, Nebuchadnezzar had it all going on or so he thought. Now friends, that is all I'm gonna talk about Nebuchadnezzar

[00:11:27] but let me just tell you, if you wanna read into this story, what happened was God eventually took authority over King Nebuchadnezzar. And since King Nebuchadnezzar did not consult God, God actually removed him from his throne. And what he did is he allowed Nebuchadnezzar

[00:11:52] to literally live in a field, basically as a wild animal. His hair grew out, his fingernails turned into claws and he literally began eating grass. Friends has happened for several years and finally Nebuchadnezzar came to the realization,

[00:12:18] wait a minute, I need to recognize God for who he is. I need to humble myself. And when he did that, God restored him to his rightful position of King. I want you to think about that. Now friends, what I'd like to do,

[00:12:40] I still have a few minutes as we are ending out this week. And this is Bill Kelly, the host of this podcast and this is podcast number six hundred ten. And the purpose of this entire podcast, I really wanna get this across

[00:12:58] because some of you may be listening for the first time. And if you are listening for the first time, first of all, I'd like to thank you. And secondly, I'd like for everyone to know that every single podcast, my desire is that you will gain

[00:13:19] at least one nugget. And so by the end of each lesson, I would like for everyone to be able to say, I learned something new today that I needed to hear. And friends, my goal is to do more than one

[00:13:40] per podcast, I believe I try to give three or four for possibly five nuggets that everyone can basically take to the bank and store it in your heavenly account. Friends, I want everyone to learn to be accountable Christians. One of the main things I often talk about

[00:14:03] is the importance of having stewardship and being a steward of everything that God has given you. God has given each of us a certain amount of goods that are in our care, whether it be a house.

[00:14:19] And if you have a house, take the very best care of it. You can. The appliances in your house, make sure that they are running if they need to be repaired or have a tune up, have a tune up.

[00:14:33] We are to have our goods in the best working order they can be. If you have a garden, take the best care of your garden. Make sure that you're lawnmower and your power tools are kept up that they have oil in them, that you service them regularly

[00:14:53] and that they have the best. Your yard should be the nicest yard in the neighborhood. Friends, if you're gonna do something, go all out. Do everything as unto the Lord, like the Bible says. If you have a car, even if it is an 18 year old car,

[00:15:12] treat that car like it is the best car in the world. Because it is to you. That's the one you happen to have. And the way things work is if you take care of what God has given you, he will allow you to have more.

[00:15:30] I want you to think about that. Friends, before we close today, I would like to go to our proper of the day, proper two. What I'd like to do is go over the first five versus again. And these first five verses,

[00:15:45] the title of this particular portion of scripture in my Bible is entitled, The Value of Wisdom. And friends, that's what this podcast is predicated upon. And that is why I called and labeled this podcast, Wisdom today. Friends, I based it on the book of Proverbs

[00:16:10] because Proverbs was written by King Solomon, the son of King David, a King at lived in Israel. And these are probably the two greatest kings of Israel in history. They really are. Now they lived before Christ, numbers a years before Christ.

[00:16:31] And yet so much wisdom are in these two books. Now King Solomon is responsible for writing the majority of the book of Proverbs. And of course his father, King David, wrote about half of the book of Psalms. And those arguably are two of the best books ever written.

[00:16:52] Proverbs for wisdom, Psalms basically for lessons about life and to give you words of encouragement. So let's begin chapter two, verse one, we're gonna go over the first five verses. My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you.

[00:17:14] And friends, the commands here he's talking about is the word of God. So basically if you read the book of Proverbs, everything you read basically is a command from God. This is how you are to live your life. Basically the book of Proverbs in a nutshell

[00:17:30] is the instruction book of how to live your life. It's basically the instruction manual. Let's go to verse two. So that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. And friends, the only way you're going to get wisdom is to read the Bible.

[00:17:51] You're not gonna get it from the world or anything you hear in the world. The world basically at this stage of our life is basically going against God. Everything that the world is offering us today is trying to take God out of every aspect of life.

[00:18:09] So if you really truly wanna have wisdom and live your life having wisdom and acquiring wisdom, you need to get in to the word of God. Let's look at verse three. Yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding.

[00:18:28] Now friends, I'm gonna stop for just a moment here. This is verse three. Now here, one key in on the word discernment because discernment is asking God and having discernment on who you should share the goodness of God with

[00:18:44] and the word of God who you should talk to about it and those that you shouldn't share the good news of God or because some people simply don't wanna hear it. But friends, we can be friendly and kind and loving to even the most atheistic people

[00:19:07] in our world today. You can demonstrate the love of God to them without talking about Scripture, just by being kind. Being the light of the world, being the salt of the world, being the light of the world. Let's go to verse four. If you seek her as silver

[00:19:31] and hear her is referring to wisdom and search for her as for hidden treasures. And friend, this part of the verse is telling us that wisdom is better than hidden treasures. Wisdom is invaluable and it's something that you should seek at all costs in your life.

[00:19:55] Let's go to verse five. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Now friends, the key point that I wanted to bring out in today's lesson is that we should avoid pride at all costs.

[00:20:16] We heard that both in the fourth chapter of the Book of James and the fifth chapter of the Book of First Peter. These people knew Jesus intimately. James was a half brother and knew him basically his whole life. He grew up in the household of Jesus.

[00:20:38] Peter, of course, was one of his greatest disciples. He is the one that ultimately denied Jesus three times. But after Jesus died and was crucified on the cross he allowed Peter to come back in to good standing with him

[00:20:57] when he asked Peter three times, Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me? He asked him three times and those three times represent the three times that Peter had denied Jesus. And Peter said, Lord, you know that I love you.

[00:21:23] Jesus restored Peter to his righteous position and he became a pillar of the early church. Friends, my call to action is very simple. I really want you to ask yourself a very simple question, how close are you in your relationship with God and his son Jesus?

[00:21:48] Friends, this is the most important relationship that we have in life. We should live our life striving to get to know Jesus and his father God. Friends, I will never end the podcast without giving anyone an opportunity to receive Jesus as their Lord and the Savior.

[00:22:12] If there is anyone listening today, you've never taken that step. I invite you to say a simple prayer after me today. Father God, thank you for sending your son Jesus to earth. Jesus, thank you that you were willing to come to earth

[00:22:27] and die on the cross for me. I believe that you are the Son of God. I believe you died on that cross and were buried. On the third day, you rose again according to the Scriptures and now sit at the right hand of God the Father.

[00:22:47] Jesus, I need your help. I ask that you come into my heart. I ask that you leave me and guide me from this point forward in my life. I make you my Lord and Savior. Friends, if you said that prayer,

[00:23:03] you are now a member of the family of God. Welcome to the family. Now, may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make a space shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

[00:23:23] Friends, this is the weekend. Go out with your spouse. Take your children with you. Have a family gathering. Go out for a picnic. Have a good time. Do something together as a family. Let your family know how much God loves them and how much you love them.

[00:23:44] And I will see you back on Monday as we further explore wisdom today.