Bible Guys Classics: Proverbs 27

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Well, good morning, good more this week talk the whole through good More. Good morning to you. Nothing will be grander than living in Louisiana. Whatever. I can't say it. I never said. No, it's happy through the song anyway, it's not even in the first verse. That's right. Hey, Well, good morning everybody. And we hope that you are having a wonderful day, and we hope that reading God's word will maybe. Set you up to even have a better day. Yes, how about that? That's great. I believe it will. Yes. And we have a segment today. We have a segment today and the segment is called Mailbags. Mail Bags. Today's segment is written in from a guy named Tom Kay. Hi Tom, but it's not Kay Why it's Kate letter. Not. Don't know who that is. I know Tom Kulowski, but he's from Youngstown, Ohio. I doubt he's listening. Hi Tom. Here's here's what Tom says. What is one achievement you feel most proud of, something that stands out as a significant milestone in your journey of personal growth. It could be an experience where you became a challenge or made a meaningful impact, or reached a goal that holds the value to you. So a wide range. Yes, right. It could be meaningful, like significant, or it could be something like just a personal goal, or it could be like a challenge that we personally overcame. So that's a. Wide I mean, our achievements are so fast and so numerous, not all the. Volumes of the books of the world. So it's difficult. It's difficult. Oh wait, that was Jesus. That was Jesus. It's difficult to identify just one. You know, perhaps you know, setting the goal to be the humblest person we know. Have you ever seen the movie The bucket List? Yes you did, really? Yeah, where where they had a bucket list of always and technicolis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a bucket list because of that movie. Oh do you really? Yeah, I've told you about my bucket list. I know that, but I know it was because that's really cool. Anyway, I'm kicking them off, so I have. Let me sure. It sounds frivolous, but it actually was rooted in a personal achievement. Oa, So I have and still do have an incredible fear of heights. I don't like heights. I have a hard time. You know that bridge in Michigan, Northern Michigan where you walk and there's as. A glass and as a glass bottom. I just did that and it's not even like it's not even that scary, right, and it's super wide, it's super strong, and I just did it with my family this summer, and I had the hardest time walking over that glass wrig. I was I was almost paralyzed, right, So it just comes and goes. Uh So because of that, I just was so tired of it that I wanted to overcome it. So I started off with parasailing and I did, which you know, very very high, right, bungee jumping. I've done that. I've done rock climbing, and I've jumped out of a plane. I did went skydiving. But the first time that I went skydiving, it was one of. The most It was one of the most. Paralyzing things that I have ever experienced in my life. It took every ounce of strength to jump out of that plane. So who jumped you or the guy you were jumping with, it was more so the guy I was jumping with come on, he was, he was. He was strapped to me because you have to clip in right y. Yeah, it was. It's tandem, is what it's called. And uh and I and and I didn't resist him, but he sort of waddled. Me over to the edge and uh and and you know what, the you know, the weirdest part is is when you're up and you're flying at you know, x amount of miles an hour, you don't really really realize how fast you're going because the clouds are moving real slow. So the guys in front of me, they fell super fast and then they went super uh you know, far back, so literally they went like that. They were like they were just gone right. And when they jumped out in front of me, I was like, I was wanting to throw up. It was just an unbelievable thing. And the idea of you having a solid ground to jump into nothingness, I'm telling you, it's so paralyzing. And and I started I started screaming, and the guy's. Like you okay, okay. I'm like, okay, just go, just go and. He rocks me out and he goes wan And when he rocked me the first time, my face went out into the wind. So he's like one, three and then finally once you jump, then I was okay because I was like, oh, this is kind of nice, you know, and I felt I felt confident. Uh but yeah, it was a huge. Overcoming milestone for me because and then by the way, I did it twice after. That, Well, you have a ton of people that have so much anxiety just hearing that story. I'm sure so you overcame that. Yeah, And you know what, honestly, the second two times were out of fun, but the first time was because. I had to overcome Wow, good for you, but yours I think along those lines. You know, in college, I got myself kicked out of college twice, and then I was kind of frustrated with my movement and where I was engaged in ministry and stuff, and so I just left for a few years. And then I felt like God was pulling me back, and uh minutes, I dropped out of Bible College and dropped out of Yeah. So I was still attending in church, but I wasn't preparing for ministry at all. Between my junior and senior year. It was almost four years in between those times. So because I switched schools some you know how, just don't transfer all that kind of stuff. I crammed a four year degree into six years, but then I had to spread it over eight and a half years to get to get. It all done because of your break. Yeah, because I took. That break, and so I think finishing finally, when I decided, you know what, I should go back and finish what I started. So I was twenty seven when I graduated from college, but that was that was kind of a big thing for me to go back and finish what I started because I'd caused my own problem. At the beginning, I wanted to blame other people, but I'd caused my own problems, and so to come back and overcome the problems that caused. It was a big part. There's a big achievement in my life, I think. So I've known you for how how many years? I don't know, too long, forever nineteen years and nineteen years. Yeah, that is the first time I realized that you actually took a break between your junior and senior year of actual years. Yeah, I knew about the you know, I knew about everything else except for the fact of the time frame. Yeah, I didn't know that I was married and had two kids when I graduated from college. I did not know that you were twenty seven when you graduated college. Huh, yeah, that is incredible. Yeah, So I just I think the thing was I didn't give up, right, and so I was proud of that. Wow, which was weird because I've told you before, coming out of high school, I was like the wonder kid. Opportunities people already talking about hiring me all that kind of stuff. Everything I did worked, and then I kind of blew my own life up, not in horrible ways, but just dumb stuff. And then yeah, yeah, and then I got resentful of where I was coming from and couldn't figure out what I wanted to be or do. And then you know, God got a hold of my heart and pulled me back in. I finished up my senior year. At that point, it's hard. You got a pregnant wife with baby number two, baby number one is growing like a weed. I'm taking twenty two credits both semesters of my senior year and working forty that's working forty fifty hours a week, and then volunteering in my church on Sundays. Yeah, and so that was it was a pretty brutal life that year finished that that was a big achievement. Oh wow, good for you. Yeah, well, I think that's all the time we have. Okay, I was gonna I was gonna mention other ones another one. It's already we're reading proverbs today, so they're little slogans. Okay, So how about this one on a more significant level. For the very first time in my career as a pastor, I organized and executed a five K for the benefit of somebody around the world. So part of an organization that rescues children from sex trafficking. We actually were able to get. Four hundred and something runners involved and raising money and we raised one hundred and forty thousand dollars benefiting people around the world. And you know what, that was A that was a really cool By the way, it was a lot of work. It's for an organization called Transform one from one yeah and uh, and it was a lot of work. But when you give selflessly to people that you most I mean, I've met several of them, but but you know, people you don't meet around the world, it feels really great, you know. Yea, So it was it was a big accomplishment and. And we know, the founder of that ministry and the people leading in that ministry very well, yes, very trustworthy. Where can our listeners get information about transform. One oh, transform one dot org so it's transformed, then the number one dot org and. Yeah transform and then the number one dot org. Yeah, you know what I would I would love. There's this thing that we came up with on the during the race, I wear a cape. It was really fun, you know because I like superhero but it's a hero thing where you're like, hey, be a hero. To a child, go online and do that monthly sponsorship. So there's different amounts all that kind of stuff, but you know, yeah, that would be the invitation. Well, God says to speak up for those and intervene for and work on behalf of those who can't defend themselves, and so that honors God man, good job. That's really great. You know what else is really great? Worse ever, yeah, Salomon gives Solomon gives some really great advice here in Proverbs twenty seven. So remember has Akiah was digging through the temple and he finds these other writings of Salomon, and he wants to be a good king, and so this is a big deal. And so this is Proverbs twenty seven through or twenty five through twenty nine are all the writings of Solomon that king has Akaiah found. Hey, hey, you know that's is great the Bible, the Bible. The Bible is great. That's right, So here you go. In twenty seven verse one, it says, don't brag about tomorrow, since you don't know what the day will bring. And then very appropriate to the segment for today says, let someone else praise you, not your own mouth, a stranger, not your own lips. Literally, a segment said, what is something you're proud You're proud of? Someone else praise you. Yeah. A stone is heavy, and sand is weighty, but the resentment caused by a fool is even heavier. Anger is cruel, and wrath is like a flood, but jealousy is even more dangerous. An open rebuke is better than hidden love. Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. A person who is full refuses honey, but even bitter food tastes sweet to the hungry. A person who strays from home is like a bird that strays from its nest. The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense. Never abandon a friend, either yours or your father's. When disaster strikes, you won't have to ask your brother for assistance. It's better to go to a neighbor than to a brother who lives far away. Be wise, my child, and make your heart glad. Make my heart glad. Then I will be able to answer my critics. A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. Get security from someone who guarantees a stranger's debt. Get a deposit if he does it. For foreigners, a loud and cheerful greeting early in the morning will be taken as a gurs. Oh, here we go again. A charrelsome wife is as annoying as constant dripping on a rainy day. Stopping her complaints is like trying to stop the wind or trying to hold something with grease. Stands bro That is unbelievable. Solomon man, he just he lets you know where his problems are, doesn't he? Every every couple chapters? And by the way, both of those things are incredible. We're pictures right. Stopping her complaints is like trying to stop the wind. That's unbelievable. Because you and I we have no idea what that means. No, we we just we can't stand them. That experience a strange concept Verse seventeen. As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. That's you and me. By hey man, that's right, there you go, and we have good nuggets in here. It takes a lot of friction to sharpen iron. That's right, that's right, sparks. As workers who tend to fig tree are allowed to eat the fruit, so workers who protect their employers interests will be rewarded. As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person. Just as death and destruction are never satisfied, so human desire is never satisfied. Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but a person is tested by being praised. Wow, you cannot separate fools from their foolishness, even though you grind them like grain with mortar and pestle. Know the state of your flocks and put your heart into caring for your herds, for riches don't last forever, and the crown might not be passed to the next generation. After the hay is harvested and the new crop appears, and the mountain grasses are gathered in, your sheep will provide wool for clothing, and your goats will provide the price of a field, and you will have enough goat's milk for yourself and your family and your servant. Girls. Hey, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm going to do something that i've I don't think i've ever done before. Do it. I'm going to say to our listeners that, you know, it would be a really great exercise. Wouldn't be great if everybody who's listening or watching on YouTube, if they could rewind it to the beginning of when you started reading this proverb chapter? What was it twenty seven to one and you read twenty seven verses. Yes, here's a good challenge. Wouldn't it be cool? Go back and listen and pray. Pray, just say quick prayer and say God, let me hear what you need me to hear. Which of these verses will stand out and apply to your life where you're at right now? Because even the single verse that says arpen iron sharpend's iron, well, I mean that's a whole sermon, isn't it right? Right? Talking about do you have a friend in your life? That's right? You know, the. Every single one of these in here are just an unbelievable you know thing here, It's just an unbelievable thing. There's so many great segments in here. You know, listen, death and just as death and destruction are never satisfied, so the human heart is never satisfied. That could be somebody, right, That could be somebody. So yeah, just go through it and just ask yourself like, Okay, God, what verse do you want me to hear? So I encourage everybody to do that, go back and do it, and then say, okay, God, this is the one that stood out to me. Because I'm telling you, when we pray that way and we say God, speak to me, God will use some of these to jump out of the page and you'll be like, wow, this one right here that stands. Out to me. And open rebuke is better than hidden love. You may be mad at somebody for saying something you don't want them to say, but maybe God wants to speak to your heart and say, you know what, they're only trying. They're saying that because they love me. They're saying that because that is a real friend, right, And then the next verse has wounds of a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. Well, enemy, he's gonna tell you what you want to hear. An enemy necessarily an enemy of your soul that wants to harm you or kill you intentionally. But a person who's unwilling to tell you the truth. Solomon is saying, they're almost like an enemy because they're not being a true friend. Yeah, yeah, they're fake. They're fake, right, They're not a true friend, right, because a true friend is going to say, hey, you have you know, you have something on your face right, your zippers down right right, And you're like, wow, I can't believe you said that to them. Well, that's what a true friend says, right, right. So yeah, go back and watch it. I think that'd be a really good exercise. It's great. You know, we love the Life Application Study Bible, yep, And we don't get any money from Tyndale who publishes that. But you should get one. Honestly, you should get one. It helps so much. And you know you read those are a lot of words, but it's they're one liners and so after a while you can just start saying one more one liner and not even thinking about it. So sometimes getting back in and looking at the notes really helps. And we laughed a lot about verses fifteen and sixteen to qarrel, some wife is as annoying, Oh so funny, is it? By the way, I just wanted to check. Is that why you wanted everybody to go back and really into it one more time. I'm hoping that maybe. Yeah, I'm hoping all the wives. Go back and just say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, No, that's right. I think yesterday has said, don't say you're making a joke. I'm a fortified city. Yeah, that's right. So but the note for the Life Application Study Bible applies to all of us, not just wives. It says, quarrelsome nagging, a steady stream of unwanted advice is a form of torture. Yes, and that's what That's the Solomon's thing. It just drives me nuts, like dripping rain. Right, people nag because they think they're not getting through. But nagging hinders communication more than it helps. When tempted to engage in this destructive habit, stop and examine your motives. Are you more concerned about yourself getting your way and being right than about the person you're pretending to help. If you are truly concerned about other people, think of a more effective way to get through to them. Surprise them with words of patience and love, and see what happens. Yeah, right, So that's not just a women thing or whatever. You know. So Solomon is just speaking from his experience a thousand wives, right, and so you know from him, he's just speaking of his experience. But the reality is that constant nagging, it is not just a female thing. It's a male thing to just. Drip drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip drip. That reminds me of the movie Planes, Chains and Amobiles, John Candy and Steve Martin. He says, you're like a chatty Kathy doll with a string, but nobody pulls it except for your true Yeah. He pulls his own string. It's so great, such a good one. Yeah, A person who is full refuses honey. But even bitter words taste sweet to the hungry. That's a third verse connected to that. Those first two thoughts. A yeah, yeah, it's just so good. Yeah, and then I love verse twenty three and twenty four. This is a very probably of the you know, hundreds of proverbs that I quote on a regular basis, This one is at the top of my list with regard to leadership and responsibility. Know the state of your flocks, and put your heart into caring for your herds. Because riches don't last forever. The crown might not be passed to the next generation, and so he says, Instead, if you're paying attention to your flocks, you're paying attention to your herds. You're paying attention to your crops. After the hay is harvest, the new crop appears and mountain grasses are gathered in, your sheep are going to provide wool for clothing. Your gates will or your goats provide for the price of a field. You'll have enough goats milk for yourself and your family and your servant girls. He's saying, Listen, if you pay close attention to the state of your flocks, if you're paying close attention, you're putting your heart into caring for your herds, then you can have confidence that at harvest time there's going to be plenty. And you know that, Hey, when the hay is harvest and new crop appears. He says, that's when your sheep will be ready to be sheared as well, and you'll have plenty of clothing, and your goats will provide an for a price of a field. When everybody else is having to sell, you'll be ready to buy right, right right, and you'll be able to get a discount. The worst time to buy a field to plant in is in spring. The best time to buy is after the harvest, when that owner is thinking, man, I might not make it to next year. I probab should sell my field. Right, you're gonna get a good deal. So what he's saying is, if you're paying close attention, you're putting your heart into caring for your wealth you're paying, you're putting your heart into you're knowing the state of your business, all those kinds of things. It's not just about money, it's about leadership. Then you can have confidence that if you're paying close attention, it's not micromanaging, you're just paying close attention. Then when the time comes to harvest, you'll have plenty. When the time comes to seize the moment, you'll be ready. And that that you know, I think I mentioned that last week too, but I think it was Mark Twain that said, it's amazing how lucky I get the more prepared I am, right, right, So, if you know the state of if you know your situation, know you're your your financials. I was just in a conversation with somebody talking about finances and preparing. We're getting ready to do a financial freedom summit. Yeah, and so as we were planning that, one of the guys was talking. He's a financial advisor, a professional financial advisor, very very successful, and he said, it's astounding how many widows don't have the bank passwords. Oh well, talk about being unprepared, right. That don't have How many widows and widowers don't have their spouses passwords on their phones. They can't get all the photos, half the family photos, right, They don't know where to get the next thing right. It wasn't planned out, they didn't they So there's wealth out there, they can't get it. The management of the life, and so just paying attention we get we sometimes in the most important areas, we get lax, and then we leave our family struggling. Or those times where I've had times where there was an investment for years, I've enjoyed learning how to trade, not trade invest particularly with global currencies. As just a goofy hobby. So where my wife might be playing a game on her phone at night, for a long time, I was trading on fake trading accounts. They were free accounts that I wasn't trading real money, but I was trading on the real market right right, and just learn how to do that. And I would see things and I'd be like, boy, if I had a thousand bucks, I bet you can make a lot of money. And time after time after time after time, I would double or triple or quadruple the fake money investment, but I wouldn't pull the trigger. I wouldn't actually put the money in. And then I'd look back and go, I wish I'd done something about that, right, And it was because I didn't have the margin financially, so my own personal finances I knew how to get it, my own personal finances weren't in a place where I had the margin to be able to execute on it. So when that field came up for sale, I couldn't get it right. And I look back at that, I'd look back at so many opportunities that were missed because I wasn't as diligent at the time, and I'm trying now here, you know, trying to be a real grown up in my fifties. I'm trying to get more and more diligent with those things, and I'm seeing an opportunity to seize out seize the opportunities I couldn't seize a couple of years ago because I didn't build in the margin. So if you know the state of your flocks, if you're being diligent with your business, there's no guarantee that things are going to be good tomorrow. That's what it says. The crown might not pass the next generation. But if you are diligent with your stuff, you'll have opportunities to expand more and you'll have plenty and not only you, but your family and even your servy girls. Yeah, that's great. I love that passage. It's one of my favorite passages. Solomon writes about there's so much in that one. Yeah, my dad is still with us, and he's eighty he's born than thirty nine, so eighty six this year. And he is a folder, an actual physical folder, not on phones or computers, right, But it's in the filing Cabinet, and I remember seeing it for twenty years at least, and it's titled When I Die. Oh, and it's this thick wow, and it's everything everybody will ever need to know. So talk about being very diligent, very diligent, which is the opposite of most. Right correct correct. So hey, that is our time, so hopefully we will see you next time on the Bible. Guys,