Episode Transcript
If you take your Bibles and turn to Proverbs chapter 13, God willing, we'll be expounding verse 15 tonight.
Proverbs chapter 13, verse 15.
Love seeing all these people online.
Encourage my heart when I see you.
The title of the message tonight is The Easy Way or the Hard Way.
Y'all encourage my heart when I see y'all here, too, in the pew.
Believe me, very, very much.
The easy way or the hard way.
Boy, I tell you, life laughs tough enough as it is.
There's always, always something going on in everyone's life.
You know, you bounce from one problem to another, and the people you're around are bouncing from one problem to another.
And life's tough enough as it is for us to choose to take the hard way in life.
You know, there's a much easier way.
You know, Jesus said, My yoke is easy.
My burden's light.
I'm all about a light burden, and I'm all about an easy way.
Our text tonight begins with the word good.
If you look there, good.
And this is the same wonderful Hebrew word to that we've learned so much about in the past.
It's the same word that we find in Genesis, and the Bible says, God saw everything that He made, and everything He made was good.
It's that same word.
What's good, therefore, when he says God saw everything that He made, and behold, it was good.
We learn from that that what's good is not determined by the eyes of the beholder, but by the eyes of the Creator.
God determines what's good.
Adam and Eve thought it was good for them to eat from the forbidden tree, but they were wrong.
Satan thought it was good to rebel against God in heaven, but he was wrong.
And people every day think it's good to disobey God's word.
And they are wrong.
And people come into my courthouse to file bankruptcy all the time.
Little more, we had four people coming to file bankruptcy yesterday.
Four people.
And they try to get in toward before the end of the month.
That's when they got to have it filed so they can stop maybe their creditors from collecting after that first of the month.
And they come in to file bankruptcy.
You know why?
Because they thought it would be good, most of them anyway, thought it would be good to go into debt and to spend money they didn't have.
People don't generally do something foolish because they think it's a bad idea, but because they think it's a good idea.
They think they have it all figured out.
They think they've found a shortcut.
They think they've figured out a way that they won't get caught.
They think that the way they understand how life is, they think it works.
But their understanding is bad.
Solomon is not talking about people with a bad understanding tonight.
He's talking about people who have a good, look back in your text, understanding.
A good understanding is to understand the goodness of God.
It's to see life from God's righteous and holy perspective.
And until we see things the way God sees them, we don't see things as they are.
It's that simple.
Notice how the words good and understanding are placed alongside of each other.
Good is modifying or describing the word understanding.
And you can't do this with every word.
You will never see the word good.
Next to the word sin.
Why?
Because there's no such thing as a good sin.
You'll never see the word good describing the devil.
Because the devil is no good.
But understanding is a very good thing.
It's a very thing for us to understand.
God wants all men to have a good understanding.
He wants us to understand His goodness.
He wants us to understand His good and perfect will.
For all creation.
And the reason he wants us to have a good understanding is because a good understanding, look back in your text, giveth favor.
Now we're getting into the heart of the text.
A good understanding giveth favor.
A good understanding actually Actually, it performs a function.
It performs an action in that it gives.
A good understanding actually gives.
It actually supplies something.
And in this case, it supplies favor.
The Hebrew word translated favor is the same Hebrew word translated grace in the Old Testament.
Grace.
Genesis chapter 6, verse 8.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Same Hebrew word Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
So you can say here very accurately with God's word: good understanding giveth what?
Grace.
Would y'all say that with me?
Good understanding giveth grace.
Here's a kingdom truth God gives us grace by giving us understanding.
The Bible says in Romans chapter 4:16b That salvation is of faith, that it might be by grace or by favor.
God's grace is received by our faith.
The gospel is the grace of God, and when we believe the gospel, the grace of Jesus' cross is applied to our account.
But our text tonight says that grace comes by way of understanding.
And that may seem like a contradiction, but it's not.
Because a man cannot believe what he does not understand.
You see?
And if you have a An understanding of something, and this is your understanding of a particular matter, that means that is your belief of that particular matter.
And if it is your belief of the particular matter, then that is your faith.
Again, a man cannot believe what a man does not understand.
Matthew chapter 13, verse 19.
Jesus said When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not Then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.
This is he which receives seed by the wayside.
We know from the parable that the seed is the gospel.
So they hear the gospel, they hear the word of the kingdom, and they don't understand it.
They don't have a good understanding of it.
Well, that means they don't believe it because you can't believe what you don't understand.
And so that seed just gets taken away.
It's like being sown, sowing a seed, and it lands on the road instead of landing on the good-tilled soil.
Well, I tell you what, though, here's what Jesus didn't say.
And what Jesus did say can be reversed.
When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and understands it not, then comes the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.
But the opposite of that is, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and understands it.
Then the wicked one cannot touch that seed because his seed remains in him, the Apostle John said.
Seed can't be taken away when it's perceived by faith.
That's a very heavy statement Jesus made, though.
You got to understand it.
A person doesn't believe what he doesn't understand.
If a person doesn't understand the gospel, how is he supposed to believe it?
And I have people all the time that I talk to about their salvation for one reason.
They don't understand the gospel.
A lot of times I'll start off and I'll say, let me explain something to you.
You have this problem because you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what salvation is.
I've said that so many times to people.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what salvation is.
They have a misunderstanding, so they don't understand.
And if they don't understand, they don't believe, and that's how come they're saying, Oh, I don't know if I'm going to heaven.
And when a person does understand what Jesus did for him, then that person's a believer.
And God, through that understanding, gives His grace, His favor.
Notice that good understanding gives the grace of God.
Good understanding gives favor.
Because Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 says, For by grace, that is by favor, are ye saved through faith.
And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
How do we get the gift of God?
Because God gives His grace.
By our good understanding.
And our good understanding is given to us by the Holy Spirit, who opens our eyes to understand that we are lost in our sin.
That we are sinners in need of a Savior, and He opens the eyes of our understanding to see that our Savior died for those sins to set us free.
And understanding what Christ accomplished on our behalf, we received the grace of that wonderful accomplishment.
But, if you'll look back in your text, the way of transgressors.
And that's the road that those who transgress God's Word travel.
They travel a different road than we do.
It says the way of transgressors is hard.
I think of this text quite often.
I watch people going through life.
I watch people living a more complicated, difficult, painful life than they should have to.
For one reason, they're living contrary to God's word.
Now, we live painful lives.
In the world, you'll have tribulation, Jesus said.
But there's a lot of things that people go through simply because they're living in contradiction to God's word.
And when I see that, a lot of times I say to myself, the way of transgressor is hard.
The way of the transgressor is hard.
The Hebrew word translated hard here, it's only translated hard one time in the Bible, and this is it.
So it's a fun word to dig into.
Most every time this word is translated as strong, mighty, or strength.
Seems like that would make sense, you know, when you think about it.
But that's what it's saying, literally: the way of the transgressors is strength.
The way of the transgressor is mighty.
The way of the transgressor is strong.
Now, don't misunderstand what the Bible is saying here, though.
The Bible is not saying that the way of transgressors showcases their strength.
The way of transgressors does not showcase their strength, it demands their strength.
Do you see the difference?
It does not showcase the strength of the transgressor.
That way demands the strength of the transgressor.
To walk in a way that's contrary to God's word requires your strength, therefore it diminishes your strength.
And that's why our translators said it is a hard road to travel.
And they were right.
But we need to understand why it's hard.
It's hard because it demands the strength of the person who travels it.
And we were not created by God to walk in our own strength.
We were created by God to walk in His.
So let's contrast these two roads.
The road of good understanding gives God's grace.
The road of transgression takes our strength.
I'll repeat that again.
The road of good understanding gives God's grace.
The road of the transgressor takes Our strength.
Now that tells me right then which road I want to be on.
You got the easy way or the hard way.
I want to be on the road that gives me the grace of God.
I don't want to be on the road that takes.
My strength.
Now, what's the difference between God's grace and our strength?
Simply put, grace is walking in God's strength instead of your own.
Grace is walking in God's strength instead of your own.
You remember when the Apostle Paul Had that physical ailment, he said, I ask God three times, remove this ailment from me.
Remember?
And listen to God's response because we learn something from it more than what We would normally see when we read that text.
In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Paul said, And he said unto me, My grace or my favor.
Is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly, Paul said, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Notice in that text Brother Neil, I don't know if you're watching, but I'm going to get you a little pointer out again.
It's Brother Neil's pointer.
Notice in this text, there's two mice.
My grace, my strength.
You know what we learn from that?
They're synonymous.
God's grace is God's strength.
That's why Paul referring to God's grace Said that God called it, or that He called it the power of Christ.
You see, God's grace is God's strength given to us through the person of Jesus Christ.
Or we could put it this way: God's grace is using, living in His strength instead of ours, through the covenant of the gospel message.
You see, through the covenant of the gospel.
That's the grace of God.
You see, God's grace is his strength given to those who have good understanding.
The problem with taking a road that takes your strength is that eventually you're going to run out of it.
You're going to run out of strength.
The benefit of taking a road that gives God's grace or God's strength, however, is that God never runs out of strength.
Would you rather take a road that you know you're going to lose all your strength, or would you rather take a road that you know you'll never run out of it?
I want to take a road that will never run out of it.
Isaiah chapter 40, verse 28.
Isaiah 40, verse 28: Hast thou not known?
Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not?
Neither is weary.
There is no searching of his understanding.
That's kind of neat, isn't it?
There's no searching of his understanding.
His understanding is limitless.
His strength is limitless.
And God's strength is given to us through good understanding.
Isn't that amazing?
You see, God gives us His strength by first giving us understanding.
Good understanding will always cause us to walk according to our knowledge of God's word, so that we can live in the grace of God's power.
How come I have to have understanding in order to have God's grace?
Because we walk by faith.
And that understanding is my comprehension.
It is my apprehension of the truth of God's word.
Concerning my life and the exceeding great and precious promises given to me in Christ Jesus.
This is how come the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6, verse 10, said, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
Don't be strong in your might or your power.
Be strong in His.
Christians generally make two mistakes when it comes to the grace of God.
I've seen both of them.
I've done both of them.
The first mistake Christians make when it comes to the grace of God is this: the first is they try to walk the way of the Lord in their own strength.
They try to walk God's way in their strength.
Say, well, I'm going to do what God wants me to do.
God told me to do this.
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to muster up the strength and I'm going to go and and and and then they get weary in well-doing So there's a reason the Bible says that we're not to be weary in well-doing.
The Bible doesn't say you won't be weary in well-doing, it commands you to not be weary in well-doing.
Why?
Because we have a tendency to be weary when we're walking God's road because we try to walk the way of the Lord in our own strength.
The second problem Christians have when it comes to the grace of God is they try to walk the way of the transgressor in God's strength.
Isn't that backwards?
They try to walk the way of God and their strength.
They try to walk the way of the transgressor in God's strength And there are two problems with those two mistakes.
First is, we have no ability to keep God's word.
And God has no ability to break His Word.
So we can't walk God's way in our strength.
We have no strength to keep it.
We can't walk the way of the transgressor in God's strength.
God has no ability to break it.
The Bible says it's impossible for God to lie.
He can't go against his word.
Jesus said the scriptures cannot be broken.
We're not going to accomplish what only Christ can do.
So that simply means, and God is, by the way, is not going to accomplish what He told us not to do.
So that means the transgressor must travel his road in his own strength, and we must travel God's road in God's strength.
And since God's strength comes by good understanding, that means we must walk according to a good understanding of God's word, which means we must walk by faith.
When we walk by faith, we are strengthened by God's grace.
2 Corinthians chapter 5:7 says, For we walk by faith.
Not by sight.
Or he could say, We walk by good understanding, not by our carnal fleshly perception.
1 Peter 5, verses 8 and 9 says, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
You say, well, Brother Richard, thank God that's on the hard way.
No, sir, the devil walks on the easy way.
The devil walks the same road that you're walking on because Brother Shepherd will tell you.
When you're hunting drunk drivers, you don't go to the church parking lot.
When you're hunting deer, you don't go to the soccer field.
Now, unless there's oats planted in it.
Man, when I was hunting drunk drivers, I knew where to go.
I knew where the liquor stores, the bars were, I knew where those rascals traveled.
And listen, the devil knows where you travel.
And if he's walking about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, believe me, you are intended in that as well.
This was written to Christians.
Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, he's our adversary, not our friend.
And our adversary is walking on that way that God's called us to walk, that he might trip us up and cause us to get out of it.
He's hiding in the bushes, waiting to pounce on us.
He's seeking whom he may devour.
And that's why we must walk our road in God's strength and on our own.
And so the Apostle Peter said, whom resist, you got to resist the devil.
He said, whom resist?
Steadfast in the faith.
Steadfast in the good understanding.
Why?
If you resist in the faith.
That means you're going to be able to resist in the grace of God.
He says, whom resist steadfast in the faith.
Watch this now.
Resist in the faith.
I love this word right here: knowing, knowing, knowing.
Faith is knowing something to be true.
When we walk God's road, we're going to run into God's enemies.
And Peter said, We're going to have to resist the devil steadfast in the faith according to our good understanding.
And that's why that word that comes after faith is knowing.
When the devil attacks you as you're trying to live for the Lord, when he is trying to devour you like a lion, you ever felt like the devil is trying to eat you up?
Boy, I have.
Don't resist him in your strength.
He's stronger than you.
Resist him in your good understanding of God's strength for you and Jesus Christ.
That's how you do it.
I was talking to my daughter today.
One of my daughters who has Grace who has Crohn's.
That's a bad disease.
And it was such a blessing to me talking to her.
And we were talking about different issues and things.
And she says, you know, when you're having health trouble, in that moment's a little scary.
She said, but then again, because of our faith, it's a little exciting too.
Because you think, hey, one day I'm going to go to heaven.
I've got an exciting place to go to.
And then she says, that's just part of living this life in an unredeemed body.
Because that's what we have.
The Bible says we're waiting for the redemption of our bodies.
Why do we have health issues?
Our bodies are not yet redeemed.
Oh, they're going to be.
When are they going to be, Brother Richard?
As soon as they get popped out of this ground and meet the Lord in the clouds.
Boy, it's going to be a good day.
Right now we're living in unredeemed bodies.
They're breaking.
But you know what got her excited?
Do you know what caused her to be able to continue on when she was dealing with surgery?
And it has to get checked all the time to make sure they have to go back in and do it again.
This one word right here.
Knowing walking steadfast in the faith When the devil tries to say, Oh, something's going to happen to you, you won't be able to fulfill your dreams in life, your ambitions in life, what all God's called you to do.
We resist him steadfast in the faith, knowing that God will never call us home.
Until our work here is done.
The same God that hung the moon and the stars and the sun and the sky, and for all these years they haven't fallen.
They're still hanging up there.
It's the same God who keeps us going day after day after day.
One day those stars are going to fall.
One day the the moon and the sun are going to shine and they're going to all be replaced, but not a moment till God says so.
And we will not die until the moment God says so.
And so he says, you resist him in the faith, knowing.
In these people's case, he said, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplishing your brethren that are in the world.
But there's a lot more to know than that.
You fill in whatever issue you have, you fill it in right here, knowing that, and then you fill it in.
In Grace's case, or in your case, or in my case, knowing that we are living in unredeemed bodies, but there is the promise of redemption to come.
That when we give up and we put off our earthly tabernacle, to be absent from that body is to be present with the Lord.
So, when the devil tries to make you afraid of dying, tries to make you afraid of being sick, tries to make you afraid of failing to accomplish what God's called you to do.
You can resist them steadfast in that faith with a good understanding of what God's truth says about it.
Resist him knowing that he can't devour you like a roaring lion because you believe in a risen lamb.
I like this knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
My wife and I were talking tonight.
I spoke to a A young lady last week, and she said, When I read your book, Knowing I'm Saved.
And she started crying about this time.
She said, I told myself, this is me.
This is me.
This is the life right here that I'm dealing with, that I'm struggling with.
You know how precious it is to know that other brethren struggle with the same things you struggle with?
Do you know why?
We've got a common enemy.
But people who have a common enemy have a common promise, and that's Jesus Christ.
So, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren in the world, we know that the same gospel promises are applied to us as well Resist him knowing that he attacks other Christians with the same lies, the same tactics, and we all resist him with the same truth and grace.
When you are worn out and you are weary from life's battles, walk in your good understanding of the gospel.
Do that, and you'll live in the strength of God's good grace.
Isaiah chapter 40, verse 29 says, He giveth power to the faint.
Now I like that.
Do you know why?
The devil will say, You're not a Christian, or you're not walking close to God.
Look how Powerless you are.
Look how weary you are.
Look how faint you are.
Look how weak and pathetic you are.
Did you know that's exactly who God gives power to?
The faint.
He said, He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might, he increaseth strength.
So the next time you feel like you're about to break, you remember the victory Jesus accomplished for you.
The purpose he has for you, and the home he's prepared for you.
And then you say with the psalmist in Psalm 73, verse 26: My flesh.
And my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
Thank you, God, for your exceeding great and precious promises.
Thank you for giving us a road that we can walk on in great strength.
When we have no might at all, in great understanding, when in our own eyes, Lord, we're blind.
Oh Father, thank you for letting us know the truth about ourselves that we may look up.
To the grace that you give us in Jesus Christ.
Thank you for having such great mercy and grace upon such pathetic people, such as we.
In Jesus' wonderful name, Amen.
