Episode Transcript
Amen.
Proverbs chapter 13 verse 6 tonight.
Proverbs chapter 13 verse 6.
Title of the message tonight is "Wholehearted Christians".
"Wholehearted Christians".
The Proverbs starts off by saying "righteousness".
Righteousness.
And we've been learning a lot about righteousness in the book of Proverbs, so I'd like to remind you that righteousness means to be right, and what's right is determined by God's Word.
Everything that is right and wrong, the standard for that measurement is the Word of God.
And righteousness is not simply following a set of rules.
Righteousness is the physical, mental, and spiritual health of mankind.
I'm going to repeat that again.
Righteousness is not simply following a set of rules.
Righteousness is the mental, physical, and spiritual health of mankind.
Now, I've been emphasizing the word "right" in the word "righteousness" because when you Understand righteousness, it is the state, the condition of being right.
The quality of being right.
God does everything right.
Sin is always wrong.
Now, the reason that I say righteousness is also the mental, physical, and spiritual health of mankind is because for us to be mentally, physically, and spiritually healthy, we have to be right.
If you fall down, and you have people around you, and you trip, and you fall, and someone says, "Are you okay?"
You'd say, "I'm all..."
What?
"All right."
You don't say, "Oh yeah, I'm all wrong."
That wouldn't be good.
But when you say, "I'm all right," what are you saying?
Everything is right with me.
My bones are in the right place.
Right?
Everything is right the way God designed me to be.
It may not be what you're thinking, but when you say, "I'm all right," that's really what you're saying.
If a bone's broken, that's not the way God designed it.
It's not right.
So you are not all right, you see?
And so righteousness is not only, again, following a set of rules.
Righteousness is not just a set of commands in the Bible.
When we do what's right, when we are right, it affects us in our totality, and it affects our world.
When Jesus comes back, He's coming back to make everything right.
To take what's wrong and fix it and make it right.
Thank God for that.
So, everything that's good for us is right.
And everything that's bad for us is wrong.
When we are wrong, we are broken.
When we are right, we are whole.
Righteousness is the greatest treasure, therefore, that a man can have.
When someone was sick, their body was broken in the New Testament.
Jesus would heal it and say that their faith had made them whole.
So, they were broken.
And he said that he at one time perceived that virtue had gone forth from him.
And virtue brought forth healing.
It's quite fascinating.
Sin brings death, righteousness brings life.
Because everything is right the way God designed it to be.
Righteousness, once again, is the greatest treasure a man can have.
And righteousness is not only our moral state of being, righteousness is our guardian.
Righteousness is our guardian.
And now I'm reminded that I need some water.
I didn't set my water up here.
Here we go.
I got it, Hannah.
When I studied for this message, I began to yearn for righteousness as I learned more about it.
I began to love righteousness and love God's Word even more when I learned that righteousness is our guardian.
King Solomon says, "Righteousness," look back in your text, what?
What does righteousness do?
It guardeth.
So we learn that righteousness actually performs a task.
Righteousness guards.
I used to have a wonderful guard dog at my house named Princess.
And when Princess was in the house, I didn't have to worry about locking my doors because she guarded my house.
Princess wasn't going to let anybody get in that house to get me.
Princess guarded.
She kept.
She protected.
She preserved.
Righteousness also guards.
Righteousness keeps, protects, and preserves.
If you ever get a faithful guard dog, you might consider naming him Righteousness.
That would be a good name for a guard dog because Righteousness guards.
Righteousness is the best guardian of all.
My dog was a great guard dog, but Righteousness does a much better job of guarding than Princess ever did.
As fierce of a dog as she was, princess could have been defeated by an enemy.
But righteousness can never be defeated.
Here's a kingdom truth for you tonight.
Obedience to the scripture will never leave you vulnerable to the enemy.
Man, that is a truth you can hang up and hold on to. to the scripture will never leave you vulnerable to the enemy.
Now princess didn't just guard anyone.
She wouldn't have guarded you.
She would have tried to eat you.
Princess guarded me and righteousness guards, look in your text, him that is upright.
Him that is upright.
Now the Hebrew word translated upright means to be complete, means to be whole.
It doesn't just mean they're standing right side up versus upside down.
That's just how it's translated in the English.
But it literally means in the Hebrew to be whole, to be complete.
So the idea of wholeness or completeness here is in regards to our commitment to God in His Word.
For example, when we study the kings of Israel, as Brother Shepard has been so wonderfully taking us through, 2 Kings, we see that some kings serve God wholeheartedly and some kings served God half-heartedly.
Some kings didn't serve God at all.
Take for example King David and King Solomon.
David and Solomon were both godly men.
Both men loved the Lord.
Both men are in heaven right now.
They were both saved.
And both men were used by God in mighty ways. studying from the writings of King Solomon tonight.
They're both used to contribute to the sacred scriptures.
But one of those men served God wholeheartedly.
And at one point in his life, one of those men served God half-heartedly.
And that was Solomon.
King David committed some serious sins when he was king.
But what was so wonderful about King David was his heart wasn't divided in his devotion to God.
He was God's man and God's man alone.
With all his faults, he was God's man and God's man alone.
He did not cheat on God.
He loved the Lord his God with all his heart and he served God and God alone.
Now when David's son Solomon inherited David's throne, he asked God for wisdom so he could properly lead the nation, which was a wise thing to do.
It was a great thing to do.
And listen to what Solomon prayed and listen to God's response to him in 1 Kings 9, 1-5.
"And it came to pass when Solomon had finished the building of the house of the Lord and the king's house and all Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do.
The Lord appeared to Solomon the second time as he had appeared unto him at Gibeon.
And the Lord said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication that thou has made before me.
I have hallowed this house which thou has built to put my name there forever.
And mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.
And if thou wilt walk before me, now listen to the condition that God's making Solomon.
If thou wilt walk before me as David thy father walked.
Now Solomon has been obeying God.
Solomon had previously to this prayed and asked God for wisdom and God gave him wisdom.
Solomon was serving the Lord.
But God told Solomon, "Solomon, if you'll walk before me as your father David walked, in what?
In integrity of heart."
That's the same word in our text tonight.
Upright.
In the wholeness of his heart.
In the fullness of his heart.
And in uprightness, God says.
"To do according to all that I have commanded thee, and will keep my statutes and my judgments, then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel forever.
As I promised to David thy father, saying, 'There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.'"
Now that's a wonderful promise that God made King Solomon.
But King Solomon did not follow God with his whole heart as his father David did.
He began to wane from the Lord.
Now listen to what God said about King Solomon in 1 Kings 11, verses 3 and 4.
It says, "And he, that is Solomon, had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines.
And his wives turned."
That's a terrible thing to say, but that's what they did. his wives turned away his heart.
Boy, I tell you, I've seen so many men when I've been in the ministry, and they'll be faithful to church.
And next thing you know, they get them a girlfriend.
And I'll think to myself, they won't be in church much longer, not here.
Not here.
Because when the man's coming and that girlfriend's not, it won't be long.
If she's not going to follow him to church, he'll follow her out of it.
That's usually how it works.
We had a deacon here.
He got married not too long after I was pastor here and I thought to myself, "He won't be here long.
He's going to follow that woman right out of here to her fun church."
And that's what he did.
He told me he was coming here.
I thought, "He won't stay here."
And he followed her out.
There's a man that I know that went to the seminary where I teach.
Pastored for years at this church.
Always wanted a wife.
He's not a very attractive fellow.
I have to tell you, he's just not.
And but he wanted a wife so bad and everybody knew it.
In this year, he got married.
What a month ago even?
Maybe a month.
Three or four weeks ago, he got married.
He's already quit his church.
Go fall off and move over to where she is.
Follow her.
All those years preaching at this church, serving at this church.
And then suddenly he gets married and okay, I'm gone now and follows her off.
I thought how sad to follow that woman off like that.
You know she's supposed to be his helper, but instead she didn't help him in the ministry at all.
She terminated it.
And in his mind, he's got to be thinking, "Well, I'm married now and I'll just take this new journey of my life."
I tell you what, I would hope as a man of God that marrying a woman would help me serve God more, not less.
And so his wives turned away his heart.
He says in verse 4, "For it came to pass when Solomon was old that his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect, was not whole with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father."
So now if his heart would have been perfect toward God, his wives could have never turned his heart away from God.
When they turned his heart away from God, he went out of the way that God had ordained for him to walk.
And that's because he loved his wives, he loved his Lord, but he didn't love his Lord with a perfect heart.
So he split his devotion between the two.
"Well, I'll love God, I'll have my religion.
You know what, I'm going to build some temples for them so they can have their religion."
Yeah, that's what we'll do and we'll get all this religion going here.
And the next thing you know, his children are raised by these ungodly women.
They're teaching them the way of false worship and the next thing you know, Israel has gone into false worship.
Solomon was a believer, but Solomon was a compromiser.
You see the difference?
King David was a sinner, but he was not a compromiser.
He wasn't going to have anything to do with these false gods.
The King Solomon did.
Righteousness, obedience to God's Word, a whole heart to where we say, "You know what?
I am God's servant.
I am God's servant alone."
His Word determines what is right and what is wrong alone.
And that type of obedience, that righteousness, it guards and protects the man whose heart is devoted to God.
Solomon said, "Righteousness guards the upright man," where?
The back of your text, "in the way."
It guards him in the way.
Righteousness guards a man who is upright in his heart in the way, in the path of God's word which God has ordained for us to travel.
Solomon served God with a whole heart, but his heart was later turned from God somewhat because of the influence of his heathen wives, no longer wholeheartedly, but half-heartedly.
Because of this, his kingdom was greatly diminished.
In Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 and 5, God said, "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one LORD, and thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thine might."
Now why is that?
Well, notice how this command, which is the most important command in the Bible, Jesus that it is the number one command.
And I want you to notice how this command is prefaced with God's character, God's attribute of being one.
God just didn't come out and say, "Hey, I'm God.
Serve me with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might."
That's not what he did.
He said, "Now listen, Israel.
God is one.
He's one.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind."
You see, God is not several gods, so that we have to share our devotion with those several gods like the Hindus do.
They have so many gods.
They can't serve any of those gods with a whole heart.
They have to divide their devotion between the thousands of gods.
So our God is not several gods that we have to share our devotion with.
He is one Lord and thus we love Him with what?
All our heart.
Because He's the only God we have.
We have one heart, He gets all of it.
We have one God, we get all of Him.
This is the first and great commandment, and that commandment shall guard us in the way God has for us.
Don't ever let anything in this world or anyone in this world cause your affection for God to have competition.
Don't share your affection with God for anything else.
You see, true love loves with God's love.
It's agape love.
It's not that I say, "Well, I love God and I love my wife too.
Oh, I've got to love God with my whole heart.
Therefore, sorry honey, I can't love you.
I've got to give all that heart to God."
Now we love God and then God loves our spouse through us.
So we love.
Remember, "The love of the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself."
So loving God with all of your heart doesn't mean you can't love your neighbor as yourself too.
But it means you love God exclusively as God, then you love your neighbor on account of your love for Him.
And it says, "Righteousness guards that upright man."
It keeps us from falling in our sin.
Righteousness guards, look back in your text, but wickedness, but wickedness.
In other words, wickedness does something different than guarding.
And wickedness is to be wrong.
Righteousness is to be right.
Wickedness is to be wrong according to God's Word.
And righteousness guards, that's the action that righteousness takes.
So always remember, you are safest when you are in the center of God's Word, when you're in the center of His will.
Obedience to God's Word will never leave you vulnerable to the enemy, but wickedness overthrows the sinner.
Watch the actions here.
Righteousness guards, wickedness overthrows.
One is protecting, the other is conquering.
The Hebrew word translated "overthrow" here has the idea of twisting something violently.
And I couldn't help but think this word "overthrow" in the Hebrew word meaning to twist something violently has the idea of something being like this and just casting it down.
Sort of like Jesus threw over those tables, you know.
Has that same idea.
I couldn't help but think about a wrestler.
When a wrestler throws a man down, he's usually twisting his opponent violently and taking him off of his feet.
When a person departs from God's Word, their wickedness does that to them.
It overthrows them.
It twists them and takes them down.
When a person obeys God's Word, their righteousness upholds them, it guards them, and it keeps them standing in the way that God has for them.
Every day we live, we face an enemy who wants to overthrow us, who wants to destroy us.
And half-heartedness, as a Christian, half-heartedness lets the enemy get close to us.
And then sin lets the enemy throw us down.
Fortunately, a believer has the eternal righteousness of Christ.
So we're looking at getting overthrown here.
There's two different types of righteousness.
There's the righteousness of our obedience to God that we do.
Then there's the righteousness of Christ's obedience to God that's imputed to us.
So fortunately, a believer has the eternal righteousness of Christ that is imputed to him.
So while we can fall in our sin temporarily, we can never fall to the enemy eternally.
So when we're reading this, we want to have a great love for righteousness.
We need to adhere to God's Word and we need to understand that righteousness is a wonderful protector.
A wonderful protector.
But at the same time, we need to understand the enemy is there to overthrow us, but at the same time, we need to understand that the enemy to a believer can only overthrow him temporarily.
King Solomon was overthrown due to the women, but he is only overthrown temporarily.
He eternally stands victorious in Jesus.
Peter denied Christ three times.
The enemy overthrew him temporarily.
But Peter's in heaven eternally.
And so we thank God for that.
The righteousness of Christ guards us in the way of everlasting life that He provided for us on the cross.
The introduction to the book of Jude.
Jude 1.1 says, "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Christ Jesus in call."
Now note the phrase "preserved in Christ Jesus."
Preserved in Christ Jesus.
Do you want a blessing?
Do you know what that word "preserved" means in the Greek dictionary?
Guard.
Isn't that good?
Man, that is so good!
So, thank God, our righteousness in our everyday walk with God, in our wholeheartedness toward God, that righteousness guards us in our day-to-day walk in the way in this world.
But the righteousness of Christ guards us forever.
Forever.
It gives us ultimate and eternal victory.
Preserved in Jesus Christ.
That word preserved means to guard.
And Jesus Christ is the way.
Isn't that something?
So that brings us back to Proverbs again.
Righteousness guards the upright in the way.
It keeps Him, it guards Him in the way.
And so here we are through the gospel, through the sanctification of God the Father, we are guarded in Jesus Christ.
Isn't that good.
So we are kept in the way just like Solomon said.
We may fall in a moment of disobedience, but we shall stand forever in the grace of eternal righteousness, which is through Christ Jesus our Lord.
With that we'll go ahead and close tonight and Lord willing we will take back up.
Oh, I love seeing these comments pop up here.
Danny Dietz is saying, "Praise God."
Amen, Brother Danny.
Amen.
Love seeing those comments pop up.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious Word.
Thank you, Father, for the practical instruction.
Lord, there are repercussions for our disobedience.
There are repercussions for our half-heartedness as a Christian.
Solomon suffered the repercussions of his half-heartedness, and his kingdom, Father Lord, was divided and diminished after his death.
At the same time, the eternal righteousness of Christ has preserved him forever.
And thank you, Father, that that practical instruction applies to us and also the eternal comfort and assurance applies to us as well.
And we pray, Father, that we will rest in one and be faithful to the other.
In Jesus' wonderful name, amen.
