Episode Transcript
Alright, if you'll take your Bibles, please, and turn the book of Proverbs, chapter 15.
Proverbs chapter 15.
God willing, we'll be expounding verse 5 tonight.
The title of the message tonight is Hedging What's Right.
Hedging What's Right.
And we begin with the two words a fool.
And boy, we've learned a lot about fools going through the book of Proverbs, haven't we?
You know, you don't discover a fool in the book of Proverbs.
Proverbs doesn't reveal fools.
Proverbs explains them and describes them.
You cannot live in this world without being surrounded by a bunch of fools.
And I tell you, I don't have much patience with them.
And the older I get, I just have a hard time dealing with foolishness.
And boy, have we got more and more today.
Well, the Hebrew word for fool, if you're taking notes here, is taken from a root word that means perverse.
Perverse.
And to be perverse means to turn aside from what's right.
So if you could picture a person here, if you could picture what's right here, God's truth here Everything right, and you see a person, and they just turn aside from it.
They depart from what's right.
That's what this word fool means. a perverse person, a person who turns aside from what is right.
So I would feel much safer.
Because a lot of people think, well, maybe a fool's someone with a low IQ.
Now it's not a fool.
A fool could have a very high IQ.
A lot of them do.
So a fool is someone whose thinking is not right, because they turned aside from what's right.
And again, I'd feel much safer with a mentally challenged person.
A person with a low IQ in Congress who had a sense of right and wrong, than a foolish person who's highly educated being in there.
But a fool, again, is turned aside from what is right and the most important thing in the world.
You may think, well, it's oxygen, it's water, it's health It's finances, it's none of those things.
The most important thing in the world is to be right.
For us to be right, to be right with God, to be right in God's sight, to be right with our fellow man.
And that's the most important thing, because that's the way God designed us to be.
He designed us right.
He made everything tob, right?
good in the Old Testament, that Hebrew word we've looked at so many times.
And so that's the way God designed us to be was right.
Everything God does is right.
So when we depart from God's design, God designed everything right.
He set up society right.
He created the order of man and woman right.
He created our bodies right.
He created nature right.
And when we depart from what is right from His design, we're being foolish.
You can look at the pictures there in Africa.
I remember when I was a kid, I'd look at those National Geographic, and you'd see those people.
They'd put things in their lips, make them come out real big.
Some of them, when they're young, they'll put like blocks or something on their head.
So their head can't grow normal and it makes it kind of square shape.
You know, you've seen people do watermelons like that?
Well, they'll do their head like that.
And you see that, and that's not right.
It's butchering God's design.
If God wanted us to have.
You know, funny-looking heads like that, he would have made us like that.
And so that's departing from his design, it's departing from what's right.
I'm going to go a step further with this, and I don't want to offend anybody, but I'm going to tell you what I believe, because at some point I think we need to address it.
We've got a trend today where people like to have purple hair, blue hair, green hair.
I won't tell you, I don't think that's right.
I can promise you this, it's not the way God designed us.
You all agree with that, right?
We weren't designed that way.
And I think when we butcher our body.
And we change ourselves in a way God didn't design, we're definitely going against nature.
And I think everyone would agree that it's not natural, it goes against nature.
And so when we think about that, we think about perverseness departing from what's right, how we know what's right is based on God's design or based on God's word.
And so both his word, which reveals the inner heart of God, and God's design, which reveals the outer expression of God's will.
When you depart from either one of those, that is perverseness.
Listen to this.
This is the argument.
Against homosexuality in the Bible.
The argument against homosexuality.
Romans chapter 1, verse 26.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women Did change the natural use into that which is, and here's two words, very important, against nature.
Against nature.
So when something goes against nature, that is wrong.
And any person can look.
At the anatomy of a man or the anatomy of a woman, and they can tell that a man and woman were designed To complement each other.
Just like the blocks that children get.
I used to have this This toy when I was a kid.
I guess most kids my age and older have had one where it's this kind of Brother Shepherd would have the perfect geometrical shape for it.
He would know the name for it.
I don't.
Brother Shepherd, maybe you can tell me, but it's not round, but it's kind of got these little, it's kind of spherical, but it's got these little cuby-looking shapes to it.
And it's got a little.
Star and a triangle and a square and a circle, and you can look and you can tell what fits what.
And you look at God's design of a man and a woman, you can tell God made them to go together.
And so when you take two women or two men, you put them together, that's against God's nature.
It's perverseness.
And it is wrong.
So that's why homosexuality is a sin, is because it turns aside from what's right.
And it's foolish.
And Solomon says, a fool, look back in your text, despiseth, despiseth.
That means he has disdain.
He has contempt.
And what does he have contempt for?
It says, His father's instruction.
Look at that word, father.
He has contempt for his father's instruction.
Now, why does a fool Despise his father's instruction.
It's not anything personal with his father.
That's not the problem.
When a young person has a wise mother or a wise father and they have contempt for the wisdom of their parents, it's not anything personal between them and their parents.
It's between them and God.
You see, I mean, what is, how is God described to us as our Father?
And so when God gives us an earthly Father, that earthly Father is a representation of our Heavenly Father.
And the earthly father has the role of nurturing that child on the heavenly father's behalf.
And because his father was given to him by God, why?
To lead him in the way of righteousness, of what's right.
And so when that child departs from the right way his dad or mom teaches him, here the father, but when he departs from the right way, that's perverseness.
And he's doing it not because he has a problem with the dad, but he has a problem with the righteousness, the dad's teaching, because he has a problem with the righteousness. of the God whom the the righteous father or the godly father is representing.
A fool turns aside from what's right, so they turn aside from God.
And thus they turn aside from the righteous authority that God sets over them, thus their Father on earth.
And that not only goes For a fool despising their fathers, but it goes for a fool despising any God-given correction, not just their dad.
But it starts with the dad.
If you have a child, Who has a problem with dad's authority when they leave the home?
They're going to take that authority issue with them outside the home.
They're going to have trouble at work.
They're going to have trouble with their bosses.
They're going to have trouble.
With Brother Shepherd on the side of the road or at the domestic disturbance or whatever he happens to be responding to, they're going to have a trouble with authority in general.
I was listening to Joy Reed, a clip of her today, and she was talking about how we need to be disobedient to government.
She said, government's supposed to be obeying us.
They work for us.
We don't work for them.
Well, now they are public servants.
But they also are the established authority.
What good is it to have a government that can't govern?
If the government can't govern, they're no longer a government.
And if the government has to listen to people, which people are they going to listen to?
Now you have nothing but chaos.
But that's the attitude, that's the attitude of someone who despises God's authority.
And so that just trickles down from the God who establishes authority or is authority, excuse me, to the authorities that God has established under him.
That's what that is.
So, when someone despises you, if you're trying to correct them, because it says here that a fool despises their father's Their father's correction here.
And if you'll look here at this word instruction, that word in the Hebrew, it means instruction in the sense of correcting.
If you have someone with crooked teeth, And you put braces on them, that's the kind of instruction we're talking about here in the Bible, in the sense that it's correcting, it's telling the teeth where to go.
And in so doing, it's correcting those teeth and putting them in the right place that they're supposed to have by God's design.
And so when someone despises you, when you're trying to correct them, instruct them here in the scripture, then it's God that they're despising, not you.
Don't take it personal.
Jesus represented God's righteous authority.
And that's why Isaiah said in Isaiah 53, 3, he is despised.
And rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from him.
He was Despised, and we esteemed him not.
So a fool despises his father's instruction, that corrective teaching or discipline of his father.
So when Jesus came naturally, he was despised because what was he teaching?
He said to John the Baptist, We had to fulfill all righteousness.
Everything about Jesus was right.
Everything about John the Baptist's ministry was correction.
That's why the wise people came to him to be corrected.
The foolish people came to him to despise him and to mock him, and then the Savior that he pointed them to, who also came to make us righteous.
So if they despise Jesus, rest assured they will despise you.
A fool turns aside from what's right, therefore they despise those who try to steer them.
Toward what's right.
First, their father as a child, and then others as they're grown.
But on the other hand, Solomon says, look back in your text, but he that regardeth reproof Now we're seeing the word instruction being used interchangeably with the word reproof, hence the idea of correction.
He that regardeth reproof.
Now, this is really, really great.
And when we get through here, you won't forget it.
I don't think you will.
The word regardeth here, if you're taking notes, it's the same word when God told Adam that he put him in the garden to dress it and to keep it.
So it literally means in the Hebrew to hedge about, to hedge something about.
To put it in Texas terms, to fence it in.
To fence it in.
All right?
So I was watching a video the other day of a conservative activist. who was at a gay pride event interviewing homosexuals about the terror group Hamas.
Because homosexuals are very pro-Palestinian and very pro-Muslim homosexuals are.
And I truly believe that liberals are the most misinformed, delusional people on the planet.
I really believe that.
And there's no finer example of this than homosexuals who support Muslims who kill homosexuals.
I mean, seriously.
And so he was out, this conservative activist was out interviewing these homosexuals at the gay pride event.
And he said, What do you think about Hamas?
Oh, they support Hamas.
They said, Do you have anything that you would like to say to Hamas?
And they put the microphone.
They started wishing them happy pride, happy pride.
And then, when they try to explain to them that the homosexuals Kill and call for the death.
I'm sorry, the Hamas kills and calls for the death of homosexuals, they don't want to listen.
They don't want to listen.
I was listening to a woman the other day interviewing someone about the Jews, about Israel.
And she said, you know, I'm a Christian.
I support Israel.
Why do you not support Israel?
And they said, well, if you were to go to Israel as a Christian wearing that cross, because he was wearing a necklace with a cross, wearing that cross on your neck, you know, they'd come after you.
They wouldn't allow that.
She says, Well, actually, I just got back from Israel and I did wear this cross, and I had no problem at all.
And he says, You're obviously brainwashed.
Well, she said, how can I be brainwashed if I went there and this is what I experienced?
Have you ever been to Israel?
No.
Well, what does he do?
He says, I'm through with this interview.
He's done.
Well, when you're talking to someone like that, this is how we describe it.
When you're trying to correct someone, you're trying to give them correct information, you're taking someone who's misinformed, you're trying to inform them.
And you can state the facts and it we say it goes in one ear And comes out the other.
That's how we describe it, isn't it?
And did you know that's actually a biblical description?
Because that is the opposite of what hedging about is here tonight.
It says here: he that regardeth reproof.
And so, what that's talking about is when the reproof comes to the ear, we say it goes in one ear and out the other.
When the reproof comes into the ear, when the truth, when God's truth, His correcting words, come into the ear.
Instead of letting it go in one ear and then escape out the other, if you hedge it about, you're going to fence it in.
Make sense?
So now picture the correcting words coming into this ear. and picture you putting a fence around it so it can't escape where it went in.
I think of it this way as I was doing my study.
I was thinking of a horse.
You have a wild horse and you get him inside a corral.
What are you going to do?
Well, a foolish person who's rounded up some wild horses and got them into the corral, they're not just going to ride off from the corral and go sit down around a campfire with a pot of beans.
First thing they're going to do is close that door on that corral.
Or else, those horses that are so valuable to them are going to get out.
And running horses in a corral simply to let them run right back out is no different than letting words go in your ear, only to let them go back out.
And so that's the idea here with him that regards with reproof.
He's fencing it in.
He's letting the words go in and not escape their minds, but the word of truth enter the ear and then they stay in the mind.
So that they can have a life-changing impact on us.
That's what we need to do.
So instead of letting the words go in one ear and out the other.
Picture the words going in that person's ear, and then that person putting a fence or a hedge up around their minds to prevent it from escaping.
Whoever fences reproof, Solomon says.
And reproof essentially, again, it means to correct someone's thinking in order to make it right.
And boy, have I had to have my thinking corrected many times.
This Friday, I get the privilege.
My wife calls it go to work with your husband day.
So every now and then she'll have business in town or the town I work in.
And so she'll just get up early and ride to work with me.
And so Fridays, go to work with your husband day.
Well, she's got to go see the eye doctor.
And a lot of times when I'm at the house, and by the way, I'm just this is a fact.
I'm not picking on Tammy, but I'm just telling you a fact here.
I didn't need glasses.
Until I married her.
I'm just a fact.
That's a fact.
But she's going to go see the eye doctor.
And every now and then, my wife.
When I don't have my eyeglasses on, she'll come bring me something over to read.
She's like, would you look at this?
Or would you read this?
And I say, sweetheart.
I can't read to see that.
Now, if I was born seeing the way I see right now, Miss Ann, your face is a little blurry to me.
Everyone in here's face is a little blurry to me right now.
If this is all I knew, I would think all of you look this way.
I would think, my goodness, what a, you know, everyone's, you know, this is the way everyone looks.
Do you know what they call these lenses?
What kind of lenses do they call them?
Corrective lenses.
And the word reproof means to correct.
So in the physical realm, when I'm looking at you for all these years like this, this is the way I perceive reality right here.
Now if someone takes a pair of these corrective lenses and they say now hang on a minute Because if they you know they say well you know say I'm an artist say I'm very talented artist they say well You know can can can you can you draw a picture of Ann January?
Oh absolutely And I just draw an absolute perfect rendering of how I see her.
They're going to say, well, now that's not how Ann looks.
Oh, yes, it is.
And then they take these corrective lenses and they go, Boop.
And I go, oh my.
Now I have one of two choices.
I can either say, wow.
And then look at my picture and say, man, I was wrong.
How about that, Ann?
I thought you looked like this the whole time.
Or I could say, I don't want those on me.
I don't trust those corrective lenses.
Nobody's going to tell me how to look at the world.
Well, that's a fool that would cast the correction off in the same way we would all agree.
That's why I see one, two, three, four Five, six, seven, eight, nine, I say almost half the people in here.
And probably half or more watching online right now are wearing these corrective lenses because you appreciate Being able to see things the right way.
In the same way, God gives us His Word.
So that we can see the spiritual truth the right way.
So we can see the family the right way.
Finances the right way, church the right way, society the right way.
Personal choices and health, and everything that we read about in Scripture, the right way.
And if we're wise, we will treasure God's word and see it as corrective.
Lenses for our mind.
If, and I'm going to tell you, I paid a pretty penny for these.
Brother Shepherd would have never paid this much for them.
I can tell you that right now.
But I paid a pretty penny for them.
And you know what?
When I first got glasses, I remember when I first started wearing these glasses I was not used to having them on.
I remember I got up here, I was preaching one day, and I'd be preaching a little bit, and I'd get tired of them on.
I'd reach in, I'd pull them off like that, and I'd preach, and I'd need to read, I'd stick them back on, and I'd pull them off And I'd preach a little bit, you know what I did.
I pulled the handle out of them.
But now, I tell you, I can't afford to not have these own anymore because my eyes have gotten worse.
I'm telling you, the longer I live with her, the worse they get.
It's true.
So I protect these classes.
I have a rule that these glasses are supposed to be on my nose.
And I actually have a nose that my daughter Grace bought me.
It's made out of wood, and it's a human-looking nose, and it's on my nightstand.
So when these come off of this nose, I fold them, I stick them on that nose.
Why?
Because Richard kept breaking his glasses.
And so I cherish these, and you know what I'm doing?
In a sense, I'm hedging them about.
I'm trying to protect them to make sure that I'm always able to see correctly.
That's what a wise person does.
Now it says here, we must hurry, it says here, Go back up.
But he that regardeth reproof, and remember, reproof is correction here, and it says here, is prudent now.
This is good because guess what I got to hear Brother Shepherd teaching on this morning?
The word prudent there from the book of Job.
And I absolutely loved it because I'm thinking, my goodness, I'll be teaching on that word tonight.
And I did a study on that word so I could teach y'all.
And he did a study on that word.
And I actually went.
Through some other words as well.
And so this will just go hand in hand.
If you were in his adult Sunday school class Sunday morning, I could listen to him teach all day, by the way.
I enjoy listening to Brother Shepherd teach.
But it literally means smooth when you look it up, prudent.
When you look it up, Brother Shepherd told y'all Sunday morning that it's the same word.
And he understood it just like I did, because I thought up the same way, because I noticed that that smoothness is used both in a good way in Scripture and in a bad way in Scripture.
And so, but it means smooth.
And if you weren't here for a Sunday morning class, the first time we see it is when it says the serpent was more subtle.
Than he'd be to the field the Lord God had made.
He was smooth.
He's a smooth operator.
It's what it means.
And so when we think of that smooth here, And I'm going to enlarge a little bit on what Brother Shepherd said when we think, because I'm not going to reteach what he said.
But when you think of the difference, I just want to clarify the difference between the good prudent In the bad prudent.
Of course, there's not a bad prudent, but it's the same word.
The subtleness Of the serpent or the prudence of the wise man being the same word.
Why Is it the same word to describe the opposite?
Because it's really not opposite.
When Brother Shepard was teaching, Brother Shepard, the way that was used in the book of Job really helped.
Seals some understanding for me.
And the reason is this: it's because Brother Shepherd's text in the book of Job.
Was talking about how God disappoints the craftiness of the wicked.
And I'm not quoting it exactly, but Brother Shepherd was saying, you know, God doesn't.
Will never disappoint us, but it does disappoint the plans, the evil plans of people.
And so, if you could think of it this way: a prudent person Takes God's word, and he understands that God's word is a carefully laid out plan of God for our lives.
Now, if we are prudent, we will carefully follow and hedge about that plan.
So that we will act out and carry out God's plan for our lives that's laid out for us The reason the same word is used in the evil is this because man Creates his own plan.
And then the devices of the wicked is how it's described: his devices.
He crafts his own plan and then, like the prudent, he sticks to it and carefully follows his plan.
So, both of them are following out carefully crafted plans, but one is carefully crafted by God.
The other is carelessly crafted or foolishly crafted by man, a rebel of God.
And so when he. . carefully follows out his plan, it's like WALE Coyote on the Roadrunner He's got all the plans in his mind.
He orders.
I tell you, I would invest in Acme if he was still around.
I'd invest in Acme.
Everything he orders is from Acme.
But.
But he orders his whatever roadrunner trap or whatever he's a rocket he's going to strap on his back.
He carefully follows those plans, but they fail on him.
Satan had a carefully crafted plan.
He is still to this day Carrying it out.
He has not yet been disappointed on his plan.
He's still sticking with it.
But according to the scripture Brother Shepherd was teaching, he's going to be disappointed in the end.
Us who have been following God's plan, we're not going to be disappointed in the end because God will never disappoint us.
So he that regards reproof is someone meaning they're going to Disregard and be corrected on the devil's plan, the world's plan for their lives.
They're going to put on God's word and see God's plan for their lives, then they're going to follow that. plan out, which means they are the opposite of following out that plan.
They're following God's plan, therefore they are prudent.
Same word.
Different plan.
Makes sense?
And thank God, a different outcome.
And with that, we're going to go ahead and stop tonight.
And Lord willing get back into verse 6 next Sunday.
I'm sorry, Wednesday.
Father, thank you so much for your precious word.
Thank you, Father God, for letting Brother Shepherd's teaching and mine dovetail so often.
And what a blessing that is, not just for us and for me, but for the church as well.
And we thank you for your corrective word, and we pray we'll be corrected by it.
Lord, I know I sure need to be.
And Lord, I pray for everyone to have a safe trip back home.
I pray, dear Lord God, you'll give us wisdom.
I pray for every prayer request made tonight.
I pray, dear Lord God, for our church and for our Sunday morning worship coming up.
And we ask it in Jesus' wonderful name.
Amen.
