Episode Transcript
Alright, we'll be in Proverbs chapter 15, verse 9 tonight.
Proverbs chapter 15 verse 9.
Title of the message is The Way We Go.
Everybody goes some way.
You know, you were created to travel a particular path.
It's not just a description or a metaphor, but it's movement.
We were created to move in a certain direction, to go a certain direction.
To walk a certain way.
And when you walk a certain way, you arrive at a certain destination, and in a sense, you're achieving certain things.
And so our proverb tonight is a companion proverb to last week's proverb.
You might notice that whenever we read it, and because of that, we're going to build on what we learned last week.
So let's go ahead and read last week's Proverb first, and then we can quickly remind ourselves what we learned last week.
Proverbs 15, 8 says, The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight.
So last week, the abomination to God was the sacrifice of the wicked.
We learned then that when something is an abomination to the Lord, we learn that it means it's disgusting to the Lord.
And the sacrifice of the wicked is disgusting, the Bible says to the Lord.
And that's because the wicked are offering to God a sacrifice other than the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
There is no other the Lord's provided.
So anything outside of that's an abomination to him.
He won't accept it.
It's disgusting to him.
So no matter how earnestly we present our offering to God as Cain, Our doctrine, our religion, our efforts, or our faith, even.
That's offered to him, that's outside his prescribed way, is an abomination.
It's going to be rejected by him.
Now, with that in mind, let's move into verse 9 tonight, which says, The way of the wicked is Also an abomination of the Lord.
Can you see the combination there?
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.
Now we see that the way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.
In the two Proverbs Work together to enlarge upon the truth of each.
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination.
The way of the wicked is an abomination.
Our sacrifice is our way.
Our sacrifice is our way.
Listen to what Jesus said in John 14:2.
Jesus said, In my father's house, Are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you.
Now that word prepare is key to understanding our proverb tonight.
When I grew up and A preacher would quote this particular passage of scripture, I go to prepare a place for you, then there was a popular misunderstanding.
That since Jesus has been preparing heaven for us for the past 2,000 years, it must be a wonderful place.
Oh, he's been working on that for 2,000 years now.
And they would say, you know, just think if it took God six days to make heaven and earth, just think how wonderful.
Heaven must be if it's been taking them all this long.
You know, it's kind of the impression they're giving, and it's a wrong interpretation because it falsely implies that It takes God longer to do a big job than a small job.
There are no big and small jobs to God.
He said, Is anything too hard for me?
He could do it just like that if he wanted to.
So, what we have to understand is this: God's work may be executed in time, but it is never limited by time.
Repeat that again.
God's work may be and often is executed in time, but is never limited by time.
Had God not caused the light to shine, whenever He said, Let there be light, you realize it wouldn't have taken Him six days to create the heaven and earth?
Do you know why?
Because the evening and the morning were the first day.
Had there never been light, there would have never been the first day.
He'd created it in zero days.
He would have created it. outside of time.
And so what did Jesus mean when he said he's going to prepare a place for us?
Well preparing is not the same as creating.
Preparing is not necessarily the same as making.
John the Baptist, if you'll remember, he told the people to prepare.
A way for Jesus to come.
Now that's the same Greek word that Jesus used when he said, I go to prepare a place for you.
John the Baptist said, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
Makes what?
Prepare what?
The way of the Lord.
We're looking at the way of the wicked tonight.
So they said, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
So did they create anything when they prepared a way?
No.
No.
So the people prepared a way for Jesus, and then what did Jesus do?
He left to prepare a place for them.
And that word place literally means a location, but figuratively it means an opportunity.
So Jesus had to go from earth to the cross to heaven to give us the opportunity to be with him.
And in John 14:3, he went on to say, And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you into myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.
So the place that Jesus spoke of already existed because Jesus went to that place after he died.
He told the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise.
So that place existed, but that place did not exist for man without Jesus coming as the Lamb who was slain for our sins.
By dying for our sins and rising from the dead and then returning to God as our high priest, Jesus prepared a place for us That we might have a place with him.
Now, in John 14:4, as we move forward in the Gospel of John, Jesus went on to say, And whither I go, ye know.
And the way ye know.
And now we're getting back to our proverb, aren't we?
For the way of the wicked is an abomination to God.
And I find this interesting because Jesus needed a way to come to us.
But we have to have a way to go to him.
And who had to prepare the way for him to come to us?
That's us, isn't it?
Who had to prepare the way for us to go to God?
That's Jesus.
We both had to prepare a way, didn't we?
John said, to the sinners.
Prepare the way of the Lord.
So we're the only one who could prepare a way for Him.
He's the only one who could prepare a way for us.
We prepared a way for him by accepting him as our Savior in repentance and faith toward God.
And he prepared a way for us by being the sacrifice.
That the previous proverb spoke of, which is not an abomination to God.
And for all this, John 14, 5 through 6, Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?
Then Jesus saith unto him, I am the way.
So what do we learn that Jesus is not only the sacrifice?
Jesus is also the way.
In that way, He's the way that way had to be prepared by Him.
It had to be prepared through his death, burial, resurrection, and eternal position as our high priest.
He said, I'm the way, the truth, the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
The way, the road, the path to God.
So Jesus was the sacrifice, and the sacrifice is the way.
So now we can see how the sacrifice of the wicked and the way of the wicked are essentially one and the same.
By dying for our sins and rising from the dead and entering into the presence of God, Jesus has become the way, the path that takes us to God.
So you can rest assured.
That any other path other than Jesus, any other way, will not take us to God.
He is the only one who ascended from the tomb to the right hand of the living God.
So he is the only way for us to ascend from the grave to be at the right hand of God with him.
Where the Bible says we're seated together in heavenly places with Him right now if we believe on Him positionally.
So if a person is traveling any other way, Then that person is a wicked person.
That word wicked means to curve, to bend out of the way.
That person's a wicked person is what it means in our language, not in the Hebrew.
So no matter how kind How friendly or how sincere a person may be, if they go out of the way God prescribed, they're a wicked person.
The path to God is paved with the blood of Jesus Christ.
It is a disgusting thing to God for someone to reject that path and attempt to forge their own way to him.
We watched them do it in Mount Sinai, in the Sinai Desert, when they tried to provide their own way.
Make their own incense and their own strange offerings in the wilderness, and God just opened up the earth, swallowed them up, and shut it back.
The way of the wicked is not the same as the way God ordained in His Word, so it's an unrighteous way.
It's a rebellious way.
It denies the truth that God has given us.
It denies the way that God has established for us.
It's a lie.
So it's disgusting.
Now this way is not limited to just believing on Jesus as our Savior.
Because the way of God is not only to believe on Christ as the way, but also to follow the way that He paid for us, to follow Him.
Through life, down the way he prescribed for us in his word, we were created, as I said at the beginning of this message, to Walk the way, that is to walk the road, the path that God has paved for us.
And that's a lifelong pursuit of God's will.
We don't just believe on Jesus, say, well, I'm saved.
Now I'm going back to bed.
I'm just going to go do whatever I want to do.
Now, we're saved by grace through faith, apart from any work of our own.
But if we to believe on Jesus as our Savior, if we believe in him and we believe God's word is true, and we believe the way of God is the right way, is going to affect how we live.
And if we don't believe God's word is true and we don't believe Jesus is the right way, that's also going to affect how we live.
Therefore, the way of Of God that He's prescribed, it's a righteous way, not just a saving way, but a holy way.
Righteous way.
The way of the wicked doesn't just reject Jesus as Savior, it rejects God's word and God's authority altogether.
So it's an unrighteous way.
Isaiah 53, verse 6, remember, we were created to travel God's way.
Isaiah 53, 6 says, All we, like sheep, have gone astray.
Now, how can you go astray?
Only one way.
You can only go astray by being where you were supposed to be at the beginning.
And winding up where you're not supposed to be in the end, right?
So you can only go astray.
If you're where you're supposed to be, and you wind up where you're not supposed to be, that's how you stray out of the way.
All we like sheep have gone astray.
We've.
Turned everyone to his own way.
So, to be on our own way, we had to turn to get there.
And what that is about is our position in Adam.
Because when God created Adam, He put Adam on the right path. gave him his word, put him in a perfect garden, pointed him in the right direction, and everything was going fine until Adam strayed.
And then when he strayed, the whole human race strayed, and thus we all, like sheep, have gone astray.
We've all turned to everyone, turned everyone to his own way.
So all of us.
Have turned, we walk our own way, and at some point in time in our life, we encounter the gospel.
And the gospel tells us you're going the wrong way.
You need to be going God's way.
So, you need to prepare the way of the Lord and make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
You need to accept God's way.
And when you accept God's way, you can go to be where God is and be with God.
And God and men are no longer strange.
They're back together again.
Well, how do we know that way?
Jesus said, I am that way.
I'm it.
I'm it.
Not only is the way disgusting to God, but the person who walks that way is disgusting.
I tell you what, man.
My wife doesn't complain about much at all.
But if I were to be outside in the mud, and I were to have mud all over my work boots, Now, I don't know this by experience.
This is theoretical.
You understand that, Elizabeth?
If I were to come in, track mud through the house in my work boots, that'd be pretty disgusting to her.
Not just the mud on the boot would be bad, but the man who tracked that through the house would be bad.
And when we walk a disgusting path, We become disgusting people.
And that's why we become unclean, and that's why we need Jesus the way to clean us up.
The one who preached, prepare the way.
Is the one who pointed to the way and said, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
And he was washing people off there In that Jordan River, symbolizing them being made clean.
Why?
Because all we, like sheep, have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way, and it was disgusting.
The way of the wicked is an abomination to God and it symbolizes them in the name of Jesus Christ confessing their sins and that disgusting wicked way being washed away from them as they now enter the path of righteousness.
Which is through Jesus Christ.
The way of the wicked is an abomination to God.
Look now at the second half of this verse, but he loveth him that followeth after righteousness.
Now, God loves everybody.
God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
But this is a special kind of love here.
This is the kind of love when you say, oh, I just love that.
Let me tell you something.
We're having something exciting to eat Friday at my house.
Homemade pizza.
No cheese, I can't have cheese.
My wife makes this wonderful homemade crust.
And we put all kinds of healthy stuff on it.
Seriously, all kinds of healthy stuff.
And I eat it up.
I get excited when I find out we still have leftovers.
I get to eat them again.
That's the kind of love we're talking about here, the kind of love that God's delighted in.
God loves sinners, but He's not delighted in them.
You see?
But on the other hand, God loved Jesus in the way that he could say, This is my beloved Son of whom I'm well pleased.
And God is delighted.
You want God to be delighted with you?
Not just to love you in pity?
Not just say, well, we should love everybody.
God loves us, He loves sinners.
We're not talking about that kind of love.
You ever love someone you didn't like?
We all have.
This is loving something you're delighted in.
And if you want God to be delighted in you in that kind of love, It says, he loveth him that followeth after righteousness.
Now notice that Solomon did not say, the way of the wicked is an abomination, but the way of the righteous he loveth.
He didn't say that.
Remember, the way and the person are judged the same.
So in the first, he talks about the way of the wicked.
And the person who walks that way is just as disgusting.
And so now on the flip side, here we're not looking at the way, we're looking at the person.
Who walks the way of righteousness?
And the person who's not on the bad way, which is disgusting, but is on the good way, which God's delighted in, God is delighted in the person who's in that delightful way.
He says, He loveth him that followeth after righteousness.
He loves that person, he loveth him.
That's traveling the righteous way.
So, the road you travel is the person you are.
The road you travel is the person you are.
You find me someone traveling the way of the devil.
That's the person they are.
Jesus said, by their fruits you'll know them, right?
And he said that about false teachers.
But it's the same for false Christians too.
I'm not saying that our assurance is based on our works.
Please no one listen to that and think I'm saying that.
But there is something to this that we have to acknowledge.
And it is someone down here, Tallarico for Texas.
My neighbor's got a sign, Tallarico for Texas.
In the Greek, that means I don't have a licorice.
Okay?
And you've got someone who claims to be a Christian.
Okay?
Claims to be, I think, a minister of some sort.
Huh?
Presbyterian.
Presbyterian.
Well, I'll tell you all you need to know.
And you have someone that claims to be a Christian, he claims to be in the way, in the right way. but is clearly walking a demonic path.
A path that denies the truth of God's word, a path that contradicts the righteousness of God's word.
He is a false teacher.
So he may claim to be in the way, but the way he walks is the person he is, you see.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
And you know what one of the fruits are in the scripture?
We looked at this a Sunday or two back: the fruit of the lips, the fruit of the mouth.
In his words, as a false teacher, is denying, is showing that he is in a wicked way, therefore, he is not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
He can't.
Hey, you just simply can't.
You can't be for everything the devil's for and embrace what God says in his word.
You just can't.
And so the direction you walk reveals the destination you're going to wind up at.
If you don't change your direction of travel, repent.
Jesus is the way of the child of God.
God loves him.
He delights in those who follow after righteousness.
Now, in the Hebrew, this word, this Hebrew word translated follows after.
It means to pursue after.
Do you know what the difference is between merely following and pursuing?
I was a trooper.
I know all about pursuing.
Brother Shepherd knows all about pursuing.
When you're pursuing, you're trying to catch something.
You're trying to catch something.
You're not just simply doing like this.
You're not doing that.
You're not just kind of piddling around.
We're talking about pursuit, hot pursuit.
And so God loves a man who pursues after righteousness, not piddles around the way.
Not who's someone who has to be pushed down the way, but someone who pursues righteousness.
When I think of this word, it reminds me of when I was a kid.
Almost every 12 year old, 13 year old, 11 year old, 10 year old, almost every kid learned how to drive really, really young when I grew up.
And you know where we learned how to drive at?
That's right in the pasture.
They'd have an old hay baling truck or an old work truck, and you get out there in that pasture.
And you'd drive around in that truck, and before long you'd get out on the road.
And they gave out a driver's license sooner back then.
Things were just different back then.
But a lot of times you've been out in the pasture. and there'd be a bunch of kids.
And maybe an adult was driving.
And when that adult takes off, You better be on the back of that pickup truck.
Because if they don't stop, you're either going to have to run and pursue after that pickup and hop on that truck.
Or you're going to have a long walk back by yourself.
So you run, and anyone ever run to get on the back of a tailgate of a pickup?
Yeah.
And so this is what we're looking at here.
An aggressive heart that hungers and thirsts after God's righteousness that says, I want to accomplish His will in my life.
I want to obey His word in my life.
I don't want to be someone that just sits around and waits on God to thump me in the head.
I want to be someone who chases after His will.
Hungers and thirsts after righteousness.
Now, as we begin to close, speaking of the promised land.
Speaking of the promised land, it's very interesting what God told Abraham.
He said, You look this direction, that direction, that direction.
All the land you see, that I'm going to give to you and your seed forever.
But he didn't just say that.
He didn't just tell them to look.
Do you know what he told him to do?
He told him to walk it.
Walk it.
God told Abraham, Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it.
Walk it.
I bought some land years ago and I sold it.
But while I had it, I owned 17 acres out in the country.
And the first thing I did when I was given that land, you know what I did?
I got there and I walked every bit of it.
I won't know what I bought.
I walked, I looked at every tree.
I walked the length of it.
I walked the breadth of it.
I want to know every little thing on that land because it was mine.
And in God's word, He wants us to have that same experience.
Listen, God has given us an incredible blessing.
It's been a marvelous life that God's allowed me to live.
He's got that marvelous life for each one of us.
Your piece of land looks different than mine.
But we all have a little piece of land, spiritually speaking.
In our lifetime, Limits the days that we have to walk out our spiritual acreage.
The only way that you can arise And walk through the length and the breadth of all that God has planned for you in this life. is if you pursue it.
And the only way you can be there, because right across from my land, the first thing you do when you buy land, you know what you do the first thing?
Before you ever sign on that deed, what do you do?
Survey.
Huh?
Survey?
Who said survey?
Very good.
You survey it.
Why?
Because the last thing you want.
Is to go out to a piece of land you bought and start walking your neighbor's property.
You know?
You will know what belongs to you.
So you've got to know the boundaries.
The boundaries that are going to allow us to walk every step, every acre that God's given us in life.
The only way to do that is to pursue after righteousness.
If we follow God's word, our steps will naturally walk The lot, the plot that God's given us, you see.
Just follow the scripture.
If you follow the scripture, and I follow the same scripture, I promise you.
On the authority of God's word, you will walk your plot, and I'll walk mine.
And God's Holy Spirit, as you're following His Word, He will take you and guide you in the breadth and the length and the depth.
In the height of all God's will in your life, and you'll never cross over into my land.
And I'll never cross over into your land.
And we'll never be envious of each other because we'll be too busy discovering the treasures on the acreage God's given us.
So pursue after righteousness because the faster you run, the more land you get to travel before your time runs out and you die.
And I hope to travel as many acres as I can before God calls me home.
With that, we'll go ahead and stop tonight.
And I hope you get to travel lots of acres on your land too.
Because I'll tell you this, God told Abraham it's a good land and a large.
And I'll tell you from experience, Brother Shepherd, it's a good land, isn't it?
And it's a large land.
That means you can't outrun God.
You obey Him as hard and fast as you can, I promise you.
You'll never, ever outrun your boundaries.
They'll keep stretching as far as you run.
Father, thank you so much for your precious word.
Thank you for the way you've prescribed for us.
Thank you for the survey of your word that leads us in that way.
Thank you, Father God, for telling us to. .
To rise and get up and pursue after it.
And thank you, Father, for reminding us, dear Lord God, that you'll delight in us if we do.
You'll be disgusted, Father, in the steps we take if we walk out of that way.
Thank you in Jesus' name.
Amen.
