Companion Of Fools

Companion of Fools

Proverbs 13: 10

God brings messages to me in different ways. Sometimes, like today, it is

unmistakably.

I heard this sermon and I knew you had to hear it.

I had 4 options:

Bring Bill in to preach it too expensive.

Play the tape for you too boring

Pantomime the tape too silly

Preach the sermon least good but most logical.

I did want to preach it but I thought.. "Not now, I mentioned it lately. They will

get tired of this message."

But God would not let me go in any other direction.

It is a sermon on companions, buddies, friends.

I have made this a part of many sermons but I have never preached a whole

sermon on this point.

But Bill showed me so many new scriptures on the subject.

I also want to preach this because I have seen over and over and over, in my

own life and in other people’s lives.

I have had to watch as young persons, friends and strangers, went through the

whirlwind of bad circumstances that were all brought on by some bad decisions

that they made as young people. I've seen homes in turmoil, parents in tears,

people in jail, couples in court ... because they made bad choices about alcohol,

or drugs, or sexual promiscuity, about relationships with the police, and other

bad decisions because once you start making these bad decisions they find

themselves on a slippery slope, struggling in vain to get their footing.

There are some people, I was one of them, no matter where they go they seem

to attract bad people.

A teenage girl once lamented that she seemed to be a "nerd magnet."

Some people just draw bad people to themselves.

I went to my tenth class reunion and noticed that all of my junior high friends

were bums ... alcoholics, divorced, dead end lives. Those that were still alive.

I noticed that my high school friends were not there. They had gotten out of Union, out of the trouble and were doing well.

And I realized what God had done in my life. He saw that my friends were bums and that I was going to be a bum. He had better plans for me and He knew He would have to get me away from those friends and with some new friends.

Enter Hayne Rivers, Pierce Hendon, Cam Rivers, and Mama Nini into my life and I got saved and practically moved into FBC Union.

My life was radically changed because my friends were changed.

Bill Anderson says that you can not make a more important decision than who

you will run with, who your friends will be.

I believe that.

1 Cor. 15:33 "Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good manners. 1/

Don't be deceived means self-deluded ... into thinking that you can hand around with them so long as you don't become like them.

You think you can wallow in the mud with the pigs and not smell.

This passage makes it clear ... BAD COMPANy .... bum buddies ... CORRUPT

GOOD MANNERS.

You had good manners, clean clothes, good character ... but time with the swine

has CORRUPTED your good manners ... now you have

the manners of a pig

the morals of a pig

the language of a pig

LOOK AT YOUR FRIENDS, RATE THEM 1 - 10 on manners, on morals, on

integrity, on honesty ... take the average ... THAT IS YOU!!!!!!!

Better yet; how many of them would you want to be the first date of your child????

Psalm 1: 1 Shows the effect of time in the mud.

"Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the wicked"

Walking in the counsel is to listen to the world's counsel on how to live .. this is

the beginning of the fall... listen to God's word.

standing in the way of sinners is now you have gone beyond listening to

participating

sitting in the seat of the wicked is now you are one of them.

You can't enjoy them from a distance, you can't be buddies in fishing, hunting,

dancing, or dining and think their dirt will not get on you.

Proverbs has a lot to sayan the subject of friends.

22:24 says "Do not make friends with a hot tempered man, do not associate with one who is easily angered, lest you learn his ways and get yourself ensnared"

The New Testament says the same thing. In Ephesians 5:5f Paul says, "KNOW

FOR SURE ... NO immoral, impure, or greedy person- such a man is an idolator- has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God LET NO ONE DECEIVE YOU with empty words, because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient, Therefore, DO NOT BE PARTNERS WITH THEM!"