“DO YOU NEED BIT & BRIDLE?”
Ps. 32:8-10
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. A mother told her son not to go swimming. However, when he came into the house his mother noticed that his hair and bathing suit were wet.
2. "Johnny," his mother scolded, "I told you not to go swimming." "I couldn't help it mom," he defended himself. "The water looks so good." "But why did you take your bathing suit with you" "In case I was tempted."
B. TEXT
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. 9 Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. 10 Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him.” Ps. 32:8-10
C. THESIS
1. Imagine for a moment what it would feel like to be a horse and have a bit put in your mouth and a bridle put around your head! Yet God says in this passage that He will resort to something like that if you won’t listen to Him, so that you will find the way of salvation.
2. The title of this message is “Do You Need A Bit & Bridle?”
I. THE REASON FOR GOD’S ACTIONS
A. GOD WANTS TO INSTRUCT US
I would say, on verse 8, that God begins speaking to David and he writes it down. God tells him (and us) that He will be our instructor and teacher – if we’ll let Him. He will be our counselor and Guide, if we’ll listen.
B. BUT OFTEN WE WON’T LISTEN
Next God says to David (and us), “Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”
C. WHY?
1. Horses and mules are “brute beasts,” sometimes tame-able and sometimes not. God says they “have no understanding,” that is, they don’t have the reasoning capacity to hear advice, weigh it in their minds, and act on it or not.
2. God says that humans can become brute beasts also – losing their higher faculties and sinking to the level of animals (“I fought wild beasts at Ephesus,” 1 Cor. 15:32, people.).
II. THE NECESSITY OF CONTROL
A. GOD’S WARNING FOR US
1. This verse has a warning in it. If we don’t submit to the higher way, God will force us to submit by a lower way.
2. When Israel wouldn’t listen and obey God, God said, “Okay, since you won’t submit to Me as a kind and generous master, then you will have to submit to an earthly, selfish master, who will grind you and coerce you. Then you’ll see which is better to serve!” (I paraphrase, being unable to locate the passage).
3. So do we want the easy way or the hard way? The reality is that God is going to have His way, one way or the other. So which will it be?
4. Why are there prisons? Because humans must be controlled. Why are there many laws? Because humans need a bit and bridle to do what is right.
5. One of the founding fathers said that FREEDOM can only be enjoyed by a nation that has interior controls in their hearts. If we don’t have interior controls, then we have to have exterior control by government and thus lose part of our potential freedom.
B. HUMOR: Prerequisite for employment
1. It is said that a tradesman once advertised for a boy to assist in his shop. A few hours after the morning paper was circulating his office was thronged with all kinds of boys; and, not knowing which to choose, he advertised again, as follows: "Wanted, to assist in a shop, a boy who obeys his mother."
2. In response to this, there were only two boys who ventured to apply for the situation. This would still be a good test very likely.—Gospel Herald
III. GOD’S INTERIOR HELP TO VICTORY
B. THAT’S WHAT REGENERATION & SUBMISSION DOES
1. Thank God for the Holy Spirit! He makes a bit and bridle unnecessary. He gives understanding to the simple. He gives us sensitivity to God and His will and helps us to yield our wills to God’s.
2. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” Ez. 36:26-27.
3. Some horses can be trained to the point that they respond to verbal commands and don’t need bit and bridle; that’s what God’s suggesting we rise to. Can we hear the counsel of God and immediately go about to fulfill it?
4. The goal of all training and counsel is to bring us to God. God has no base motives in what He’s trying to achieve, but He simply wants to bless us with Himself.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: ABILITY OR WILLINGNESS?
1. A certified dog trainer said, “One of the things many people would say to me when we first talked is how smart their dog was.
2. Now I am convinced that intelligence doesn’t have much to do with the training of the dog. What counts the most is the dog’s willingness to perform. You see you can have the smartest dog in the world if he doesn’t want to do it he won’t.
3. But if you have the dumbest dog that is willing you can teach him. It might take you longer because he is dumb, but ultimately he will respond.” (Robert Bravo) It’s the same with people. Are we willing to obey the Lord, to do what He wants?
4. The Hebrews who clearly understood that true wisdom was not intellectual, but behavioral. Thus, the “fool” of Proverbs was one who knew truth and failed to apply it. The footnote in the NIV says the fool is one who is “morally deficient.”
B. THE CALL
1. How many want the Holy Spirit’s interior help to be sensitive to God’s dealings and submissive to His will?
2. How many need to repent for resisting God’s will? How many would say, “Pastor, I’m not really sure if I am walking with God but I want to start tonight?”
3. PRAYER.
