INTRO.- More human proverbs or quips and quotes.
- Many people complain of their memory, few of their judgment.
- One thing is certain: more people are going on diets tomorrow than today.
- Many people are too busy making a living to make a life worth living.
- There is less pain in biting your tongue than in losing a friend.
- Most people who sing their own praises can’t carry a tune.
- The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk. (and I would add: a long talk with the Lord)
- What if we tried as hard to be good as we try to be beautiful?
- Obstacles are things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.
- Nothing will cook your goose faster than a red hot temper.
- Your ulcer can’t grow very fast while you’re laughing.
- Parents who wonder where the younger generation is going should remember where it came from.
- Faults are thick where love is thin.
- It used to be that death and taxes alone were inevitable. Now there’s shipping and handling.
- The real menace in dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old.
- The silver lining is easier to find in someone else’s cloud.
- Abraham Lincoln had great difficulty getting an education, but what can you expect from a guy who didn’t play football or basketball?
- The new weather satellites are great scientific improvements. It now takes the weather bureau only half the time to give the wrong forecast.
- If you think habits aren’t strong, try shaving the other side of your face first.
- Don’t forget that appreciation is always appreciated.
- Anyone with normal blood pressure these days just isn’t paying attention.
- A night owl is a fellow who doesn’t give a hoot about what time he gets in.
- Many people don’t start economizing until they run out of money.
- The nearer the time comes for our departure from this life, the greater our regret for wasting so much of it.
- A politician will promise to do anything, just as long as he isn’t expected to do it now.
- Most of us wouldn’t mind Uncle Sam’s bite if he didn’t keep coming back for dessert.
- The handwriting on the wall usually means you’re in a telephone booth. (no, more like a public restroom)
- The recipe for perpetual ignorance is to be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.
- We can stand a guy’s gift of gab if he picks up the luncheon tab.
- A devoted husband is one who assures his wife each morning that she’s right.
- If we could use the money that political candidates spend on their campaigns, we could cure a lot of the ills they complain about.
- One reason that photographs don’t always look natural is that photographers always tell their subjects to look pleasant.
- The most difficult thing to explain is something you had no business saying in the first place.
- The time a father worries the most about his son is when he remembers what he was doing at that age.
- A short cut is usually the quickest way to some place you weren’t going.
- It will be interesting to hear the teenagers of today tell their children what they had to do without when they were young.
- The voter has only one consolation: not every candidate running for office can be elected.
- If you are willing to admit that you are all wrong when you are all wrong, then you’re all right.
- A laugh at your own expense costs you nothing.
- It’s all right to be dumb, but it’s stupid to make a career out of it.
Now to the book of Proverbs.
I. PLOT NOT
3:29 “Do not plot harm against your neighbor, who lives trustfully near you.”
ILL.- A young man was shopping in a supermarket when he noticed that an older woman seemed to be following him, staring at him in a sorrowful manner. He moved to the next aisle, trying to avoid her, but she followed, still staring.
And when he finished shopping, he ended up behind her in a long checkout line. Her grocery basket was full to overflowing; his contained just a few items. She kept staring at him sadly, making him feel most uncomfortable.
Finally she spoke up. "Pardon my staring," she said, "but you look exactly like my son, who died just two weeks ago."
She began to sniffle as she repeated her claim that the young man perfectly resembled her late, beloved son. "I mean, exactly like him," she moaned.
Then, as the cashier bagged her groceries at the front of the line, the woman asked: "As a favor to a grief-stricken mother, would you mind saying ’Goodbye, Mom’ to me as I leave? Somehow, it would make me feel so much better." The young man gulped and agreed to her request. She gave him a tearful smile, waved and picked up her three heavy bags. "Goodbye, Mom!" he said, waving back.
The young man, reflecting on his good deed, felt such a warm glow of self-satisfaction that he barely noticed the cashier ringing up his own few purchases. Until, that is, the cashier told him that the bill came to $110.
"There must be a mistake," the young man said, pointing at his single small bag. "Your mother said you’d be paying for hers too," the cashier said.
Brothers and sisters, that is plotting evil against your neighbor, who could be anyone. It’s hard to believe that a little old lady would do something like that. Sinister people come in all shapes and sizes and ages.
Normally, I don’t think any of us would ever think of plotting evil against someone. It’s just not our nature as Christians. At least, it should not be a part of the Christian nature. If plotting evil or wanting to hurt someone is a part of us, then something is dreadfully wrong. We may do wrong occasionally, but plotting evil is a sign that something is wrong with a person’s heart. That’s serious business.
When Christ comes to live in us through His Holy Spirit we should be a different kind of person, wanting to do good, not evil. We will plan to do good instead of plotting to do evil.
ILL.- When I worked for the Trees ‘n Trend store in Cape Girardeau, MO, we had another assistant manager. He was a young man in his later 20’s, nice looking, personable, but he had a horrible desire. He always talked about women in a sexual way and often expressed his desire to “have” a certain woman customer. The saddest part of all was that he claimed to be a Christian. His granddaddy was some kind of old school Baptist preacher so he would often try to get into religious discussions or arguments with some of the fellow employees. BUT HE WAS WASTING HIS TIME. Nobody believed what he said about religion or Christianity because they also knew of his sinister sexual desires. SOMETHING WAS ROTTEN WITHIN.
Eph. 2:10 “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
God created us in Christ to do good works. When a person surrenders to Christ and Christ comes to live in that person, he or she will naturally think in terms of doing good to people, not plotting evil.
We may occasionally fail, but we don’t go around plotting evil or plotting to harm people. THIS IS NOT OUR CHRIST-LIKE NATURE.
II. ACCUSE NOT
3:30 “Do not accuse a man for no reason - when he has done you no harm.”
ILL.- A neighbor phoned his neighbor at three in the morning and said, “Your dog is barking and keeping me awake.” The other neighbor called him back at 3 a.m. the next day and said, “I DON’T HAVE A DOG.”
Be not quick to accuse others. Sometimes we “jump the gun” and are quick to accuse someone of wrongdoing and we may be completely wrong. But even if we are correct, we need to be cautious about accusing someone.
ILL.- Someone said, “There are good reasons for doing some things fast: because life is crowding in hard, and if the thing isn’t done fast it won’t be done at all, or because doing it isn’t half so rewarding as doing something else. Therefore, iron fast so you can paint slowly. Shop fast so you can sew slowly. Cook fast so you can spend some time with a child before it disappears into an adult.” Very interesting.
There are two ways to look at this statement. There are good reasons for doing some things fast. I think we should do the unimportant things or things of less importance faster. We need to get them out of the way so we can spend more time on the important stuff. Like what? Like people. The elderly. Children. Anybody. People are more important than most things we do in life, including our hobbies.
When I look back on my life I remember going fishing when I should have spent some of that time with my children. I don’t think I neglected my children, but I could have devoted more time to them. The same holds true for all of us. Spending more time with people instead of playing is something we all need to learn. We can’t take our playthings or hobbies with us to heaven, but we can take people!
Also, there are times when we need to go fast at some things so we can do other things slow. Do the less enjoyable things like cleaning house so we can do the more enjoyable stuff: like going shopping, etc. Right, ladies? Or like mow the grass faster so we men can go fishing or do something else that we like better.
Here’s another. We should hurry to be with the Lord in private, personal devotion and public worship. Let some other things go for the Lord’s sake.
ILL.- I had a professor in Bible college who always got up at 4 every morning in order to spend time with the Lord in Bible study/reading and in prayer. He preferred the Lord’s presence over sleep. He preferred being with the Lord early in the morning over lying in bed. And that’s not bad considering where he is now spending eternity! In a real sense, he was preparing himself for an eternity with the Lord He loved so dearly!
Now there is the other side to this coin. THERE ARE SOME THINGS WE SHOULD NOT HURRY TO DO. And that’s accusing others of wrongdoing. Do you remember the old saying, “Haste makes waste”? This holds true for many things, especially, when it comes to accuse someone of wrong. We may well be wrong and by hurrying to accuse them, we could end up alienating someone for life.
Don’t be hasty to accuse someone of wrong! We are so quick to judge people. DON’T DO IT! You don’t have all the facts. You don’t know everything. You can’t see everything. You can’t know a person’s heart.
ILL.- F.B. Meyer once said that when we see a brother or sister in sin, there are two things we do not know: First, we do not know how hard he or she tried not to sin. And second, we do not know the power of the forces that assailed him or her. We also do not know what we would have done in the same circumstances.
None of us know all the facts. Only the Lord knows everything. Don’t be quick to accuse someone of wrong. And accusing someone of a wrongdoing falls into the department of judging and we are not to be quick to judge one another.
Matt. 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”
Matt. 7:3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay not attention to the plank in your own eye?” We often judge someone for something they have done wrong when we have done far worse.
Rom. 14:10 “You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.”
James 4:11-12 “Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor?”
Prov. 29:20 “Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”
Speaking quickly or hastily can get us into trouble and it can certainly get us into trouble when we are quick to speak evil of someone else. DON’T DO IT. Don’t be quick to speak accusatory words. Accuse not. Let God be God. You just try to be His loving, humble, compassionate servant.
III. ENVY NOT
3:31 “Do not envy a violent man or choose any of his ways.”
ILL.- Dwight L. Moody once told the fable of an eagle who was envious of another that could fly better than he could. One day the bird saw a sportsman with a bow and arrow and said to him, "I wish you would bring down that eagle up there."
The man said he would if he had some feathers for his arrow. So the jealous eagle pulled one out of his wing. The arrow was shot, but it didn’t quite reach the rival bird because he was flying too high. The first eagle pulled out another feather, then another--until he had lost so many that he himself couldn’t fly. The archer took advantage of the situation, turned around, and killed the helpless bird.
Moody made this application: if you are envious of others, the one you will hurt the most by your actions will be yourself.
Most of the time our envy deals with material possessions. Jim Reed drives a new, luxurious Toyota Avalon. I drive a broken down 2002 Ford Taurus. lol. This is the way we think.
I live in a hundred thousand dollar house in Hunter’s Ridge Drive, but if we drive into Brentwood, the next housing district to ours, Wow! You should see those luxurious houses!
It is so very easy to envy someone in America and that’s because we have so much. And the Joneses will always have more than we do.
Don’t be too quick to accuse others of being envious. We all have this tendency. We have this or that, but we’d like to have that or this. It looks better and is better and we know it would be better, so why not get it?
Heb. 13:5 “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’”
3:31 “Do not envy a violent man or choose any of his ways.” I can’t imagine any of us wanting to envy a violent man.
ILL.- When I was just a youngster, maybe 10 or 12 years old, my grandma Muddy Jones took me to a professional wrestling match at the Memorial Hall in Joplin, MO. It was my first and only professional wrestling match. I got to see the famous Gorgeous George wrestle. Wasn’t it gorgeous of my grandma to take me? In some ways, yes. In other ways, no.
It was very thoughtful of her that she wanted to take me (just me) to see a professional wrestling match. Why did she do that? She either did it because she loved me or else she loved professional wrestlers. lol. Either way I did not envy those violent men. I was amazed and somewhat startled at those professional wrestlers. I mean, they were hurting one another. They were beating one another. They were causing the blood to flow out of one another!
I thought, “I don’t want any part of that stuff.” Still don’t. Never did. Do not envy a violent man. Any kind of violent man. Physically violent or verbally violent.
Sometimes violent people are affluent. They are sometimes violent because they have money and power and they are quick to voice their feelings to anyone, any time and in any manner.
ILL.- For example, Jennifer Lopez, the very popular and very wealthy actress. I saw a program on TV about her wealth and how quickly it is accumulating. She is into everything that makes big bucks: movies, music, videos, etc. And she is raking in the dough by the millions and every day.
But I have also read that because of who she is and what she is, she is also very demanding in an obnoxious and hateful way at times. Do not envy a rich violent-acting, verbally abusive actress! And some young girls may be doing this very thing.
Oh, I think she’s a beautiful woman. No question about that. But sometimes when the outer beauty increases, the inner beauty decreases. That is, if they ever had it in the first place. The point being: don’t envy any violent person, rich, powerful or otherwise.
There is really one person we should envy or want to be like and that is our Lord Jesus Christ who was rich in love, mercy, compassion, sympathy, patience, and forgiveness. HE IS ETERNAL. His ways are eternal and do more than good than all the material wealth of the world.
CONCLUSION------------------------------
ILL.- In actual studies of leadership in American business, it has been proven that the average executive spends three-fourths of his working day dealing with—people. The largest single cost in most businesses is—people. The biggest, most valuable asset any company has is its—people. All executive plans are carried out, or fail to be carried out, by—people.
People are the most important commodity on earth. We must work at developing a good relationship with people. Plot not evil against people. Accuse not people of evil. And envy not evil people.
