INTRO.- Quips and quotes.
- A man in Missouri was told that most accidents happen within twenty miles of home so he moved to another town fifty miles away.
- The most talked about people at a family reunion are those who didn’t show up.
- A friend is one who strengthens you with his prayers, blesses you with his love, and encourages you with his hope.
- The easiest way to get a teenager to be quiet is to ask him where he’s been when he gets home.
- Some people treat life like a slot machine: putting in as little as possible while hoping for the jackpot.
- A man really isn’t poor if he can still laugh.
- When your education is finished, you are.
- Any man who correctly guesses a woman’s age may be smart, but he’s not very bright.
- When a man sees eye to eye with his wife, it’s a sure indication that his vision has been corrected.
- A habit is something a fellow hardly notices until it is too strong to break.
- After 65 every birthday is alike. You just look forward to reaching it.
- Weather forecasting is still a few hours behind arthritis.
- A gossip is one who can turn an earful into a mouthful.
- The trouble with square meals is that they make you round.
- The man who rolls up his sleeves seldom loses his shirt.
- A true hypocrite is a person who writes a book praising atheism and then prays that it will be a good seller.
- A hair in the head is worth two in the brush.
- Free advice can be costly.
- Politicians who walk straight run better.
- A “rare gift” is any kind a woman gets from her husband after ten years of marriage.
- It’s wonderful to grow old – if you can remember to stay young while you are doing it.
- Be kind to unkind people. They need it the most.
- It would be a lot easier to lose weight and keep it off if the replacement parts weren’t so available in the frig.
- The quickest way to stop gossip is for everybody to shut up.
- When you see some people work, you wonder what they will do when they retire.
- Most new cars have so many warning lights and buzzers on the dashboard that just driving one makes you feel nagged to death.
- People who invite trouble always complain when it accepts.
- Making good in America should include helping make America good.
- One good thing about the good old days – if you bought a horse, you could be sure the model wouldn’t change next month.
- The best cure for a short temper is a lengthened prayer life.
- Nothing makes a woman feel older than meeting a bald-headed man who was two grades behind her in school.
- Any man who says he can read a woman like a book is probably illiterate.
- It’s true that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but some highway signs come pretty close.
- Attention public speakers: Nothing can be said after 35 minutes that amounts to anything.
- Any man who is honest, fair, tolerant, charitable of others, and well behaved is a success no matter what his station in life.
- The only way to avoid bad habits is to make it a habit to avoid them.
- A flood is nothing more than a river than has gotten too big for its bridges.
- A good friend is like toothpaste – comes through in a tight squeeze.
- The experienced parent is one who has learned to sleep when the baby isn’t looking.
- Never bite the hand that feeds you. The chances are it’s your own.
- You should teach a child to wait on himself – even if you are married to him.
- The key to a happy retirement is to have enough money to live on but not enough to worry about.
I. DISCERNING AND WANDERING
17:24 “A discerning man keeps wisdom in view, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth.” Interesting verse.
Let’s think about discernment. Who has it and who doesn’t.
ILL.- In Nov. 2000 Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City purchased a brand new 32 foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having joined the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the Winnie left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the handbook that he couldn’t actually do this. WHAT DO YOU CALL THAT? A lack is discernment?
ILL.- October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor’s beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced-in yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
ILL.- A medical student was working in the toxicology department at the poison control center. A woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. The medical student quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital.
She calmed down, and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants. The student told the mother that she better bring her daughter in to the emergency room right away.
ILL.- Seems that a year ago, some Boeing employees on the work field decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it out of the plane and home. When they took it for a float on the river, they were quite surprised by a Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them. It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locator that is automatically activated when the raft is inflated. They are no longer employed there.
ILL.- A motorist was unknowingly caught in an automated speed trap that measured his speed using radar and photographed his car. He later received in the mail a ticket for $40 and a photo of his car. Instead of payment, he sent the police department a photograph of $40. Several days later, he received another letter from the police that contained a picture of handcuffs.
ILL.- A woman was reporting her car as stolen, and mentioned that there was a car phone in it. The policeman taking the report called the phone and told the guy that answered that he had read the ad in the newspaper and wanted to buy the car. They arranged to meet, and the thief was arrested.
ILL.- Some men in a pickup truck drove into a lumberyard. One of the men walked in the office and said, "We need some four-by-twos." The clerk asked, "You mean two-by-fours, don’t you?"
The man said, "I’ll go check," and went back to the truck. He returned and said, "Yeah, I meant two-by-four."
The clerk said, "All right. How long do you need them?" The customer paused for a minute and said, "I’d better go check."
After a while, the customer returned to the office and said, "A long time. We’re gonna build a house."
A discerning man keeps wisdom in view.
A discerning man is an intelligent man, an insightful man, a perceptive man, etc. He exercises good wisdom or good common sense. Most of the people in these stories lacked discernment and/or common sense.
A discerning man is also a spiritual man. He keeps wisdom in view or seeks wisdom, and especially, the wisdom of God. The discerning person always has his or her eye on the Word of God, knowing that is contains God’s wisdom and God’s will.
“A discerning man keeps wisdom in view, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth.”
A fool’s eyes wander. I think they wander in all directions, but not in the right direction. They are always searching for something.
Eph. 4:13-14 “Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.”
Heb. 13:9 “Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them.”
Some people are blown around by every wind of doctrine. Some are carried away by all kinds of strange teachings.
ILL.- The title of the article reads: Will J. Lo go Buddhist? Jenny from the Block is studying the Eastern religion after Richard Gere, a devout Buddhist, gave her spiritual advice on the set of their new flick, “Shall We Dance?”
“I (J Lo) would say to Richard, ‘I’m always worried about being so strong.’ “He said, ‘Maybe it’s time to be strong in a different way,’” Lopez said, reports World Entertainment News Network.
“He didn’t say, ‘You need to convert,’ but he did give me some good advice. Jenny from the Block, who grew up Catholic, also revealed while promoting her new movie that she’s reading Ekhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment” — a new-agey best seller that’s inspired by Buddhism. The book shows “readers how to recognize themselves as the creators of their own pain” as well as how to free “ourselves from the conflicting, unreasonable demands of the mind,” according to a description on Amazon.com.
What do you make of this and/or make of J Lo now? I think she is not very discerning since it sounds like she may be leaving her Christian heritage for Buddhism. I like Richard Gere as an actor, but spiritually speaking, he’s not very discerning, nor is anyone who doesn’t consider the claims of Jesus Christ!
One of the great fallacies of Buddhism is the belief in reincarnation. One source said it this way: “According to Buddhist tradition, reincarnation is a process in which the spirit is continually reborn after death until ultimate enlightenment is reached.”
“In the Buddhist religion one can be born into other realms outside of humanity. These six realms include the hells, animal kingdom, the human world, the world of jealous gods, and the heavens. What determines the next life is termed Karma. Karma can be thought of as the tally sheet of good and bad deeds and it follows us throughout our existence.
“The goal is to seek the good, reject evil, and above all shed ignorance. If one follows this path and continuously keeps truth in mind then one can be reborn into a higher existence. In his last words to his disciples, the Buddha said: ‘Make yourself a light. Rely upon yourself: do not depend on anyone else. Make my teachings your light…’”
Here is our thinking.
There is only true Savior and one true gospel. John 14:6.
I Cor. 15:1 “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.” HAVE YOU TAKEN YOUR STAND FOR THE GOSPEL?
Gal. 5:1 “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
II Tim. 2:15 “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”
II Tim. 3:13-14 “While evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it.”
“A discerning man keeps wisdom in view, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth.”
II. KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
17:27 “A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered.”
ILL.- Once upon a time there was a Prince who, through no fault of his own, was cast under a spell by an evil witch. The curse was that the Prince could speak only one word each year. However, he could save up the words so that if he did not speak for a whole year, the following year he was allowed to speak two words.
One day he met a beautiful princess (ruby lips, golden hair, sapphire eyes,) and fell madly in love. With the greatest difficulty he decided to refrain from speaking for two whole years so that he could look at her and say "my darling". But at the end of the two years he wished to tell her that he loved her. Because of this he waited three more years without speaking (bringing the total number of silent years to 5).
But at the end of these five years he realized that he had to ask her to marry him. So he waited ANOTHER four years without speaking.
Finally as the ninth year of silence ended, his joy knew no bounds. Leading the lovely princess to the most secluded and romantic place in that beautiful royal garden the prince heaped a hundred red roses on her lap, knelt before her, and taking her hand in his, said huskily, "My darling, I love you! Will you marry me?"
The princess tucked a strand of golden hair behind a dainty ear, opened her sapphire eyes in wonder, and parting her ruby lips, said: "Pardon?"
What’s the moral of this story? There could be several, but one is this: If you have only a few words to speak, you’d better make them very clear!
A man of knowledge uses words with restraint.
We don’t often like to do much of anything with restraint. We often like to talk the way we eat; that is, nonstop and with no limitations.
ILL.- Pianist Arthur Rubenstein who spoke in eight languages, once told this story on himself: Some years ago he was assailed by a stubborn case of hoarseness. The newspapers were full of reports about smoking and cancer; so he decided to consult a throat specialist.
"I searched his face for a clue during the 30 minute examination," Rubenstein said, "but it was expressionless. He told me to come back the next day. I went home full of fears, and I didn’t sleep that night." The next day there was another long examination and again an ominous silence.
"Tell me," the pianist exclaimed. "I can stand the truth. I’ve lived a full, rich life. What’s wrong with me?" The physician said, "You talk too much."
Sometimes this is true for most of us. We do not use our words with much restraint. And preachers are probably the worst offenders of all!
But a man of knowledge uses his words with restraint.
ILL.- Will Durant once said, “Talk is cheap because the supply always exceeds the demand.”
- Josh Billings, “Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.”
- Silence is the wisest of replies.
- There are three times when you should never say anything important to a person: when he is tired, when he is angry, and when he has just made a mistake.
- Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
- Alexander Pope (English poet), “Be silent always when you doubt your sense."
- Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
- Calvin Coolidge, “I have never been hurt by anything I didn’t say.”
All of us need to learn to use our words with restraint. This doesn’t come easily since we are so prone to talk. How do we do this? Practice. Practice being silent and not talking. Pray. We must pray about all things and especially, things that hinder our relationship to others.
“A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered.”
A smart person watches both his words and his temper. He somehow gains control of his temper. Everyone has a temper. The important thing is gaining control of it.
Eph. 4:26-27 “In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”
It is not necessarily a sin to become angry, but becoming angry at the right time, for the right reason and toward the right person is a difficult thing to do. Most of the time we get angry simply because things don’t go our way or the way we think they should go.
James 1:19-20 “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.”
These verses say it all. When we become angry we often lose control and this is not pleasing to God.
Smart people look to Lord and seek to allow Him to control both their words and their tempers.
ILL.- I have heard it said that there are two classes of sin as demonstrated in the story of the prodigal son. The prodigal son represents the sins of the flesh and the elder brother represents the sins of the disposition. And which do you think is harder to overcome? What do you think the Lord thinks?
