The following is a lightly edited transcript and may contain errors.
Contents
The Future Redeemer
Children Are a Blessing
Discipline Your Son
The Early Church’s High View of Women and Children
Humility
Closing Prayer
How’s everyone doing? Good. Turn to the book of Ruth, chapter 4. We’re going to pray before we begin. Let’s pray. We want to come before you now. Lord, we want to intercede for our brothers and sisters in Syria who are being persecuted. We want to intercede for our brothers and sisters in the Congo as well. I pray, God, that they would be faithful, Lord. I pray that you would protect them. Pray you’d blind the eyes of the persecutors. I pray you’d bring those persecutors to repentance. If not repentance, then swift judgment, Father. We pray you’d be gracious to the church, let it continue to grow in those nations and other nations that are being persecuted. Lord, protect your children, we ask. Send your angels to surround them and let the church flourish. Let them place their hope and faith in you, God. Let them take courage, not because of anything man has, but because of who you are, Lord. And we pray, God, that you would continue to minister your truth, minister your hope to the persecuted church. And Father, may we stand with them. May we intercede for them. May we pray for them. God, we ask that you would do a work and let us not forget them. And we thank you, Lord, that you are gracious, Lord, that you are sovereign above the affairs of men, that you use all sorts of things to bring about your kingdom to come. And so we pray that you would do that here even now. We pray, Maranatha, come Lord Jesus. We pray, God, that you would get your church ready for the coming of your Son and prepare this world, Lord. Save, save, save many, Lord. Bring many, many, many to repentance while there is still time. Do this, Lord. We ask for your glory. Amen.
All right, we’re going to pick it up in Ruth chapter 4, starting in verse 9.
Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, “You are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Mahlon. Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place. You are witnesses this day.” Then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.” So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. (Ruth 4:9–17)
The Future Redeemer
Okay, the last two weeks, we’ve been looking at the different redeemers that we have here in chapter 4. Do you remember the name that I gave the first redeemer? The failed redeemer. What was the name of the second? Who is the failed redeemer? He doesn’t even get a name. The unnamed redeemer, Mr. So-and-so. What about number two? The faithful Redeemer. The faithful Redeemer. Who’s the faithful Redeemer? Boaz. Then today we’re going to look at the future Redeemer. The future. You might guess, because about half of you would guess wrong. Okay, so it’s the future Redeemer. So let’s pick it up in verse 13. Ruth conceives and gives birth. I want you to notice the social progression of her status. It has slowly changed since the beginning of the book. In chapter 2, and this is how she identifies herself. In chapter 2 she identifies herself as a foreigner, then also in chapter 2 she refers to herself as a servant. Some versions say the lowest servant, and that’s the term that she uses. It’s the term that you would use for the lowest servant possible. So she calls herself the lowest servant. Then in chapter 3 she refers herself again to a servant, a little bit higher servant, but it’s still a servant. And now what has she become? A wife. A wife. Pretty high title. And here’s the thing, this is only the second time in the whole book where God is the subject of the verb. So he’s doing something. He’s doing something. And back in chapter 1, that’s the first time we see it, where God ends the famine and he gives food, or he gives bread to the people. But what’s he doing here? Look at verse 13. “The Lord gave her conception.” Well, why is this important? Well, because of what God gives, he gives a baby. But it also re-emphasizes what we’ve seen throughout, this theme of God being in control, this theme of God’s sovereignty. It’s his story from the very beginning. So verse 6, we see his action. At the very end, as the story is coming to completion, we’re again reminded he’s very much active in this story. From beginning to end, he’s been weaving this. It’s how our story begins too, right? God is there from the beginning of our story, just like Jeremiah. He knew us before he formed us. Now, if you haven’t asked the question yet, you should ask, why didn’t Ruth have children with her first husband? It looks like they were married about ten years. And now she has a kid. But this is important because who gives it to her? It’s God who gives it. So he’s been working through the story, but this expression here in Hebrew, which is translated conception or pregnancy, it only occurs two other times in all of the Old Testament. But this statement needs to be interpreted against the backdrop of her childlessness with her first husband, Mahlon. And the point is this, Yahweh graciously grants Ruth pregnancy as a gift. This is the narrator’s modest way of identifying a miracle. Ruth who had been unable to bear a child now conceives for Boaz.
And this is when we have our third redeemer brought into the picture. Who is it? The baby. He is the future Redeemer. Look at verse 14. The women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel.” Now, if you just read this verse you initially might be thinking, oh it’s talking about Boaz, because he stepped up to the plate. He did what the failed redeemer didn’t do. He’s the faithful Redeemer who steps in, right? You might be thinking that, but let’s read on. “He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age.” I mean that could still be true of Boaz, and he’s done those things. But read on. “For your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” Has given birth to him. So, Obed, the baby, is now being called the Redeemer. Why is he being called the Redeemer? Because guess what? He’s now the goel that takes on the role for Naomi to take care of her as he gets older. The Redeemer there, that’s that word goel that we’ve looked at over and over and over and over again. And now it’s applied to this little baby, baby Obed. He is the future Redeemer. He’s the future goel. Now, this entire book really does bring to this section. Verse 13 is kind of the highlight, so to speak. I mean, that’s what has been hinted at all the way back in chapter 2. It’s probably what we’ve been hoping for. And now we get to see it come to fruition. And they get married, yay. They get married, yay. Right? Marriage is good. True? And they’re blessed to be. Notice the hope for the baby. Back in verse 14, “May his name be renowned in Israel.” Well, who else was renowned in Israel? His dad. Same word used for his dad. Who else was renowned? Ruth. They’re both renowned, and they’re like, hey, let him be just like you. Which means, let him be a man of hesed, of loving-kindness, which means let him be a good husband. Which means let him be a good father.
Now, men were commanded to be good husbands. We see this brought out even more so in the New Testament. And Nancy Pearcey in her book talks about this. In ancient culture, many marriages weren’t love-based. Spouses were selected with an eye to things like social status, property, rights, and legal heirs. But what does the New Testament teach? I mean, what do we find out once we get there? Men are commanded to love their wives as their own body. As their own body. Part of the husband’s headship was defined as self-sacrifice modeled on Christ’s self-sacrificial love. So they weren’t to abandon their wives through divorce. No, they’re supposed to love their wives as their own body. It also means Colossians. So the first passage was Ephesians 5. You can look at that later. Colossians 3, “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.” While it rules out many things, it definitely rules out being abusive, physically or emotionally. And then later, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians, husbands were commanded not to seek out slaves or prostitutes for sex, instead keep up regular sexual relations with their wives. That verse is put there as much for the men as it is for the women. And we don’t think that way, praise the Lord. A lot of the times, the thoughts, even our culture, it still has a flavor of Christianity to it. It’s losing it. The church can regain it, but it is losing it. But it has a flavor of Christianity to it, even on something like that, we don’t even think about that. But it’s so crazy back then, Paul has to say, hey, men, when you’re coming on your way home, don’t swing by the temple and have sex with the temple prostitute. That’s a bad idea. And he has to tell them that. It’s not like, yeah, that’s probably not good for my marriage. But that’s how counter-cultural these things were. We have roughly 250 years and more of this nation being blessed with Christianity as its foundation. And we continue to reap the benefits. We reap less of them as the years go by. And if the church [audio unclear] and that is disgusting, vile, and horrible. But guess what. It is common and it is culturally acceptable. Listen, brothers and sisters, some cultures are better than others. Please don’t tell me a culture like that is on the same level as a culture that follows after Jesus. It is simply not true. Some cultures are better than others. So a good husband—men were commanded to be good husbands. So the New Testament taught, hey, not just women but men are supposed to be faithful to their spouse. Christianity stood out as radically different. What did Jesus say? “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” Such even-handed treatment, the man and women being treated equally, revolutionary. One author explains, people thought men couldn’t commit adultery. It was women’s bodies that were property and could be stolen or damaged. And what does Jesus do? He challenges this whole market economy, as Nancy Pearcey says, that would buy and sell bodies, especially women’s bodies. So adultery, it’s not a property crime. It’s a violation of God’s intention for humanity. So Jesus radically equalizes the man and the woman in the one-flesh union.
Children Are a Blessing
And children are a blessing. Psalm 127, we looked at the first couple of verses last week, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.” So we had God bless this church with a number of new babies last year, blessing us this year with a number of more babies, right? And what does the Scripture say? They’re a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb, a reward. So they’re a blessing. Can they stop being a blessing? They can actually. Listen to Proverbs 17. “A foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to her who bore him.” Does that sound like a son who’s a blessing? Not currently. Proverbs 10:1, the proverbs of Solomon, “A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.” Is that foolish son, is he a blessing to his mom? He’s not. Listen, children can bring heartache to parents. And maybe some of you new parents, you’re like, man, I hope we get the wise son. It’s such a toss-up. No, listen, dad and mom. You shape your child more than anyone else. You shape your child more than anyone else. You are the key factor as to whether they end up wise or foolish. My kids and I, we were talking the other night, and I was explaining to them, I can see different aspects and parts of me in you, and some of those things I’m proud of and some of those things I’m not proud of. Now, I never sat down and taught my kids all the things I’m not proud of. Not verbally, but day after day, my shortcomings, well, what has happened? They’ve seen it modeled. And my kids, you know, they’re probably trying to be nice, but they push back, shortcomings, what are you talking about? I think they’re more talking about themselves than me, but, and I listed off like one or two and they’re like, oh, okay, like they saw it. So yes, I don’t want that to happen to my kid. That’s probably what you’re saying. Well, let’s just look at a couple verses. Proverbs 29. Keep your place in Ruth, we’ll be back. Proverbs 29, verse 17, “Discipline your son, and he will give you” what? “Rest. He will give you rest. He will give delight to your heart.” What’s the condition on getting the rest and the delight to the heart? Discipline, right? Discipline. So if you want the rest and you want the delight to your heart, you got to do the first part. You got to do the command, discipline your son. Now, we’re going to look at some different proverbs. Let’s just say from the outset, these aren’t promises. These aren’t promises, but these are principles. And generally, if you do X, then Y happens. “Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart.” Children don’t train themselves. Well, they will train themselves, but it won’t be the way you want them trained. Did Boaz grow up to be some great godly man on his own? No. Did Obed grow up to be some great godly man on his own? No. Look a couple of verses earlier. You’re still in Proverbs. Verse 15, “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.” You leave the child to himself. You don’t have any discipline? What’s it say is going to happen? Shame, shame to the mom and to the dad, but shame to the mom. The moms take that to heart greatly. A little bit easier for us dads to roll it off. That’s probably not a good thing, but I mean, it affects. So what are we supposed to do? Well, go to Proverbs 19. Like if you’re, by the way, if you’re a parent, especially a new parent, you got kids, five, six, seven, and under, like Proverbs should be your home base because that’s where you receive instruction regarding these things very clearly. There’s other passages, we’ve looked at Colossians a whole lot, but a lot of instruction. Proverbs 19, verse 18, “Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death.” Now, are any of these that we’ve looked at so far, did they come across as optional? These are commands, true? Did we follow the commands of Scripture? Well, we’re supposed to, right? We hear something and we’re like, I haven’t been doing that. What do we do? Repent? Of course, correct. So “discipline your son, for there is hope.” He’s all running around and he’s a terror. He’s a terror to you, he’s a terror to your parents, he’s a terror to your neighbors, he’s a terror left to their own devices. So what do you do? Discipline, for there is hope, why? Because discipline is God’s instrument, literally to instruct and train. It has to be verbal, but it has to be corporal. “Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death.” So what’s the flip side? Sometimes you get these parallelisms a lot in Psalms and a lot in Proverbs, where sometimes it takes the first part of the verse and then it restates it. Sometimes it takes the first part, and then it says like the negative in the second part. So discipline your son. Well, what’s kind of the flip side? Do not set your heart on putting him to death, meaning what? You don’t discipline him, that’s what you’re doing. You’re setting your heart on putting him to death. No parent would ever say that. What does it matter if you say it? Doesn’t matter if you think it. What matters is what the Scriptures say. So discipline. Discipline has to be there in the life of the family.
Discipline Your Son
Let’s go a little bit further. Go back a couple more chapters, Proverbs 13, verse 24: “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” Now, if I ask all the parents here, do you love your kids, everyone’s going to raise their hand, right? True? Right? Well, “he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” “He who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” Now some of you grew up with discipline and it wasn’t very diligent. It was kind of half-hearted or scattered about or just at the whim of one or both of your parents. There wasn’t much diligence to it. No, yeah, discipline has to be diligent. It—50 years ago, something like this, reading this verse, wouldn’t be controversial whatsoever. All right, all you boomers in here, you probably, your parents probably camped on this verse. Just saying. And look how you turned out. I think the people in here are pretty good actually. You can pay me a little bit. But now you say something like that, oh spanking is a good thing. I mean, I did a search on spanking and I’m just scrolling through Google. Every single thing, oh how horrible it is, how horrible it is, all these, how horrible it is, how horrible it is. Okay, we got man’s wisdom, we got God’s wisdom. You can choose, all right? You can choose God’s wisdom, to be clear, but you can choose. All these verses in the Proverbs over and over and over and over again deal with that. Can the rod be, and I rarely make qualifications, by the way, I made a commitment to myself a few years back that everything can be nuanced and everything can be qualified to death, all right? So, even sometimes I’ll make some strong statements and I’m not going to qualify them because sometimes you just need to hear them without any qualifications. It hits a little harder. Occasionally, I’ll qualify. So, I’m doing a little qualifying because I just want it to be clear that yes, there is physical abuse. Yes, the rod can be misused. Yes, I’ve seen places where it has. But there’s this Latin saying, abusus non tollit usum. Abuse does not lead to no use. Many, many, many, many, many things can be abused. Like over-the-counter medication can be, prescription drugs can be abused. Does that mean we should just wipe everything out and no drugs whatsoever? No, I mean, they serve a really good and right purpose when used properly, yes? I mean, some people actually need that medicine, certain parts of it, if you’re a diabetic, you need that, else there’s major problems. Some people have excruciating pain and they need that pain medicine. But does it get abused at times? Yes. Does that mean there’s not a proper use? No, there’s a proper use. So it’s very similar. There’s a proper use for what the Bible calls the rod. Yes. So there’s a proper use. Can it be misused? Yes. Does that mean we don’t use it? The Bible instructs us that we need to figure out what is the proper use. Today we’re not going to go into the proper use, but we’re at least going to look at what it says regarding what is the use when it comes to discipline. Let’s look at Proverbs 22, verse 15: “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” So folly is in the heart. Your kid is a sinner. You probably already know that. I don’t have to. I don’t have it daily, but the folly has to be dealt with. Guess what happens if it isn’t dealt with, the folly? It grows. It’s like a weed. You look out your backyard, you’re like, I need to take care of the garden. It seems like you turn around the next day and it’s like multiplied like rabbits, exponentially. Just. It’s everywhere. Well, that’s how folly is. It has to be dealt with, else it multiplies and multiplies. So something is wrong with their heart, just like us. But something’s wrong with their heart. It has to be addressed. And the biblical answer is the rod. It’s the rod. And what happens [audio unclear]
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? (Hebrews 12:6–7)
Is that a horrible thing for the Lord to do? No, it’s a loving thing. Keep reading. “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” Like the writer of Hebrews is literally assuming that parents discipline. Otherwise, the verse wouldn’t make any sense. “God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” Like all parents, of course, discipline, that’s what he’s assuming. That’s the wise thing to do. God disciplines us. He’s our Father. What should we as fathers do with our children? The very same thing. So it’s for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? And then notice what he says. “If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” Meaning, if God doesn’t discipline you, you’re not one of his kids. He only disciplines his kids. I’ve never used the rod on anyone but my own kids. That’d be weird if I did. That would probably be crossing over into physical abuse, potentially. Be awkward, wrong. That’s not my place. Maybe if I’m the grandparent. But it’s perfectly right when they’re my own children. Perfectly right. Well, that’s what God is saying. He disciplines his children. If you don’t get disciplined by the Lord, then you should be like, hmm, I might not be one of his. Why? Because that’s what the passage says. We go on. “Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them.” Again, notice, he’s taking it from the viewpoint of the son, like our fathers disciplined us, our earthly fathers disciplined us. What was our reaction? Did we hate him? Did we write blogs about how horrible spanking is? No, we respected them. Why? Because in hindsight, they appreciate the discipline. Yeah, your kid, this doesn’t appreciate it. Not right then. But years from now, greatly appreciated. Greatly appreciated. So besides this, verse 9, “And we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.” Why is the Lord disciplining us? We have the answer right here. It’s his hand of sanctification. He disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness. Why are we disciplining our kids? Not because we want them to share the holiness that we have on our own, but we want them to share the holiness of Christ as well. So we want to point them to Christ. We want them to see that they are fallen in need of a Savior. “For the moment,” verse 11, “all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” I mean, even when the Lord is disciplining you, that’s not any fun. He’s doing it for a reason. It’s not very pleasant. But what happens? Later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. God disciplines his children for the holiness. He disciplines us because he loves us. The same is true for parents with their children. We’re disciplining them because we love them. We’re wanting something better for them. We want to point them to the Savior. Yes, it’s painful at the time. But what does it yield, brothers and sisters? The peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
The Early Church’s High View of Women and Children
The early church modeled well this high view of children and women. Very well. In fact, the positive view of women and children in the early church, it just, it kind of messed up the contemporary society. It’s one of the things that actually attracted women to Christianity. A second-century document called the Epistle to Diognetus sums up the surprising behaviors that set Christians apart from the pagan world. It says they beget children but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table but not a common bed, or as one translator puts it, they share their food but not their wives. That was radical indeed for that time. Rodney Stark, sociologist of religion, he’s written a lot on this subject. He says the Greco-Roman world was a male culture that held marriage in low esteem, that also held women in low esteem, expressed high rates of abortion, which was a huge killer not only of children, but also of women in this period. Infanticide was widely practiced as well. In fact, leading thinkers of the ancient world, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, recommended infanticide as legitimate state policy. And archaeologists have discovered sewers from back then clogged with the tiny bones of newborn babies dumped down the drain. So, they have more than one daughter. There’s somewhat a well-known letter that they discovered written in the first century by a Roman soldier to his pregnant wife: “If it is a boy, let it live. If it is a girl, expose it.” [audio unclear] but loved and cared for as much as boys. Not only that, the early Christians went beyond simply condemning abortion. They were the ones who rescued these babies that were abandoned. They would abandon them right at the city walls on the other side, usually torn apart by wolves or other animals. But what would the Christians do? They’d go each night and whatever babies were there, they would adopt them into their own family. Did you know that for much of ancient Roman history, women didn’t even have the right to their own name. They almost always took a feminine version of their father’s family name. So Gaius Julius, if he had a daughter, she’d be named Julia. Or Marcus Terentius would have a daughter, she’d be Terentia. And in case of multiple daughters, which was rare, they’d be differentiated by a suffix. Julia Major for the oldest, Julia Minor for the next, Julia Tertia for the third, and so on. Very, very, very low view. And what does the church come along? It flips that around. It flips it upside down. Brothers and sisters, children are precious and to be protected. They’re protected from all sorts of harm. We as the parents are the protectors. The church comes along and supports and encourages and advises. So why when it comes to children even today, why does an atheist like Richard Dawkins have more courage than pastors when he says, hey, sorry, there’s only two genders. It’s just science. Why do we have a president that is more willing to say biblical things than some pastors? Just last week, he said, our message to every child in America is you are perfect the way God made you. Guess what? This is what you tell someone who’s struggling with gender dysphoria. You don’t chop off body parts. You tell them God had a perfect plan when he formed and made you. Now, don’t get me wrong, Trump has gotten things wrong, no doubt, his stance on abortion is horrific. His position on IVF government funding is a horrible idea. We have 1.5 million babies frozen in storage that have been there for years and years, some decades. That’s unspeakable, that’s inhumane, that is awful. But Trump will say a positive statement knowing 10 people will hate him, but pastors won’t say something because they’re afraid of pushback from a few sheep or losing a few sheep? That’s awful. Imagine being a pastor the last five years and never saying something like that. This church spent over $10,000 making a strong statement that child mutilation is wrong, that gender surgery of children is wrong. Why is it so hard for a pastor to say it? Listen, the truth offends. And while it’s never my point, 99.9% of the time to go out and try to offend you, if I’m preaching the word in a fullness, you at times will be pricked in your conscience and not want to hear the truth. You won’t want to hear it. I get it, that’s the flesh. My flesh doesn’t want to hear it either. This isn’t a closed book though, right? I mean, it’s open. It’s open for us to study, to read, to read, to read. And God had a perfect plan when he made each one of us. God has a design for the family. We get to be blessed to take this picture back in Ruth of God bringing a family together. Amongst the people we’re around, there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, in 1 Timothy he says if anyone desires to be an elder he desires a good thing. It’s a good thing. Now can you desire it for the wrong reasons? Sure. No qualifications, remember, so it’s a good thing. Same thing with the family. Like God has brought, if you’re married, God brought you together. And he’s blessed your marriage. He blesses marriages. So the grass can always be greener if you put enough fertilizer on the other side of the fence. Okay? Maybe you need to start using the fertilizer on your own yard. And sometimes the grass is greener on the other side of the fence because the sewage tank is leaking. Okay? Just saying. There’s all sorts of problems that are underground that you don’t know about. But God’s blessed you with a marriage, with a spouse. What are you supposed to do? You’re supposed to be faithful. You’re supposed to look at what the Scripture says your role is. Husbands have particular roles. Wives have particular roles. Unique, distinct roles that God wants them to fulfill. We’re not androgynous. No, he has a specific role for the husband. He has a specific role for the wife. He has a specific role for the children. And what happens when those roles are followed? Biblical flourishing. Biblical flourishing occurs. He has a design and his design is perfect and his way is perfect. So what do we have to do? We have to bend our beliefs to his word. And hopefully that’s happened to you. Hopefully if you’ve been saved for more than five minutes, the Scripture has changed your mind on different things. It’s convicted you, it’s shown you, yeah, that wasn’t right. It did for me. So hope, but how does that happen? Because a lot of people read this and it doesn’t change them. It takes some humility, brothers and sisters. It takes the Spirit of God. It takes you willing to be able to admit when you’re wrong and when you’ve fallen short. Do you do that with your spouse? Do you do that with your kids? Is there humility? If you want to damn your kids to hell, let me tell you, have as much pride as possible. Because that’s what you’ll do to them. That’s what you’ll do. Because they’re going to pick that up. That’s the lesson that you teach every day. Every single day you teach that lesson to them. You might not want to, you might not think about it, but you teach that lesson every single day. And that pride reeks like the worst refuse you can imagine. It reeks. And nobody wants a part of it.
Humility
So you’re reeking of pride and you’re talking about Jesus and they’re not stupid. They see the hypocrisy and guess what? They don’t want it. Or even worse they’ll adopt it and they’ll be the Pharisee just like you. Instead of one Pharisee going to hell there’s two Pharisees going to hell and that’s horrible. So you got to humble yourself. First before the Lord but second before your spouse. You need to make sure regularly, if you mess up, if you’ve truly sinned, [audio unclear] of biblical wisdom that we can swallow is being humbled. Because what does that do? It shows us our proper place. What does it show? I can’t do it on my own. What does it show us? I messed up. What does it, I messed up again. And again, it shows us that we can’t do it and that we need a Savior. So where do we find ourselves after we’ve taken that dose of humility? Usually we better be on our knees before the throne, asking for mercy and forgiveness. And we better [audio unclear] God, what is, I mean, hey, his word. God opposes who? The proud. Says it in the Old Testament. He says it in the New Testament. He opposes the proud, but who does he give grace to? Okay, so if you’re proud, are you getting grace? It’s not that hard of a connection to make. He opposes the proud. He opposes the proud. He gives grace to the humble. I want the grace. Well, I got to have the humility. I better be humble. I better be walking in humility before him, in humility before my spouse, in humility before my family, in humility before my coworkers, in humility before my boss. Find me a person who is willing to humble themselves and God will be using them in powerful and great ways. It’s the truth. Because God sees a vessel who is willing to be poured into. You know, pride is just like this giant shield that doesn’t let anything in. Why? You already got it. You got it all already. There’s nothing to be poured into you from your own opinion. So it’s just like a giant shield that doesn’t let any of God’s grace. It’s like you’re rejecting the grace that he wants to give. Because you’ve got that shield. You don’t need it. You’re doing fine. No, we need it. You got to realize you need it. We all need it way worse than we realize. Occasionally, the Lord gives us a little view of that. But we need it badly, brothers and sisters. We deserve eternal punishment. We deserve an eternity away from God. We deserve hellfire on us for all eternity, every single one of us apart from the blood of Jesus. And so I’m willing to give you a tough word, and I’m willing to call stuff out. Why? Because I don’t want you to be in hell. That’s really the simple end answer. I want you to be walking with Jesus. I want you to truly know him. And my concern at times is maybe there’s people right now listening to my voice, that’s not true of them. And that’s an awful thought. So yeah, I’m not going to get up and just give you sugar water week after week after week. That doesn’t do you much good. Makes you fat. No, sometimes there’ll be some sugar water. Sometimes there’ll be some vegetables. You need some straight words at times. And your conscience needs to be pricked at times. And you need to be convicted in your soul at times. Why? Because that is good for you. The discipline doesn’t seem pleasant at the time. The Lord’s bringing his hand to discipline. Doesn’t feel that good. But at least you know you’re one of his. You’re getting the discipline of the Lord? You know you’re one of his. He disciplines those he loves. He disciplines his kids. So receive it and repent, and then change accordingly. Walk accordingly. Walk in the fruit of the Spirit, not the weeds of the devil. And receive the word today and act. Let’s pray.
Closing Prayer
Lord, I do pray that you are so good to us every single time. We thank you for that, Father. Lord, I pray for anyone dealing with pride, struggling with pride, maybe they just realized for the first time today, then let them repent right now in their heart of hearts before you and let them go and make it right with whoever they need to make it right with, likely their spouse and their children. But let them do that. That would be the sign that they are starting to walk in their repentance. So give them the grace, Father, to do that. Thank you, Lord, that you do discipline us because you love us. You truly are gracious and even in the midst of our different sins, Father, you walk with us, you forgive us, you continually call us to repentance, you continually forgive us. So let [audio unclear — recording ends].