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Proverbs - Lesson 8

Ken JonesProverbs, Session 8 of 10Recorded 202043 min

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0:01I've titled the lesson, Everything You Need to Know About Money. And I am no expert on how to handle money. But as I started studying the book of Proverbs and looked at all that it said about money, I was amazed. And before we get through the outline, there are going to be some things that the book of Proverbs says that I think will intrigue you greatly about your money and about how to handle money and about how to get money. And so I'm excited about the study tonight, and I want to get right into the outline.
0:30I will remind you that there are outlines, I think, from all the previous lessons up here on the front row. There are additional outlines for the lesson tonight. There are some tapes from past lessons. And I was told that the tape of the lesson two weeks ago, that's the last one we have there, has some static on it. You can hear the lesson, but there's an interference that's continual on the tape, and we don't know why that is. I will tell you that...
0:56We plan to teach this series of lessons again, probably in the annex, and we will record them again and go through all this again sometime later this year, we think, so that if you want some better quality tapes and maybe some better quality lessons on this subject, they'll be available later. Well, I mentioned in the very beginning of our class together that there are about five things that continue to bother me day by day, or sometimes they don't bother me, sometimes they bring great joy to my life.
1:24but in some way they affect my life. And I said those things were items like family and items like my job. And I said one of the key areas that seems to influence me day by day is money. There always are these concerns related to money. And so I told you in the beginning of the class we'd spend some time talking about money from the book of Proverbs. I want to begin tonight by looking at the conclusion.
1:55I want you to turn all the way over to the conclusion, and I want to begin with that conclusion, and then I'll end up with that conclusion. So far as I'm concerned, there are two primary passages or two primary verses that are going to govern everything we study about money in the book of Proverbs. The one that I use right here at the end is, so far as I'm concerned, one of the keys. Proverbs chapter 23, verses 4 and 5 says, Do not wear yourself out to get rich. Have the wisdom to show restraint.
2:38Now, before I ever get started, I want you to know that the book of Proverbs teaches that you ought not to wear yourself out to get rich. And there are a lot of people with whom we associate, and there are a lot of our friends, and there may be some of our family members, and there may be some of us right here in this audience tonight,
3:00who are doing just that. Our primary ambition is to get rich, and we are wearing ourselves out to get rich. But this proverb is going to say, and actually everything we're going to study is going to end up with this thought. It's not worth it. This says that if you finally get it, you need to understand you may not be able to keep it. It'll leave so very quickly. It'll fly away like an eagle. And so overriding thought is,
3:31Don't wear yourself out to get rich. Now go back to part one. I don't have mine stapled together, so I may get mixed up half the night. They're on front and backs of two sheets, and I have a third sheet here for some extra notes. Well, I want to begin by telling you that I think that materialism is addictive. I think that it's addictive. I think that money is addictive. And there are many people who are as trapped with materialism and with money as...
4:02Others are trapped with heroin or something like that. It's very easy to get trapped by materialism. And I want to give you this paradox as I begin, kind of setting the stage. That which we pursue to make us happy in terms of material things actually can easily take happiness away. Now that's true for a lot of things in life. There are a lot of things that you pursue in life that you think will bring you great happiness.
4:33only to find that when you finally latch on to it, it didn't bring what you thought it would bring. And there are many people who could give personal testimony, and maybe all of us in this room tonight could give personal testimony, that the pursuit of money we think will finally end in happiness when the end result may be the exact opposite from happiness. Well, I want to begin with all that. Before I get into the actual statements that are said about money, how to handle money, how to make money,
5:05I want to spend one brief moment on integrity because what I find from the book of Proverbs is that it's obvious that a lot of people violate their integrity for money and maybe people violate their integrity for more money than any other thing that we know. And so the book of Proverbs is going to say a whole lot about honesty and integrity. Let's go through some of the verses quickly, draw those conclusions and move on. Proverbs 10, 9.
5:34The man of integrity walks securely. Now there's a lot tied into that statement. You can walk with confidence. You're not walking with the eye cast back over the shoulder seeing who's after you. The man with integrity walks surely, securely. Proverbs chapter 11 and verse 1. The Lord abhors, and capture that word abhors. He abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight.
6:04What are dishonest scales? How many of you ever purchase things by way of scales? Any of you ever do that? Any of you ladies ever do that at the grocery store? You ever buy lettuce at so much a pound or apples at so much a pound or whatever my wife buys at the grocery store? I don't do much of that kind of thing. And you go up to the cash register and they put on this little scale and it weighs. What if it cheats you?
6:36What if they have that scale turned in such a way that they are causing you to pay for a little more than you're actually getting? Or what if you're a farmer and you're selling wheat and you have this truckload of wheat and you pull up on the scales and when you pull up on the scales, those scales are able to be adjusted and they cheat you just a little bit. Would you like that? What happens is anytime that happens, the Lord detests it. Keep going.
7:09Proverbs chapter 20, verse 23. Again, the Lord detests differing weights. 22, 28. Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your forefathers. Look at the next verse. Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless, for the defender is strong, and he will take up their case against you. Now, what's it mean to move a boundary stone, an ancient boundary stone, or to encroach on someone else's field? I can remember having this river bottom place that you've heard me talk about before.
7:45And the river bottom, there are no fences. Now, most of the other farms that we had, there were fences. But on the river bottom, no fences. And maybe one farmer, if he wasn't conscientious and didn't care, he would just kind of curve out and get on your land, or he would kind of curve out and cut a swath of your wheat. Or maybe he would put up an electric fence for cattle, and you'd look at his electric fence, and you'd kind of shake your head and say, what's he doing? Because it goes way out on your land because he wants to graze a little of your wheat. Why would he want to do that? Why would anyone want to do that?
8:21get a little extra that he didn't plant, that he didn't work, that he didn't deserve. He says, don't you do that. And those ancient boundary stones are kind of like what our land surveyors do with their steel pins in front of your house. You go out there to a couple of places, there are a couple of steel pins in the front part of your house. And those land surveyors will come out there and they'll take some kind of instrument and they'll find out where those are if you oversell your house or if you apply for a refinancing thing. They'll come out and mark your house again.
8:51Now what happens if my neighbor comes out and finds that for me and pulls it up and moves it over three feet? Well, he'll get caught before it's over because they'll keep measuring other people's house. But he could do that perhaps, maybe especially in ancient days, and they might not find out. And he suddenly got more land. The Lord says, I don't want you to act like that. I don't want you to be those kind of people. Chapter 10 and verse 2 of the book of Proverbs. That's number F, part F. Ill-gotten treasures are of no value.
9:271311, dishonest money dwindles away. 2017, food gained by fraud tastes sweet to a man, but he ends up with a mouth full of gravel. And my three conclusions to all that are honesty are God will not tolerate dishonesty. He simply won't tolerate it. He says, I abhor it, I detest it, I'll not put up with it. And I make a point too, by virtue of how many statements are made on the subject, it must be a primary temptation.
10:01The desire for money and things leads people to dishonesty. It's a temptation for perhaps all of us at various times in our lives and maybe all the time. In part three, dishonest gain will prove to be a mistake. You will be sorry. God will stand on the side of the one that you've cheated. It'll always be true. He'll always stand on the side of the one you've cheated, and you're going to reap what you've sown. So before we ever get into this issue of money, I want you to know that God says,
10:34I want you to be honest. And if you can maintain your integrity in this materialistic world, maybe you're a step ahead of everyone else. And if you can maintain your integrity, maybe you're a little ways down the road to being what God would want you to be. For the second overriding statement of the book of Proverbs, so far as I'm concerned, about money. The first is, don't you wear yourself out to get rich. You need to understand that.
11:01The second one is in Proverbs chapter 3, verses 9 and 10. And it's the one you've probably heard quoted most often. Honor the Lord with your substance, the King James Version will say. Or honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your increase or your crops. Then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine. If you are making your life by way of...
11:30farming or working the soil and you have these crops out here and you're growing the grapes for wine, what does that say to you? What does it say? How do you get your barns full and your vats running over? Well, let's just use the word honor for a little while. The way we're going to do that is we're going to honor the Lord with our wealth. Now, that ought to be understandable because we're taught to honor the Lord with everything we have, not just material things, but with my
12:05Tongue, I honor the Lord. With my actions, I honor the Lord. With everything I am, with everything I do, my job now is to honor the Lord. Why? Why? Why does He come first? All right, because He's the Lord. He's deserving. He made all of us. Then we're getting close. Why do you think the Lord was so insistent in last week's lesson that we honor our parents?
12:37If we got out of the side of the book of Proverbs last week and we looked at some other statements, you can find a statement that says you honor your parents because they gave you what? Life. And one thing you can trace through all of Scripture is that God holds life as precious in His way of thinking. Life is extremely precious. And He says you honor your parents in part because they gave you the life that you have. Now God gave us what? Life. And not only that, He gave us life eternal.
13:09And we're now called His children. And it's only understandable, it's reasonable that we honor Him with everything that we are. And so it only follows that one little part of what we are in life is wealth, is money. And we honor the Lord with our wealth. Now quickly, go with me through the rest of this out on this page, then we'll get into the material I really want to get into. Let me tell you some ways that you can dishonor the Lord.
13:39This is in the book of Proverbs again. These are some things you can do, and I'll guarantee you you'll never get close to honoring. One is you trust your wealth more than you trust God. Now, it may seem a little too simple, and it may seem kind of out of touch to you, but it is a major common problem, trusting your wealth more than you trust God. And any time you start doing that, you fail to honor God with your wealth.
14:06Chapter 10 and verse 15. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city. Now what does that say to you? What's that mean? The wealth of the rich is their fortified city. In that day, talking to people about a fortified city, what did that mean? Security. Protection. We've been studying the book of Nehemiah. The whole book of Nehemiah is about what? A wall. A city that needs to be fortified by building a wall. Now for the rich, their money...
14:38ends up being their fortified city. It's everything. They're going to trust it above all else. Chapter 11 and verse 4, the wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. He's just simply telling you what the wealth is going to do for you. 1128, whoever trusts in riches will fall. 1811, the wealth of the rich is the fortified city. They imagine it an unscalable wall, and nothing will ever happen to me. I've got enough that it's always going to be okay.
15:11And God is saying when it's all said and done, that wealth will make no difference whatsoever. And don't forget where we started. Back over in Proverbs chapter 23, it said wealth can leave how fast? Quickly, like an eagle into the sky. It can be gone immediately. It doesn't make a lot of sense to trust in riches, but it's a common problem. Second thing you can do to dishonor God with your wealth is simply abuse people in order to get more of it.
15:43Abuse people in order to get more of it. Now, have you ever heard of that happening before? Have you ever heard anybody abusing someone else? Have you ever heard of the rich abusing the poor so they could have more wealth? Those of you who came through the Depression, did you ever hear about the rich taking advantage of the poor? Have you ever heard of a person back in that day, for example, who had a lot of money picking up a lot of extra land by paying somebody else's taxes? Ever heard of that?
16:15You know, there are some people around my hometown and my home county that still to this day have ugly, ugly reputations because of how they treated some poor people back during the Depression. They had a little money and they took away a lot of land, bought up a lot of land. You know, they still don't like those people very well. Well, let's read a few of these verses. Chapter 18, verse 23, a poor man pleads for mercy, but a rich man answers harshly. What's that mean?
16:51Poor man is dependent upon me and maybe he owes me or maybe there's something he needs and he's begging for help and we answer back in a harsh tone that shows no care. And I put a little footnote there. Money can do strange things to people. Often it makes them think they are better than they really are. Ever notice that? Ever notice how money can inflate a person's thought about himself or herself? Chapter 28 and verse 8.
17:23He who increases his wealth by exorbitant interest amasses it for another who will be kind to the poor. You need to read that carefully. What it means is I got the money and you don't have it and I can charge you any interest I want and I charge you some outrageous interest and God says just keep on gaining the money. I'm going to give it to somebody else. Remember the parable? I'm not supposed to get out of Proverbs. Remember the parable of Luke chapter 12 about the rich farmer who had the abundant harvest?
17:55concerned about what he would do, said, I'll build bigger barns. He did, filled his barns up, took a look at all that and said, why, look at all the crops you've got laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. He's really proud of himself. And God says, thou fool, tonight thy soul shall be required of thee, and then to whom shall all these things belong? What God's saying is, I'll just take it away from you, give it to another. Well, 21, 13 says, if a man shuts his ears to the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.
18:281431, he who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker. 22, verses 22 and 23, do not exploit the poor because they are poor, and so forth. Three things dishonor God in regard to money. When we love it and trust it more than Him, when we abuse others to get more of it, and when we become so attached to it that we'll not give it back to God. I don't want to get into that. I'll get into it later. But part of honoring God is saying, God,
19:00You can have your part first. You can have your part first. But I don't want to get into that yet. I'm just trying to show you some things that I know for a fact will dishonor God. You abuse other people to get more of it, you're in the wrong camp. You get it and start trusting it more than you trust God, you're in the wrong place. It'll never work. Well, part five is where I really want to get to, and that's what I want to spend our time on tonight. I hope I have time to get through it.
19:33ways to financial success. Because the book of Proverbs really speaks about financial success. Before I get into it, I want to reemphasize that you ought not to wear yourself out to get rich. If your goal is to get rich, if your goal is to have a lot of money, you're going to be very disappointed in life. When all is said and done and life has come to an end, you won't like what you've experienced all that well. And it's like a lot of other things.
20:07money and wealth may come a little more indirectly than you may think. And I want to show you that tonight. Part A, I want to lay down a basic principle. That's a basic principle for everything we do, but it's faithfulness to God. 2820 says, a faithful man will be richly blessed. Now that's not talking, I understand, it's not talking specifically about money. But I want you to remember that
20:37Faithful people are blessed by God. And God works for the good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose. And I want you to remember that faithfulness is loyalty. It's doing God's things God's way, and it's even doing your things God's way. And if you do everything you do God's way because you love God, then everything we've been teaching in the book of Proverbs is going to alter your life. And wealth just may come,
21:10or at least peace and contentment may come as a result of that. Well, part B, honor God with your wealth. And here's what I want to tell you, that it means also giving to God. And this is not a class tonight where I'm going to try to encourage you to increase your contribution. I'm not even concerned about that right now, not at all. I'm just concerned that we understand, and I'll say even more about it a little later when we get to another principle, but I am concerned that we all understand
21:44that God owns everything. And you've heard that before. But God has purchased us through the blood of His Son. And that means we are a chosen treasure to God. And He blesses us to earn, and He wants back a portion of what we have. Honoring God is going to require giving to God. And maybe, just maybe, if we can't give to God,
22:19then maybe we have a problem with everything else we're going to talk about. I don't know if that statement is exactly true or not. But just maybe, if you're having problems giving something to God so that you can't honor the one who created, you can't honor the one who made you his child, you can't honor the one who's going to take you home to live with him in heaven forever and forever and ever. If you can't honor him right now with some of your wealth, even the first fruits,
22:50then maybe we'll all have a problem with the rest of it. Anybody have a comment about that? You look kind of like you're staring at me in disbelief and so forth. I wrestled with that when I put this together. And I thought maybe honoring God is more of this thing of not dishonoring God. That's why I put that together like that. But then I got down this far, and it says, Honor God with the first fruits of your increase. And then I got to thinking, well,
23:28I know not to dishonor God now, but when he comes back and says the first fruits of my increase, what is he talking about? What is God assuming? God's assuming I'm giving you the increase. And I really believe that he wants the first part of that. And you trace back, if I can use the word pattern, if you trace back the pattern from the beginning all the way up to the New Testament, what is God telling his people specifically in the Old Testament about their increases? What does he want?
24:03All right, he wants them to tithe. That's exactly right. And his laws on giving back then are very complicated. And he'll require a tenth of their wealth, and he'll require sacrifices at various times, and he'll require a tax into the temple treasury on certain Jewish holidays. And when he says you bring that animal, what kind of animal is it, he says, to bring? All right, but the very best is really what it specifies. He says, don't you bring to me one that's blind or lame or defected or diseased.
24:34I want the best. And so I move over to the New Testament. It gets really interesting to me at least because God just kind of leaves all that behind. And he comes along and says, now, I purchased you with the blood of my son. You're my children. I want you to give kind of out of love. I want you to give cheerfully. I want you to give like loving children. Now, I don't think we'll get very far at rationalizing
25:05a way around giving money back to God. I don't think we'll get very far. I'm not going to tell you how much to give because I don't believe the scriptures tell you how much to give. Okay? I think there's ways to give your energy, your time, everything you have belongs to God. But I'm just talking about one tiny piece of the pie of your life. I'm talking about your money. And it's not only my opinion, but I believe that honoring God is going to mean
25:41giving a portion of your money to God. I think it's a big test for every one of us in life. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Well, let me take you a step farther than this outline, and maybe we can clear a few other things up, and especially when I get the back side. I think maybe we'll get a little bit more into what you're saying too. I personally believe that you have to honor God with your wealth, and that means not to dishonor Him in those ways. It also means I believe...
26:57that you give a part of the first fruits that you receive. Now listen to this, part C. Proverbs chapter 11, verses 24 and 25. The man gives freely, yet gains more. Another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. Now follow that. It's strange to the way of thinking, isn't it? A man gives freely, he gives his money away, and yet he gets more and more.
27:31Then he explains it. A generous man will prosper. He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. What's that saying to me? What's that saying? Give, and it's going to be given back to you. I wish I had time to tell you several stories. I preached the funeral of my best friend last summer. It was last May. He was a man 75 years old when he died.
28:08I knew him at Enid from the time I went. The first day I was on the job, he called, and he was the only farmer in the congregation, and he and I hit it off. He lost his son because of the Vietnam War. His son and I were about the same age, and when he found out I was a farmer at heart, he kind of latched on me like he latched on to someone who might have been his son. And so he and I became very, very close. The man tried to give me money all the time I was at Enid, never took any of his money. But I watched him give money away like no one I've ever seen before. He wasn't super, super wealthy.
28:38But he had been blessed. I watched him give cars away, more than one. But I remember the family moved in from Pennsylvania in a worn-out Sears van. The daughters came to town riding on chairs in the back of that worn-out Sears panel van. And one day he called me and he said, I want you to go on an errand with me. Went down to the Pontiac place, drove out a relatively new Pontiac, went down and got the tags for it. He said, run with me over here, follow me in my other car. Walked up the door, handed him the keys, titled and said, I want you to have a car.
29:09And time after time after time, I saw him giving money like that. There were times he would come to me and want me to give the money for him. And the man would no sooner do that than there would be other things that kept happening in his life, continually blessed. And that's not the only man like that that I've been acquainted with. There have been others who have done those kind of things. I've got a good friend that one day took...
29:3830 $100 bills, put them in our mutual friend's mailbox. No name, nothing, just put 30 $100 bills in the envelope and put it in there. That night, people called me and said, where in the world did this $3,000 in cash come from? And I smiled and said, I'll only have one guess. And that was right. I've seen people a lot of times give like that. And I truly believe they were always refreshed.
30:07And I believe from personal experience the times when I have given more freely like that have been the most prosperous times of my life. And there have been times in my past when I have given more freely, thought I had more to give. And it was a time when I seemed to be blessed even more than maybe even right now. So you'll never, ever, ever convince me that this doesn't work.
30:33A generous man will prosper. He who refreshes others is honored by God. Well, chapter 19 and verse 17, look at this. He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord. I don't intend to take the other book of Proverbs. When you get home, you read 2 Corinthians chapter 9. And when you get to verse 11, you read that statement that says that for the generous man, God will continue to give him wealth or what he needs.
31:07so that he can continue to be generous. And what I personally believe with all my heart is when God finds someone upon whom he can depend to be generous to others, God will keep giving to that person over and over and over again because he knows that if he gives to him, he will in turn share it with someone else. And when God finds a person like that, he's going to use that person. And by the way, I believe when he finds a church, when he finds a church that will use their resources,
31:37kind of like that, you keep on blessing that church. Well, I'm just talking about the steps that I believe are essential for financial success. I believe you need to be faithful to God, although that is not going to make you rich, and you may be faithful to God and be poor. I understand that, but I think that's a starting place. I think honoring God does mean, in my opinion, that you give to Him. And I think honoring God means that I give to those who are around me who are in need.
32:07I share what I have. If I have two coats, I give to the one who has no coat, and so forth. Look at 2827 right quick. He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes eyes to them receives many curses. Well, I'm simply telling you tonight how to make it in regard to money. Look at Part D. Part D has a lot of components to it. All of them, I think, are extremely essential. Quick rules on how to handle your money.
32:44Number one, be careful about debt. Proverbs chapter 22 and verse 7, the rich will rule over the poor, and the borrower is the servant to the lender. Chapter 22, verses 26 through 27, don't be a man who strikes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts. If you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you. What's he saying about debt?
33:20What do you know about the debt of America right now? What do you know about our governmental debt? Trillions of dollars, okay. What do you know about the amount of savings that people have in this nation? I don't know the figure. I just know I keep hearing economists say that our savings, what we keep in the bank for savings, is very, very small, whereas you compare that to places like Japan, and they save a whole lot more of their income. They set it aside. What do you know about debt?
33:56for the average American. How many people do you know who owe money? How many of us owe money? How easy has money been to borrow, at least in our past? It's been easy to borrow. And now we live in the age of credit cards, and it's easy to get your hands at least on a few thousand dollars, isn't it? I don't know how many offers I've had in the last two weeks. I guess it's just the time of the year. I don't know. But I keep getting these.
34:32These little statements that say, you can have a new platinum Visa card, or you can have a new MasterCard, or you can have the American Express, or you can have the Discover card, and all these cards just keep rolling in. And I can get $2,500, $5,000, every one of those. I can have big time for a while. Has anyone ever gotten in trouble on credit cards? I detest credit cards, folks. I walk by dinner. They say, you can have a gift certificate. I don't want your card.
35:02Because there's too much temptation. Now, I carry a credit card. So when I'm traveling, I use it. But almost never will I use a credit card. Because I've had friends who have been so hocked up on their credit cards that they don't have any money to do anything. And when they get a little money, they've got to pay off the interest on that credit card. And most financial counselors that I'm aware of will tell these people the very first thing, give me your credit cards. And he just cut them up right in front of their eyes. So don't you ever use it again.
35:34And that's the first step. And we need to be careful about debt. It's fun to buy, but it's horrible to pay back, is my experience. I just don't like the payback. And I guess I'd like to say that debt has ruined many people and stopped many people from getting what they really want in life. And they try to get it too fast, and I'll show you that by another statement in just a moment. Well, I've got just a little bit of time, and I need to move on past this lesson for next week.
36:08Look at part two, under D. Don't expect to get rich all at once. Proverbs chapter 13 and verse 11 says, This on its money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow. Now, how many people have you ever seen who have tried to get rich all at once? And how many of those people have made it? How many have you ever been offered a get-rich-quick scheme? All right. Charles raises his hand. He's a medical doctor. Those guys get hit all the time.
36:41get rich quick schemes. And I know of many of that profession who didn't get rich quick because they got into the scheme. And some of the others of you have done that too. Don't get involved in a scheme like that. You understand that it's going to take a long time. And you gather little by little and it'll grow. Be patient. Part three, we've talked about an earlier lesson.
37:15But it is totally essential. You're going to have to work hard. And if you're not willing to work hard, you're not going to make it because that's the secret behind gathering little by little and making it grow. You're going to have to work according to your own earnings. And you can read all these statements. Proverbs chapter 10 verses 4 and 5. Lazy hands make a man what? Poor. But hard working hands bring wealth. And I just wrote down a few of these. I didn't put down a lot of the verses. There are many, many more.
37:491423, all hard work brings profit. 2013, do not love sleep or you'll become poor. 2117, he who loves pleasure will become poor. Now what it's saying is the way to get by in life in regard to money is to work. I don't think many of us are going to get it given to us. And if it's going to be given to us, we're probably too old to enjoy it. Something like that.
38:17So it says you go to work. Part four, and I could spend an entire class period on this one thing. You set the right priorities. I guess it's much like goals. And I want you to know, if you don't know where you're going in life, you'll buy anything. Okay? Satan has a heyday with people who don't know where they're going in life. He can get them to go anyplace. And our department stores and all the other places that put out little things on shelves,
38:52to get our attention, have a heyday with those of us who don't know where we're going. And so you have a little statement in the book of Proverbs, and I have an old sermon I preach on that. I never preach it here, but I've got an old sermon locked away somewhere about finish your outdoor work, get your fields ready, and after that you build your house. Now, does that make sense to anybody? Finish your outdoor work, then later build your house. Why? Why? Now you've got to be a farmer to understand.
39:28That's right. What good is a roof over my head if I don't have anything to eat? And so if I'm a farmer, first order of business to get out there and get in my fields and get the plowing and get my seeds planted and get everything going out there, and then I take time when the crop's growing to build my house or to put curtains on the windows or whatever. You get your fields ready, finish your outdoor work, then you build your house. There has to be some kind of priority to our life.
39:55We have to make up our mind what we're going to do with our money, where we're going in life, and we live by those priorities. And now when some little fancy gadget comes out and shows itself to me, and I look at it and say, boy, I'd like to have that. I walk through service merchandise, and I mean my eyes go everywhere. I see a malt machine over here, and I say, man, I love those kind of malts. And I see something else over here and over there, and I mean I could spend a whole lot more than I got quickly.
40:24But you've got to remember your priorities. And you remember the priorities. You look at that thing and say, yeah, that'd be fun to have. I wouldn't mind having that. But I can't have it right now. Maybe when I get 75, I can. But not right now. Part five. You missed this one, you're going to miss it all. Frugality. Back when I worked at Oklahoma State University, we had 22 faculty members in my department. We had what we called the frugal four. Those were the four that were so tight, they did squeak all the time.
40:57called them the Frugal Four. They didn't like to be called the Frugal Four, but everybody called them that. One guy always bragged. He was chairman of the Frugal Four, and he said, I always use the dust off my charcoals. I never buy new charcoal. There's something to that. There's something to that. Look at chapter 21, verse 20. In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has. Now, capture that.
41:27You have a lot of things stored up, but a foolish man does what? He uses it all up. I don't know how many have ever listened to financial tapes or lessons or whatever, but there's one rule that a lot of people give on finances. And they say, you do this, it won't take long, and you'll have all the money you're going to spend. You live on 70% of your income. Take 70% of what you take home, and you use it to live on. You take 10% and you give it to God.
41:58You take 10%, you put it in savings, and you take 10% and you give it to people. Now, not many of us could do that starting right now, but you take 70% of your income, live on it. You take 10% and make sure it goes to God, and 10% and you give it away to people you see who are in need, and you put 10% in the bank and don't you touch it. And it won't take long, and you'll be farther along than you ever anticipated being. Well, boy, I hate to miss all this.
42:30Verse number six. I love number six. Learn a skill. The proverb says you learn a skill. You acquire an ability so that you can go out and get a decent job. It says so you can serve a king. You get a job. Learn a skill. Seven says don't overindulge. Eight is kind of interesting. Don't risk your income by unwisely putting up security for another's loan. And it says two verses here.
43:00Don't you put your name on the line for another person. That's kind of like the old idea in the letters that Paul wrote to Corinthians. Don't you be unequally yoked. Don't put yourself in a situation where they can take it away from you.

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Proverbs - Lesson 9

Ken JonesProverbs2020Audio · 42 min