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God To Be Your Coach
Transcript
The whole book of Proverbs is contrasting God’s way with man’s way. That’s really why this book is so fascinating.
Here we go. If we were to summarize the book of Proverbs, we’d say that the fools, and this is a fool, are on this side and the wise are on this side. Fools are everyone who doesn’t know God. The wise are everyone that does know God. When you’re talking about wisdom, you’re not talking about a subject, you’re talking about the subject of the Bible. You’re talking about the most defining reality that can be declared about any of us who know God. We, God’s word says, are the wise.
The word fool, this word is used 42 times in the book of Proverbs. There’s a lot in the book of Proverbs about it. God’s promise is in verse 23 of Proverbs chapter 1. This wonderful declaration, that all throughout human history wisdom is going to be crying in the streets. What is wisdom crying? Wisdom cries, God offers salvation. When He saves us, He gives us the mind of Christ. When we have the mind of Christ, we’re spiritually alive. We become sensitive to God. We who are saved are those, who worship God. See, salvation is equated with worshiping God. What begins to happen in our life is, more and more and more we flee sin.
Now, Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians 1:18. You who are being saved. See, there’s an element of future salvation where we’re in Heaven and perfected, but presently God is transforming us. We have eternal life, but we’re being saved more and more and more from the power of sin. Then, I love what Proverbs chapter 4 says so beautifully. Proverbs 4, starting verse 18.
By the way if you’ll take a moment and grab your Bibles, all the way through and as I read these scriptures you should have your Bible open. You’ll notice that anything that’s really important I’ve either putting a note on it or I’ve highlighted it. Just makes your Bible a little snapshot of your whole spiritual pilgrimage. That’s why I’ve worn mine out. I have a stack of Bibles. It takes me two to three years to wear one of these out. It’s all duct-taped, they actually wear out from opening and holding them and underlining and marking them and packing them in your backpack wherever you go. If you would look in your Bibles, look at Proverbs chapter 4 and verse 18, and this is what it says,
“But the path of the just,” that’s the wise, that’s the saved, that’s the born again, that’s those who are going God’s way, “is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.”
Verse 19,” the way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble.”
Why? They’re spiritually dead, empty minded, callous. They want their own way, which is another way of worshiping self. They mock at sin. God says that there’s only two groups in the world, those who are being saved and those who are perishing. That’s the lost, that’s the fools. For an unsaved person, their path is getting darker every day. Every day, the pathway of the lost, of the fool gets harder, more difficult, and they just can’t understand what’s going on, why it’s so hard, and what is happening.
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