- 6 weeks ago
In this conversation, the Common Sense Bible Study crew works verse-by-verse through Proverbs 29, examining how wisdom—or the lack of it—shapes families, communities, and authority structures.
We explore the relationship between fathers and children, showing how loving discipline brings joy while unchecked indulgence leads to shame. The discussion then turns to the danger of flattery, why it’s a hidden form of manipulation, and how it ultimately harms both the speaker and the listener.
Proverbs 29 also speaks powerfully about justice for the poor, contrasting righteous leadership that protects the vulnerable with corrupt rulers who exploit them. We examine the difference between true compassion and misplaced generosity, especially when kindness undermines responsibility or enables foolishness.
Finally, we look at the wisdom behind servants, masters, and heirs, including the long-term consequences of blurring God-ordained roles and rewarding entitlement over faithfulness.
This study challenges modern assumptions about parenting, leadership, charity, and social justice, calling believers back to biblical wisdom that produces peace, order, and righteousness.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
We explore the relationship between fathers and children, showing how loving discipline brings joy while unchecked indulgence leads to shame. The discussion then turns to the danger of flattery, why it’s a hidden form of manipulation, and how it ultimately harms both the speaker and the listener.
Proverbs 29 also speaks powerfully about justice for the poor, contrasting righteous leadership that protects the vulnerable with corrupt rulers who exploit them. We examine the difference between true compassion and misplaced generosity, especially when kindness undermines responsibility or enables foolishness.
Finally, we look at the wisdom behind servants, masters, and heirs, including the long-term consequences of blurring God-ordained roles and rewarding entitlement over faithfulness.
This study challenges modern assumptions about parenting, leadership, charity, and social justice, calling believers back to biblical wisdom that produces peace, order, and righteousness.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00:00Let's see. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Proverbs 29.
00:00:05There's a lot in this chapter about the widespread effects of foolishness and wisdom,
00:00:12especially how the behavior of a fool will affect a family, the family's future, and even the whole nation.
00:00:22So I put that subtitle of collateral damage.
00:00:26Start at verse one.
00:00:27He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing.
00:00:33What kind of person is often reproved, except that somebody who makes a lot of mistakes
00:00:40and doesn't listen or doesn't learn from those mistakes, keep telling them you're doing this wrong,
00:00:47and they keep doing that wrong.
00:00:50And I suppose they...
00:00:51It's not just that they keep doing it wrong.
00:00:54They prefer to do it wrong, because it says they stiffen their neck.
00:01:00Therefore, there's a pride thing there, because they're not open to instruction.
00:01:06I think that's a key component to this.
00:01:08Not that they've done it wrong.
00:01:09You can have somebody that just doesn't have an understanding, or there's a disconnect.
00:01:14But if you have somebody that, no, I know better, and I'm going to do it my way,
00:01:20at some point, there's a revelation that their way is not right.
00:01:27You know, and that's a difficult thing for somebody to hear sometimes.
00:01:33Yeah, especially when you're certain that you already know what's right.
00:01:37And clearly, somebody who is stiffening his neck doesn't believe what the other person is telling them,
00:01:43whether it's scripture or their conscience or whatever it is.
00:01:45Because they don't believe that the consequences are actually going to happen.
00:01:50And if you keep down the same path that you're on, and you don't find those negative consequences,
00:01:56that just reinforces that belief until suddenly everything catches up with you all at once.
00:02:03I think there's a connection here between the idea of stiffening the neck and the sudden breaking also.
00:02:09If you think about a dry twig, a dry twig, when you put it under pressure, it breaks suddenly.
00:02:14But a green twig bends under pressure.
00:02:17If you cut a twig off of a tree, it's green at first, and it'll bend under pressure.
00:02:22But the longer it stays disconnected, the drier it gets until suddenly it breaks.
00:02:28And, you know, the remedy there is to graft it back into the tree or into a different tree.
00:02:33And the ironic thing is, is the individual that's doing the reproving,
00:02:40these are proverbs that are to the kings, correct?
00:02:43In fact, mostly advice to kings.
00:02:46Mostly, to rulers in general, yeah.
00:02:49So if you have a ruler that cares enough to reprove, that's a kindness.
00:02:56But at some point, that ruler's patience is going to get tested, and he will have had enough.
00:03:06So if you use this in terms of Yahweh, if Yahweh is gracious enough to allow us to be taught over and over again,
00:03:19what a—I don't want to be the person that is there when he snaps, when he's had enough.
00:03:26Okay, you're done.
00:03:27Yeah, and the reproof doesn't have to be harsh, at least not at first.
00:03:34And, you know, just like the—those six stages of rebuke that Israel has promised at the end of Deuteronomy,
00:03:42you know, it starts out—that's bad.
00:03:45But, you know, they don't take the correction, and the next time it gets worse, and then it gets worse.
00:03:50And, you know, if—just on a person-to-person level, if you have to correct somebody, it doesn't have to be,
00:03:57you're wrong, and you need to fix this, because that's usually not going to go over well.
00:04:02People aren't going to accept that.
00:04:04But, you know, reproof on a personal level can be as simple as asking questions.
00:04:09Like, what's going to happen if you do that?
00:04:12Or, you know, have you thought about doing this other thing?
00:04:14And that—people will tend to listen to that sooner than they'll listen to a harsh rebuke.
00:04:22But eventually, you're right.
00:04:24I mean, especially with somebody who's in charge, who has authority, eventually they have to get harsh.
00:04:30All right, so let's move on to verse 2.
00:04:34When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.
00:04:39As we've said many times, the Proverbs are more about principles than promises.
00:04:45And you can tell, like, in a wicked society, the people groan when the righteous are in charge.
00:04:51But that almost never happens.
00:04:53In a wicked society, you usually have wicked rulers.
00:04:56You have to have a righteous society in order to have righteous rulers most of the time.
00:05:01And the Bible has occasional exceptions, you know, like when Josiah comes into power after generations of wicked rulers,
00:05:08and he tries to fix everything.
00:05:11He makes a lot of progress, but it's not enough.
00:05:14You know, the Proverbs have made a, we've read a lot of stuff about, you know, righteous rulers and versus wicked rulers.
00:05:22But actually, this verse doesn't, when the, it's not talking about necessarily righteous rulers here.
00:05:29It says when the righteous increase, which can refer to righteous people being promoted, and so that they are in charge.
00:05:35It can, it can also be righteous people prospering, like increasing what they own or hold.
00:05:42And I think the effect is the same.
00:05:45When righteous people are at the top of their fields, everybody around them is prospering too.
00:05:51They're treating people fairly, they're doing business honestly, and everybody's happier.
00:05:59Everything is running smoother, except the wicked people who don't want things to run smooth.
00:06:04Conceptually, I get it.
00:06:06I just have not witnessed it.
00:06:08Yeah.
00:06:08It's sad to say.
00:06:09Society is like, whoa, I have not really seen that.
00:06:13Yeah, and as you can see, I mean, we have had generations of wicked people in charge and wicked people prospering, and civil unrest just keeps getting worse.
00:06:23And from that, from that perspective, it proves the last half of the, of this proverb.
00:06:29We just haven't seen the first half yet.
00:06:31The closest we've come, I think, was the Reagan years, and I'm not entirely sure that was the case.
00:06:36I was a little too young and naive to really understand most of that, so.
00:06:41Yeah, I mean, even take it out of politics.
00:06:44If you have a scenario whereby maybe a revival or something, I've not seen revivals that, I mean, I'm sure they're out there, but I've had friends that have gone to quote-unquote revivals, and I'm questioning was it real or not.
00:07:00You know, I'm not getting real for them, but I would think that's the, the closest that I could think of with regards to righteousness increasing, but, you know, that's to be seen.
00:07:14Yeah.
00:07:15All right, so verse three, unless somebody has anything else they want to add there, I'm kind of moving quickly through here, and if you want to speak up, go ahead.
00:07:24All right, so verse three, he who loves wisdom makes his father glad, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth.
00:07:31What story does that remind you of?
00:07:34The companion of prostitutes who squanders his wealth.
00:07:37It reminds me of the prodigal son.
00:07:39Prodigal son.
00:07:40Yeah.
00:07:41And, you know, I did a video a couple years ago about, you know, honoring your parents, and how do you, and one of the responses I got was, well, my parents just aren't honorable.
00:07:52They're horrible people.
00:07:54Like, yeah, that, that happens, and so I, I did a follow-up video, like, well, how do you honor your parents when they're not honorable people?
00:08:02And I think that, that this proverb, he who loves wisdom makes his father glad, I know that there are fathers out there who provoke their children and try to get them to misbehave.
00:08:13But I don't think, I think that even among those kinds of fathers, most of them are secretly very pleased when their children are, show wisdom, and are actually well-behaved.
00:08:26And it might anger them at some level, just because, for the same reason that wicked people get angry at righteous people, you know, it exposes their, their sin.
00:08:37It shows everybody around them just how bad they are in comparison.
00:08:41But still, this is your children.
00:08:45And even a wicked father, when his children are righteous, will be pleased at some level.
00:08:50Well, Jay, it's, it's not, it's not about the father.
00:08:53It's about the wisdom.
00:08:54So, wisdom is separate from the father.
00:08:58If the father's advocating and presenting wisdom, great.
00:09:02But if the child is embracing wisdom that's beyond what the father is doing, I think that that's a, that's a bit of a difference there.
00:09:13Not really sure I'm following you.
00:09:16So, okay, you have this evil father.
00:09:18Let's go to Huckleberry Finn, right?
00:09:20And you've got the Huckleberry Finn's father, which is a murder and whatnot.
00:09:27But Huckleberry Finn is, is, he's embracing common sense.
00:09:33He's embracing things that are, are righteous in a, in a sense, as compared to the father.
00:09:41I think that, that, that, that simple fact of, of his acting appropriate and rightly so, I think that does influence and offset the evilness of that father.
00:09:55Mm-hmm.
00:09:56Um, you know, it's, the father basically, I think, rests or can rest in the fact that, okay, he's, he's got a clue.
00:10:06And therefore, I, I can pull back my wrath, if you will.
00:10:11Yeah.
00:10:12It occurred to me that there is a, another way to interpret this.
00:10:15I don't, I don't think it's really what's intended, but it could be read that if you love wisdom, you will then make your father glad.
00:10:23You will then work to make your father, or you will work to please your father.
00:10:27Does that make sense?
00:10:29Yeah.
00:10:30So, rather than one being, your father will just be pleased with your wisdom, your wisdom prompts you to please your father.
00:10:37Mm-hmm.
00:10:38I think either of those is, is true, as long as your father is pleased by wise behavior, because obviously some of them aren't.
00:10:46All right.
00:10:46If there's nothing else on that one, verse four.
00:10:49Oh, well.
00:10:51Yeah.
00:10:51I, we're probably not going to have time to go through all of these.
00:10:54Uh, actually there's one, I wanted to mention something about verses five and six.
00:10:59And, uh, there is something special about these two verses.
00:11:04And what do you suppose that might be?
00:11:06It would be a chiasm.
00:11:07Yeah.
00:11:08There is.
00:11:09There, there's a chiasm there.
00:11:10And it's more apparent if you take a very literal translation, like Young's literal or something like that.
00:11:16But, you know, the top part, a mighty man, the word for man in this verse is geber, which literally means a warrior or a mighty man.
00:11:25So, a mighty man who flatters his neighbor is juxtaposed with a righteous man who sings and rejoice and rejoices.
00:11:33Both of them are saying something.
00:11:36One is praising his neighbor.
00:11:37The other is presumably praising God.
00:11:40But the first one is giving false praise.
00:11:43And the last one is giving true praise.
00:11:47And the reason, the, the consequence is that a net is spread and an evil man is ensnared.
00:11:54And in the center, the net is spread for his feet and the ensnarement is in his transgression.
00:12:01And consider the idea of transgression is something where you have crossed a boundary.
00:12:06And the idea that you have walked somewhere or gone somewhere that you shouldn't have gone.
00:12:11And now you are ensnared.
00:12:12So, in both of those, for his feet and his transgression have to do with going somewhere where you're not supposed to be.
00:12:19Anyways, it's not a super profound chiasm, but I thought it was still interesting.
00:12:24Worth pointing out.
00:12:26How would you define flattery?
00:12:30False praise.
00:12:31Giving somebody compliments in order to get something out of them rather than actually telling them something useful.
00:12:38But I think I've, I've heard it maybe in movies, saying it in a positive manner.
00:12:44Like somebody will say something and the lady will be like, oh, you flatter me.
00:12:48Yeah, that's, that's like a humble brag saying, oh, you're just giving me false praise.
00:12:52You don't really mean that.
00:12:53But when, of course, they're saying, oh, yes, I am that.
00:12:56So, I am all that.
00:12:58If flattering is the, is falsely giving somebody praise, what would be another way to, yeah, I guess praise, right?
00:13:11It would be the opposite of that.
00:13:13Yeah, complimenting, praising.
00:13:14Yeah, because I think the scripture says, I think I was reading it somewhere, I think in Romans, because I'm reading Romans right now.
00:13:20I said that not to get tired of like praising each other or something like that, which I think it's, it's good.
00:13:31But I think that, you know, we live in such a world that, I don't know, it's hard to believe what anybody's saying.
00:13:38That if you praise somebody, like at work, for example, I'm very careful of not over praising people, because they may think that I'm just flattering somebody, because I'm trying to move something like that.
00:13:51So, that praise can come as flatter, as flattery, and come and bite me later on.
00:13:58I measure what I say about people, because they might take it the wrong way.
00:14:03Yeah, Paul and I were actually talking earlier today about when rewards are given too frequently, how they lose their potency.
00:14:13And, you know, we were specifically talking about that in the context of graduations.
00:14:17You know, everybody's got their kindergarten graduation and their fifth grade graduation.
00:14:21Like as a trophy?
00:14:22Yeah, there's not necessarily anything wrong with that.
00:14:24But if those kind of things come too often, then they just lose their meaning.
00:14:28Yep, I agree.
00:14:29And it is good to tell people when they're doing something right, as long as you don't make too big of a deal of it and gush over minor things.
00:14:40Like, you know, if your kid does something right, good job.
00:14:44You should tell them.
00:14:45If it's not something like they did a great job of walking across the room without falling down, they don't need to be complimented for that.
00:14:56We clap for that.
00:14:58We clap for that.
00:14:59If it's their first steps, yeah, clap and cheer, sure.
00:15:04But, you know, if they've been walking successfully for many years, no need to compliment them anymore.
00:15:10We can move on to something bigger.
00:15:12Yeah.
00:15:13Now, I've seen babies that it comes to the point where there's so much of that, that every time they do something that is nothing significant, they look at you and they start clapping.
00:15:22They're like, hey, I just did something.
00:15:26It was nothing great, but I did something.
00:15:27And everybody else groans.
00:15:29They're just like, yeah.
00:15:30But, you know, when I see that, I'm like, no.
00:15:34I don't say anything, but I'm like, no, you guys are doing something completely wrong.
00:15:38That's not the way it's supposed to be.
00:15:40Now you're really flattering somebody, for sure, instead of praising them.
00:15:44But at the same time, it's also not good to tell everybody all the time when they're doing something wrong.
00:15:51Because there may be something small, and if you constantly are nagging somebody about that, it's just at some point, it becomes one of those things where what they're doing wrong, is it just a mistake?
00:16:11Is it just, you know, a learning curve?
00:16:13Or is it straight up just being a scoffer?
00:16:16If it's a learning curve or something like that, a small mistake, then, yeah, you shouldn't be nagging people all the time about stuff like that.
00:16:24And then once you know that they're just complete scoffers, you just let it go.
00:16:30Even if they don't think they're being stiff-necked, you just drop it.
00:16:33And honestly, I'm just, I'm a happier person once I realize that person has decided just to be a scoffer and doesn't want to hear it.
00:16:42I'm just like, okay, fine.
00:16:43But you leave them up to their own devices, you know, you're like, okay, no problem.
00:16:48And you're a happy person, and they're a happy person.
00:16:50Hopefully, you can just pray for them, and they'll revert back.
00:16:53But if not, it's better to let it go.
00:16:56Well, you also lose focus.
00:16:58Like, have you ever seen a football game where a team is being crushed, and somebody makes a good play, losing, and they make this big exaggerator?
00:17:07I'm the best, look at me, I've made a tackle, or whatever the play is.
00:17:13Well, you're totally out of context in that situation, and you've lost focus as to what your ultimate goal is.
00:17:23So flattery kind of doesn't, it doesn't really matter what's going on.
00:17:27But I'm deserving of praise regardless, you know?
00:17:33Hey, Jay, I can't remember the address.
00:17:35There was a first, there was a New Testament, quote-unquote New Testament, verse where it talks about it's a wicked servant who just does the minimum.
00:17:44And that doesn't, there's no glory there, and that could be where that would, that's kind of what you guys are talking about, but it talks about that if you're just doing the basic people that think they're doing all that because they're, you know, obeying the commandments.
00:18:00And it's kind of a warning to any of us who, quote-unquote, are Torah keepers, is that it's not about ticking boxes in order to get flattery or gain favor, because that's expected.
00:18:13It's the House of Norwich, so it'll extend, act, you know, et cetera, like that stuff.
00:18:18Mm-hmm.
00:18:19Yeah, I don't remember what verse that is either.
00:18:22I mean, I know which one you're talking about where it says that, you know, if a servant only does what's required of him, why should he expect any kind of praise for that?
00:18:28Yeah, I think a lot of this really depends on the person you're dealing with, too.
00:18:37I mean, some people, if somebody is continually motivated by praise over small things, then keep praising them over small things.
00:18:45I mean, if that helps them and moves them forward, but if somebody becomes complacent and says, oh, I guess I'm doing pretty good, I don't need to work any harder,
00:18:53then obviously you're praising them too much or maybe not criticizing them enough.
00:18:58You know, it really depends on the person, which implies that you need to know them.
00:19:04Let's see.
00:19:06One thing, if you're flattering your neighbor, how exactly does this cause a net to be spread for your feet?
00:19:14I mean, what is – how is this a problem?
00:19:17Well, I'm open to suggestions.
00:19:19I mean, I have some ideas, but I'm curious what you all think.
00:19:23Yeah, this one stumps me all the time, too, when I read it.
00:19:27I have difficulty thinking.
00:19:29Like, it makes sense that flattering somebody can come and bite you later on.
00:19:37Well, you're empowering them.
00:19:38You're giving them some sort of hold on you that could turn around and be used against you, I would think.
00:19:45Maybe you're idolizing them too much, and then they're like, well, you say I'm that good, then my next multi-level marketing business that I come across, then you need to follow me.
00:20:02Because, hey, you say I'm that good.
00:20:04What's the problem now?
00:20:05So now you're cornered, right?
00:20:08You're like, ah, man, I've been flattering this guy this whole time, but I just wanted something from him, and now he's asking me for something.
00:20:16So I guess I got to give in.
00:20:18Expectations.
00:20:19Yeah.
00:20:20Yeah.
00:20:21Expectations.
00:20:22I like that.
00:20:24I have experienced this personally, being the person who flattered the other person in the past.
00:20:33I think as a Southerner, we're actually sort of trained to do this kind of stuff.
00:20:42Bless your heart.
00:20:43Yeah, we are seriously trained, trained for this.
00:20:49We are trained for this.
00:20:50And mine is kind of mixed with, you know, the Southern and the Cajun culture.
00:20:54So there's a lot of craziness wrapped up in that.
00:20:57But what I learned over time, and it really taught me a lot, is that I've become way more judicious about how I compliment people.
00:21:11And also being careful about how much, which is something we've talked about.
00:21:19Because sometimes you can encourage people in things when you flatter them that are not really suitable for them.
00:21:28And even sometimes you might flatter someone who you don't particularly enjoy their company or a lot of things.
00:21:42And you might be doing it for maybe what you think is good reasons.
00:21:47And then you'll end up with somebody who, like, you can't get rid of.
00:21:53And so it's like a false pretense.
00:21:55Go ahead.
00:21:56So I think there's a lot of potential around this kind of stuff that you just have to be judicious about how you do praise people.
00:22:08And I do think, like, I also, I can think of one circumstance recently where I was trying to give praise where it was due for someone who really needs a lot of praise.
00:22:22But really having to be very careful not to go overboard and like having to be very careful not to go overboard and like having to really walk a really fine line.
00:22:30Because I knew that if I praised too much that this person might believe more about their skills and their circumstance than was right.
00:22:42And it can cause a problem because then they start to think more about those things than they should.
00:22:52And it just, there's just a lot of negative side effects of that.
00:22:58So it's just not, and it's not, it's just not honest in that way.
00:23:02I'm sorry.
00:23:03Was it a guy?
00:23:06It was a guy, but it was, it was a family member.
00:23:10So one way of saying, guys, it goes, gets easily lifted.
00:23:16I'm just saying, you know what I mean?
00:23:19Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:21Yeah.
00:23:21Especially in, in the culture we live in, because they're, they're so torn down in so many ways by the culture.
00:23:26I was going to, I was going to say that like it, I'm a manly man would actually feel uncomfortable if a woman phrases them too much.
00:23:37Like, is that what Jay is?
00:23:40A woman starts praising me too much.
00:23:42The first thing I'm doing is checking my wallet.
00:23:44Well, that's a, that's a proverb shortly.
00:23:49That's a great point.
00:23:50But Tim is right about that, that part of it.
00:23:54I've seen it to where that's why I tell, you know, my wife and Avery to listen.
00:24:02Like when me and my wife started dating, I will see that it was her nature to smile back at people all the time.
00:24:10And she has this beautiful pearly whites and so on.
00:24:13And absolutely.
00:24:14Yeah.
00:24:15And she, and then guys would like suck that in, you know,
00:24:20and she will come and tell me stories like, yeah, this guy, whatever.
00:24:23And I said, look, I, I, I know what's going on.
00:24:26I said, listen, I know this is hard for you to do, but just stop smiling at people.
00:24:31Don't make eye contact with guys.
00:24:33And she's like, well, I'm just trying to be nice.
00:24:34I know, but you don't understand.
00:24:36Same thing with Tim says that we men now are so broken.
00:24:40Well, you said that Paul, the men are so broken.
00:24:43And that now any little bit of attention, you know, it just, it just got to take it all in.
00:24:51And, and, and the, and the point of what I want to meet earlier that didn't say that I want to make earlier was that it is so hard now.
00:24:57Because, you know, you have to measure your flattery, your praise, I'm sorry, with everybody.
00:25:04Like I said, I praise somebody and then somebody else may take that as flattery.
00:25:08You know, it has to be so measured and it, it sounds almost exhausting to be honest to you.
00:25:14So it, it almost needs to come like few far in between that praise with people, you know,
00:25:21it has to be so little that you don't have to constantly be wondering if your praise can be seen as flattering.
00:25:29For sure, no flattery is no bueno.
00:25:31That, everybody here in this group has no, I'm sure has no problem with that.
00:25:35But the praise part that can be seen as flattering is a fine line.
00:25:40Well, it's almost sycophant.
00:25:42You know, it's almost like, oh, I'm flattering you.
00:25:46I'm flattering my neighbor.
00:25:47My neighbor loves that flattery.
00:25:49So they seek me out to get more improper flattering or flattery that is going to build their ego up.
00:25:58So you're, you're almost creating this monster that you have to become in order to keep that rapport with them.
00:26:07Yeah, you got, I think, two reactions that you're primarily going to get in, you know, on the one hand,
00:26:13if you flatter somebody, you know, they're, it's manipulative, you know, they're, they're going to eat it up and, you know,
00:26:20want to either be clingy or reciprocate or whatever, you're going to get something out of them.
00:26:25But on the other hand, if they don't believe you, you know, whether it's because they're insecure or they see through your flattery,
00:26:31you're going to lose trust and you're going to be breaking that relationship.
00:26:36And either way, you're causing problems for yourself further down the road.
00:26:40Yeah.
00:26:41All right.
00:26:41So let's move back.
00:26:44Let me bring the Bible back over here.
00:26:46We'll move on to the next verse.
00:26:51Let's see.
00:26:51Verse seven, a righteous man knows the rights of the poor.
00:26:55A wicked man does not understand such knowledge.
00:26:58Here's one that our culture really needs to hear.
00:27:01All the people who are crying the most about the rights of the poor and justice for the poor understand these concepts at least.
00:27:12Those people don't know what justice is.
00:27:14They don't know what righteousness is.
00:27:16So when they're trying to champion justice for the poor, they're actually perverting it.
00:27:22They're accomplishing the opposite.
00:27:25You know, we can see this through government programs that are supposed to help people.
00:27:30You know, the war on poverty and, you know, all these affirmative action and welfare programs and all kinds of stuff that, you know, have great sounding justifications.
00:27:40But in the long run, they just, they cause the problem they're trying to solve.
00:27:46And it's because the people who run these programs, the people who create them and beg for them, don't understand justice.
00:27:54They don't understand what people need because they don't believe what the creator of people tells them about people.
00:28:00Yeah.
00:28:01I saw the news today that they're trying to get gas stoves banned.
00:28:08Yeah.
00:28:09There's, I think this, maybe I heard wrong.
00:28:12It sounds crazy to me.
00:28:13It says 17 states are going through the process or something like that, or it's already in place.
00:28:18I hope that, that sounds so crazy.
00:28:22And I heard about this probably like a year or two ago and I'm just like, nah, but yeah, it looks like.
00:28:29You're really doing it.
00:28:30Yeah.
00:28:30I think New York state is started that in, yeah, now it's catching on other places.
00:28:36Yeah.
00:28:36Partly because that's going to take power away from states that supply gas.
00:28:40So, you know, Texas and Pennsylvania and other states that may lean a little bit more conservative.
00:28:47Well, that's a way that, that liberal states can take power away from them by taking out money out of their wallets.
00:28:54But it's also just another way to control people.
00:28:58Absolutely.
00:28:58And the crazy thing about it is that it looks like a lot of the celebrity chefs were complaining about it.
00:29:04So it looks like there's a provision now to where if you have a business or you're, you're a celebrity or something like that celebrity chef, then you're allowed to cook with a gas stove.
00:29:15But everybody else gets to cook an electric, you know what I mean?
00:29:18It's like, yeah, it's not, it always works.
00:29:23Right.
00:29:24And that's how it is.
00:29:24Like there's somebody up top that has to be smart enough to understand what they're doing.
00:29:30And they're selling that stuff to somebody right at the bottom that really thinks that they're helping out the poor, you know, but they're not.
00:29:39And that's, that's, and that, since we're talking about Reagan, I think he said something about that, right?
00:29:46What he said, I'm sure you know, right, Jay, better than me.
00:29:49So when the government comes and tells you that they're here to help, that's when you need to get scared and run away.
00:29:56But, you know, we make this, you make the government of bad people, but it's, it's not, government's full of like, it's made up of people.
00:30:05So if somebody's making those calls to do that, but, you know, they, they think they're high and mighty and they get flattered too.
00:30:13There's all this flattery going on between each other or, you know, it's not just one person flattering.
00:30:19It becomes flattery, becomes almost a disease.
00:30:22All of these people start flattering each other and giving each other awards for stuff they didn't, they didn't do.
00:30:27There's presidents that have gotten an award for peace when they've been at war the whole time.
00:30:33You know what I mean?
00:30:34Think about how crazy that sounds, you know?
00:30:37So this world is sick of flattery.
00:30:40Everybody's flattering each other for doing nothing, really.
00:30:44And we're just making things worse.
00:30:46Yep.
00:30:47Yeah, yeah.
00:30:48And I know that some people will, will kind of say, well, how does, how does outlawing gas stoves increase the government's control over anybody?
00:30:57Well, it's not really about what the law is intended to accomplish.
00:31:01That's not where the control comes from.
00:31:03The control comes from having a law that people can violate.
00:31:06And when people are in violation of a law, then you've got power over it.
00:31:10It doesn't even matter what the law is.
00:31:12Yeah.
00:31:13It's taking away of rights.
00:31:14It's, it's, it's, it's arguing that the government has the, the ability to determine what is right or wrong.
00:31:22Yeah.
00:31:23It conditions people to accept that.
00:31:25But it's, it's psychological warfare too.
00:31:28You know, it, it, it slowly starts breaking your spirit down that you can't do anything now.
00:31:35I was like, I can't drive here anymore.
00:31:38I can't cook this anymore.
00:31:39I can't, I can't even say this anymore.
00:31:42And you start, you start, your spirit really starts just dying to all the, to, to where the societies start dying and you start complying.
00:31:53You know, anyway, I can, of course, but yep.
00:31:56All right, let's move on.
00:31:58And there's, there's a lot in this chapter that has direct application to our current events.
00:32:03Well, hold on, yeah, there's a dichotomy there.
00:32:08It says a righteous man knows the rights, whereas a wicked man does not understand.
00:32:16So interesting that it's equating wickedness with a lack of understanding, whereas what we've been talking about, I think there is understanding.
00:32:26It's a, it's a, it's an overt attempt to secure power.
00:32:31But this actually says a wicked man does not understand the rights of the poor.
00:32:37Well, there's a, there's, go ahead.
00:32:39Well, I think that's what I was saying that it's, there's some people all the way to the top that really know.
00:32:45But somewhere in the middle, there, there's, you know, they're pulling the strings for the people in the middle and they don't know.
00:32:54They think, what's the name of that girl that keeps on pushing climate change?
00:33:01The little girl.
00:33:02Greta Thornburg.
00:33:03Yeah.
00:33:04Yeah.
00:33:05I dare you.
00:33:06Yeah.
00:33:07So her, she was young when she was doing that.
00:33:10She probably had no clue.
00:33:11Somebody watched her and now wholeheartedly, she believes that.
00:33:16Yeah.
00:33:16She's been flattered into it.
00:33:18They would equate her to wicked as opposed to a useful idiot.
00:33:23I mean, exactly.
00:33:24So you have, you have the wicked that really know what they're doing, but then you have the, again, the idiots at the bottom of the fools that are again played.
00:33:34But it says a wicked man does not understand the such and all.
00:33:37So they would use, they would, or this verse would equate Greta as wicked because she doesn't understand it.
00:33:46Even if she, even if she's a, you know, again, play like a fool, you're still wicked.
00:33:51I mean, there's just people out there thinking that what they're doing is completely fine.
00:33:57You see it all over now, right?
00:34:00Transgression all over.
00:34:02And people, you know, they're still wicked.
00:34:05The father doesn't.
00:34:07I was telling somebody, you know, that the Sabbath, it is what it is.
00:34:13Whether you follow, you follow it or not.
00:34:16The Sabbath has always been there from the very beginning, right?
00:34:21Seventh day, you follow us.
00:34:23So nothing has changed.
00:34:24The father is not, you know, somebody that keeps changing his mind.
00:34:28It is what it is from there.
00:34:29Now, just because you don't know that the Sabbath is righteous and set apart, that doesn't mean that it's not.
00:34:39I mean, it still lives regardless.
00:34:40There's a study that Avery found that people that partake on the Sabbath, that take really the whole day, live 10 years longer than most people.
00:34:51Now, I didn't check if it was, you know, I didn't go and look into it in detail, but I was like, let's look at what it is.
00:34:59So there's consequences whether you know.
00:35:02There's people that have lived and died not knowing about the Sabbath, right?
00:35:06Whether you know it or not, that law, that instruction has always been valid forever.
00:35:11And it still holds, no matter what.
00:35:14Just because you don't know, it doesn't matter.
00:35:17You know, it's still wicked.
00:35:20Does that word wicked, does that line up with, is that the Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart of man, is people desperately wicked?
00:35:29I.e., is wicked somehow Hebrew for unknowing, doing what's right in one's own eyes, blah, blah, blah?
00:35:36Well, the Hebrew is Rasha, which literally means wicked, criminal, guilty.
00:35:44See if it's the same one that's in Jeremiah.
00:35:4817, 9, I believe, 9, 10, 8, 9.
00:35:52Okay.
00:35:53My address is our hand grenade addresses.
00:35:56It's close.
00:35:58Let's see, looking up that word desperately.
00:36:02Oh, I spelled it.
00:36:03I wonder why I can't find it.
00:36:04Yeah, 17, 9 is the verse.
00:36:09That's definitely, yeah.
00:36:10And the E is, B is.
00:36:11Desperately wicked.
00:36:12No, it's a different word.
00:36:16In this case, it's anosh, which really means to be sick.
00:36:21Yeah.
00:36:22You know, I'm going to go there, guys.
00:36:26Masks.
00:36:26I was, I listened to a sermon on Sunday, and it was on Romans, and it was trying to talk
00:36:33about how they're controversial subjects, and, you know, you need to learn how to fellowship
00:36:39regardless of those controversial subjects.
00:36:42And they used it as an example, masks.
00:36:44And I'm thinking, boy, you are, because they're trying to keep their congregation for those
00:36:51that are masked and those that aren't.
00:36:55From my perspective, those that are advocating masks are advocating an evil that, in my mind,
00:37:05is clearly a control mechanism.
00:37:07But they're doing so from their naivete.
00:37:10There was a commercial, I remember, when COVID first came out, and it was a grandmother.
00:37:16It was on the radio.
00:37:17This was a grandmother talking to her daughter.
00:37:22And the grandmother was more or less saying, I've lived a great life.
00:37:28I'm getting the shot.
00:37:29Because I want to see my grandkids.
00:37:34Emotional manipulation at its best.
00:37:37Yes, exactly.
00:37:39Very much so.
00:37:41You know, so I think that those that are from their heart, and they believe they're advocating
00:37:46science, quote, unquote, are also advocating control, in my mind.
00:37:52So that would be, in a sense, wicked.
00:37:56Yeah, you know, something about, oh, go ahead.
00:37:59Yeah, I think there's a difference between advocating for it, for saying that everybody
00:38:04should be doing this, versus I chose to do this for myself.
00:38:09Yes.
00:38:09For my own personal reasons, I chose to do that.
00:38:13Like, you know, I'm personally opposed to, you know, being forced to do anything like that.
00:38:18But I think ultimately, you know, if somebody says, I want to do this, and I'm not doing
00:38:23this for anybody else, you know, in terms of, like, people trying to force me, then that's
00:38:29cool.
00:38:29But I think, yeah, I think a lot of people have kind of gotten on the wrong side of that,
00:38:34and not just said, hey, look, I want to appease my congregation.
00:38:38I'll just tell them, hey, wear a mask if you want to wear a mask.
00:38:40Don't wear a mask if you don't want to wear a mask.
00:38:42You know, so I think the promotion of it as a you-must-do mandate is a totally different
00:38:51thing.
00:38:52Mm-hmm.
00:38:53You know, back to something Carlos was saying, he's talking about, you know, the people at
00:38:57the top, at least I think that was Carlos, and how the people at the top know what they're
00:39:02doing.
00:39:03And I agree, they do.
00:39:05They know that they are manipulating people and using their lying in order to get people
00:39:13to do what they want.
00:39:15They don't actually care about gas stoves or people wearing masks or, you know, guns,
00:39:20whatever it is.
00:39:20They don't care about any of that.
00:39:22They care about controlling people and milking them for whatever they can.
00:39:27But they still don't understand the rights of the poor.
00:39:31And I think that rights is probably a poor translation here.
00:39:34It's really, I mean, it's talking about a court case.
00:39:37So rights isn't totally wrong, but it may be like the cause or the plight of the poor
00:39:43in a legal situation.
00:39:46They don't understand it, even though they know that what they're doing is, you know,
00:39:52opposed to God's law and God's standards.
00:39:54They don't really understand God's standards anyways, and they don't care to.
00:39:58So they're just trying to get whatever they can for themselves and in their cronies.
00:40:05I like that word plight.
00:40:07It lends itself to a larger sphere of understanding the realm of the poor, the day-to-day struggle,
00:40:15et cetera.
00:40:17So let's move on to verse eight.
00:40:19So scoffers set a city aflame, but the wise turn away wrath.
00:40:24Well, we know all about scoffers setting cities aflame, and mostly they're scoffing at public
00:40:31order and biblical standards of anything.
00:40:36But I think that, you know, the thing that really makes scoffers are people who mock good
00:40:45order, essentially.
00:40:46They mock traditions.
00:40:47They mock authority and, you know, people following the rules.
00:40:53And people who are driven by their emotions and people who are fools, they're attracted
00:40:59to that.
00:41:00You know, whether they're capable of being the clever mocker or not, they're attracted
00:41:05to people who are.
00:41:07It makes them feel good about themselves for rejecting those same standards, even though
00:41:12their reason for rejecting biblical standards may be purely selfish and lazy.
00:41:18Somebody who is a clever scoffer can give them clever justifications.
00:41:25You know, people who refuse to believe in God, you know, the average atheist is generally
00:41:30not very smart.
00:41:31They just, they don't see God in the world around them, so they reject that idea.
00:41:35But then you get somebody really smart, like, you know, Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, who
00:41:41comes up with clever sounding reasons to reject God, and those scoffers will latch onto those
00:41:47reasons, even though they don't understand them, because it strokes their ego.
00:41:50It's like saying, yeah, we're right.
00:41:52This really smart guy agrees with us.
00:41:55But, you know, really, they're just lazy, stupid, undisciplined.
00:42:00They're not really all that smart.
00:42:02And if they were that smart, they would be able to see through the silly arguments that
00:42:07atheists and other people come up with for rejecting God's standards.
00:42:13The mass is often manipulated by pithy little phrases.
00:42:17Politics is full of it.
00:42:18You know, tippy canoe and whatever, you know, all those, or tear down the wall or, you know,
00:42:25or build the wall, whatever it is, you know, just that there it's marketing.
00:42:30And, you know, if you have something that is memorable and marketed in a, I mean, there's
00:42:38a whole industry built around that, isn't there?
00:42:40So that's, that's just, that's basically going to the common denominator and something that
00:42:50is going to be easily memorable and the masses will embrace that.
00:42:56Yeah.
00:42:56It makes people easily manipulated.
00:42:58Because I got the right phrase, you know?
00:43:02Yeah.
00:43:03In the last half of this, this proverb, the wise turn away wrath, it takes a lot of wisdom.
00:43:11It's definitely above my pay grade to be able to counteract that sort of, you know, slogan
00:43:18manipulation.
00:43:19Mm-hmm.
00:43:21You know, I don't, if I have time to sit down and have a conversation with somebody, I can,
00:43:28I might be able to explain to them why this, this political slogan they've latched onto
00:43:33is really kind of silly, but people just don't have time for that.
00:43:38They're not going to sit down and listen to it.
00:43:39So to find somebody, you know, a politician or a judge or, you know, who, religious leader,
00:43:45whatever it is, who can steer people away from those things, that's a, that, that would
00:43:52be a really valuable person to have.
00:43:55Mm-hmm.
00:43:55I would like to see more of them.
00:43:57I don't know if they're out there.
00:43:59Like Ron Paul had a lot of really good things to say, but you had to sit still and listen.
00:44:03Otherwise, nobody paid any attention.
00:44:07R-O-N-R-A-N-D.
00:44:11What's that?
00:44:12The father of the son.
00:44:15Uh, Ron.
00:44:16Well, Ron has some good things to say too.
00:44:18It's just not as smart as his dad, I don't think.
00:44:20He's a better politician, probably.
00:44:23Oh yeah, he is.
00:44:24Anyway, we'll get stuck on that one.
00:44:26Yep.
00:44:28Yep.
00:44:29Well, I mean, go to Facebook.
00:44:31It's driven by memes.
00:44:32What are memes?
00:44:33Pithy statements.
00:44:34Yeah, and mostly mockery.
00:44:37Mostly mockery, yeah.
00:44:39Verse 9 goes right along with that, and fits in with the meme idea too.
00:44:43If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is
00:44:46no quiet.
00:44:48There's, there's no arguing with a fool.
00:44:51You can argue with them all day long, and there's, they're still not going to come around
00:44:54to your side.
00:44:56And they get louder.
00:44:58Yeah.
00:44:59And they, they bring others into the fight too.
00:45:01I've found that online, the best response to people like that is to mock them right back
00:45:08or just block them.
00:45:09Because you're not going to win the argument.
00:45:12All right.
00:45:13Bloodthirsty men hate one who is blameless and seek the life of the upright.
00:45:17Mostly because I think they, they expose people's wickedness.
00:45:20Go to the, go to the Sanhedrin, go to, um, the Pharisees and Yeshua.
00:45:26Perfect example.
00:45:28Yeah.
00:45:29Yeshua was constantly exposing people's wickedness.
00:45:32And first he did it just by his behavior, by showing people what righteous behavior was.
00:45:38And he made them jealous.
00:45:40And, you know, the, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they were especially upset that the people
00:45:45were following him and they weren't following them.
00:45:49And so then they had to set traps and come up with a justification to have him executed.
00:45:56Uh, let's see.
00:45:58Verse 11.
00:45:59A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.
00:46:02I have a hard time with that.
00:46:06With the idea or.
00:46:08Well, not without, I hope I have, I'm a fool sometimes about that.
00:46:12Sometimes I've been learning, but it's, I'm over half a century old and I still struggle
00:46:16with that.
00:46:17Yep.
00:46:18That's a tough one.
00:46:19I come in hot into the paint.
00:46:21Yeah.
00:46:22Just saying.
00:46:23Yeah.
00:46:24I, I hurt me.
00:46:26I'm just saying that verse physically hurt my guts.
00:46:29I was actually talking about this today.
00:46:30how like somebody that I know, I was talking to Jay about this, just how their mouth, like
00:46:39they just, they didn't have, they don't have any ability to like filter or hold themselves
00:46:46back from like saying just almost anything.
00:46:50And it's been, you know, a really bad thing for that person.
00:46:54And I look at my own self and see where there's places that, you know, it's, it's like a little
00:47:01more compartmentalized, but there are areas where I can still see traces of, of this still
00:47:10existing.
00:47:11It's hard to, it's hard to wipe out.
00:47:14Peter had that problem.
00:47:15And so I, I console myself sometimes when I come out of my compartment, say, well, yeah,
00:47:21that's true.
00:47:22Father Peter did it.
00:47:23I'm sorry.
00:47:24It goes hand in hand with control on the tongue.
00:47:27Yeah.
00:47:28Which is not easy to do.
00:47:30Yeah.
00:47:30No, not at all.
00:47:32Not at all.
00:47:34Are there any verses, any other verses in here that anybody especially wants to talk about?
00:47:40Verse 15 is an interesting one.
00:47:41Oh yeah.
00:47:42That's exactly the one that I was going to say.
00:47:44I was going to say 15 through 17, because they're all linked together.
00:47:48Right.
00:47:49Yeah.
00:47:50You know, my parents had six kids and I was the youngest of the six.
00:47:53So by the time they got to me, I was pretty much on my own.
00:47:57You know, my siblings of course helped raise me and my parents taught me, you know, a lot
00:48:03of spiritual truths.
00:48:05You know, they, they brought me up right in that sense.
00:48:08And I went to church at least three times a week for most of my life.
00:48:11Most of my younger life.
00:48:13But much of the time I was left to my own devices and, you know, I wasn't, wasn't a
00:48:17hoodlum or anything.
00:48:18I wasn't getting into a lot of trouble.
00:48:21And, but I think in a society where most people are already well behaved, letting a
00:48:28child raise himself does limited damage.
00:48:31But that kind of thing snowballs quickly.
00:48:33And if that happens for two or three generations, then the whole society is in deep trouble.
00:48:39And once you've got a society that is mostly wicked, you cannot let children raise themselves.
00:48:46They need consistent, constant attention to guide them from the foolishness that is naturally
00:48:54bound up in the heart of a child into a wise person who can be a responsible and righteous
00:49:00adult.
00:49:02And if they don't, then it's going to be a tough row for that child to, to row as they
00:49:08get older or to hoe as they get older.
00:49:12Yeah.
00:49:13What are you thinking on this one, Tim?
00:49:15A couple of things.
00:49:16One of them was, um, I did the, I did a little bit of church growing up.
00:49:22My mom made me do some stuff.
00:49:24And then there was some really fun Bible school in the summertime vacation Bible school that
00:49:28I would go to because I could take my bike there.
00:49:30There was a neighborhood, little white church and, um, et cetera.
00:49:35But anyways, so in 96, it quote unquote took, or I got saved.
00:49:40I know we're not, it's prolepsis and blah, blah, blah.
00:49:42But my point is I took it seriously about my sin and forgiveness and beginning that walk.
00:49:49And I, and that was 20 years and, uh, really, really an excellent dispensational church.
00:49:56So I know that's a kind of an oxymoron, but you know what I mean is they're really thorough,
00:50:01right.
00:50:02And, uh, almost hyper dispensational, although they denied it anyways, they would always use
00:50:09these, you know, at the, when the parenting times came during the messages, they would use
00:50:15this rod and reproof portion to talk about discipline.
00:50:21And they did do some of the intellectual or bring your kid to Bible school or teach your
00:50:26kids Bible verses, but a lot of it was corporate, corporal punishment.
00:50:31Don't be afraid to spank your kids kind of a mentality.
00:50:33And I'm not saying they beat the kids and this and that and the other thing.
00:50:35I'm just saying that the, the emphasis was more towards the physical, make sure your kids
00:50:43know who's boss thing.
00:50:45Then I, then I believe looking back, looking at this, then it was your rod and your staff,
00:50:52you know, your commandments, your wisdom, the word of God, teaching your children, building
00:50:57precept on precept and showing them why you do what you do, et cetera.
00:51:00You build that, that interactive relationship with them.
00:51:03So they start getting their own traction, their own soil starts getting turned over little
00:51:08by little.
00:51:09And, um, and I, so I just think it's, it's looking across the, the, um, the sea of gatherings
00:51:17and congregations out there that really are missing the breadth of this, including me and
00:51:23my five kids.
00:51:24I mean, I was raising them under, well, we did march a little bit different, but, but
00:51:30the drumbeat there was more authoritative discipline versus, um, spiritual word of truth, light
00:51:42on the path, word of God, discipline.
00:51:45And then my other thought was, isn't it, when I look at all these proverbs and it talks about
00:51:51my son and this and that, and the wisdom and stuff and the rod and reproof gives wisdom,
00:51:56but a child unrestrained brings shame, et cetera, to his mother.
00:51:59And then of course, Proverbs eight talks about the mother, the spirit and everything.
00:52:02But anyways, it, in a bigger sense, it reminds me that this is all kind of a overlook of the
00:52:10nation of Israel when they did not take the reproof of the word as an entire nation of stiff
00:52:17neck children, which, um, someone mentioned earlier about the stiff neck and that, and
00:52:23then just kind of goes on to that and leading to the scattering of the tribes.
00:52:29And now Yeshua comes for his lost sheep and he's bringing them in with his rod and his staff
00:52:35of a comfort, you know, all this other stuff.
00:52:37And so it kind of reminds me of, he's gathering his children again to grow them up into the
00:52:44covenant relationship with the bride and everything.
00:52:45But anyways, so that's the, those are the things that kind of hit me when I was looking
00:52:49at that.
00:52:50That's really good.
00:52:51Good.
00:52:53That last part, you know, discipline your son and he will give you rest.
00:52:56He will give delight to your heart.
00:52:59Yes.
00:52:59In, in the kind of culture where the extended family lives in the same area, you work the
00:53:06same land generation after generation and, you know, in all cultures really, but especially
00:53:11in that kind of agrarian society, you teach your children well when they're young and they're
00:53:17going to take care of you when you're older.
00:53:19If you don't teach them well, when they're young, there may not be anybody to take care of
00:53:23you and there's no retirement.
00:53:25You work the land or you die.
00:53:26So if you don't have well-behaved children who are going to be responsible and work the
00:53:33land and provide for you when you're old, you could be in some serious trouble.
00:53:38And, you know, that's less so today, but it's still the same, the same principle is in effect.
00:53:45You know, if, if your children are, if you don't raise them right when they're young and
00:53:49then when you get older, they may not necessarily be in prison, but, you know, they're going to
00:53:54be in debt.
00:53:54They're going to be irresponsible.
00:53:55They're not going to be following your traditions.
00:53:58It's going to be just one heartbreak after another.
00:54:02And unfortunately it's just, our culture doesn't help either because our school system, our
00:54:09entertainment, the, the, you know, politics, everything is against you.
00:54:15It's tough.
00:54:15Yeah.
00:54:16And that's, that's, that's a good point you made.
00:54:19And that's a conversation I've been having a lot lately where when you read the scriptures,
00:54:25you almost have to put yourself back like you just did.
00:54:29And at that time, like you said, work the land and if your kids don't work the land and you
00:54:36starve to death.
00:54:38So it's difficult, but you can be done with some practice.
00:54:41If you just put yourself in that culture and why are these things written, but they're still
00:54:48relate to now because we are in 2024 and are we in 2023?
00:54:56In Eastern culture is the same way.
00:55:01There's still people from Mexico and below and somewhere in the Easter block and, and
00:55:08Middle East and Africa where that's still the case.
00:55:11You know, the, you're dependent on your children to, you know, to carry it on for you when you
00:55:17get older.
00:55:17I mean, in China, in rural China, the parents are expecting their kids to take care of them
00:55:25when they get old.
00:55:27It's no conversation about, well, we're going to move down to Mexico and retire there and
00:55:32you can visit whenever you can.
00:55:34No, it's like, literally there's that.
00:55:36And now since they had the one child thing for a while, you know, parents are really nervous
00:55:41now because they can't marry their son, you know, because there's nobody to marry.
00:55:48And so, so now you're seeing an influx of other Asian countries that are poorer than
00:55:55China and they're sending the girls over there so they can marry Chinese men, you know, so
00:56:02they can't create and have kids because they got to keep the farm going.
00:56:06Yeah.
00:56:06China's exporting a lot of their men too.
00:56:09Yep.
00:56:10Yeah, exactly.
00:56:10Exactly.
00:56:11There's big trouble there.
00:56:13And that's one of the things China has a problem.
00:56:16They miscounted by a hundred million.
00:56:18I don't know if it's true or not.
00:56:19That's a problem for China that I forgot the name, the guy's name.
00:56:25He's a Chinese American, wrote a book and I talked about that China wasn't going to be
00:56:30around for a while.
00:56:31And it's because of that they haven't been able to maintain that, but it's sad that they've
00:56:37lost that culture of a family like they did before.
00:56:44And that's what communism does.
00:56:45That's one of the goals of communism is to destroy the family structure in order for you
00:56:51to understand that your children belong to the state and they don't belong to you.
00:56:55Sounds like America too.
00:56:58Yep.
00:56:58Yeah.
00:56:59America is certainly trying to follow China's path on that.
00:57:03And it's mind blowing because China has obviously sabotaged their future.
00:57:10In China, Japan, a lot of these countries, they're facing an imminent demographic collapse
00:57:16and it's going to be a big disaster.
00:57:19And the people at the top in the United States want to do the same thing.
00:57:23Well, that doesn't make any sense.
00:57:26It's important because it's putting the onus upon the parent, the parent, not the state,
00:57:32but the parent.
00:57:33You know, and if you read this, you must realize parenting is not leaving your kids to the TV.
00:57:42It's trying to show them and demonstrate to them what is righteous, what is right and wrong.
00:57:49Then you'll be happy.
00:57:50You'll be proud.
00:57:52You'll be, they will bring you joy because you, it's a reflection on you.
00:57:58So if you parented correctly, and I wish I'd, I'm proud of my kids and such, they're not
00:58:07following the Lord as I'd hoped.
00:58:10So I thought I'd parented correctly, but there was a disconnect in some levels, but they still
00:58:19bring me joy and they bring me peace, you know, so at least there's that element.
00:58:26But it's, it rests upon me.
00:58:28The failure was on my part, not on theirs.
00:58:32It's a, it's a, it's a key focus, I think.
00:58:35Verse 18 ties a lot of that stuff we were talking about.
00:58:39Yeah.
00:58:41Because even all the way from the child to even the Israel thing is, uh, though he understood.
00:58:49Yeah.
00:58:50Where there is no vision, the people that are let loose, but blessed is, is he who guards
00:58:54the Torah.
00:58:56Yeah.
00:58:56It's really, I'm sorry.
00:58:59It's really interesting.
00:58:59Like the idea of constraint, constraints, just, you know, I think a lot of people think negatively
00:59:07about this and the word restraint is used, but like we, we thrive in creativity when we
00:59:16have constraints.
00:59:17It's figuring out a workaround around something, you know, is, is how most things in this world
00:59:24got discovered, invented, whatever.
00:59:27And so there's kind of an interesting aspect about that.
00:59:31Like there's something we were created to do, um, that's just innate in us and we need constraints
00:59:38in a lot of ways to do it well.
00:59:40And so the law gives those boundaries to really fulfill the vision for us.
00:59:49But I was thinking about the prophetic vision part, like where there's no prophetic vision,
00:59:56then people cast off restraint.
00:59:59And I'm thinking, well, there's nothing to even try to attain.
01:00:02There's nothing to try to conform to.
01:00:05There's nothing.
01:00:05And so we have situations now where we can see, you can cast a, a vision and somebody
01:00:14can grow into that.
01:00:16We can, and it can be a positive one or a negative one.
01:00:19You can have a, a, a positive prophecy or you can have a negative prophecy and people can
01:00:25really grow into that.
01:00:27Um, so those things matter, like whether they're good or bad, they matter and they will shape
01:00:35and form people or a people, even, um, a group of people, but without it, there's like
01:00:43no, there's nothing to even conform to.
01:00:46And it's just, that's, I think that's a lot of what's happening when you don't get, when
01:00:53you don't get good oversight in parenting.
01:00:58I think the whole idea of a prophetic vision, I was looking up the word there and it's really
01:01:04just a single word, a zone, and it's referring to an Oracle or, you know, supernatural vision
01:01:10and not necessarily a, a vision where you see something, but you know, although that, that
01:01:16may be what it means, but, uh, I think prophetic vision really is a pretty good translation, even
01:01:22though it's just the one word, but the primary role of the prophets is primarily to call the
01:01:29people back to repentance.
01:01:30You know, in part, they told the future, but they did so in order to provoke repentance.
01:01:36You know, at the beginning of this, uh, I had mentioned the, uh, uh, the prophecies towards
01:01:41the end of Deuteronomy where, you know, Moses is warning the people, you know, if you keep
01:01:45the commandments, you'll have all these blessings.
01:01:47And that's a prophecy.
01:01:50If the nation keeps all the commandments of God, you know, they're going to be prosperous.
01:01:54They're going to be fruitful.
01:01:55They'll have all these, they'll have peace.
01:01:57They'll defeat their enemies.
01:01:58But if they don't, these bad things are going to happen.
01:02:02And it's going to be a cascade of terrible things that happen if they continue to refuse
01:02:07to repent.
01:02:08And although prophecy does talk about the future and warn people that bad things are
01:02:14coming or good things, the primary purpose is to bring people back to God.
01:02:21And so where there's no prophetic vision, where there's nobody calling the people back to God's
01:02:27instructions, they cast off restraint.
01:02:29What's holding them back?
01:02:31If God's commandments don't apply anymore, why should we care what God has to say?
01:02:35Do you guys know what the word prophet means?
01:02:39Because you're speaking with authority, right?
01:02:42So you're coming in the authority of Yahweh with his word on your lips.
01:02:47I think, you know, the way that the word is used in scripture, a prophet is someone who
01:02:51is relaying a message directly from God to the people.
01:02:54But in another sense, you know, when we are repeating those prophecies or when we are repeating
01:03:01truths, we are, at the very least, echoing the prophecy and acting, we're acting as the
01:03:07proxies of the prophets.
01:03:09So would you assess that the, quote unquote, Christian prophetic as giving some esoteric, thus
01:03:21saith God, which could be interpreted in any way you want, would you say that's prophetic?
01:03:28I don't.
01:03:28I personally don't believe that.
01:03:31But it's certainly a event.
01:03:33It's false prophets.
01:03:34Yeah, I think that most of the time, those people are just speaking whatever is coming
01:03:38into their head.
01:03:39That'd be bad.
01:03:39It sounds like when you listen to it, too.
01:03:41I mean, it's like, what?
01:03:42Wait a minute.
01:03:44Well, even think of the theological episodes into eschatology propagated today by the dispensation.
01:03:52I can speak only to dispensate.
01:03:54Well, I can speak to anything I want, but I'm saying I know the dispensational eschatology
01:03:58and the disaster and the bait switch going on and basically turning Yeshua into the anti-Messiah
01:04:04through bad interpretation or through ignorance or, I'm sure, at the beginning of the time
01:04:14that they developed it, perhaps consciously trying to deceive people.
01:04:19So those are bad fruits.
01:04:21Or, you know, the wolves by their fruit, right?
01:04:24Yeah.
01:04:24All right.
01:04:26I think we've got time to do one more.
01:04:28Is there another verse or another passage in here that somebody would like to talk about?
01:04:34I found that coming up.
01:04:36I found 21 interesting.
01:04:41Now, again, it's here, you know, we don't have, well, most of us don't have servants,
01:04:48but in Honduras, where my family's from, you know, the poverty there is so high that if you're, like,
01:04:56lower middle class, you can have a servant.
01:04:59So my parents, they had servants, but we were by far rich people, by far.
01:05:08But poverty is so bad over there that it doesn't take much for you to have a servant.
01:05:14But I remember that both of my, one of my grandmothers, and she passed that on to her
01:05:24kids, was very much like that, of don't pamper your servant at all.
01:05:30They're there to have a job.
01:05:32You know, you punch the clock, and it is what it is.
01:05:36That's it.
01:05:37That was on my mom's side of the family.
01:05:39And my mom actually did the opposite of that.
01:05:44Now, thankfully, and it worked out for her.
01:05:49The ladies that she had working for her, they went out and actually ended up doing great
01:05:56things in life.
01:05:57They went and got an education.
01:05:59They went and had a family, raised children, and they were able to dig themselves out of
01:06:04poverty.
01:06:05But I think that my mom was wise to do that, because I think she knew what kind of servants
01:06:11she had.
01:06:12And she rewarded that.
01:06:14She let them sit at the table with us to eat.
01:06:17Now, my other family, you know, the rest of my family did not do that.
01:06:21They were like, look, you eat and it's separate from us.
01:06:24Like, the servant will be in the kitchen eating, and they will be in the dining room table eating.
01:06:30It was completely separate.
01:06:31You know, they don't have the little break room in the back and all this other stuff.
01:06:35But at the same time, I would see when sometimes the servants will take advantage of mistaking
01:06:45kindness for weakness and doing that.
01:06:48So I actually get to see this part of it in my life.
01:06:53And it's interesting that, you know, you still see that to this day.
01:06:55That's what I was telling you.
01:06:56Like, back from Mexico down and in other places, you still get to experience some of this and
01:07:01live some of the stuff that's written here that some of us can't really understand, you
01:07:06know, because they're nice, you know.
01:07:08So I find that interesting.
01:07:10It's definitely a foreign concept to most Americans.
01:07:12And we think we read something like this, and our only concept of servants are either chattel
01:07:20slavery or employees.
01:07:23And, you know, both of those were thinking, well, if you have employees, well, you got to
01:07:27treat them nice.
01:07:28I mean, if you don't treat them well, they're going to go somewhere else or you're just going
01:07:32to be mean.
01:07:32And if you own people, well, that's just horrible.
01:07:36And but American culture is so disconnected from all of human history.
01:07:42It's really a strange kind of place when you compare it to the rest of the world.
01:07:47Yep.
01:07:48And yeah, no, no.
01:07:50And the thing about is that, you know, my, you know, roles reversed.
01:07:55My mom went from, well, I was an educated woman.
01:07:58And says, my dad, my dad's an engineer, my mom studied law.
01:08:01But once you come to this country, you're, you know, it doesn't matter.
01:08:06You're no longer an engineer.
01:08:07You're no longer a lawyer, right?
01:08:11So my mom actually ended up being a servant here for other people.
01:08:17And thankfully, she was, I would say, treated fair.
01:08:21Not great, but treated fair.
01:08:24And I would like to think that's because she treated others, other fair, you know, her
01:08:29servants fair, that she was treated fair as well.
01:08:34But there are some servants as well, you know, like, at the end of the day, we're all servants
01:08:39to a certain extent.
01:08:40I mean, I work for somebody.
01:08:41And I don't know if the word servant here, it's, it's just, yeah, maybe it's different
01:08:47than worker.
01:08:48I'm not sure if it's...
01:08:49It probably refers to a slave.
01:08:52Right.
01:08:53But slave in, you know, at least in biblical culture, would be different than what we
01:08:58think of.
01:08:59Right.
01:09:00There's indenture servitude.
01:09:01That's what mostly they refer to here when they talk about slavery, at least for, for
01:09:08the Israelites, right?
01:09:10I don't care what people may think, but they actually did not believe in slavery.
01:09:15Indenture servitude, it was, it was something else.
01:09:18But I don't know, maybe there was some, some kind of slavery when it came to their enemies
01:09:23too, I think, right?
01:09:24When they went to battle and stuff like that.
01:09:26Yeah, a non-Hebrew could be owned, really.
01:09:29Right.
01:09:29I mean, as much as anything can be owned in a godly culture.
01:09:33But I think they had to let, be let go at some point, eventually, right after the seven
01:09:38years or something like that.
01:09:39Well, a Hebrew slave had to be let go in the seventh year.
01:09:42A non-Hebrew could be kept, but a good Hebrew master would be working to transform his slaves
01:09:49into Hebrews.
01:09:51And then he would have to let them go.
01:09:53Right.
01:09:54Exactly.
01:09:55This, this really made me think of Abraham and Eliezer.
01:09:58And, you know, and Abraham is, is in his nineties and he still doesn't have a son and, or well,
01:10:05he's, he's approaching his nineties, I think, you know, at the, before Ishmael was born and
01:10:10he's pleading with God, you know, how, what am I supposed to do?
01:10:13I'm old, Sarah's old.
01:10:15We don't have a son in Eliezer, my chief servant.
01:10:18He's going to be my heir in Eliezer was a loyal guy and apparently a good man, but he
01:10:26wasn't Abraham's son and Abraham had treated him well, but he still maintained that distinction
01:10:31that the servants are servants, the sons are sons.
01:10:36Yeah.
01:10:37And, and that's what I love about Proverbs.
01:10:39Like you things that you think that have no, there's so much knowledge and wisdom here
01:10:45that you really have to sit down and we, we read here at the household, we read one
01:10:52proverb every day.
01:10:54We, it's been like that for years and every, every time we, we, we get something out of
01:11:01it, but it's really conversations like we're having now, Jay.
01:11:04And I'm kind of sad that's, you know, this coming to an end and I was like, you know,
01:11:08what Jay is going to do after, you don't have to answer this, but you know, what Jay
01:11:11is going to do after Proverbs, man.
01:11:14So, you know, I bet you if we recycle this again, you know, we'll just keep learning
01:11:18and learning more of this stuff.
01:11:21But it's interesting because I saw this documentary about, I used to love wrestling in the early
01:11:28nineties as a kid, right?
01:11:30Now I think it, I understand it's complete junk and people shouldn't watch it.
01:11:33No way!
01:11:34So one of my favorite, that's funny.
01:11:37One of my favorite ones was The Ultimate Warrior, you know?
01:11:40And I saw a documentary about it and it was great too and blah, blah, blah.
01:11:45And Jim McMahon, right?
01:11:48He's the main guy, right?
01:11:49That owns all that.
01:11:51And he really was, Ultimate Warrior was really his indenture servant, right?
01:11:57He was his, he worked for him.
01:12:00And one of the things about The Ultimate Warrior, forgot his name, I wish I could remember right
01:12:05now.
01:12:06It starts with a J, I think also, I can't remember.
01:12:08But he, he didn't grow up with a, with a father, I think, or his father was not a good
01:12:14guy or whatever.
01:12:16So they said that he was always looking for, um, Tim McMahon as a father and as to get his
01:12:25approval.
01:12:26And, and it's sad that a grown man is looking to another grown man for approval, but that's
01:12:32what he was doing.
01:12:33But at some point, the, the interviewer asked Jim, hey, listen, did you really see The Ultimate
01:12:42Warrior as, you know, as your son?
01:12:45And if it looked like it was really hard for Jim to say this, but he was like, he said,
01:12:50no.
01:12:51He said, I have my own son.
01:12:53I said, I definitely care for him and everything like that.
01:12:55And you can tell that he, he choked up when he was saying this a little bit.
01:12:59And you can tell it was really hard because a lot of people say, you know, he's like a
01:13:03son to me or whatever, but I think that is so serious, you know, like there's, there's
01:13:07this distinction and it's, it's hard because, you know, I think that, you know, we've been
01:13:13religion or Christianity has made us a lot more softer than what we should be in, in many
01:13:21ways.
01:13:23And there is, the reality is that that's your own blood.
01:13:28So there is a distinction.
01:13:31If somebody is not your family member, it's not your kid and you, you have to put them
01:13:37first.
01:13:37And I've seen it where other people in the faith trying to do whatever it is in their
01:13:44mind, put somebody else, like the congregation or other people in need before their wife
01:13:53and their children and their wife and their children, they end up losing their wife.
01:13:57Their children ended up not following the faith because he missed the point.
01:14:03Yeah.
01:14:04I was like, you realize that God has his only son, Yeshua.
01:14:08And he, he was the main thing for him.
01:14:12No one else, you know, yeah, I understand that, you know, you, you go after the other
01:14:18sheep that, you know, you leave the 99 and go to the other sheep.
01:14:21Yeah.
01:14:22That's understandable.
01:14:23But at the end of the day, you don't leave your family.
01:14:26You don't leave your own blood for that.
01:14:27You know?
01:14:28Yeah.
01:14:28I think there are rare cases where God calls someone to do that.
01:14:32I mean, one case would be Peter.
01:14:34You know, he, he did go out on these missionary journeys.
01:14:37He was eventually martyred for his faith and he left his wife behind when he did it.
01:14:43Although we know that some of the apostles did take their wives on their missionary journeys
01:14:47with them because Paul says they did.
01:14:49But as far as we know, Peter was not one of them.
01:14:51He traveled with, you know, with the other apostles, but with his wife at home.
01:14:56Yeah.
01:14:56I don't like the concept of when people say, oh, I found my tribe.
01:15:00But in essence there, I interpret it as they are forsaking their family for their friends
01:15:08or for those they have an affinity with.
01:15:12And that may be my interpretation, but that phrase rubs me the wrong way.
01:15:19Yeah.
01:15:19And I totally understand what they're, what people mean when they say that.
01:15:22And I relate to it, but yeah, it's a symptom of our broken families.
01:15:28If we really valued our family relationships, then that, that phrase probably would have never
01:15:33entered the English language.
01:15:35Yeah.
01:15:36I think the way that it's used now as people, because people lack a sense of identity these
01:15:44days, I think it's much more used in that way, pretty loosely as a means of people finding
01:15:52an identity and kind of glomming onto that and, and having a place for themselves.
01:16:01But we, you know, we know that our identity in our ultimate identity is in Christ, but that,
01:16:08that, that we do have, you know, flesh and blood identity in our family.
01:16:14And it should be a really strong thing.
01:16:16And I know coming from a, you know, a Cajun culture and where family's like super central,
01:16:23like I, you know, I have a very different experience and perspective around my identity.
01:16:31And I always had a really strong sense of like where I came from and who I was and what that
01:16:38meant.
01:16:39Very different from a lot of people that I've met as I left my home.
01:16:44And got out into the world.
01:16:46Yeah.
01:16:47People are always looking for a sense of belonging somewhere.
01:16:54And that's why it's important to be in the word and scriptures, because it is our nature
01:17:00to want to go look for that.
01:17:02And if you are not filled by the word of God, you can easily be deceived by others that may
01:17:10mean well and may care and you end up in the wrong place when not where you need to be.
01:17:17I mean, and there's, I'll, I'll finish my spirit by saying this, this, this, we're talking
01:17:24about a lot of stuff.
01:17:25This is a great book.
01:17:26It's called The Hacking of the American Mind.
01:17:28I won't be able to see it.
01:17:29It's by Robert H.
01:17:32Lustig, MD, great book.
01:17:36And it talks about how pretty much corporate America has brainwashed us to believe things
01:17:40that shouldn't be there.
01:17:42And he does have a few pages about God and stuff like that.
01:17:45He talks about contentment and happiness.
01:17:47That's pretty much what he's talking about.
01:17:48Happiness is pretty much a lie.
01:17:50And contentment is what it really strives for.
01:17:53And how he mentions religion, but I'm going to say faith, right?
01:17:57Believe in the father.
01:17:59It's what really gives us contentment because contentment is still and it's lasting while
01:18:04happiness is really short.
01:18:05But he ends in one of his sections here.
01:18:10He says, when you're part of something larger than yourself, whether united by religion or
01:18:14tribal origin or heritage or a worldview or a hobby or a common goal, you feel a greater
01:18:20sense of contentment.
01:18:21And I don't think in the scriptures you see the word happy very much or at all, but people
01:18:30struggling and just being content, which you don't want to do a lot of.
01:18:38Belonging is a huge part of our identity.
01:18:40And that's a really important thing to just our overall well-being.
01:18:46We're getting way past our usual time, but bear with me for just a couple more minutes.
01:18:52There's something else I want to say about this verse 21.
01:18:55And this is not what I think Solomon meant by this verse, but there's another interpretation
01:19:02that I think God was planting an idea.
01:19:05And he guided Solomon and Hezekiah's men who compiled this to word this in such a way that
01:19:12it could be interpreted differently.
01:19:14Whoever pampers his servant from childhood will, in the end, find him his heir.
01:19:20Well, there's another place in scripture where a servant is turned into an heir, and it's a
01:19:26good thing.
01:19:27And this is where we are made to be sons of God, where once we were servants, now we are
01:19:33sons.
01:19:34Or once we were slaves, now we are sons.
01:19:36And it's not because God pampered us necessarily, but it's because he loved us so much that he
01:19:43was willing to send his only son to die for us.
01:19:45And that's way bigger than just pampering a servant.
01:19:48And because he was willing to do that, we can be moved from slaves where we are under the
01:19:56condemnation of the law because we can never completely live up to it under our own power.
01:20:01We can be moved over into the status of sons where we're free to keep the father's commandments,
01:20:06not out of fear that we're going to be punished, but simply be because we love him and we are
01:20:12his children.
01:20:13And this is a good way that a servant becomes an heir.
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