Righteousness or Lawlessness - Which will it be? part2

Take your Bible and turn with me to Proverbs chapter 11. We were there earlier when I read verse 21, but we will not look at verse 21 in our time together here with our teenagers and our adults. Now, it's been a couple of weeks since we were here together. Last Wednesday, we didn't have our Wednesday night service. We were on vacation because of Thanksgiving. That was a good time. But it is good to be back here. It's good to be back in Proverbs. Really, I took a break from Proverbs last week. I really did. So this week, it was good to get back into Proverbs. Now, here's an encouragement. Some of you, some of us have a routine with Proverbs.

I know Brother Keith has talked about his routine of reading ahead and reading behind. Let's get back to our routine. Maybe we got off of our routine because of last week, and that's okay. That's the way holidays and things like that run. Now, the last time we were together here in Proverbs 11, we covered a few verses in what I called righteousness or lawlessness. Now, I ask us a question all throughout the message. Righteousness or lawlessness, which will it be? I ask you that every time. Righteousness or lawlessness, what will it be? We looked at verse 1 in Proverbs 11. We looked at honesty or dishonesty. So I was saying, what will it be?

Honesty or dishonesty? We looked at the benefits of wisdom. Are we going to attain wisdom or are we going to reject wisdom? And we looked at verses 4 to 6 with that, and then also verses 8 to 11. And then we looked at receiving or rejecting wise counsel from verse 14. Are we going to receive it or are we going to reject it? So the title of what we looked at was righteousness or lawlessness, which will it be? Now tonight we're going to finish up chapter 11 with just a few verses. Those of you who are studying, I'm going to leave you quite a few verses in the chapter to study. And remember, these are one-liners. These are two-liners.

These are three-liners. These are easy for you to digest. They're easy for you to read. Now, I want to call you to remember what I taught you, what I have said two or three times. And that is the style of writing here from chapter 10 to chapter 31. Truthfully, today I was back in chapter 9, believe it or not, because we made a transition from chapters 1 to 9 into chapter 10, because chapter 10 on over to chapter 31 is completely different. But remember, these chapters are full of what's called parallelisms. We have three types of parallelism here in the chapters. We have synonymous parallelism.

Simply, we have one idea or one lesson that's stated, and then that same idea or lesson is restated. You might read that and think Solomon is just repeating himself. No, that's the literary style. Then we have what's called antithetical parallelism. Simply, we have one idea or one lesson, and then the opposite is stated. And he does that to teach, to drive that point home. The contrasting idea is brought out. And then we have what's called synthetic parallelism. Simply, we have an idea or a lesson, and then it is stated, and then there's more verses, more statements, more teaching that develops the idea or develops the lesson.

Now, understanding how it's written helps us. If we understand the style of the writing, it will help us when we're studying on our own. When you study, you'll see the contrast. You'll see the developing ideas. You will see the restatements. Now, tonight, we're going to look at four verses. We're going to look at four verses here in chapter 11. We're going to look at what I call a rifle shot in verse 22. It's a rifle shot right between our eyes. Girls, this is it you, to be honest with you. Moms, this is it you, to be honest with you. And then we're going to look at verses 24 and 26 or 24 to 26.

And in these three verses, we have one lesson, but it has developed more. And this is really a load of buckshot because there's quite a few things in these three verses. So I'll show you, I'll go ahead and give you the major truths in our message tonight. Number one, we're going to look at putting jewelry on a pig. Yeah, putting jewelry on a pig. I saw some funny looks on some faces. Let's look at verse 22. And then we're going to look at greed versus giving. Yep, that's right there in the scripture. Putting jewelry on a pig. And then we're going to look at greed versus giving.

So right away in the message, let's look at what I'm calling putting jewelry on a pig. Look at verse 22 with me. Verse 22 of chapter 11, like a gold ring in a pig snout is a beautiful woman without discretion. Now with this verse, we have a strange phrase, really a strange phrase for us today in our society. We have to see that what was normal in the past might not necessarily be normal today. Times change, society changes, things change. Here we have two norms of society, normal things in the society of Solomon's Day that really seem odd to us. That's why some of you kind of made a funny face earlier.

So I want us to see those two norms, things that were normal in Solomon's Day. First, a ring in a pink pig's nose, that was normal. And then a ring in a woman's nose, that was normal. Yeah, those are two normal things in Solomon's Day, a ring in a pig's nose and a ring in a woman's nose. Now I want to explain this, and I want you to follow me, all right? So first, what's up with this ring in a pig's nose? I saw some funny looks, I'll explain it to you. Now I would say that most of us here haven't been around pigs that much. I don't think any of us have a pig farm, do we? We don't really live in an agricultural society today.

And so many people are not familiar with farm animals like this and pictures like this. We do have a couple of exceptions. We do have some people in our church that do have some farm animals. But here, the reference here is to a common practice of the day, and what they would do is they would put a metal ring within the pig's nose. Now that had a purpose. The purpose was it prevented the pig from rooting up the ground. If the pig was left without restraint, they would root up the ground and they would literally ruin the land. And so this was a common practice of the day. It's still common today. This is not a common thing for us today.

So that is the picture that we need to get here, and there's really a lot that we can learn here. So here's the pig with a ring in his nose. That's a common thing in that day. Second, I want us to see there is an unwritten assumption of a gold ring in a woman's nose. You might not see it because of the cultural disconnect. There is this assumption in the verse of a gold ring within a woman's nose. Again, this is a different cultural norm. I know with some today a nose ring is acceptable, but in Solomon's day, it was much more common. It was much more accepted.

It might surprise you, but there are several verses that show us the common everyday practice of a woman having a ring in her nose. In Genesis chapter 24, there was this man named Abraham. We know of Abraham. The servant of Abraham is seeking a wife for Abraham's son Isaac, and he is going to Abraham's own people. Abraham sends his servant back to his own people to find Isaac's wife. The servant discovers Rebecca, and Rebecca was of Abraham's people. Simply, he has discovered Isaac's wife back with Abraham's people, and that's Rebecca.

Rebecca was a godly, beautiful young girl, and to celebrate this occasion, the servant of Abraham gives Rebecca gifts. These gifts were what we would call jewelry today. These gifts of jewelry were normal. They were acceptable in society. Let me read one verse, Genesis 24 verse 47. This is the servant. He asks her, "Whose daughter are you?" And she goes on to describe her family. And so right away he knows, "Wait a minute. This is Abraham's family." And what does the servant do? He says, "So I put a ring on her nose and bracelets on her arms." He was just giving her jewelry that she would have liked and wanted.

So we see the cultural norm of a nose ring, and it is acceptable jewelry. We see it in other places. Isaiah 3 verse 21, Ezekiel 16, 12. Simply, the nose ring was a common, acceptable form of jewelry, and it was meant to add beauty to a woman in her day. This would have been acceptable for godly women. See the two cultural norms? So it is a picture. We see the picture here. We see the background here. Solomon is using the familiar sight of a pig with a ring in his nose, and he is bringing up the common sight of a woman with a gold ring in her nose, or a ring in her nose. But that just sets us up for the lesson.

See, if you understand the background, then you can understand the lesson. But if we don't understand the background, we have to understand the background so we can get the lesson. We must see the lesson in this one proverb. Solomon is saying this. If you, if you saw a gold ring in a pig's nose, you would say, "That's stupid." We would. You would say, "That beautiful gold ring is not to be in the pig's nose where he's rooting in mud and manure. That's not the place for a pig for a gold ring. A gold ring doesn't belong in a pig's nose." We would all say that.

Solomon is saying, "It is the same thing when you see a beautiful woman without discretion." Now, we've got to know what discretion is. There are many ways that we need to see the meaning of this word. It has lots of meaning. To have discretion means to have self-control, but more. To have discretion means to have good manners, but more. It means godly behavior. It means to possess honor and modesty. It means to possess godly speech, a godly attitude, and godly behavior that comes out of that godly attitude. It means grace and goodness that comes from godliness within the heart and life.

It means self-control, self-control against sinful desires and the influences of the world, self-control for and to godliness, discretion. So what is Solomon saying here? He is saying that a gold ring is out of place in a pig's nose and so is a beautiful woman without discretion. He is using an illustration to drive a point home. If you see a beautiful gold ring in a pig's nose and he's rooting around in the mud and in the manure, you would say that gold ring does not belong there. That's dumb.

He is saying in the same way, when you see a beautiful girl or a beautiful woman who is supposed to be godly and if she doesn't have discretion, you're going to say that behavior does not belong there. That is dumb. That is wrong. That behavior should be corrected. Now I want to apply this to us, okay? And again, ladies, young girls, this really is meant for you and I want you to listen to your pastor and listen. I want to talk to you. No matter if you're older or younger, we desperately need discretion in the lives of the ladies and young girls in the life of the church. Remember what discretion is. Self-control, two and four godly behavior.

Honor, modesty, honor in speech, an honorable attitude, godly behavior, grace and goodness which comes from godliness. Self-control against sinful desires and the influences of the world. Self-control for and to godliness. We need discretion in the lives of the young girls and the ladies of the church. Now I want to get more specific. I want to speak to areas of your life, young girls, and I want to speak to mothers and fathers as well. Young ladies, I want to ask you, what about how you dress? Do you have discretion in the way you dress? You know there's a lot of debate as to what you can wear and you need to ask yourself, is this godly?

Does this show off my body? Does this show off my body in a way which will be tempting to others the way they see and the way they imagine? We must have discretion in the way that we dress. Ladies, what about your attitude? See behavior always comes from attitude. Do you have a godly attitude? Is your attitude good towards adults and parents and those in authority? Do you have discretion with your attitude? What about your speech? Do you have discretion in speech? Is your speech honorable? Is it good? Is it clean? Is your attitude good and clean? So your attitude affects your speech. What about your character?

You know there's a difference between reputation and character. Reputation is what other people say about you. Character is what God says about you. Because God knows the heart, God knows the mind, God knows what's on the inside. What about your character? Does your character prove that you have discretion? What about your morality? You know as we get older, teenagers, as you get older, you start to see people, you start to see family or friends or people you go to school with, and they start doing immoral things. A young woman with discretion is clean morally. She is clean sexually.

So I'm asking you, do you have discretion in these areas of your life? So I want to ask you, do you dress godly? Do you have a godly attitude? Do you have godly speech? Do you have godly character? Do you have godly morality? Do you have moms and dads? Do we encourage our young ladies, our daughters? Do we encourage them in this area of discretion? So what's the lesson here? It's one word, discretion. But what's the title of the message? Righteousness or lawlessness? Which will it be? And so the question for you is, which one will you be?

Will you be the beautiful woman that has discretion, or will you be the beautiful woman that's like a pig rooting in the mud? Think about that. Verse 22. "Like a gold ring and a pig snout is a beautiful woman without discretion." So girls, which will it be? Moms, which will it be for your daughters? Which will it be for you? This doesn't just apply to 15-year-olds. And look, I want you to listen to this statement, and you really need to get this. "Your outer beauty and your behavior should reflect godly character and godly beauty." Let me say that again.

Your outer beauty and outer behavior should reflect godly character, that which is on the inside, and godly beauty. Maybe this can be your measuring stick. "Does my," and I'm saying you would ask this of yourself, "Does my physical beauty and physical behavior reflect godly character and godly beauty?" If it does not, if your physical beauty and your behavior does not reflect godly character and godly beauty, well then you're like a pig with a gold ring in your nose, rooting in the mud in the manure. So what have we seen? I know that's a lot there. Right out of that one verse, putting jewelry on a pig.

And young ladies, moms, I just want to encourage us all to really digest that because we need young girls and ladies and moms, we need females within the life of the church who have discretion. Now I want to move on. Some of you girls might be happy that I'm soon to be moving on from you. Now the rest of the message really applies to us all. So let's move on to our second major truth, and that is greed versus giving. We're going to move on to the outside of three verses, verse 24, 25, and 26. Let's look at the verses together. "One gives freely, yet grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want or need.

Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and the one who waters will himself be watered." And then the last verse, verse 26. "The people curse him who holds back grain, but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it." Now here we're switching gears. We're going to switch gears in two ways. We change to another subject. I think that's obvious. I mean, there's a lot of difference in the subject in verse 22 and then these verses. But second, we have more than one verse dealing with one subject. Now remember what I taught us. At times, Solomon makes a statement, and then he further develops that statement, or further develops the lesson.

That's what we have here in verses 24 to 26. But within these verses that teach one lesson, there are several antithetical parallels. Those are contradictory statements. He gives the opposite. He gives the positive. He gives the negative. Now I'll help you see that as we go through the verses. Now there are three observations I want us to see here. And we're just going to take each verse. First, notice Solomon compares the giving to the greedy. Solomon compares the one that gives to the one that is greedy. Look at verse 24. "One gives freely, yet grows all the richer.

Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want." Here we see this antithetical parallelism contrasting ideas within the lesson. Solomon shows us that the one who gives will be blessed while the greedy will suffer want or need. Now we see this same lesson taught in the New Testament. You might not realize that. In 2 Corinthians 9 verses 6 to 10, we see the same principle. Let me read verse 6. Look at Corinthians 9 verse 6. Paul is saying, "Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully or a lot will also reap bountifully or a lot." Now an important question here. Is this a concrete rule?

No, this is not a concrete rule. This is a general principle. Solomon is not saying that if you are giving, you will automatically get rich. That's not what he's saying. It's a general principle. But again, there's the negative. The greedy do suffer. Let me go back to verse 24 and look back at it with me. "One gives freely, yet he grows all the richer, but then the opposite. Another, he withholds, he is greedy." And guess what? He will suffer. He will be in need. So Solomon is comparing the giving against the greedy. And second, notice Solomon further explains the blessings of the one who gives. He further explains in verse 25.

He just takes this lesson a little further. Look at verse 25. "Whoever brings blessing will be enriched. The one who waters will himself be watered." Now truthfully, verse 25, an echo of verse 25 can be seen in 2 Corinthians 9 verses 6 to 10. Now you know every now and then I'll pause and give you an assignment. Here's an assignment for you here. Go and read 2 Corinthians 9, 6 to 10. And then read those verses alongside these verses, Proverbs 11, 24 to 26. You'll see how Paul is really quoting the principles here. He is mimicking those principles.

Now here in verse 25 though, we see that, and I know this is a big word for some of you, we see that synthetic parallel or one thought that is developed more with the next phrase. Now what's the point? What's Solomon's big idea? The general principle here is the one who blesses others will be blessed. Now he has an illustration of water. He uses water. What does he say? Verse 25, "Whoever brings blessing will be enriched. The one who waters will himself be watered." What is he saying? The one who waters will be watered. The one who blesses, they will be blessed. Again, it's a general principle. And then third, Solomon again.

He compares the greedy to the giving. With verse 24, he started with the giving and then went to the greedy. Here in verse 26, he goes with the greedy and then to the giving. Now here we see two styles of parallelism. Let me go to the verse. "The people curse him who holds back grain, but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it." We have two styles of parallelism here. Solomon is developing further what he had taught in verses 24 and 25. He is also giving another antithetical parallel or a contrasting idea. Notice he moved from using water to grain. Again, an agricultural illustration.

Solomon is saying the one who is greedy with grain, when he should be generous, well, they'll be cursed. He is saying the one who is generous in selling grain when others need it, well, they'll be blessed. Now there are two great Old Testament examples here. Some of you might be familiar with these Bible stories. The first example is a positive one and that is Joseph. Remember Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and he ended up down in Egypt. But when Joseph was in Egypt, he was not greedy with the grain during a great famine. He harvested for seven years in abundance and then he was able to feed the known world through his plenty.

He was generous. But then the other one, the other example is a negative example. A man named Nabal, he was the opposite of Joseph. He was greedy. He was a rich man, but he was a fool. As a matter of fact, his name means fool. King David took care of Nabal's sheep when he was hiding out from Saul. This is before King David took the throne. David helped Nabal many times, but later when David and his men needed food and water, Nabal refused. And that's what we have here in verse 26. So what's the main lesson? What's the main lesson here in these verses? God blesses the giver, but not the greedy. This is the one lesson in its own being generous.

But within these verses, we have several illustrations in several ways that Solomon is communicating this truth. And there's a lot here. Now, in application, what can we learn? I'm going to start with you teenagers. You're either going to be greedy or you're going to be generous. Now, you might not have a job now, and you might not have money in your pocket now, but you are either generous with the possessions you have and the monies you have, or you are greedy. And so my question is for you. Are you generous? Are you generous with your brother? Are you generous with your sister? Are you generous with the possessions that you have?

Or are you greedy? You don't have to have a lot to be greedy. So my question is for you teenagers, are you generous or are you greedy? But adults, we need to examine our lives as well. Are we greedy or are we generous? Are we greedy with our own personal abilities? See, we have gifts and abilities beyond our possessions. So I want to start with our abilities, our talents. Are we greedy or are we generous? What about with our money? We can automatically think about our money. Are we greedy with our money? Or are we giving with our money? What about with our possessions and our properties?

We might not give our property away, but we might share our property. We might share our vehicles. We might share our home. We might share the possessions that we have. See, if we're greedy, we'll be greedy with everything in life, but yet if we're generous, we'll be generous with everything in life. That doesn't mean we give it all away. No, it's just that we share it. So I want to ask you, are you generous or are you greedy? And what is the general lesson? If you bless others, you'll be blessed, but if you're greedy, you will suffer. You will suffer. So that's the main lesson here, generosity.

Again, I go back to the title of the message, "Righteousness or Lawlessness, Which Will It Be?" Which will it be for you? Generosity or greed? Now remember, I kind of summed up verse 22. I'm going to sum these up too, and I want you to look. Blessings of money and possessions should reflect a generous heart and life. You can look at what you have and determine if you're greedy or generous by what you do with them. See, there's a measuring stick here. The measuring stick, question is this, am I generous with all that I have, all my possessions, all that God has given me, all of my monies? Am I generous or am I greedy?

So you might be surprised, but we have a shorter message tonight. What have we been looking at? We've been looking at righteousness or lawlessness, and I call it, "Which Will It Be?" part two, because what did we look at? We looked at, the last time we met, honesty and dishonesty in verse 1, the benefits of wisdom in verses 4-6 and in verses 8-11, and then receiving or rejecting whilst counsel in verse 14. And then we looked at putting jewelry on a pig. Lung ladies, women, you must have discretion. And then greed versus generosity out of verses 24-26. Now, as I begin to conclude, I want to show you something.

I really want to encourage you to read these verses. There's a lot here. There's a lot I wanted to study, but we would have been a lot longer. I want to point you to one verse. Look at verse 29 with me. "Whoever troubles his own household will inherit the wind." What's being taught there? What's Solomon trying to say? He's saying those who trouble their own home, their own parents, their own children, those teenagers and children who trouble their own parents, their own home, listen, they will inherit the wind. They will have nothing but calamity and troubles. There's a big lesson there.

And so I'm trying to show you there's all kinds of lessons. Now, remember the construction. You might have a one-liner. It might be a two-liner. You might see a subject where Solomon repeats himself, or contrasts the previous thought. And if you know the construction, it can help you read and study and look at this. So I want you to see there's a whole lot here, and I'm really, really encouraging you to read on your own. But with tonight's lesson, we've had a lesson on discretion, and we've had a lesson on generosity. Now, as I close, I want you to just pause with me, and I want you to use your imagination. We've all got imaginations.

I want you to think with me, okay? Just think, if this teaching is applied to all of us here tonight, if it's fleshed out in our life, if you take those notes and you go study it, if you read these verses and pray over it, and all of this really just comes about in your life, think about with me, how different would our world be and your world be and your life be? Let me start with you, young girls. Let me start with you, moms. If you have discretion in every part of your life, what will people at school say about you? What will people at work say about you? What will people in your community say about you?

What will people at the grocery store say about you? What will your family say about you? What will people, your siblings say about you? If you have discretion, and this is for moms, this is for adults, this is for young girls. If we are generous, what will the world say about us? What will the people in the life of the church say? What will other family members say? The people that we come in contact with, whether at Walmart or our neighbors, if we are generous people. See what I am showing you is this.

You might look at these lessons as simple lessons, simple verses, but yet if this is implemented in our life, we will radically live a completely different life wherever we live. So the title of the message tonight is, "Righteousness or Lawlessness?" Because all that I have been presenting you is either righteousness, God's way, or lawlessness, the way of sin in the world. Which will it be? Which will it be? You know that choice starts tonight. It starts with you tonight. It starts with you tomorrow. It starts with us in the days, in the weeks to come.