A Haughty Spirit
Proverbs 27:1-2 ESV
“Do not boast about tomorrow,
for you do not know what a day may bring.
Let another praise you, and not your own mouth;
a stranger, and not your own lips.”
We read in Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.” If we as humans get overconfident about
our own accomplishments or our own plans and what we want to do or plan to do,
and/or if we get high and mighty about our own cleverness, especially if it
involves plotting an evil course, thinking how smart we are that we pulled this
or that off, then we need to watch out. God is still in control.
No human being can outsmart God. We, as humans, may be able
to fool other people, but we can’t fool God, and we can’t out resource God,
either. He still trumps all. Yes, he allows evil to exist, and yes he allows
some evil plots to be carried out, for he gives humans free will to choose him
or not. But just because you have gotten away with such and such doesn’t mean
that you always will. One day your evil deeds will catch up with you.
Kisses of an Enemy
Proverbs 27:5-6 ESV
“Better is open rebuke
than hidden love.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”
Open rebuke, if done in love, is honest and it cares more
about the other person and his welfare than it cares about if that other person
likes him in return. Hidden love is not love at all. It is deception. It is a
pretense of love, but it cares more about self than it does about others, and
it will even fake love and affection when true love does not exist.
But we live in a culture where “hidden love” is more widely
accepted and where “open rebuke” is frowned upon, because they mistake
superficial niceties for love when they may, indeed, be hate in disguise. And
they confuse lust with love and sensuality and romanticism with love, but they
are not love. For love prefers what God prefers, which is what is holy.
Today’s modern gospel frowns on open rebuke while it
embraces “hidden love” and the “kisses of an enemy.” For, it is all centered in
self and in what makes the flesh feel good. They call it love but it is really
hate, for it will knowingly send someone to hell on the promise of heaven when
they die, for they twist the Scriptures to make them appealing to human flesh.
True love, and true kindness will never lie to people,
though, but will tell people the truth they need to hear, even if those who are
the bearers of the truth are rejected in return. But it is better to be told
the truth than lies, for the truth is what sets us free, but it is lies which
keep us in darkness. So, those who speak the truth in love are the ones who
really care about you.
Those Who Stray from Home
Proverbs 27:8, 12, 19-20 ESV
“Like a bird that strays from its nest
is a man who strays from his home…
The prudent sees danger and hides himself,
but the simple go on and suffer for it…
As in water face reflects face,
so the heart of man reflects the man.
Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied,
and never satisfied are the eyes of man.”
I am sad to say that adultery is almost routine in the lives
of many professers of faith in Jesus Christ. For, they have bought into a cheap
grace gospel message which tells them that Jesus forgave their sins, so now
heaven is guaranteed when they die, therefore how much or how often they sin no
longer matters to God. In fact, some say God can’t see when you sin.
And this goes back to the previous section, too, about the
kisses of an enemy and the open rebuke of a friend. The cheap grace gospel is
more like the kisses of the enemy and the true gospel is more like the wounds
of a friend. Read the Bible! Read it word for word in context. It does not
teach what many people are trying to convince you that it teaches.
But, since so many people are being convinced that they are
forgiven their sins on a mere confession of Christ as Lord, and they are being
told that forgiveness means their sins no longer matter to God, they feel they
have the liberty to keep on in their sinful practices without guilt and without
the fear of punishment. And so they keep on living in sin.
Sexual immorality appears to be high on the list of
acceptable sins, too. Many people professing faith in Jesus Christ regularly
engage in some type of lustful or provocative or seductive form of sexual immorality,
whether it is all in the mind, or whether it is being acted out via what
someone watches on the internet or on TV or reads in books or listens to in
stories or in music, or whether it is acted out in literal physical acts of
adultery, etc.
And this also goes back to the first section of this writing
about pride, haughty spirits, self-boasting, and self-praise, etc. Pride will
lead people to do things they ought not to do because they have this sense that
they are beyond the law and that they can do whatever they want to do,
convinced that they won’t get caught just because they haven’t so far.
Pride also says, “I am not going to have anyone else telling
me what I can and cannot do,” and so that leads to stupidity, which then leads
to sinful acts which then tend to build one upon another. For, the flesh is
never satisfied, so it is always craving for more excitement, more enticement,
more to stimulate and to invigorate their flesh.
So, it steps over a boundary, and when it doesn’t get caught,
it has a sense of cockiness that it (pride) can step over even more boundaries
and not get caught, and this leads many people down horrible paths of degradation
to where they end up doing the unthinkable just so that they can get that
emotional high which they mistakenly call “love.”
So, this is why faithful are the wounds of a friend who is
willing to risk all to tell you the truth about your sin in hopes that you will
stop with the stupidity being led by pride, and that you will say “NO!” to the
flesh and “YES!” to God and to his righteousness.
But sadly enough, those friends often get trampled on and
they get accused falsely of being hateful when they have given of themselves in
the ultimate of genuine love to see another go free.
Broken
Cord
An
Original Work / August 29, 2018
Your bond is broken
With your Lord and Savior
And, your testimony is
Separate from Him.
Your words not matching
Your actions today.
Repent of your sin and
Bow down and pray.
Live what you testify
In truth always.
Purity’s lacking in
Your life and witness,
For you profess one thing,
But other you do.
Not moral, spiritual.
Still of the flesh.
Not living in truth to
What you confess.
Lying about it
Puts you in a mess.
Living a lie is your practice,
‘tis true of you.
Masquerade righteousness –
None of it true.
Your heart is not given
To your Lord God.
Because of how you live,
You are a fraud.
Turn from your sin and
Give your life to God.
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