Lean in to God's Word

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day we get together, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together.
Do me a favor. If this is something that you enjoy, hit the like button, send it to a friend, just let other people know that this is helpful to you. It'd be a big appreciation to me. I know I don't ask you for that often, but just as a favor. Well, let's go ahead and have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a rich blessing it is to get to read your word. God, we pray that you would let us not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from your mouth. God, we pray that you would bless us and teach us today. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, we're at Proverbs chapter 23, verses 9 through 16. Let's go ahead and turn over here to the computer together. Chapter 23, verses 9 through 16.
Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words. Don't speak in the hearing of a fool. What's the saying? Don't waste your breath. You can talk and you can talk and you can talk to a fool, but you're just wasting your words. He's gonna despise the wisdom that you give him. Sometimes it's best with a foolish person, be sharp and brief. Get to the point and get on with your day. verses 10 and 11. Do not remove the ancient landmark, nor enter the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is mighty. He will plead their cause against you.
Okay, so what's going on here? There's an orphan. A boy and his dad has died. Agrarian society. And he has a field his dad has given him. Maybe he's a teenage boy and he's working as hard as he can to scrape through. He works day and night. He tries to go to school and he tries to care for his family. It's a hard life for this boy.
And he has a neighbor. and his neighbor is tempted to just move the boundary line of the field a little bit over. He's just a kid. He doesn't know where the ancient boundary lines are. He doesn't know where his dad's field ended. He was too busy playing with his friends, but now maybe I can just move it a few rows over, just a few feet over, and I can, you know, our family has been struggling. Don't do it. Don't do it. Stop right now. Hold on.
That fatherless boy His Redeemer is God Himself. And as Job said, His Redeemer is alive. My Redeemer lives. God will judge. What we do in secret, God will judge in open. This is one of those things that I'm going to speak here. I don't know who's watching this, and this is on the internet land everywhere. Everywhere. I'm just going to say right now, for those internet scammers who do phishing scams and ransomware scams, especially pray on the innocent, the ignorant, and the old.
God forbid what you are doing. May you repent in sackcloth and ashes for what you do in secret to line your pockets. God will judge in the open. Verse 12. Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of wisdom. Apply your heart to instruction, your ears to words of wisdom. Pay attention, lean in. When you have God's words in front of you, lean into them. When you hear someone speaking and they're speaking truth, pay attention, bury it deep in your heart. Get wisdom, get understanding, though it cost you everything. Verse 13 and 14. Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. You shall beat him with a rod and deliver his soul from hell."
Oh, okay, here we go. It's all the backwardness of Christianity and Judaism, see? Child abuse. No, no, this is not what this is talking about. What does Ephesians chapter 6 tell us about fathers? Fathers, do not provoke your children unto wrath. This is not talking about corporal punishment that ends up hurting your child.
See, the commandment that children are to obey their parents is true. Honor your mother and your father that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving them. And what's the other commandment that needs to be held in tension? It's not too far away. Do not murder.
So children need to respect the authority of their parents, and parents need to preserve the life and well-being of their children. These two are kept in tension, and it's when they get out of tension, when a father doesn't love his son anymore, that his heart is set for his destruction.
We looked at a proverb about that earlier. But this is saying we have a nation full of spoiled brats who really could have used a spanking when they were growing up. I know I could have used some more loving discipleship on my rear end. This is just the reality that if you spank a kid, they're not going to die. It doesn't give you a right to go and beat that child. In all reality, I'm telling you right now, if you are a child and you hear this, call the police if your parents are beating you. I'm not just talking about a spank every once in a while because you do something wrong, but if they are laying blows on you, if they're grabbing your hair, if they're hitting you so hard that you have bruises on your body, go tell your teacher, go tell your pastor, Go get help.
If you are a parent doing this, Lord forbid that you provoke your children unto wrath. I'm doing a lot of rebuking today. I don't know why, but this is what God's Word says. And it's pointed, and it's hard, but that's the reality. Children do need corporal punishment. They need to learn in the greenhouse of life what the boundary lines of things are. All right, let's go ahead and keep on going. Verse 15.
My son, if your heart is wise, my heart will rejoice. Indeed, I myself, yes, in my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak right things." Oh man, I can't tell you how happy I am when Nathan and Deborah and Daniel and Ellie say things that are right. It's just like a well in my heart when I hear it just the other day or just the other hour. I was getting some things ready to go on vacation. By the way, if you haven't noticed, I'm not actually here. This is a recording. I'm on vacation. I'm, Lord willing, I'm safe, but coming home from Tennessee or something somewhere.
But as we were getting ready and Deborah was on the bus, I just heard her singing Psalm 45c about the bride being in her fine raiment. And just my heart rejoices. I just thought, Lord, thank you. Thank you that the kids are listening. Thank you that they're hearing your word and that when we do family worship and they answer questions and when we're doing coffee and devotions and you've heard them and they have words of wisdom, my heart rejoices. I'm so happy about it.
Okay, let's go ahead. Hold on. Is that where we're supposed to stop? I think that is. I was just having so much fun in God's word with you today. verses 9 through 16. So that's where we'll stop for today. I'm excited to see you tomorrow. May the Lord bless you. May He watch over you. May these words live in your heart, but not just stop in your heart. May you live them out in your life. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.