-Transcript-
00:28 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:33 Welcome to the cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here with another episode of KJV Cafe. Who’s excited? I’m excited.
00:38 I hope you’re excited too. Talking about one of my favorite topics here today, and that’s traveling. Traveling on the King’s Highway, keeping the way.
00:48 That’s the title of the message here today. Do you like to travel? Seems like traveling passions kind of fall into two camps. Either people love to travel or they hate to travel.
01:03 I’ve not met too many people that said, oh, traveling’s okay. I like it sometimes. I usually hear, I love it or I hate it.
01:11 But hey, either way, it’s part of life, is it not? And I think God allows us to travel here and there, really almost everybody. Travel here and there to understand what it’s like to be a traveler so that we can see in a sense of His, His program, His plan, that we are travelers here in this life that we’re just passing through. Our text verse is Proverbs 16:17.
01:42 The highway of the upright is to depart from evil. He that keepeth his way, preserveth his soul. Wow.
01:48 So when you travel, you might enjoy the feeling of the road. You know, some people enjoy driving and Christians should enjoy the trip. You know, people would read Proverbs 16:17 and they might not find that something that they would find enjoyable.
02:08 The highway of the upright is to depart from evil. He that keepeth his way, preserveth his soul. But we should find joy in that.
02:16 We should find joy in departing from evil, in honoring God and being obedient to God. We should find joy in the fact that we have been given the knowledge through His word and through the Holy Spirit, if you’ve been saved and through discernment and through the Bible.
02:31 I said His words, I said the Bible twice, but we should rejoice in having that knowledge of understanding what evil is because this world calls evil good and good evil.
02:42 The Bible tells us, woe unto that person. And that’s what this world does. This world will take the wickedest, nastiest, dirtiest, perverted thing from the devil and lift it up as something good.
02:54 And God can’t stand it. So we should rejoice. We should be happy.
03:00 When you’re traveling, some people, they enjoy the road. They’re just happy. You know, on the Christian walk that we’re on, we’re going to see new things.
03:07 As people travel, they see new sights. Do they not? You know, God will take you places you’ve never been before.
03:13 And I can say that with all authority on the word of God and all my own experience that, you know, being saved in my twenties and really not being fully, really in the ministry that I could understand until maybe 30, you know, I had many years of doing what I thought was good and that was very fruitless and frustrating.
03:34 And even in the good times, it was just short-lived. And now I’ve got some hindsight, I guess, 13, 14 years or so now of being in the ministry and seeing what God’s done in my life and seeing how different that is.
03:49 And I can tell you 1 million percent, the places that I’ve been for the ministry, the things that I’ve done for the ministry, which is my whole life, amen, I’ve given my life to Christ.
04:01 I would never have done these things if I was in the world. So we’re going to see new sites. God’s going to take us places we’ve never been before.
04:09 And we’re going to meet new people, you know, brothers and sisters in Christ. You know, when you travel, you meet new people. Something about traveling, I guess the vulnerability of it, it kind of makes you more open to talking to people because you’re not from that area.
04:16 You don’t know that area, you know? And so I know from our travels, we know we meet new people. I think of this brother we met in Beaufort, South Carolina, we were on a, I think just a weekend trip or it’s not even a weekend.
04:29 You know, when you’re in the ministry, you don’t really travel on the weekends, it’s like a weekday, I suppose.
04:36 Maybe it was a Friday and a Saturday, but you know, we got to be back for Sunday. So we were on one of those trips and we met a guy and he was, we were just walking, you know, we were just walking and he was telling us about the fire ants out of nowhere.
04:44 He was like, hey, watch out for those fire ants.
04:49 And he had his office right there and he was in the ministry in some regard, his child was as well. And he had us come into his office and just was kind of like a host to us for I think an hour or two. And it was just out of nowhere.
04:57 It was just wonderful. And he meant, you know, you meet new people when you’re traveling for the Lord, you meet new people when you travel in general. So we should enjoy that.
05:05 You know, try new types of food when you travel, amen. You know, when you’re living for the Lord, you get that sweet fellowship with the brethren. Every time we get together with the brethren,
05:15 some of these events that I’m, you know, fortunate enough to go to, whether it’s a revival meeting, a share-a-thon, a camp meeting, and you know, I’ll say, oh, this is the best chicken I’ve ever had.
05:26 And it’s not the chicken that I’m having, it’s just the fellowship is so good. And as we travel for the Lord, we get that. And you get out of your normal routine.
05:33 You know, God thinks higher of us oftentimes than we do. I believe that, that we think of ourselves. And so God will take us and put us places that we didn’t think we could go.
05:42 And that’s a blessing, amen. And we see that this idea of travel, what I’m trying to do is just kind of get your mind on travel, how it relates to the Lord and the calling on your life, whatever that calling may be.
05:55 But also this idea that when we travel, what are we doing? We’re passing through, right? The Bible word would be sojourn.
06:04 We become sojourners. To sojourn means a person that resides temporarily. The Christian walk is sojourning.
06:12 We see that throughout the Bible in Genesis, Isaiah, Acts. We see that example or that word, amen, throughout the Bible. Isaiah 52:4, for thus saith the Lord God, my people went down a fortime into Egypt to sojourn there and the Assyrians oppressed them without cause.
06:33 We see in Acts 7:6, and God spake on the wise that his seed should sojourn in a strange land and that they should bring them into bondage and entreat them evil 400 years.
06:43 And we see that with that particular example, that they, the Israelites were in Egypt. How did they get to Egypt? Well, you remember there was a famine in the land.
06:53 Joseph had been wrongly kidnapped and all these things, but God meant it for their good. So they end up having to go to Pharaoh because Joseph had had that dream and to preserve the crops and so forth.
07:06 So Egypt was the place to get the food and Jacob and really the 12 tribes, so to speak, you know, I guess the whole family ends up over there.
07:15 And I know Joseph’s part of that and that’s how the Israelites entered Egypt and they left many hundreds, thousands, some say millions from there. And so they were there just a temporary time and that’s kind of a picture of us here on this earth. You know, we’re serving God.
07:31 We’re living here only temporarily. We’re not to get too comfortable. You want to use the Israelites as another example.
07:38 They were off in the wilderness. They were supposed to go into Canaan land, amen. And God said, wipe out the Canaanites because he had given them many hundreds of years to repent and get right with him.
07:46 And they were living pagan, wicked against his ways. Amen. Surely he had sent them prophets and they didn’t do anything with it.
07:52 So he says, wipe them all out. Don’t leave one. Don’t get too comfortable.
07:57 They’re not like you. They’re not, you’re not to assimilate with them. Amen.
08:01 And that’s what another picture of us here in this world, us being Christians, those being born again, those being bought by the blood of Christ. We’re not to assimilate with this world. Amen.
08:07 We are to live independent of this world. The idea is being set apart. What that means is that your life shouldn’t look like the world.
08:15 So what does the world’s life look like? Well, carnal music, carnal living, foul language, fornication, not being sober. You look, you can look up in the Bible, the works of the flesh and so forth.
08:27 You know, it’s this world is very, very wicked and we are not to be part of this world.
08:36 Now you’re saying, brother Clark, I got to work a job. Well, yes. Or I got to go to school.
08:42 Yes. And you can be a witness there. And people say, what’s wrong with you? Are you a weirdo? You don’t drink alcohol.
08:51 No. Bible says to be of a sober mind. You don’t gamble.
08:54 No, I don’t. I have to be a good steward of what God gave me. You don’t live with your girlfriend.
08:58 No, we’re waiting to marriage. What? The Bible says to forsake fornication, get away from it. You know, every little aspect of life that’s common in this world will look uncommon to someone else when they see you living that way.
09:12 And it can be a true witness to them. And that’s what God wants. Amen.
09:16 He wants us to live holy and set apart. No, we’re not under the law. We were saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
09:20 We’re not under the law. And yet Paul writes in Romans, just because we’re not under the law, we, you know, God forbid that we should go sin because we know the wages of sin is death.
09:32 Just because the fact that we’ve been saved by grace doesn’t make sin any less destructive.
09:40 Amen. It doesn’t. You know, when you, if you’ve been saved and you’re living in sin, you’re going to reap the wages of that sin and whatever that may be.
09:46 God knows. But we see here with this verse, the Proverbs 16:17, the highway of the upright is to depart from evil. He that keepeth his way, preserveth his soul.
09:57 We see the idea of a highway, and you can look at that in twofold. One a literal highway, right? You’re on a highway, you’re on the King’s highway, the road, you know, the Christian road, the Christian path, right?
10:08 And it’s narrow and most people aren’t going on that road. Amen.
10:15 Very few find it, the Bible says, but you’re on that road. That’s one way to look at it. The other way is a higher way, like a high way, the way that is higher than the normal way, a moral high ground, the highway.
10:27 And I think the writers may have meant that as well, or maybe that’s what they meant. I don’t know. But it’s also very applicable here that the right way to live, amen, is to depart from evil.
10:39 And I’ve mentioned this before. Maybe you’ve heard me mention it, but how can we depart from evil if we don’t know what evil is?
10:47 Now you may say, oh, I know what evil is. Well, do you know what the Bible calls evil? Because the Bible is our source of truth.
10:57 The Bible is where we’re discovering what truly is evil. And you may have a wicked boss and you say, that man is evil. That man deserves to get punched in the face or fined or whatever, fired or whatever you desire for that wicked boss.
11:17 And then you get in the Bible and you realize that our battle is not with man, that we’re facing a spiritual battle. You know, think about it. You get into the book here.
11:27 Let’s see. You get into Ephesians, Ephesians 6:12, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
11:40 Now all of a sudden you’re looking at your boss saying, you know, he’s flesh and blood or she’s flesh and blood.
11:46 I’m not wrestling against him or her. I’m wrestling against principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. You start realizing it’s a spiritual battle.
11:54 And then maybe you get into 2 Corinthians 10, 4-5, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or worldly, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
12:14 So we see both where our battle, where it truly lies, it’s a spiritual battle. And we see that our weapons are not carnal, they’re not worldly weapons.
12:24 And all of a sudden our view of evil has really changed, right? It’s gotten a lot different because now we realize, hey, we need to live for God. You know what?
12:35 This battle is, you know, one that I need the Lord to fight. Again, you know, God was telling the Canaanites, you want to go back to that example, he was telling, excuse me, the Israelites as they were getting ready to go into Canaan land, I’ll wipe them out.
12:45 You just have faith. Just believe me. I’ll wipe them.
12:50 I’ll do it for you. In fact, I’ll wipe them out in such a way, so detailed that the grass won’t get overgrown. So I’ll just wipe them out here, there and so forth as you move in.
12:58 So by the time that you get to this certain part of the land, I’ll wipe them out so the grass isn’t overgrown. Okay, God is a God of details and he’s amazing and he’s loving and he’s thinking of everything they need.
13:06 And he’s saying, just trust me that they didn’t have to fight that battle.
13:12 And you look at that boss or that bully or that family member, whoever it is, and you think of individually engaging with them and having to do something about it.
13:20 And yet you get in the word and say, I just need to pray and I just need to trust the Lord and I just need to turn to God. And that’s one example of understanding what true evil is and the remedy or the weapons we use to fight that evil.
13:35 And so when we understand the scriptures, then we can read a verse like we have here in Proverbs. We can read Proverbs 16:17, the highway of the upright is to depart from evil. He that keepeth his way, preserveth his soul.
13:46 We read that. We say, okay, now I get it. To be upright, to be righteous is to depart from evil.
13:52 And that’s going to help preserve my soul because I know the wages of sin is death. And this is a topic we’re going to go on and look at here this week, traveling on the King’s highway, what it means to rightly divide,
14:05 how this adventure that we’re on can be one that we can just rejoice over and be happy about despite our afflictions.
14:12 And how the fact that it won’t last forever, that this trip will come to an end is so important in us surviving and thriving as Christians in this broken world.
14:23 Tune in next time to hear the rest. Thank you so much. Take care. God bless and amen.