-Transcript-
00:35 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the cafe.
00:39 Hope you’re having a great day, a great week, a great month. Amen. God is good.
00:44 We thank Him for another day and today we are looking at loving our enemies and how our enemies will even love us or at least be at peace with us despite the fact that they are our enemies. What a profound concept. We’re in the book of Proverbs here.
01:03 Proverbs 16 :7. When a man’s ways please theLord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Proverbs 16:7. I love this. When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
01:21 Okay. So we have a man that is living in a way, their ways, their conduct, their behavior, their life, pleasing God. It makes even his enemies be at peace with him.
01:37 And that sounds very profound and it’s really fantastic because you have something that’s not directly connected, right? It doesn’t say when a man’s ways please his enemies, his enemies will be at peace with him. It’s when a man’s ways please God, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. So the broader picture here in Proverbs 16:7 is that when we serve God, when we live for God, Amen, we are going to be blessed.
02:12 And I no longer personally have social media. We have it for our church and the radio ministry. You can look up KJV Cafe on Facebook.
02:23 I need to post more on there but we’ve got some stuff on there. But back when I had social media personally and I could preach about why I don’t have it or why my wife didn’t have it. She’s the one that got me on that page where she got off of it and I could preach on that but I’ll save you that message for another day.
02:39 Not that it’s terrible to have. A lot of good things have come from it. I could say that but there’s also a lot of bad on there.
02:46 Back when I had it, I’d married my wife in 2013, Amen. 2013 we got married. July 10th 2013.
02:57 I remember our anniversary and she sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t, Amen. But July 10th 2013. I love my wife.
03:05 She’s just so busy. She works real hard, Amen. She’s the hardest-working person I’ve ever met.
03:08 We got married and you know a year went by and we were still doing really really well in terms of our relationship. We just got along great. Two years went by and we’re still doing really really well and three years and maybe even four years and it was like we’re still in the honeymoon phase.
03:24 We just love each other and just are thrilled to be around each other at least on my end. It was just you know just really had a wonderful, yeah we’d have our moments. It’s really had a wonderful season there and of course I think we still do, Amen.
03:37 And I guess it’s nine years later here but I would say our relationship is so close because we put God first and we were active in our church. This is before Lord had called me even to preach. We were active in our church.
03:55 We were involved in different things with the church. My wife would cook a lot and do stuff for the kids and I was involved in the multimedia ministry, imagine that, and eventually became a deacon in the church and just was involved and we’re involved and we’re serving God and we weren’t really focusing so much on our marriage yet our marriage was really strong. We were just serving God.
04:16 It’s the same kind of principle here. When you are serving God, when your ways please the Lord and not that we’re perfect but we’re just trying, amen, we’re just trying and believing. We were believing in God and trying.
04:27 When your ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. When your ways please the Lord and you’re putting him first, your marriage will be much better than if you weren’t. And a lot of those problems that our contemporaries, our peers might have, we seem to be able to not even have to deal with because, hey, we were living for God.
04:47 I remember my pastor bumped into somebody, my pastor at the time, amen, bumped into somebody from high school and they had just been through the wringer. They’d been divorced and had all these problems and they were telling him about all these things happening and they looked at him and said, how are you and your wife? And he said, oh, we’re great. You know, we’ve been married, I think at that time they’d been married about 15 years, high school sweethearts, and God had blessed and they were doing good, you know.
05:11 And again, it’s not that we’re always doing good. We serve God. God will test us.
05:15 He’ll try us. I promise you that. But it’s that when your ways please God, oh, how things go well, how things go well in your life.
05:21 And you can’t, again, I’d post this on social media and I think some people will be kind of dumbfounded. They’re like, oh, what does one have to do with the other? Especially a lost person. They say, wait, you know, you’re living for God and that’s why you guys are doing great.
05:42 And the truth is, that is gospel truth. And it’s mentioned here, the principles mentioned here, that when you live for God, when your ways please God, that even your enemies, they’ll be at peace with you. And I’ve got some scripture to back this up.
05:51 First of all, how. James 1:5 gives us the how of Proverbs 16:7. I always like to use scripture to compare against scripture, to scripture, to back up scripture, hopefully in the right context. James 1:5, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that he giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.
06:14 James 1:5 says if, look, if you’re lacking wisdom, ask God. God’s got a whole book of wisdom. It’s called the Bible.
06:21 Amen. And we’ve got a whole inner book in that Bible, the book of Proverbs, that’s got chock full of wisdom, right? We understand that Solomon, the writer of it, was the wisest man to ever live, that he asked God for wisdom. And God said, here you go.
06:36 And he was so wise. Amen. And there’s scriptures on how wise Solomon was, that people from all over the known world at that time would come to Solomon and to inquire of him and to see his kingdom and to experience his wisdom.
06:49 And it was like nothing that anyone had ever seen or experienced. And it was a reflection of God within Solomon. Remember David, a man after God’s own heart.
06:58 This is David’s son, Solomon, King Solomon, the one that built the temple. And oh, how he had great wisdom. And he didn’t ask God for riches or vengeance on his enemies.
07:07 He asked God for wisdom, and he got it. And he’s saying here, look, I got it, and you can too. Just ask.
07:12 If you lack wisdom, just ask. And you want to get technical, how can you ask God? You pray to God. How can you pray to God and be heard? You get saved.
07:21 The Lord is near the saved. The Lord hears the prayers of the righteous. So you get saved and you live for God and then God will hear your prayer.
07:29 Amen. And that’s very, very biblical. And he hears your prayer and you ask him for wisdom, He’ll give you wisdom.
07:34 I ask God for wisdom often. I ask Him for wisdom in a lot of ways, discernment in His word, wisdom in the ministry, wisdom in business, wisdom in family life, and all these problems that we seem to have at our doorstep and that you have, you know. I pray for wisdom in the lives of others and God gives it.
07:51 Amen. He gives it in abundance. So how can you have peace with an enemy when your ways please the Lord? Number one is you have wisdom because you ask God and He’ll give it to you in abundance.
08:03 And people say, well, if God gives wisdom, why don’t people tap into that more? And I think the answer would be that God’s wisdom may go against their sin nature. And that’s difficult. What if God’s wisdom is something you don’t want to hear? What if God’s wisdom is advising you to do something you don’t want to do? What if God’s wisdom is simply giving up control and having faith and believing? These are very difficult things to think about and to act upon, and yet we’re blessed when we do.
08:32 And yet we have wisdom when we do. And yet when we have ways that please the Lord, that means that we are praying to God, we’re getting wisdom, we are living that out, we are walking by faith. It doesn’t say sitting by faith or sleeping by faith, but we’re walking by faith, we’re taking a step, we’re living by faith.
08:45 Then our wisdom, our godly wisdom, is actually making our enemies have peace with us. And what does godly wisdom look like? I’ll stay in the book of James, James3:17. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
09:12 That is such a beautiful verse for so many reasons. Wisdom is pure, it’s peaceable. So godly wisdom is right, it’s pure, there’s nothing corrupt about it, it’s not tainted, Amen.
09:25 And you know, it’s not got that leaven in there, that yeast, it’s not got any kind of, you know, the Bible says a little bit of leaven, leaveneth the whole lump, it’s not got any corruption in it, it’s pure. Godly wisdom is pure. And it’s peaceable.
09:38 Godly wisdom, I believe, is not going to lead you to battles and wars, it’s going to lead you to peace in your own life and life with others. And that could mean why even your enemies would have peace with you. It’s gentle.
09:50 You know, God oftentimes speaks in that still small voice, you know, in that gentleness. And you try to discern what, you know, these thoughts you have, or these feelings you have, these things that come to you. And sometimes it’s not these, oftentimes, it’s not the shallow emotions, it’s not the big high highs, or the big low lows, these emotions that come in a flash.
10:11 It’s that peaceable, gentle, pure, easy to be understood and treated, merciful, fruitful. It’s impartial, right? It’s impartial. Oftentimes, godly wisdom, you may have a big partiality to something, you may be taking sides, and God’s saying, look, don’t take sides.
10:32 And it’s never hypocritical. You know, God’s wisdom never, never contradicts who he is or what he says in his word. And so if you believe God’s calling you to do something that’s not in His word, then don’t do it.
10:45 I’ve heard a lot of preaching on this about divorce. It’s never right to get divorced, right? In the Bible, it tells us other than for very serious situation, Amen, adultery, and so forth. You know, again, I guess you wouldn’t be divorced if you were a widow, but basically, it’s otherwise not right to get divorced.
11:07 If someone says, well, I just don’t love my spouse anymore, and I really, really care for this other person, and I want to get divorced, and I believe that God would want me to do that, that’s hypocrisy. And godly wisdom is never about that. It never offers a hypocritical point.
11:21 It never offers any contradiction to his word. God’s true. The Bible says there’s no variableness or turning with God.
11:28 He’s perfect, and he’s true. He doesn’t contradict himself. And so we realize that’s what godly wisdom looks like.
11:34 And so if you’re living that out, if you’re living pure, and peaceable, and gentle, and full of mercy, and good fruits, and you’re not partial, and you’re not hypocritical, I can see why even your enemies would have peace with you. And the value, Proverbs 3:13 –15, happy is the man that findeth wisdom, the value of this wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
12:01 She’s more precious than rubies, and all things that thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. You know, the value of wisdom is incredible, and I’ve talked about this before. If people realized the value of wisdom that is in God’s Word, and in God himself, they would sprint to his word and to him, and they would chase it like they chase the dollar, and like they chase all these material things in life, they would spend time with it, and with Him, with the Bible, and with God, who is the Word, Amen, and Jesus Christ, who is the Word, that’s where they’d spend their time.
12:31 But instead, it’s in the world, and it’s a shortcoming, it’s a flaw, it’ll always leave you wanting more. Finally, remember Matthew 5:44, but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hateyou, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. Even your enemies will have peace with you, as the Proverbs says, when what? When we love them, when we bless them that curse us, when we do good to them, and we pray for them, that who? That despitefully use you, and persecute you.
13:05 Are you praying for those that despitefully use you, and persecute you? Are you praying for those that hate you? That’s our command from God, that’s command from Jesus Christ. Matthew 5:44, that’s part of the Beatitudes, you know, blessed is those that do these things. And this is true wisdom from Christ Himself saying, look, this is a red-letter text, you need to do this.
13:26 Love your enemies. So of course, yes, when your man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Of course, they’re gonna be at peace with him, because you are loving your enemy, and you’re blessing them, and you’re trying to do good to them, and you’re praying for them.
13:40 In fact, you’re not trying to return evil for evil, but good for that evil that you have gotten. Can you say that here today? Because when you do that, you will have peace with God, and you’ll have peace with even your enemies. Can you imagine that? Even those that hate you, you’ll have peace with them, because they’ll know that you’re living for God, for the living and true God, and it’ll draw others to Christ.
14:01 I thank you so much for listening. Take care, God bless, and Amen.