TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles - Date: Jan. 20, 2026. Lesson: 12-2026. Title: Walking Away from Wisdom

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Proverbs 19:27–29 delivers a sober warning about the consequences of rejecting wisdom. Turning away from instruction leads directly into error, while false witnesses delight in lies and mock justice. Judgment awaits scoffers, and punishment is prepared for those who persist in folly. In today’s Morning Manna, Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart examine how contempt for truth hardens the heart, why integrity in testimony matters, and how God’s justice ultimately answers persistent rebellion. Lesson 12-2026 Teachers: Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart You can partner with us by visiting MannaNation.com, calling 1-888-519-4935, or by mail at PO Box 399 Vero Beach, FL 32961. MEGA FIRE reveals the ancient recurring cycles of war and economic collapse that have shaped history for 600 years. These patterns predict America is now entering its most dangerous period since World War II. Get your copy today! www.megafire.world Get high-quality emergency preparedness food today from American Reserves! www.AmericanReserves.com It’s the Final Day! The day Jesus Christ bursts into our dimension of time, space, and matter. Now available in eBook and audio formats! Order Final Day from Amazon today! www.Amazon.com/Final-Day Apple users, you can download the audio version on Apple Books! www.books.apple.com/final-day Purchase the 4-part DVD set or start streaming Sacrificing Liberty today. www.Sacrificingliberty.com

Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Morning Manna. Dr. Burkart and I are ready to start teaching the Word of God. We hope you're ready to receive the Word of God, to study it. I hope you have a notepad. You got your coffee. You're ready to go because we are going to do a deep dive in the last three verses of Proverbs chapter 19. We're going to finish the chapter today. If you're watching Morning Manna on Faith TV, we're only 30 minutes on Faith. Faith TV. But the lessons usually go 60, sometimes 90 minutes, and the class stays there. They don't

quit. They just stay with us all the way to the end, and they're just eating up all the wisdom and insight that we can bring up to the surface. So if you're watching on Faith TV, here's what you do. When we fade out at the bottom of the hour, you can go to manna nation.com and look for the number of today's lesson. Today's lesson is 12-26, 12-226. Another place that you can find us is on YouTube, and my channel is Rick Wiles Today on YouTube, Rick Wiles Today. But I'd really like you to go to Manor Nation and watch how this platform grows and expands in 2026 as we build it into a global Christian education platform. That's really what it is.

I think it's the first worldwide education platform for the body of Christ. That's the vision I have for it. And we're also building a similar platform for children. The tentative name for it is Ark Bible Land. And we hope to have it up and running by the middle of the year. And we're going to be targeting children three to seven with education courses about the Lord and the kingdom. Think of it as a Bible school, a Bible college for children. What if we could send little kids to a Bible college? Imagine by the time that they're 10 years old,

they've already got the equivalent of a Bible college degree. Right. I can't call the college. Legally, I can't call the college, but you get the picture. You get the idea of what we want to do. So we hope you become excited about this ministry and join with us in prayer and financial support. Let's get into the word of our pray first, invite the Holy Spirit. Father, we come to you in the name of your glorious son, Jesus Christ, our king. And, Father, we submit ourselves. We bow before him. We acknowledge your son as the king of the universe and the savior of our souls.

Father, we request the presence of your Holy Spirit. Spirit to lead this Bible study. Come, Holy Spirit, take your seat at the head of the table and direct this morning manna class and teach all of us the great depth and knowledge that is in the Word of God. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. Dr. Workhart, would you please read chapter 19 verses 27, 28, and 29. privilege to read the word Rick and I'm reading from the King James today. By the way, if you are watching on Faith TV, our lesson number for today is 12-26. That's 12-26. And our, excuse me, our text is Proverbs chapter 19, verses 27 through 29. Read with me, please. Seize my son to hear the instruction

that causes us to err from the words of knowledge. And ungodly witness, scornness, scornness, judgment and the mouth of the wicked devourth iniquity. In the last verse of chapter 19, verse 29, judgments are prepared for scorners and stripes for the backs of fools. God bless the reading of His word on this day. Okay. So for those of you who are new to Morning Manam, we break each Bible verse into two or three segments. We drill down deep in each segment, then we put it all together. The other thing that we do in the Old Testament, if we're studying Old Covenant Scriptures, we also refer to the English translation of the Greek Septuagint. So we always read the King James and the Septuagint when we're

studying the Old Covenant Scriptures. So Proverbs 19, verse 27, King James says, cease my son to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge. The Septuagin says, a son who ceases to attend to the instruction of a father will cherish evil designs. So Solomon addresses the listener, the reader of his proverbs, He does it tenderly saying, my son. He's speaking as a father. He's emphasizing that the message he is about to deliver is a personal, affectionate, urgent address spoken in love,

not harsh religious judgment. In verse 20, Solomon advised his student to hear, son, the instruction of my father. Now, we're talking about verse 20. We're in verse 27. now. But back in verse 20, Solomon said, here, son, the instruction of thy father. Now in verse 27, Solomon warns them to stop hearing. At first, it seems ironic that Solomon would tell a son or daughter to stop listening to instruction. However, his warning is that not all instruction is good.

Not all instruct. It's profitable. Some instruction leads us away from God, leads us away from truth. My friend, somebody, at all times in your life, there's somebody who has your ear. Yes. Somebody speaking into your ear. It could be a friend, a relative, a social media, influencer, a podcaster, a politician, a teacher. could be a number of different sources, could be a spouse. Somebody has your ear.

Who are you listening to? Who has a strong influence on you? Are their thoughts, their words, their actions in alignment with the divine order of the kingdom of God? If not, Solomon says you must stop listening to them. Right. You hear what I said? If the person who is speaking into your ear is not in alignment with the word of God, if that person is out of order in the divine order of the universe,

you need to stop listening to them. End of discussion. I don't care who they are. I don't care who they are. If they're out of God's will, if they teach you things contrary to the Word of God, you are obligated to stop listening to them. It's serious now, doesn't it?

It's real serious. Each of us should carefully consider the podcasters, the news commentators, the social media influencers, and spiritual voices we listen to often every day. Are they in alignment with God's order? If you know that they are not in alignment with the Lord, why do you continue to listen to them?

Great question. Doc, in the past, I guess, what, 10 years, we've seen the rise of a new class of media professionals called social influencers. They're telling you right up front what they do. they influence you why they have an agenda they have an agenda

they are paid to influence the way you think why do you listen to influencers who are taking you away from the word of God well it's my favorite person on television it's my favorite person on on Facebook

it's my favorite person on on act who cares are they outside the will of God? Do they teach things that are not biblical? Maybe it's your favorite politician. Maybe it's the person you love to support. But that man or woman speaks things contrary to the word of God.

Why do you continue to support that person? These are very serious questions. Right. In this proverb, Solomon is teaching that the son or daughter must discern whether someone's instruction to them is good or evil. Discernment requires wisdom and understanding.

He says, cease. Stop immediately. Cut off. Refuge to continue a very strong, urgent command from the father or the teacher. Seas what? To hear. Close your ears to them.

Just close your ears. not just listen passively, but do not actively receive accept and internalize false teachings, false doctrines, false views, false values that are contrary to God or his values.

Right. And so the message here, Rick, is clear. You know, here's a father speaking to his son, tenderly speaking to his son. parents, leaders, teachers, you have a responsibility to guard your children and your students from destructive influences. It's on you to warn them. It's on you to guard them.

And so this warning is against that continued exposure, that constant letting it continue to go in. We have to, in this day of the information age is what it's called, right? not all information, not all instruction out there is good. Some of it's poison. And prolonged exposure to poison corrupts the heart. So if you can picture this, it's like a father abruptly yanking a cup of water from a child's hand because the child was not aware that the water well had been poisoned. The father says, stop drinking it before it kills you.

I recall an incident when I was about eight or nine, and my stepmother was working on sewing some things. And on the table, she had a glass, a clear glass, and it had alcohol in it, not drinking alcohol, rubbing alcohol, because she used it during sewing. My little brother Chuck came over and reached up and put the glass to his lips thinking that it was water. And she just slapped the glass right out of his hand, you know, because what it would have happened if he would have drank rubbing alcohol, he could have died. That's how serious this is. That's how serious this poison is out there. And a life that has drifted in folly often traces its origin back to listening to the wrong voice at some point. It's interesting that Solomon uses this phrase, instruction that causes you to error.

So what does that include? What does that mean? It could be voices, it could be doctrines, it could be social and political influences that pull your heart away from God's word, that move you away from, once again, from that divine order. Any instruction that causes you to err is anything that dulls your conscience to the Word of God. Baptist theologian John Gill applied it to the following. He said it's the counsel of bad men, the doctrine of false teachers, which caused to err from the words of knowledge.

Do not so much as give ear unto it at all. So this is a very stark warning, a very harsh warning, and very serious warning that really isn't taken that seriously in this day and age, Rick? No. Preachers centuries ago delivered very emphatic warnings to their congregation. Yes. The Septuagint translation of this proverb has a somewhat different slant, but I believe it means the same thing as the King James translation.

The King James says, cease my son to hear the instruction that callseth to err from the words of knowledge. But the Greek subtuagint suggests a different angle. It's saying the same thing. It says, a son who ceases to attend to the instruction of a father will cherish evil designs. The nuance is that if you stop listening to good instructions, you will automatically start meditating on evil things.

Yes. It's a given. Whereas the King James message is, your mind cannot be neutral. All right? Stop considering thoughts that lead you astray from God's truth. at the general message in this proper. Unlike verse 20 that I mentioned earlier,

where Solomon said, son, hear the good counsel, hear the instruction. This verse commands us not to hear. It establishes the spiritual discipline of unlistening. Yes. Turn your ears off. Turn your ears off. Wisdom is shown not only by what we attend to, but by what we ignore.

You can learn a lot about a person by observing what they refused to watch or listen to. Smith Wigglesworth, famous Pentecostal preacher back in the early part of the 1900s. he would not let anybody come in his house with a newspaper. Yes. He said, it's all lies. Don't bring those lies into my house. Now, think about it. Early 1900s, and he knew that the news media were a bunch of liars.

And he said, don't bring those lies into my house. The only book you could carry into his house was the Bible. That's it. Doc, he was in illiterate, plumber. Your dad was a plumber. Smith Wigglesworth was a plumber. He couldn't read and write.

But he learned to read by studying the Bible. Yes. And it was the only book he ever read. And it was the only book he would allow in his house. So he said, well, man, that was pretty radical. Yeah, well, he was pretty radical himself in his faith. The mind and the ear. The mind is like a city and the ears is the gate to the city.

The wise man or woman does not leave the gate wide open for every merchant of philosophy and values and viewpoints to enter, walk around in the city. They post a century to inspect the cargo of ideas before they are unloaded into the heart. So Solomon acknowledges that there is instruction that is actually destruction. That's the message. Some instruction will lead to destruction. That's right. Not all teachers are innocent. Not all teachers are benign.

Not all books are true. Not all podcasts are spiritually profitable. There is a curriculum of error that's on the internet. net and social media that is designed to lead your soul astray. And God says it's your responsibility to identify it and close your eyes and ears to such deception. Yes. So this whole passage here, starting back up in verse 20, is a literary feature of the Hebrew and

Eric, it says listen and now it says listen not. You know, it's all part of the same thing. So you're making comparison here. And so in this particular passage here, that ceased to hear really is a warning against intellectual pride that says, you know, you know people like this, Rick. I can listen to anything. It won't affect me. I'm discerning.

I can, you know, I can decide, you know, what's true and what's not true. But Solomon here is saying that mere exposure to error is actually dangerous, especially if that instruction contradicts the words of knowledge, particularly the scripture, throw it out, don't have anything to do with it. And it's hard to convince people nowadays to do that, Rick. I mean, it really is. But you know, it's been a problem since the Garden of Eden. Really, it is.

Because, and I'm going to hit a nerve here today, some people are fascinated by forbidden knowledge. They like it. There's got to be some secret out there, something they don't know that's going to unlock everything for. For Adam and Eve, it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But it's been a problem since then.

Throughout the centuries of human civilization, secret societies, secret handshakes, secret information have sought to uncover some sort of missing secret knowledge that's out there to be it the babylonians or or this class or they or the iranians or the persian whatever it might be so there's something we're missing it can't this all can't be true there's something that we're missing here and there are a lot of things on the internet rick that really christians have no business knowing not not don't even look at it out of curiosity um the apostle paul said and wrote

in chapter 16 verse 19 as he was closing out his message to the dear Christians in Rome he said to him this he said your obedience has become known to all men therefore I'm glad on your behalf yet I want you to be wise to that which is good and innocent to that which is evil and so even Paul recognized that these dear saints who are suffering persecution in Rome were susceptible to error by the things that they were hearing in the streets of Rome. How much more should us today, should we today, Rick, be wary of the things that we encounter? And there are so many Christians today who are fascinated by, it might be the Talmud, it might be, you know, some secret information that's been handed down by, you know, aliens or whatever.

might be. There's got to be something else, but they fail to recognize the word of God. They'll believe everything else except the word. I'm going to just say that, Doc, because, and I'm going to say something, I don't think is controversial. I think it's just as sensible as, you know, the sky is blue. But there are, there are a lot of American ministers. who run to Israel to be taught by rabbis who reject Jesus Christ. From a volume of works that denied Christ, why would you sit at the feet of any religious leader who rejects Jesus Christ?

Yes. You should be going to that country to tell them the truth. Yes, they should be coming to you. There are Christian leaders in America who study Kabbalah, which is witchcraft. It's sorceries. They study numerology. I'm just going to let it sink in. Some of you in your home right now, you may have Kabbalah books.

You need to get rid of it. It's witchcraft. Exactly. If you've got numerology, it's witchcraft. I'm calling it out right now. I'm calling it out. And after today, you don't have an excuse. Up until the day, you might have been able to get away with saying,

well, I didn't know it was wrong. I just told you it's wrong. Yes. It's witchcraft. It's sorcery. Doc, when I was in my early 20s, my first media job, I worked in the media. most of my life, radio stations, cable systems, cable networks.

I worked for three cable television networks. But my first media job was selling advertising for an FM radio station. And this was back in the mid-70s when FM was the new experimental radio station. And radio stations were having trouble finding anybody that would take a job at an FM station. Everybody wanted to work at the AM station. Right. So I was offered a job. I was in my early 20s.

I was offered a job at the radio station to sell an advertising, and I took it. I did very well. And I found out that I was good in advertising sales. I like to sell radio advertising. I later sold cable television advertising. I found out that I was good at it, Doc. Well, you understand what I'm about to. to say. When you get into the sales industry, there is a kind of a library of knowledge that you're

supposed to absorb. There's certain books that you should read. So one of the very, the very first book that I was given and told I should read was think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill. Sure. And then you were probably given Adele Carnegie book, not too long after. for that, right? Yeah. Right. So, but there were, there were a number of these books, but thinking grow rich was definitely the, the one that was circulating at that time. Right. By Napoleon Hill. And I'm going to tell you right now, there are people listening to me going, oh, oh, I have thinking grow rich in my library. Well, you need to get it out. Okay. Because, Doc, when I got saved, so I was just shy of 25 when I got saved.

and I don't recall how many months into my salvation but it was pretty short and I heard the Holy Spirit say you take all those sales books you have I can't remember all the titles but Think and Grow Rich was at the top of it and he told me to trash them and at first I said well I'll give them away

because no do not give them away destroy them well Lord I paid a lot of of money for these. Destroy them. But I need this for work. Destroy them. All the sales trainers tell me I have to understand these books.

Destroy them. So you know what I did, Doc? I'd only been a Christian for a couple months. I destroyed that whole library books. Good for you. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Napoleon Hill was a cultist.

He talked to devils. He talked to devil. He had me. He had demons came into his home. He had meetings with demons. He called them his masters. Oh, they were his master. Yeah, his master teachers.

What was it, the mind masters? Yes. What did he call the mind masters? I think it's so. And Jesus was one of them to him. Jesus wasn't God, but Jesus was an exalted mind master. We could learn. But these beings would actually appear to him

and give him knowledge about business. And he was very smart. He absolutely was smart. But he was getting his information from demons. Absolutely. You can go on Amazon right now and you will see Think and Grow Rich. Yes.

You can go into bookstores. You will see Think and Grow Rich. I've seen it in Christian Bookstores. I've seen it on the library shelves of pastors. I've seen it on the library shelves of successful Christian businessmen. If you have that book, you need to trash it. Okay, you want me to continue with us teaching? You signed up for Morning Man,

are you getting more than you expected? All right. The phrase calls us to air. implies a gradual process. This is not a one-time event. It's gradual. False teachings rarely announces itself as a lie. A false doctrine doesn't walk into your church or your Bible study or your home and go,

hey, I'm a false doctrine and I am going to mislead you. My job is to take you to hell. False doctrines never do that. They show up as a new revelation. Oh, did you hear that Reverend So-So had a new revelation? He did? Oh, yeah, a lot of people going there to hear about it. Beware.

Beware. Learn to be discerning. Yes. Learn to be discerning. The lie presents itself as new light, new revelation. Yes. Deeper insight, liberation. It nudges the believer one degree of course.

And so what are you got to do? Just nudging one degree off course, which leads to miles of error over time. If you're a pilot, you know what I'm talking about. If you're a boater, you know what I'm talking about. You just get on course a degree per hour. Watch what happens. You're going to be lost.

To air literally means to wander off, to stray. False instruction acts like a wind that blows to ship off the charted course of the words of knowledge. That's what we're supposed to be pursuing, the words of knowledge. There is a battle for your worldview.

The words of knowledge, which is God's truth, and the instruction that calls us to err, that's the world's lies. They cannot coexist. God will not accept you sharing your mind, your heart, with His Word in the devil's lies. Something's got to give. Apostle Paul warned Christians in Corinth, that they had to choose to cup,

that they would drink from, in the table where they would say, sit to eat. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 21. This is Paul. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. Yes. You cannot be partakers

of the Lord's table in the table of demons. You can't read the Bible and rethink and go rich. You can't read the Bible and read the Talmud. Yes.

You can't read the Bible and read the Zohar. You want me to keep talking? How many of you are getting ready to turn the channel or just click the video and go to something else? I'm paid to tell you the truth. The Lord will not share his revelation with people that are actively seeking false doctrines. Charles Spurgeon. I love Virgin. Spurgeon said if you buy the devil's flour, you will have to bake his bread.

Makes it very simple to understand. Many modern Christians are deeply influenced by popular politicians, podcasters, influencers, who are leading them away from the Word of God to embrace ideas, concepts, agendas that are leading them away from the Word of God and the Lord's will and eventually from salvation. Many Christians, oh boy, here we go. I'm going to give you another one. Many Christians are more loyal to their country's flag than to the Lord's cross. Amen. When we say that one again? many Christians are more loyal to their nation's flag than they are loyal to the Lord's cross. They will wrap the flag around the cross and call it holy.

Yes. The Lord calls it blasphemous. Like one of the most blasphemous things I ever witnessed at a church. It's a good church. I like the church. I know where you're going. Yeah. I like the church.

I like the priest. I like it. It was a good congregation. But they were, they were having the Lord's supper. They were having the communion service. And as in the middle of the communion service, they had, and please,

don't be offended by what I'm going to say. They had veterans in the country. congregation, military veterans who were the color guard and brought the American flag into the church up to the altar and presented the flag of the United States as the communion service was being officiated. Oh, my Lord. Doc, it was blasphemous. You're right.

That's a blast for me. You know what the Lord told me to do that day? Oh, it was so hard. The Lord told me to turn my back. The entire congregation was standing, and I was like in the third row from the front. And the Lord told me, turn your back and do not watch it.

Do you know what that felt like? It must have been incredible pressure on you, Rick. It was, but, hey, You know, if you have to choose between humans being angry at you or God being angry at you, I'm going to choose let the humans be angry. Yes. But I heard his voice say, do not look at it, turn your back on it. How loyal are you to the kingdom?

Are you willing to turn off your favorite news channel because they tell you things that are contrary to the word? Tough word today, Rick. Yeah. I don't know if there were some people ready this early to receive that kind of word. We are responsible for the health of our minds, just as we would not drink from a bottle that had a label on it that said, poison. You know, it had skull and bones on it. We should not intake media, television, movies, movies, videos, music that hates God.

Yes. How can you watch or listen to something produced by somebody who hates God? I've asked Christians who go to movies. And I've read articles about what's in the film. I'm like, how do you do that? Oh, I just overlook it. Well, how do you go to a movie that uses the Lord's name in every sentence.

Right. Well, I just don't pay attention to it. What, your mind hears it? I should get up and walk out. Never go back to a movie that uses the Lord's name in vain. Oh, yeah, but that movie won. The actors, they got awards for that movie.

Well, you're going to get an award on Judgment Day. The world praises us having an open mind. But if the mind is so open that truth falls out Yes And error falls in Then it is broken The purpose of opening the mind Like opening the mouth is to close it on something solid

Right Would you just open your mouth and let any kind of object go into your mouth And you swallow it That's what people do with their mind. Jesus, and this is Mark 4.24, he said, take heed what you hear. Take heed. In other words, he said, listen up.

I'm giving you a warning. Take heed. Pay attention to what you listen to. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Anything that leads you away from him is a pathway to apostasy. Yes. Now let's take a look and see what the old-time preachers said about it centuries ago. Yes.

So let's start off with Matthew Henry here today. He said, cease to hear it. Do not suffer thine ears to be corrupted with it. He that would shun the poison must shun the dish. That's something that's going to stick with me. He that would shun the poison must shun the dish. In other words, you need to keep as far away from it as you possibly can. Yes.

Not only the poison that's on the dish, but the dish itself. Amen. John Gill said, cease to hear the instruction of false teachers who seek to draw from the words of knowledge, the doctrines of the gospel. Avoid them. Turn away from them.

Yes. Adam Clark said, listen to nothing that cannot be supported by the authority of the living God. to hear such false instruction is the first step towards apostasy. Charles Bridges said we must not only attend to the good, but we must cease to hear the evil. We cannot touch the pitch without being defile.

Yes. And then William R. Knot said, If you stand at the open mouth of a sewer, you will inhale the poison. To remain in the hearing of air is to attempt. to God himself. All right, now we're going to move to Proverbs 28. We've got 28 and 29 to finish up chapter 19.

In this one, we're going to have to take our time. We have a major difference between the authorized King James Version and the Greek subtuage it. We will do our best to teach this proverb from both translarsely. The King James says, An ungodly witness scorneth judgment, and the mouth of the wicked devourth iniquity. The Septuagint says, He that becomes surety for a foolish child will despise the ordinance and the mouth of ungodly men shall drink down judgment. We will start with the King James translation. Segment one says, an ungodly witness scorneth judgment.

an ungodly witness is a corrupt, worthless, wicked testifier, one who perjures himself or slanders someone without any conscience. Based on the King James translation, Solomon exposes the ungodly witness as one who does not merely lie but actively scorned justice itself. In other words, they go beyond lying, beyond perjury, beyond slandering. They actually hate justice. Scorn if judgment, they mock, they despise,

they treat with contempt truth. The process of justice and fairness and the authority behind it, the scorn is public. He mocks the court. He mocks the judge. He mocks the victim. And ultimately, he mocks God, the righteous judge.

Doc, you have anything you'd like to say on this before we move on? Well, we're focusing right now on the King James translation first. From the viewpoint of King James, the idea here is that injustice begins in the heart before it ever comes out of your mouth in testimony. It's interesting that that phrase ungodly witness is used here because it literally means a Belial witness. So what is Belial? Belial is a term from the Old Testament.

It means worthless, lawless, yet embodies destruction. It describes Belial, a corrupt person who had no moral center who takes the stand, not to tell the truth, but for the sole purpose to destroy. It's an individual who has morally abandoned themselves and their testimony whose words serve evil rather than truth. It's interesting that the word scorners used here because, as we've seen previously here in chapter 19 of Proverbs, when you're at the point of scorning the things of God in scorning justice, you're probably beyond redemption at that point. So you cannot expect truth from a man, Balile. If a man has no fear of God, he will have no respect for justice, for the witness, Dan.

His character has already predetermined that he's a liar and perjure. And such a witness is just not a mistake. He is knowingly perverting facts, knowingly bearing false witness, knowingly slander with no fear of God before their eyes. Now, since God's the supreme judge to scorn earthly judgment when it's true, it's righteous is to scorn God himself. And that's why I say when that word scorner is used, it's probably someone who's beyond redemption. That corrupt witness is spitting in the face of the law give for themselves. And it's interesting, it says he's not merely lying. He's scorning judgment.

To him, the court system, an oath on the Bible, the concept of justice itself, you're just jokes. he mocks the righteousness and the solemnity of the law by treating it like a game that he can manipulate. A lot of people in the world like that today. His testimony is in evidence. It's a weapon. He uses the legal system to sell scores, to destroy the innocent, protect the guilty.

He's using law affair. So the Reformation theologians and pastors adopted the King James translation of, of verse 28. So they saw this sin as aggravated wickedness. The ungodly witness does not simply break a rule. He laughs at the very idea that right and wrong are real and God will call on to all to account. This is reflected in what Charles Spurgeon had to say. He said an ungodly witness scorned judgment. He laughs at justice and defies the judge of all. Matthew Henry said about an ungodly witness, he makes a jest of that which is sacred.

Yes. Alexander McClare, he brought up that concept of the Belial witness and says that individual jest with right and wrong treats solemn sanctions as empty words and so digs away at the foundations on which human society rests. Gee Campbell Morgan said, where witnesses are ungodly and scorers. judgment, the very seat of authority is imperiled. This scorn is not merely a man's court, but of Jehovah's throne. And then William Arnaut had this to say,

when a man can play with truth and smile at retribution, you see a spark uphill on earth. He scorns judgment because he has first scorned the judge. A spark of hell. A spark of hell. Okay, so now this, we've completed our teaching of the first segment of Proverbs 28, 19, chapter 19, verse 28. This is the completion of our teaching of the first segment from the viewpoint of the King James.

We're now going to tackle the second segment of Proverbs 1928 from the standpoint. of the King James translation. And it says, In the mouth of the wicked devourth iniquity. So Solomon intensifies the warning by portraying the wicked as eager to consume iniquity. The metaphor of devouring suggests appetite rather than accident. The verse reveals how

repeated sin reshapes desire itself if you continue to commit a sin in other words it will form a desire an appetite in you

so sin is not merely committed but it's enjoyed scripture from the old covenant is a new covenant links corrupt speech with corrupt desire Yes.

The mouth becomes an outlet for what the heart craves. Swaddling iniquity portrays a moral desynthesation, habitual sin. The wicked grows stronger in appetite as his or her restraints weaken. So the mouth that delights in evil sadly reveals a soul that is dying. Yes. If you see someone who delights an evil,

their soul is dying. Scary isn't a duck. It is. It's frightening. And so continuing on in this thought here in verse 28 from the King James perspective, it's saying that the mouth of the wicked, the tongue of the evil man,

that's the instrument of his sin. His mouth is the organ and outlet of his heart. So his tongue styles, spreads and defends that evil that he loves. And it says, not only does he spew it out, but he devours inequity. And this is a really powerful picture here. He's gulping down sin like a starving man for food and drink, greedily taking it in. No nausea, no restraint at all.

He just consumes it eagerly, takes it in, delights in sin and falsehood. The wicked man's mouth is like a furnace. It feeds on evil, swallows lies, and then spews out destruction. And so this devouring is insatiable. The more sin he consumes, the hunger he becomes more. And that's because, Rick, wickedness is addictive. The tongue that loves iniquity becomes enslaved to it. The more that he eats, the more that he craves, the sin never satisfies, Rick.

It only enlarges the capacity for you. even more. So if you think of it this way, iniquity becomes both his diet and his delight. So he's living on lies, he's living on slanders, impure speech, and any crooked scheme as if they were his daily bread. So the wicked man's mouth is both victim and perpetrator. He devours sin and is also being devoured by it. So if you can picture this like a glut suffering himself with poised,

and the more he eats the sinker he gets. John Gill said that the wicked man swallows down wickedness with greediness. And Joseph Benson said that the wicked man's taste has been corrupted and that he feeds on sin with delight, finding savor in what God calls an abomination.

You know, Doc, I think our class, I think various members of our morning man a class, maybe you're thinking of someone, you know right now, where it might be somebody in the near future you meet. And your understanding of this proverb is going to help you see the deplorable condition that that person's soul. Suddenly you're going to look at someone who just loves the sin, loves the lie, loves the slanders, loves the do wicked things, and you're going to realize that there's sin.

has actually turned into an appetite and they're becoming obese with sin. Yes. Okay, they're sin gluttons. They become sin gluttons and they can't stop eating sin. They become addicted to it. As we mentioned earlier,

the Reformation theologians and Bible commentators pastors overwhelmingly adopted the King James version of Prover in 1928. And here are some of the notable quotations. I'll let Doc start first with Matthew Henry. Yes, Matthew Henry said, The mouth of the wicked devourth iniquity. He greedily takes it in.

And listen to what Matthew Henry says here. He rolls it under his tongue as a sweet morsel delighting in it. John Gill said the mouth of a wicked devoureth iniquity. He swallows down wickedness with greediness, commits it with great pleasure, and is never satisfied with it. Yes. Joseph Benson said, excuse me, said he devours it as greedily as a man does his food. He loves sin both in himself and others and is never wary of it. Cheryl's Bridges said,

Sin is his meat and drink He feeds upon it. He cannot be satisfied without it. And yet the more he devours, the more he craves. Charles Spurgeon said this, The mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity. He gulps down sin like the ox eats grass And licks his lips after it loving

The taste of his own damnation. Wow. Love the taste of his own damnation. Man, these guys. preached hard, Doc. Yeah. Alexander McLaren said the wicked have taught their palates to relish moral poison

and so perish not by famine, but by gluttonate upon iniquity. Yes. G. Cam Morgan said, while the fear, the one who fears Jehovah feeds upon his law and finds life, the wicked man feeds upon iniquity and finds death. And one more. William Arnott,

are not, excuse me, William Arnaud, Free Church of Scotland, a man's soul must have food. If it will not feed on truth and holiness, it will feed on lies and lust. Such a one devours iniquity, and iniquity at last devours him. Yes.

Talk, think about, it's been your lifetime eating, eating hamburgers, okay, which is ground up cows. And then one day, the hamburger re-formulates into a cow and it eats you. That's what these men... That's the message that they were teaching.

You eat sin long enough. It will eat you. Now, we're going to teach the same proverb, verse 28, from the viewpoint of the Greek Septuagint, translation. I told you this is going to be a long lesson today, but there was no other way to teach verse 28 without presenting both viewpoints. The Septuagin says, he that becomes surety for a foolish child will despise the ordinance and the mouth of ungodly men shall drink down judgment. And for the sake of comparison, I'll read again,

King James version, an ungodly witness scorneth judgment, and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity. Right. You see the, so the first part of the King James says, an ungodly witness scorneth judgment. The subtoagent says, he that becomes surety for a child, a foolish child, will despise the ordinance. Now the second part in the King James says, and the mouth of the wicked devourth iniquity, but the subtuagin says in the mouth of ungodly men shall drink down judgment. So let's see what we can come up here, Doc, from the Septuagint viewpoint. So what I had to do on this one, Doc, I had to go back to the early church fathers. I'm talking the first three, four centuries.

I had to go way back for commentaries. And I also had to go to the writings of our modern day Greek Orthodox Church Bible commentators to see their viewpoint. Right. So the major difference is between the translations of the first segment of the proverb. Whereas the King James says, an ungodly witness, scorneth judgment, the Septuagin, says, He to become surety for a foolish child.

child will despise the ordinance. It's really hard. These are two different statements. So Doc and I will interpret this proverb from the, as I said, we already gave you the interpretation from the viewpoint of the King James. We're now going to present the Septuagint translation to the best of our ability. And I hope if there's any Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox or Syrian Orthodox, any Orthodox Christians watching, I hope you give us some thumbs up and say the boys did pretty good. They did okay on this one.

Now, for the record, I will tell you, I personally prefer the Septuagint translation of the Old Covenant Scriptures. And I say this respectfully. I think the King James translators that is over 500 years ago.

I think they erred in using the Masoretic manuscripts instead of the Greek manuscripts. That's my own personal view. Yes. However, the King James version of the New Covenant scriptures is extremely accurate. With the exception of inserting the word Easter in Acts 12-4, it should have been Pasha. Passover. Passover. Okay, that's my personal view.

And you certainly can't have your own viewpoint. But Easter should never have been in the Bible. That is not a Christian word. I don't use, I never, I will not say, hey, we're going to celebrate Easter and April. I don't say, it's a pagan word. Right. If you doubt me, do your research on the word Easter.

So, I'm going to give you the old. Not only that we have a difference between the King James and the Septuagint, but there's actually I can give you two versions of the Septuagint. One, the older English translation by Mr. Brinton and then the modern Orthodox modern English. So the older one says, He that becomes surety for a foolish child will despise the ordinance in the mouth of ungodly men

shall drink down judgment. The modern Orthodox English translation says it this way. He who becomes surety for a foolish child despises the ordinances and the mouth of the ungodly will drink down judgment. Basically the same.

So let's take the first part. He that becomes surety for a foolish child will despise the ordinance, become surety. We've talked about this previously in the study of Proverbs. In the subtergent translation, the first clause of verse 28 shifts from a false witness to a man who becomes surety, a guarantor, someone who binds himself for another person's debt or behavior. This is a picture of a man lightly taking on obligations that are beyond his wisdom or control or ability to manage,

especially in the area of finance and in the family. This is for a foolish child. The foolish child is not merely a naive youngster, but a morally foolish, undisciplined young adult son, or daughter, who refuses correction and wisdom. This is what the verse is saying, to stand as a financial or legal surety, guarantor for such a person covering his or her debts, shielding them from consequences from their behavior, propping up their recklessness,

is viewed as disordered love, not true, true love, real care. And since this person will despise the ordinance, the ordinance is understood as God's divine order. Right. The way divine law and providence are meant to train and correct. St. John Christ's stuff, one of the early church fathers, he warned that parents who constantly rescue the undisciplined child

overthrow the laws by refusing to let God's chastening work, blocking God's discipline, correction, from making this foolish child suffer the consequences, suffer the consequences. Now, modern Orthodox Church commentators note that interfering with the educative force of responsibility and discipline is a form of despising the ordinance. You sent your own pity above God's pedigy. Yes.

which is the method and practice of teaching. And there's a spiritual application for this, Rick. So it's the image of a parent signing for every foolish loan, paying every fine, and canceling every harvest of folly. Sound like some parents, you know, instead of helping the child learn and turn from their wicked ways. This actually shows that they displeased. God's appointed means of correction in this.

So when believers continually guarantee and cover the choices of an unrepentant child, they may be fighting against God himself, the natural discipline that God has built into life, not just in life in general, but in their lives as well. They're treating divine order as optional, as if love means suspending all consequences. This is this misplaced mercy. And it's really not mercy, but there's no other way to describe it.

This misplaced mercy enables sin, and it's a contempt for God's judgment. It's saying your judgment's greater than God's. The Orthodox Bible study notes of this verse warns against unwise sponsorship of folly, which offends God's wisdom by preserving what his judgments would correct. Now, the actual quotation for the Orthodox Study Bible, is this. Surety ship for a foolish person is an act of fraud, presuming to control outcomes that belong to God's judgment. So the question is, why is bailing out a foolish child an insult to justice? Because it interrupts the divine law of cause and effect. Judgment here is referring to the righteous consequences of one's actions. When a parent,

Or a teacher or a mentor, perpetually shield a fool from the pain of their folly. They're mocking the mechanism that God designed to teach wisdom. They're hijacking it, Greg. Yes, all right? So I'm going to make a confession. I shared this with Doc privately in my office several months ago. But, you know, this, I'm giving you an example of how. how studying the book of Proverbs is affecting me.

It's having an impact on me. As a teacher. And I shared with Doc something that the Holy Spirit showed me in kindness. He was very kind in the way he revealed it to me, but he was also firm in saying, now that you know, you can't go back and do the things you were doing before. What was it? Well, if anybody who knows me personally knows, I'm very generous.

And I have a soft heart for young couples, young families. I have a really soft heart for couples in their 20s and 30s struggling to get home together, to raise a family. And, you know, when I see somebody struggling, I'm just quick to get into. there and help them. And I'm generous and I don't mind doing it. I like doing it. This is what the Lord showed me. He showed me that sometimes I was interfering with his plan. Now, doctor, the way the Lord revealed this to me, again, he was very, he was very kind. He was very gentle in the way he did it. But it was like, he said, Rick, I know you meant well. I know your heart was you, you, you really desired to

help them. You were generous. You had the means to help them, and you did, but you never asked me if you should. That's what got me. You never asked the Lord if I should help. And what he showed me was that sometimes I interfered in the Lord's correction, that he had brought difficulty into certain people's lives to change them. And I got in the middle of it and fixed the problem. Or so you thought. Well, from my viewpoint, I thought, well, hey, they're not struggling on this anymore. I fixed it.

But the Lord showed me, so, well, you know, what I had to do was I had to create a new problems and hope that you don't show up. And wreck my plans again. Well, it's just being honest, but I think we all learn that lesson, Rick, at one time or another. Sometimes I've learned it over and over again to get it right. Yes. I'm just being real, being honest. I like giving.

I really do. And the Bible tells you to give. I'm learning. We have to ask the Lord, do you have a bigger plan in that person's life that if I, if I, if I solve their financial problem. Am I interrupting your plan, your discipline, what you're teaching them. Now, if the Lord's teaching them about generosity and faith, they might ask me or somebody else to display generosity, but maybe the Lord is trying to teach them how they got in that problem. How did you get in that financial mess so that they don't do it again?

is this at home for people, children and grandchildren and nephews and nieces and, you know, it's become harder for me now when somebody calls me and says, hey, I'm really in need. Could you? Is there any way I could borrow a thousand dollars from you? And now, Doc, I have to stop. I've got to say, I'll pray. I pray. instead of just saying, yeah, I'll take care of it right away, I'll do it for you.

I used to think that's what I was supposed to do, but the Lord showed me, no, it's not the way. So I told you that studying the Septuagint viewpoint of this verse has made me go back in time and really, really go far back to the early four centuries of the church. So I was studying the writings of a group called the Desert Fathers. Do you know about the Desert Fathers? They were Egyptian men who emerged as a very influential, powerful Christian sect as late as the 200th AD. They fled. Pagan cities in Egypt and lived as hermits in the Sahara Desert in a solitary life dedicated to God.

Right. So people have different opinions of whether that was the right thing to do or not. They were like, hey, Egypt is pagan. We got to get out of here. So the desert fathers warned against taking responsibility for another soul. the surety ship before that person has acquired wisdom to guarantee the deaths of a fool is to presume one has the power to fix a heart that God is trying to break through discipline yes now doc this I felt like I need to say this all right we typically talk about surety ship is being a co-signer for a loan. Right.

And generally we talk about other people, a friend, co-workers, we generally don't talk about family. Right. So this is talking, you know, mostly people think, well, if you're talking about the topic surety ship, you're talking about being a cosigner for a loan. And the Bible tells you, do not co-sign for any loans. That hit home for anybody?

The Bible says don't co-sign anybody's loans. But this one means more. Not only are you not supposed to become the gower and term. That's what a cosigner is. Cosigner is telling the lender, if that person doesn't pay the loan, I'll do it. And more than one good person has learned a lesson that they ended up in debt.

But Doc, this also, means, and this is my own view here, this also means putting a bail. Right. When you bail somebody out of jail, what are you doing? You're putting up a bond. You're endorsing a monetary value. All right. Sure.

Okay. So that bail could be $10,000, $100,000, a million dollars. And you find a bail bondsman that says, this, you know, I'll front the money, but you sign this bail bond that if your nephew skips out and doesn't show up for trial, you're going to pay the bail. You're going to pay the court fine. That's right. See, you're now becoming surety for somebody's behavior, not their debts, their behavior.

Right. Now, another group, the Apostolic Fathers. These were the Christian theologians who lived in the first and second centuries. Many of them personally knew one or more of the 12 apostles. Or they were significantly influenced by them. For example, one of my favorites. favorite early church fathers, Polycarp. He was mentored by St. John, the Revelator.

Think about it. If you ever hear the name Polycarp, he was led to Christ by John. He was mentored by John. That's why when you read Policarp's letter, you've got to take them seriously. Because he got his formation from John. John who wrote the book of the Revelation the church fathers taught that pain and struggle are medicinal sent by God to cure the soul of foolishness

by paying the fool's debt or by bailing out the fool from legal problems the surety removes the rod of correction to remove medicine is to insult the great physician. Okay? So imagine a doctor, an earthly doctor, a very good doctor,

and he has prescribed a medicine to somebody sick. And you go into that sick person's home and throw away the medicine and give them your medicine. What have you said about the doctor? You know more than he does. Right? That's what it's saying. You know more than the doctor.

This is not a prohibition against helping the poor as commanded in the Bible. It's a prohibition against enabling the reckless. Charity, love, relieves suffering. Foolish surety ship relieves responsibility. Yes. This is what the Lord has taught me. this past year, well, say, 2025. From this study of a book of proverbs,

he is, the Lord has shown me the times that I was generous by helping people who were poor, but he also showed me times that I interfered in his correction of somebody. I've been talking about, I'll let you say something. Well, you mentioned St. John Chrys' system earlier, and he had a quotation here. He talked a lot about parents raising children.

So this has been something that has been around in church history for a very, very long time. This isn't something new. He said, if you bring up your children to be merely rich, you're doing them no good. But if you make them masters of their passions, you had made them rich indeed to shield them from the discipline of virtue. is to ruin them. Here's one, we've never quoted before, Aba Dorothea's. Of Gaza.

Yes, of Gaza. You know, there were Christians in Gaza. There are still Christians in Gaza today. There are Christians in Gaza today who are their descendants of the early Christians after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Abad Dorotheist, of Gaza said, we must not be eager to take burdens upon ourselves that belong to others,

thinking we can bear them. For to remove the burden of a brother before he has learned his lesson is to steal his crown. Yes. An early church text that was shared quite a bit is one called the Shepherd of Hermes. And it quoted this as the following. Those who are rich in this world, when tribulation comes, they deny their Lord. Do not then be surety for such as these, lest you be a partaker in their sins. And St. Basil, the great, said to become surety is to entangle oneself in the snares of the world. He who guarantees the debt of a fool makes the full sin his own. Yes.

That one hurts, doesn't it? Okay, now we're going to go to the second. segment of verse 28. The King James said, and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity, but the Septuagin says, in the mouth of ungodly men shall drink down judgment. Let's examine the differences between the King James and the Septuagent translations. Instead of devouring iniquity as presented in the King James, the Septuagent says these wicked mouths drink down judgment. The King James version implies that the wicked devours iniquity, devours sin, because they love to sin.

The Septuagint implies that the ungodly drinks down judgment to internalize their punishment. This implies that the ungodly man or woman in their recklessness is swallowing a cup of wrath that will eventually poison them from the inside out. It's a very dramatic image. They have drunk in sin. Now they must drink God's judgment. As from a cup that they themselves filled, they internalized the consequences of their wickedness.

Judgment is no longer merely an external sentence, such as imprisonment or a scourging, It is now an internal conviction. It has now become something taken into their soul. In Eastern Christian theology, sin carries its own punishment. The ungodly man thinks he is drinking the sweet wine of the license to sin, but he is actually chugging down the dregs of judgment. He consumes his own destruction.

So in the first segment of Proverbs 8 or 1928, the enabler, meaning the man or woman who becomes surety for an immature person's debt or behavior tries to stop judgment from falling on the fool. In the second segment, the ungodly is the fool who drinks down his own judgment. It tells us that judgment is inevitable for the ungodly. You can stop the external penalty for a moment, but you cannot stop the internal corruption of judgment. Yes, and the consumption of judgment. You're swallowed at home. And that mouth is representing the appetite, like we talked about earlier.

So the ungodly has an appetite for things of killing. He becomes intoxicated. with his own rebellion. So if we're going to connect the two halves of verse 28 here, the father is trying to pay off the debts to save the child, but if the child remains ungodly, he will simply keep drinking down judgment. There's no amount of external bailouts that can save a man or a woman who is addicted to drinking their own destruction. And let's talk a little bit about the mouth of ungodly men. Their words are a pipeline. a sin that goes directly to their souls. The mouth of the undoubtly speaks boast for words that

presume God's mercy while at the same time despising his divine order. And it includes that brazen, defiant speech that justifies foolish children. And you know parents like this, Rick, it's prevalent today. It justifies foolish children and rejects or even mocks the need for discipline. And I can guarantee you that a lot of these parents today that have bailed out their children or given them participation awards or all these other crazy ideas that are being implemented by modern-day parents in the name of compassion and mercy is going to come back and bite them later on and it's going to bite them hard because these children that are being produced will have no qualms whatsoever in eliminating what they perceive to be any restriction on them, including

their parents. The judgment here is not only future punishment, but the soul's present defamation. Your soul is being deformed presently. prolonged, repeated sins can deform the human brain. For example, brain scientists know that a person who has been addicted to pornography for a long time has a brain that is more deformed than a person who is addicted to heroin. That's the truth, folks. A porn addict's brain is more deformed than a heroin addict's brain.

What damage are prolonged, repeated sins doing to a person's soul? Right. Those who talk lightly about sin, who use their mouth to excuse or enable folly, foolishness, misbehavior, are already drinking judgment into their being. Yes. it's people need to realize that the seriousness that this is doing to soul go ahead doc well what they've done is drunk in sin now they must drink in god's judgment so judgment here is you know not something just in the future but it's happening right now there it's happening to them at this moment and i'm not talking about the children. They're going to reap that. I'm telling me about the parents that

endorsed this, that have enabled this. St. Basil and the other early church fathers describe this as internalizing the consequence of judgment is no longer merely some sort of far-off external sins, but something that pays a price in the soul right now. I'm going to take this to another level. We can link this proverbial warning to a warning issued by Apostle Paul. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 29 contains a sober warning to people who mishandle the Lord's supper, the elements of the Lord's flesh and blood. Paul said, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drink a damnation to himself,

not discerning the Lord's body. people who wrongly consume the bread and wine in the holy Eucharistic meal are drinking damnation to themselves. When they improperly eat and drink the flesh and blood of Christ and do not discern the Lord's body in the meal, they drink down judgment upon their own souls. Yes. the righteous drink the cup of salvation. That's the song 116, verse 13. I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. Well, the name of the Lord is Jesus Christ,

and his blood was given at Calvary for the remission of our sins. We drink the cup of salvation when we participate in the Holy Communion. However, the ungodly, since they're rejecting Christ and its wisdom, they're drinking that cup of judgment. They're drinking damnation to themselves in this process, Rick. We mentioned some of the early church fathers and some of the desert fathers, some of the apostolic fathers as well.

And so some of these names are new to a lot of you. So one name I'm going to mention here is St. Gregory of Mesa. He said, The life of the sinner is a drinking down of judgment. For every sin committed is a drop of poison added to the soul. St. Cyril of Alexandria said the mouth of the ungodly is an open sepulchre. They swallow iniquity like water, but in the end, it turns to the gall of dragons within them.

That sounds awful, doesn't it? That's heavier than anything Spurgeon would say. A theater ad of Cyrus had this to say. He says he thinks he drinks pleasure, but he drinks judgment. For the pleasure is momentary, but the judgment is eternal. And St. Maximus the confessor said, Fice is self-destructive. The one who refuses the discipline of wisdom

eventually consumes the fruit of his own lack of judgment. Now, we've got one more verse. chapter 29. This one shows it up, doesn't it? I mean, he really sums it up. Yes, this one, this one just, Solomon said, hey, I'll give you the final word on this one. I want to say to the people who are still with us, God bless you.

I don't know what our timing is. I think we've been at this for about 90 minutes. God bless you. Amen. Thank you. They were probably other people who said, okay, I can't listen to anymore. They checked out.

But you know what I would say to those people? Unless they had to go to work, I had to go, you know, I understand that. What I would say is, how many hours do you spend listening to podcasts? How many hours do you spend watching television news? How many hours do you spend watching movies and TV shows? You know, I'd go back to what we were talking about at the beginning of this lesson. voices that say things that are contrary to the Word of God. If this Bible lesson is too long,

maybe you need to cut out something in your media consumption every day. Because if you can watch a news show three or four hours a day, but you can't watch a Bible lesson for 90 minutes, what's that say? I mean, this is a long one today. there was just no way to make this a short lesson. Well, I could have made a short, but I would not be giving you

the full understanding of what these verses mean. We got one more verse for chapter 19, verse 29. The King James says, judgments are prepared for scorners and stripes for the back of fools. The Septuagin said, scourges are preparing for the end. and temperate and punishments likewise for fools.

The Aramaic Pashita says judgments are prepared for scorners and strikes for the back of fools, and the World English Bible says penalties are prepared for mockers and beatings for the back of fools. So there's remarkable unanimity in all four translations. And to me, that underscores the finality of this proverb. There's no softening, no escape. The verdict stands firm across all the translations. We could also say verse 28 that we just studied is a doorway to verse 29. They form a pair.

Verse 28 has mouths that drink judgment. Verse 29 has scourges for the backs of fold. Yes. One receives punishment within, the other receives punishments out. So we'll start with the first segment of verse 29. Judgments are prepared for scorners. The Hebrew word is Sheffit. Shea.

I'm not saying emphasis on the first part. Shea fit. It's a Hebrew word for judgments. It points to settled, judicial, decisions, sentences already written, not merely threats. It's like the court, the judge has signed the order. It's a settled court decision. Right.

These judgments can be divine or human. They could be judgments sent by God or they could be judgments ordered by judges, politicians. Solomon closes chapter. by declaring that judgment is not something that's improvised, but prepared in advance. Judgments on the shelf that are ready to be executed. Think about that, Doc. Think of in heaven, in the courtroom. There are judgments on the shelf.

Yes. The judgment has already, it's already been decided. The preparation reveals divine forethought rather than reactive anger. See, God just doesn't react with anger. He thinks it through and he prepares judgments. Scorners are mockers that we talked about previously. They are arrogant scoffers who despise wisdom. They ridicule righteousness.

They reject correction. And they treat correction as amusing entertainment. The scorner is not naive. He or she is not ignorant, but willfully arrogant. Not ignorant, but arrogant. They know the truth, but they choose to mock it. Not just mock it, but to do it with proud, proud contempt. Their mockery of wisdom is a mockery of God himself.

That's right. Now, this is what this proverb is teaching us. Their judgments are prepared. God has already set in place the consequences. Judgment is not reactive, but sovereignly ordained. The words are prepared show the certainty, the fitness of the punishment. They are not capricious, but they are righteous responses to long, continued contempt for God's divine order. at some point, and only God knows, they cross a line.

There's a day that they cross the line, and God says, you know what, I'm going to prepare a judgment for them. And he lets them go on, Doc. He just lets them go on. They could go on for years, maybe decades, and not know the judgment's already been prepared. It's on the shelf. It's on the shelf, waiting to be served. So the images of a storehouse in heaven where rods and scourges and sentences are already fashioned and formed for certain people. Every sneer, every jest at holiness adds weight to the judgment that's waiting to fall on these people.

The preparation of judgment teaches that delay is mercy, not absence of consequence. Judgment prepared means the divine order of the universe is already aligned against a scorner. Alexander McLaren said, scoffing is the last sin before judgment. Yes. So these judgments that you're talking about here, Rick,

they're not some vague possibilities, but it's settled. They're settled sense. is instruments of judgment that God has already reserved for the day when these scorners are going to be dealt with and they will be dealt with. You can guarantee it. You can take that to the bank.

The picture here is the gallows have already been built. It's waiting for the mockers and laughs at the warnings. The judgments include those providential strokes in this life and then the final judicial stroke, those acts of God in the life to come. The language here suggests that these judgments stand prepared even before they're revealed. Scorner are those who arrogantly mocked God.

I believe when we see the word scorer in the scripture, they're individuals who are beyond redemption. That's a hard statement to make. They're mocking God. They're mocking His Word. They're mocking His wisdom. They're mocking His reproof. judgment, they sneer at the truth. I mean, if you're going to mock God, then what

is truth matter to? They despise authority, they treat sin and judgment as a joke. What sin is there in their life? Only if they're offended, right? So scorning represents that final stage of resistance to truth, where instruction is no longer debated but despised. Now, we talk about Joseph Benson a lot. He was the ed of of the Methodist magazine back, way back in the early 1800s. He was also the president of the Methodist conference. This was when the Methodist used to believe in the Bible, Rick. He taught that God has many ways to curb and chastise them

and that they will at last find that the judgments they scoffed at were all the while lying in wait. So this proverb is linked to the doctrine of what we call divine decree. What is that? The same Lord who prepares mercy for the humble is also the same Lord who prepares judgment for the scorner, especially the unrepentant scorner. It doesn't compromise his justice or goodness by being both. That's what's called the doctrine of divine decree. Now, please understand that even though these are prepared judgments, they don't negate real offers of grace. The scorners are only perishing after resisting many calls, but when they perish, it is under

a pre-appointed righteous condemnation, already prepared. So this verse is a challenge, and it confronts the ungodly. When they are wounded, by markers, they may rest in the assurance that God has not forgotten. He's already taken thought for how to vindicate his name and his people, Rick. Yes. Doc, you mentioned Joseph Benson was the editor of the Methodist magazine. He took that job in the early 1800s. I'm not sure, 1802, 1805, somewhere in the first decade of the 1800s.

So I'm going to ask you a question. You may know the answer because you've been in my office and you've seen my libraries. Maybe you've already know the answer to this question. But when you think about the Methodist magazine, what picture do you have in your mind? Nowadays or? Well, if you just knew, if I didn't know anything about it, if I just said to you, Joseph Benson was the editor of the Methodist magazine in the 1800s. What would you picture in your mind as the Methodist magazine?

Probably a, you know, at first thought it would be like a newspaper type publication, not like a, you know, Tine magazine today or anything like that. My guess that it was probably something else, wasn't it? Oh, it was. I have two original. Methodist magazines edited by Joseph Benson. And they were probably books, right? Talk.

They were this thick. Hardback. Hardback. And that was the magazine version. That was the abridged version. And they were mailed. Think about it. The U.S. post office at the beginning of the United States of America delivered those magazines.

to people's homes, on horseback. Okay? But I have two copies, edited by Joseph Benson. The other thing I want to say before we close this up here at a few minutes,

I suspect, especially from new people who have joined us, you may recoil at the thought of what Doc said. that some people are beyond redemption. The Bible calls them reprobates. The modern Christian church likes to think, well,

surfer Jesus, you know, Jesus the surfer, cool Jesus. He's going to shave everybody. He'll just go out there, he'll just be so patient with everybody, and he'll do everything he can to get the meaner sinner to repent. Right. He's going to hug everybody into heaven. Yeah. Now, the truth is that what these old preachers taught is not taught very much today. No.

What they taught is you can cross a line where God says that's enough. And the opportunity to be saved is taken away from you. If the Holy Spirit does not call you, you cannot be saved. You cannot save yourself. You can't choose the day you're going to be saved. You can't choose the method you're going to be saved. Only the Holy Spirit can call you to the cross. And there are people who are so wicked.

And they've been doing their wickedness for so long that there comes a day that God just shuts the door on them and says, you're going to burn in hell. I know people don't like to hear that. But we've got to get back to this old style of preaching in teaching the Word of God. The second part of this verse says in straits for the back of fools.

So Solomon now distinguishes the scorner from the fool showing that not all resistance to wisdom is equally final. The fool is morally dull and stubborn but not yet

openly contemptuous. of truth. The fool is not a scorner. He hasn't reached the scorner stage yet. The scorner started out as a fool. Yes. And matured over time into being a scorner. Stripes refer to corrective blobs, discipline that is severe, but still remedial. Unlike judgments for scorners that they drink down. Stripes. Go ahead, Doc. Well, I was going to say the judgments,

it's almost like a done deal. Yeah, there's still hope. There's still hope for the fool here. Yeah, the judgments for the scorners are already prepared. Right. But the stripes imply that instruction through pain

rather than destruction through sentence. Yes. The scorner is destroyed. through a court this sentence. The fool receives instruction through pain. There's no point in delivering pain

to a scorner. They're not going to change. Like we said earlier, they're just going to double down and say, bring it on. The whipping is not for the scorners. Benefit is for the fool that's watching it. Right. Notice Solomon mentions the fool's back. Why, this emphasizes submission, humiliation, the breaking of pride.

The Holy Bible consistently teaches that some hearts cannot be reached by words alone. Yes. The discipline here is mercy in severe clothing, pain designed to rescue. rather than condemn. The parallel structure of the verse shows the consequences are tailored to the heart's condition. God does not waste judgment on those who may yet learn, nor does he spare discipline from those who refuse to listen.

So Solomon is urging Christian disciples to choose teachability. less discipline be hardened into judgment. Yes. So those stripes, shriek that we're talking about here, they're the blows, the lashes, the corporeal punishment, physical correction for the fool.

And you mentioned the back of fools. Fools are those who are morally foolish or stubborn, rebellious, and unteachable. But there is hope in that kind of punishment. They require harsh discipline because gentle reprieve has obviously failed here. And his back is the target and his rebellion requires painful, humbling correction, as you mentioned before. So stripes are prepared, just as judgments are prepared for squirner, discipline waits for fools. And any fool who resist correction will fill the stripes eventually.

This is like I grew up in Missouri. The Show Me State are the animal that represent Missouri is a mule. Is it really? Oh, yes. The Missouri mule. And the only thing they respond to, I hate to say it, is sometimes a good beating. The blows are for its own good to turn it from destruction. They are a dependable animal.

They'll work so hard. but Rick, they are extremely stubborn. We had some as well when I was a kid. We had a mule. Oh, my goodness. And this is mercy. This is God's mercy in discipline. Strives for remedial.

I meant to awaken a fool to wisdom. If I can make a self-confession here, I thank God for those times where he applied stripes to my back. I thank God for those times. And I deserved, I earned everyone. one of them, every one of my earned. They were not, every one of them was received on my back.

And now I look back on every one of those stripes as mercy, saving me from hell, saving me from a life of pain. Doc, what the Proverbs study has done for me is I look back on my life. And I look at times when I was a younger person, and I thought it was the devil attacking me. And I now realize it was my father disciplined me. And I misinterpreted what was taking. I thought it was demonic attacks, and it was heavenly discipline.

To teach me and listen, to steer me in another direction. I wish it didn't take me this many decades to figure it out. Yes. And by the time we figure it out, there's time. to go home. Well, let's, there's a couple more words here, and I'll wrap it up. This is by far the longest morning manna lesson we've ever done. I am certain of a doc. We've never done one this long. Scorners face prepared judgments. Fools feel prepared stripes. Both are God's solemn call to turn from foolishness.

As disciples of Christ, we are challenged. Receive correction humbly, better stripes now than drinking judgment later. Yes. Ultimately, stripes for the back of fools points to Jesus Christ

who bore the stripes that we deserved. Yes. That we might be healed. By his stripes, we are healed. He received the stripes that should have gone to us. Yes. Jesus, who bore the ultimate stripes is the only one who can say both the scorner and the fool from destruction. Scorners laugh until judgment speaks. Fools resist until pain. teach us both the but the wise bow early and are spared both we got a few quotations and we'll close it up here for today Adam Clark said the rod is appointed for those who

despise wisdom yes and William R. Knox said that pain is sometimes the last messenger of mercy Terrell Spurgeon will let him have the final word The stubborn fool must feel the lash to learn wisdom. Yes. Okay, that's it for today. Thank you. God bless you for staying here. I know some of you may have to leave earlier and then come back at another time to get the rest of the lesson.

But the main thing is he did it. All right. Start. You know what? Start journaling. Maybe just do this. Journal for one week. the media content that you consume and the length of time you spend with each type of media.

Journal it for one week and then compare it to the amount of time you give morning men. Okay. You'll see, because I did it for myself. I realized, man, I've been watching a lot of stuff for a long ago. You know, when we were doing true news, we had to. had to watch this stuff. That's why the Lord just said, enough, enough of it. Shut it down.

Focus on the Word. None of that news is going to save anybody from what's coming. Get them prepared. Get them in the Word. Get them close to me. I would tell you, 2026, this is going to be one of the most tumultuous, craziest

whacked out years in centuries. It's just started, Doc. We're still in January. It's already crazy. And we're not even halfway through January. It got crazy when it came out of the gate. It's crazy.

I can't imagine what December is going to be like. But I'm going to be close to my father. That's where I'm going to be. And I can only be close to him by knowing his word. Praise God. Take care. Thank you for being here. Pray for us.

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Yes. God bless you. We'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.