TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles - Date: October 6, 2026. Lesson 197-2026. Proverbs 30:13 - 14. When Pride Turns People Into Prey

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

In this edition of Morning Manna, Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart continue their study of Proverbs 30:11–14, focusing on verses 13–14 and Agur’s portrait of a corrupt generation. What begins with self-righteousness becomes arrogance, and arrogance eventually becomes the exploitation of those who are weaker. Agur describes lofty eyes followed by “teeth as swords” devouring the poor and needy. The progression is sobering: when people become convinced of their own righteousness, looking down on others becomes easier, and mistreating them can eventually seem justified. This lesson challenges us to examine not merely how we treat others, but how we see ourselves. Lesson 197-2026 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

Welcome to Morning My North. Welcome to morning, my new ritual north. Your teachers, Rekwiles and Dr. Burkla. Get your Bible and notebook and get ready to hear before. I have two questions for you today. When is the last time you ate food? Now, that sounds like a silly question, but the second question isn't silly? when is the last time you fed your soul?

Your soul requires food. Jesus said so. He said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that precedeth out of the mouth of God. Jesus was talking about soul food. Now, he wasn't talking about colored greens

and black-eyed peas and cornbread. He was talking about. about the Word of God, the Holy Bible. So Soul Food is what we serve here at Morning Manor because each of us need to feed our souls. We don't know what we're going to encounter today. And we need the Word of God inside of us to be prepared for every situation that we face today,

whether it's personal relationships or work-related situations or opportunities or problems or crisis, whatever it is. We need the Word of God inside of us. You can't wait to when the situation arises and say, now I've got to go study the word. Now, you can have a word in you before the situation arises. So Dr. Raymond Burkhard and I have prepared an awesome breakfast for your soul today. So I'm inviting you to, for yourself, a couple of coffee.

or tea, get settled into your comfortable chair, open up your Bible, and join me, Doc, in praying, and let's invite the Holy Spirit and begin this lesson today. Whitey God, our Father, thank you for this beautiful new day. Thank you for life. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for salvation, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. Thank you for providing everything that we need. you are a good and wonderful father.

We are here as your sons and daughters, desiring to be fed with your word. So we invite the Holy Spirit to preside over morning mena and teach all of us. The glory of Jesus Christ, in His name we pray. Amen. So yesterday we started our study in this particular passage of scripture,

Proverbs chapter 30 verses 11 through 14. And as the four verse says, that really needs to be studied together. So we're doing the second part today. Each one of these verses starts with the same phrase. There's a generation. There's a generation. There's a generation.

There's a generation. And in yesterday's morning, Manor, we looked at verses 11 and 12. Today we're going to look at verses 13, 14. But I'm going to go ahead and read all four verses here so we can maintain context for our study today. So verse 11 of chapter 30, there's a generation that curse us, their father and does not bless their mother. There's a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.

There's a generation, oh, how lofty are their eyes and their eyelids are lifted up. There's a generation whose teeth are as swords and their jaw teeth as knives to devour the poor from off the earth and the needy from among men. Now, yesterday we looked at verses 11 and 12. Rick starts us off today with his insight on verse 13. Rick? Thank you, Doc. I just find this set of four verses fascinating. And whenever there's this pattern, like there is a generation, you know that the Lord is emphasizing. He's underlining these words to get our attention. He's teaching us a very important principle. So verse 13, picking up from 11 and 12 that we studied. yesterday, verse 13 says, there is a generation. Oh, how lofty are their eyes.

And their eyelids are lifted up. What's the first impression you have in your mind? Somebody who's haughty, proud, strutting. There's a progression that I desire you to see. In verse 12, the person, the generation, the eyes of that generation were looking inward. And they assessed wrongly. They were self-deceived, self-conceded. In verse 13, the eyes look outward and upward.

And now everybody can see it. In verse 12, it's more difficult to see that somebody is self. deceived because it's taking place inside them. But in this verse, it's easy to see that their eyes are looking upward and outward that their eyelids are looking up because they're proud of the body. What's happened here? In verse 12, we had self-deception. In verse 13, we now have a posture, a way of standing. What was internal, an internal error, has now become a visible bearing,

visible tribute, marking, lofty. Let's look at this word lofty. It means to be high, exalted, lifted up. And their eyelids are lifted up. There's a double image here. And this is the look that does not quite meet another person's eyes. There's a gaze.

The gaze is angled slightly above. The eyelids are raised. It's the face that surveys others but never engages other people. It's the kind of person that you say, who does she think she is? Boy, that guy, he thinks he's so. something, doesn't he? You know what I'm talking about? That error that you see in certain people, because their eyelids are lifted off. They're looking down at everybody else. Anyone who's ever been on the receiving end of those eyelids recognizes the description immediately.

The Bible treats this specific posture as a very distinct offense. And the eyes appear repeatedly throughout the Bible. Let's go back to Proverbs 6, verse 17. A proud look, haughty eyes. And it's mentioned as the first among seven things that the Lord hates. A proud look.

Proverbs 21, verse 4. A high look and a proud heart. In the plowing of the wicked is sin. Psalm 101, verse 5. David's resolution, him that hath a high look and a proud heart, will I not suffer? Isaiah 3, verse 16. He describes the daughters of Jerusalem walking with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes. Proud and holidays, he arrogant.

Anglican Charles Bridges observed that pride can be concealed in speech for years, and is almost never concealed in the eyes. Since the elevation, proud man or woman, steals towards others, requires a physical angle to express it. That says it, well, Doc.

It does. And as always, we always try to look at the doctrinal foundation of all of our verses here, Proverbs. Today's no exception. Verse 13. It expresses the connection between self-righteousness and contempt.

And the connection is causal rather than just coincidence. Because a man who believes in self-clean must account for those who aren't. So you consider yourself clean, but others unclean? Well, what standard are you used in there? And that's the mechanism. If I've concluded that I'm pure, then the difference between other people in me requires an explanation. And the available explanation is that they're worse than me, right?

I'm better. They're worse. Which is exactly what the gospel writer Luke says about the audience of the Pharisee and publican parable. We touched on this yesterday. They trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. It's not interesting that they thought themselves righteous. and despised others.

And so the two clauses are joined because the second follows from the first. They just don't happen together. One causes the other. And so the Pharisees' prayer, if you recall in the story of the parable and Pharisee, demonstrates and said, God, I thank thee I'm not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. You see what Agar is doing here and what Jesus brings out in his parable. He required a comparison.

His self-assessment was not stable without someone beneath it. And this is why verse 13 follows verse 12 rather than preceding it. Arrogance is not a separate failing appended to self-righteousness. It is what self-righteousness produces when it looks around the room. It produces arrogance. And Scripture's response to this posture is consistent and severe. You quoted several verses talking about those high and lifted eyes. Well, Isaiah 2.11 says,

the lofty looks, a man shall be humble, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. Previously, in Proverbs, chapter 16, verse 18, Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before fall. And the principle of this series examined back in the last chapter, in Proverbs chapter 29, verse 23, a man's pride shall bring him low, where the Hebrew makes the rising itself the mechanism of the descent. You bring yourself up, it's going to be your downfall.

Now, in the New Testament, James chapter 4, verse 6, names God's disposition. God resisteth the proud, but give it grace and do the humble. and the Greek antitasetai is a military term. We talked about this previously. It means to array oneself in battle order against someone. So God isn't just perturred by someone. He's ready to fight, fight you on it. And so the proud man is not merely unblessed.

He is opposed militarily by God. And so the honest question is not whether you know people like this. You probably do. but have you looked in a mirror lately is whether there's a category of person you look at from a slight elevation and whether the elevation in doing something for you that a more accurate self-assessment would not require it. Good point out.

The next verse, the fourth in this four set unit is verse 14 there is a generation whose teeth are as swords and their jawed teeth as knives to devour the poor from off the earth and the needy from among them. This is a serious worrying about human nature. Agarish, there's a generation

that would literally eat the poor. And we're not talking about cannibalism, But he said there are times, there are generations that just hate the core and they'll just devour them. So this is the four-first unit. This is the final movement in this unit of Proverbs. And it's got a very violent image. Notice he named two sets of teeth. And there's a reason for it.

He talks about the front teeth. and the back teeth. The front teeth, what do you do with the front teeth? You bite, you tear, you rip. You use your front teeth to bite into something, to tear it apart. And then the jaw teeth, those are your molars. You grind, you pulverize. Agar compares each type of teeth to a wet.

He says the front teeth are swords, and the molars are knives. So it comes from a Hebrew word that literally means to eat. He's referring to teeth as eating instruments. Like table knives? Yes. Yes. Swords and knives. eyes. Your front teeth are swords and your molars are nis. So this is a complete apparatus for

consumption, something to tear with and something to grind with. And nothing comes out of the mouth. Notice that he doesn't say anything comes out on the mouth. And what are these teeth doing, these weapons to devour the poor from off the earth and the needy from among men? I'm just I'm just going to say it right now. A four-letter word. Yes, I'm going to say a four-letter word. Gaza. Gaza.

The Israelis are devouring the poor. They're eating them. They're destroying them. And it is reprehensible in the eyes of God. I would not want to be found as a defender of those actions against the Palestinian people. It's the most horrible thing I've seen in my lifetime. I'm 73 years old.

This is the worst thing I've ever seen in my lifetime. I was born after World War II, so I didn't see World War II. This is the worst thing I've seen in my lifetime. A nation devouring for people. Who is being chewed up? The poor, the weak, the lowly, the needy, the destitute, those in want, those in lack, from off the earth, from among men. The devouring is not merely harmful.

It is removal. It is their eradication. It is genocide. The poor consumed are consumed until they are no longer present. And take note of what this generation does not do. They do not fight equals. they do not challenge the powerful. They do not challenge the rich.

They deploy their weapons, their swords and knives against the poor, against people who can't defend themselves. Back in Proverbs 28, verse 15, we studied a wicked ruler over poor people as described as a roaring line and a ranging bear. Back in Proverbs 22, verse 16, The Bible condemned the man who oppresses the poor to increase his riches.

What about a nation that devours the poor to increase their land territory so that they can build casinos and hotels? You've got to get rid of those poor people so we can put in casinos. Charles Spurgeon observed that the oppressor's teeth are always sharpest towards those least. able to bite back in that a man's courage may be measured accurately by whom he chooses to devour. Wow, what a way with words there. Well, the theological weight here in verse 14 rest on what the scripture's consistent identification of God with the core, which makes their consumption and offense reaching past the victims. In other words, when you're concerned,

consuming the poor, who are you really consuming? You're trying to consume and overtake God. Proverbs 1431 says it straight out. It says, he that oppresseth the poor reproaches his maker, that he that honours him hath mercy on the poor. And so the oppression is not merely cruelty toward a person. It's an insult directed at the one who made the poor, who made it. Proverbs 175 adds, Whoso mocketh the poor reproaches his maker. So it's not just oppression, it's mocking them. And Proverbs 22 and verse 22 supplies the consequence.

Rob not the poor because he is poor, for the Lord will plead their cause and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them. So what does that mean? Well, this should be a warning to our world today. the poor have an advocate, and the advocate is named. His name is God Almighty. And so the prophets return to this image over and over and over again,

and the vocabulary is striking, and it's similar to what Agar is saying here as well. So we read like in Micah, chapter 3, starting at verse 1. Here I pray you, O Heads of Jacob, who hate the good and love the evil, who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones, who also eat the flesh of my people,

and flay their skin from off them, and they break their bones and chop them in pieces as for the pot and as flesh within the culvert. I forgot that passage was even in the Bible. Mike is describing Israel's own leadership. The cannibalism is metaphorical, some would say, but the offense is not. Then over in Amos chapter 8, verse 4, hear this,

O ye that swallow up the needy even to make the poor of the land to fail. And so let's take note here of the construction that our friend Agar has constructed here. This generation that we're talking about did not arrive at devouring directly. They began, if we're considering this as one single generation here, then they began holding their parents in contempt in verse 11. Then they concluded that they themselves were clean, that they were innocent, that they could do no wrong. Then they looked down on everyone around them.

Verse 13. Now they consume the weak, the weakest people available. I don't know why this is sounding so familiar with our world today, Rick. So the validation is the terminal station of that, self-deception. A man who genuinely believed himself unclean could not uncomfortably or could not comfortably devour anyone. It's the purity in his own eyes that licenses his teeth to devour. And that's why this catalog is ordered like it is and why the progression needs to be taught like a progression rather than as four unrelated complaints. So the leaning is that this is

one generation that we're talking about here. So the pastoral application must extend beyond that obvious brutality because almost no reader, anybody reading this said, well, that's not me. No reader is going to recognize himself in a mouth full of swords. The devouring agger is describing operates through systems more often than through violence. Think about it this way. the wage structured to extract minimum labor at minimum cost from people with no alternatives.

The fee that's assessed because the customer cannot afford to contest it. The lending arrangement that profits from desperation. And in the New Testament, James chapter 5, verse 4 calls us out. It says, the hire the laborers, which is of you kept back by fraud, cry it. And the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Shabbat. So we're talking about this. He's addressing this to the church.

And so the question that Agger's verse here presses is not whether a man has committed violence. It's whether anything he benefits from requires that someone weaker absorb the cost. This is a fascinating observation today. by a book of Proverbs nearly 3,000 years old, Rick. It is, and Doc? I don't think I've ever realized until the day how frequently the Bible talks about devouring the poor. This metaphor of eating the poor.

You mentioned Micah, you know, pluck their skin off of them, take their flesh off their bones, eat the flesh of my people, lay their skin from off of them, break their bones, top them in bees, as for the pot, and as flesh within the cauldron. You're talking about cooking people.

It's not cannibalism, but it's talking about the way, the cruelty of the way people are treated. In other words, you're treating human beings as an animal, that deserves to be chopped up and put in a stew. And then you mentioned Amos. Oh, ye the swallow up the needy.

Eating, swallow the needy. So this is telling me how God sees the misuse of poor people. He sees it as powerful people eating other people, that you're grinding them up with your molars. You're tearing the flesh off of them and you're chewing them up and you're swallowing them. Hey, is Doc yesterday asked a question at the end of our lesson yesterday? Was Anger describing one generation that had four of these characteristics, or was he describing four separate generations?

Did you come to a conclusion yet? Well, after our study today, I think I'm more convinced that it's a single generation. That's kind of where I land on it. So just because of what we did yesterday and the things that we already studied today, but there's some other evidence that would lead to that as well. And actually, the Hebrew prevents both readings. I mean, it could go either way. And yesterday, as I started out, I was thinking, well, this fits in with the generational

patterns that we've studied in the past and everything. But as we've gotten deeper into it, I think Agar is talking about a single generation here that has, you know, these are their symptoms of what they're like at that time. Any generation could have some of these symptoms. But there was a generation that Agar was dealing with at his day. He said, a generation, a generation, a generation, a generation. And I think, yeah, in my opinion, I think it's talking about a single generation. I lead with you.

I think you could make an argument for both sides. But I conclude that it's a single generation. However, Don. Is it possible? It's one generation, but he's describing four stages. Okay, so here's where I'm going. It begins with a sin that is in the top ten sins, is in the Ten Commandments.

It's number five. And you see, Steve Harvey, number five. What do we have here, number five, right? So what is it? honor your father and your mother. So he starts out there is a generation that curses their father and does not bless their mother. But it ends with a generation that eats the poor. Is this a progression of stages?

If you have a generation that curses their fathers and do not bless their mothers, do they eventually digress to the point that they'll devour the poor? they go through these stages they're pure in their own eyes they're self-conceited they think that they're washed from their sins but they're not they're covered in human excrement

there's a generation that's lofty in their eyes their eyelids are lifted up and then the last one there's a generation whose teeth are swords and their jawed teeth knives and they devour the poor from all the earth and needy from among men

Does it start with cursing the father and not blessing the mother to get to the point where you're eating the poor? Just a thought. It could be four stages. Right. I think today's verse is kind of lean toward that. But really, when you consider this, if it's a single generation, Rick, wow, what a generation that was in Niagara's Day. but what I think should give pause to our students today that are watching and listening,

is it this generation today? Is it this one? Have we raised a generation that has been taught to curse their father? Maybe not directly cursed, but they've gone no contact. They consider themselves innocent. All the problems that they have aren't their fault. It's the fault of the father or the previous generation. And therefore, they're better.

They've lifted up their eyes. And at some point, will they devour their own parents? Will they devour the poor? And I've come to the conclusion that we probably are living in a day like that, that there's going to come a time where they're going to say, you know, we need to sacrifice some of these old people. We need to sacrifice some of the poor. There's not enough resources for everybody.

And we need to make logical, rational decisions. And they'll justify it. You'll say you guys cause the problem, but you have to pay the price for it. To me, it should give everyone pause about the day that we live in and a possible future we may be facing. Yes. it's one thing to be alive when there are wicked people in political power but it's another thing to be alive when the whole population is wicked

right you know think of Sodom they they desired to rape angels how wicked can you be that was a wicked society doc was there any other wickedness that they could go to to imagine what it was like to live there. The society had descended to the place that they were desiring to rape angels from heaven. That's what wickedness looks like. And we're on track for it right now.

We're living in a dangerous time. So that's why we're studying the Word of God, so that we can not only help us with our daily lives, but to see the bigger picture of the age, the time that we're living in. Right. And what did Jesus say? That his return would be as in the days of Noah. Noah lived in a wicked time.

God said, did anything those people think about is wickedness? So, Doc, I would say that was probably the most wicked age of all. Because it prompted the Lord to say, I'm just going to wipe them out. I'm just going to wipe out the entire human race. I'll just save eight of them. That's how wicked society was. And Jesus said his return would be as in the days of Noah. Right.

So think about that. We're going to see some things that we would wish we wouldn't see. But we've got to be ready for it. Okay, thank you. It's been a fascinating two-day lesson. I hope this has sparked some thinking in you, some discussion. These are verses, Doc, again, I don't recall ever hearing a sermon on these verses. And Rick, I know we've studied these verses before, but I don't recall that I said.

Getting disinformation before. I don't even remember what we said in the last time we talked. I know. Were we dumb? back to him, Doc, I don't know. Right? So, yeah, we were dumb. Dumb and dumber. Okay, there we go. All right.

We're learning. Every year we learn more. God's giving us. And let me say we learn more. That is not that we are the ones responsible. The Lord is bestowing more revelation on us. His grace is giving us more revelation about his word. the truth was always there

we just weren't ready to receive it isn't that the truth truth is truth it's always there but your ability your willingness your capability to receive it is not always there so I don't know about you but I think for dog and me

we can both of us agree we are receding more revelation from the Lord on this series of teaching of Proverbs and in past years Doc, obviously we weren't ready for it. No, we weren't. But Doc, it also says something else.

It says that this is the time that God's people are ready for it. Amen. You are ready for it. That's the main thing to understand. You are ready for it. And God's giving us to teachers new revelation about His Word because you're ready for it because we're in a different age right now.

Okay, got to go. Love you. tomorrow. God bless you. Thank you for watching Morning Manor. We hope your soul has been nourished today. We welcome and appreciate your prayers and financial support for our international Bible teaching ministry.

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