DISCRETION DOUBLE DELIVERS

Proverbs 2:10-20 (KJV)

When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;

Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:

To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;

Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;

Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:

To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;

Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.

For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.

None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.

That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

One of the benefits of gaining wisdom, according to the Bible, is that we gain discretion, and that discretion preserves us.

Let’s begin with

I. A DEFINITION OF DISCRETION

Notice the strong connection between discretion and

·   Knowledge  (to know a thing)

·   Understanding )to know the meaning of a thing)

·   Wisdom (to know how to use that thing)

The result of possessing wisdom, knowledge and understanding is discretion.

The word basically means, a plan or purpose.

One of the most powerful things any one of us can possess is purpose for your life.

Even if the purpose is not a high one:

Athletics, for example

The person who is focused on a goal – a purpose, is safer than the person who wanders day by day.

By the way, it used to be that you might be able to keep a kid out of drugs or gangs if you could get them involved in sports.

When I was in high school in the 70’s there were two very distinct classes of students:

·   The jocks, those involved in sports and

·   The dopers, those who did drugs

Truth is these days your kids are as likely to find drugs in sports as anywhere.

Getting back to point -

When a person has a plan and purpose, they are less likely to stray into dangerous waters.

From my seventh grade year, through eleventh grade, I had a plan.

Mine was to become accepted into the Air Force Academy and train to be a fighter pilot.

In those five years I changed school four times.

Despite that, with the exception of my seventh grade year, I was on the honor roll every year, 8^th through 11^th grade.

Because I had a purpose.

I was wanted to go to the Air Force Academy and become a fighter pilot.

But the last semester of my Junior Year, I declined my appointment into the Air Force Academy and I lost my purpose.

·   I had no idea what I wanted to do if I wasn’t going to be an astronaut someday.

·   My parents could not afford to pay for college so that was out

For the first time since seventh grade, I had lost my way.

·   I started skipping classes to go hunting

·   I was dropped from the honor roll

·   I became rebellious against my mom and step dad

and I started getting in trouble.

It was not until Mike Riggs invited me to go to church with him, and God got hold of my heart there, that I had a purpose again.

The Bible says discretion, purpose and a plan, will preserve you.

And then it gives two very distinct things it delivers us from:

·   The Evil man and

·   The Strange woman

Discretions delivers first from,

II. THE EVIL MAN

Proverbs 2:12-15 (KJV)

To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;

Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;

Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:

Notice three things about these evil men:

·   They speak forward things

·   They leave paths of uprightness

·   They walk in ways of darkness

The word forward means perverse but it has the idea of transforming and changing.

The evil man may start out sounding good, but he eventually transforms his message into something sinister and evil.

I listened to a program about the cult leader Jim Jones the other day.

Jones started his “People’s Temple” in 1955 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He moved it from there to San Francisco, CA and finally to Guyana, Africa.

It was the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which Jones capitalized on. His church was predominantly African-Americans from the projects of Chicago and his promise was for equal rights and eventually utopia for his followers.

·   He took disenchanted and unhappy people

·   He gave them a purpose

· He separated them from other influences and then

·   He killed them

Here was the crazy thing – he spoke so often about mass suicide that the people eventually stopped thinking he really meant it until he had them in a position where they could not get out of it.

They even practiced it days before they did it.

The person who wanders aimlessly is an easy target for evil men because everyone needs leadership.

If we haven’t

·   Wisely submitted to godly leaders, we will

·   Foolishly fall prey to evil ones.

The double deliverance of discretion is from,

III. THE STRANGE WOMAN

Proverbs 2:16-20 (KJV)

To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;

Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.

For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.

None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.

That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

I think there is a very valid literal application to the strange woman but I don’t believe I need to bring her up tonight.

·   Some in this room are too young and

·   Those who are not can easily get the picture without my elaboration

I would like to remind you that the Old Testament especially likens immoral relationships to idolatry and the worship of false gods and belief in false doctrines.

We will in a world filled with false doctrine and silly people fall victim to these doctrines of devils every day.

Notice what the Bible says about her.

A. She flatters with her words

Vs 16

I am reminded of 2 Timothy 4:3-4 (KJV)

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

-We don’t need to hear what we want to hear or like to hear when we come to church.

-We don’t even need to hear what the preacher thinks we need to hear.

-We need to hear what God says.

The strange woman is a type of Christianity that flatters people with her words.

B. She forsakes the guide of her youth

Vs 17

I have a huge problem with so many of the young independent Baptist pastors today for this very reason.

They think they are better than their teachers.

·   I have had them tell me I should be grateful that they have outgrown me

·   I have read articles where they mock their teachers as unlearned and ignorant compared to the Protestants

Really they are just rebellious against the authorities they were brought up under.

C. She forgets the covenant of her God

Vs 17

This sounds like the plan of salvation to me.

God promises

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”[3]

But now these young preachers have taken to:

·   Reformation theology

·   Lordship salvation and

·   Friendship evangelism

They’ve forsaken the gospel that that saved them in favor of the one the old Presbyterians taught.

I believe without equivocation that the doctrines and practices that my Baptist preachers taught me trace back:

·   Before England

·   Before the Reformation

·   Before the Catholic Church

All the way back to Jesus Christ and His Apostles.

I refuse to cheapen them by embracing something as new as the Reformation.

Finally

D. Her house inclines to death

Vs 18-20

If we think of this is spiritual terms, her house would be:

·   A church

·   A denomination

·   A system of Biblical teaching

And it leans towards death.

Those who preach and teach a watered down version of Christianity are, in my opinion, infinitely more dangerous than:

·   Catholicism

·   Jehovah’s Witnesses

·   Mormons or even

·   Islam

The people who buy into those things know full well what they are getting into.

It’s not Christianity – they don’t pretend to be.

I hurt for the person who goes to a church that once preached the truth and has, over they years, slipped away.

·   First the pastor says he is changing methods, not the message

·  Then the pastor gives alternative styles of worship

·   Then the church changes its name so people could tell if it is a Baptist church, Assembly of God Church or Presbyterian Church

·   Somewhere along the line the pastor begins to soften his message

Until one day he says what the pastor of the Bible Church in Oak Harbor told Pastor Bohannan a few weeks ago, “Around here, truth is a direction, not a location.”

And when you get there, salvation becomes anything you want it to be any way you want it to be.

And that’s no deliverance at all.

Conclusion

Discretion, doctrinal purpose and assurance, protects and delivers the one who possesses it from

·   The evil man who will give you direction if you don’t have it and

·   The strange woman, who will seduce you from faith once delivered to the saints.

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[1] Webster’s 1828

[2] ibid.

[3] Romans 10:13

WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO DO

Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

I heard a preacher say regarding missions, “It’s what Christians are supposed to do.”

Christians are supposed to do missions.

You see, we do not have to pray about and search deep to find God’s will for Christians and especially for Christians as we are united in a church.

The Lord Jesus Christ made it very clear what we are supposed to do.

It’s called the Great Commission and it is expressed in different way at least three times in the New Testament.

It is expressed most clearly in Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

I want to break that down into it the three things we, as a church, are supposed to do.

I. TEACH ALL NATIONS

28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations ...

This gives us the first part of our commission – missions.

Notice the word, “all.”

We are not called to go to:

·   The European nations or

·   The Caucasian nations

·   The Western nations

·   The Civilized nations

·   The Developed nations

The Great Commission calls us to go to “all nations.”

Paul becomes an illustration of this.

Paul was from an eastern-oriental culture.

His earliest missionary work, though outside of Israel, was to predominantly eastern nations.

At one point, his desire and his efforts were to go farther east.

But the Spirit of God would not let him go.

He was forced to stop in his tracks and wait for “directions” from the Lord.

Those directions led him to cross the Aegean Sea and take the Gospel for the first time into Greece, a Western-European culture.

I said that the Great Commission is found in at least three passages in the New Testament. Another one is,

Acts 1:8 (KJV)

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Missions works is to be done:

·   In your home town

·   In your home state

·   In your home country and

·   Unto the uttermost parts of the world

“We are as responsible to go where we cannot go, as we are to go where we want to go.”

We do that through representatives.

I can’t go, but someone else can, and I can help him go.

We call it “Faith Promise Missions Giving.”

I give so that someone else can go.

The first part of the Great Commission is missions.

·   Personal evangelism in our own community

·   Church planting, in our own country and

·   World missions to the uttermost parts

The second part of the Great Commission is,

II. ASSEMBLING INTO CHURCHES

Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Admittedly, my theology as a Baptist comes out here because, as a Baptist, I see baptism as an ordinance to be performed only under the authority of a local church and in order to receive the saved into church membership.

It is a specifically Baptist position that derives from our conviction that the only sort of church found in the Bible is a local church.

If you understand the Bible to teach that there is some sort of invisible universal church that every Christian is spiritually baptized into at the moment of salvation, then everything you read in the Bible about:

·   The church

·   The body of Christ and

·   Baptism

will reflect upon that belief.

If you understand the Bible to teach, as I do, that every mention of the church in the Bible is a reference to a local congregation of baptized believers, united together for the purpose of accomplishing the Great Commission, then that is going to reflect in your understanding of:

·   The body of Christ

·   Baptism and

·   The Lord’s Supper

I understand the Bible to only teach about local churches

·   I understand the Bible to only teach of baptism by water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost

·   I understand that baptism always comes after salvation and

·   I understand baptism to be the door into local church membership

I say all of that to say that the reason we baptize is to assemble churches.

·   Christians are supposed to win people from all nations to Jesus Christ and

·   Christians are supposed to assemble those won into local churches (through baptism)

The third part of the Great Commission is

III. EQUIPPING THE SAINTS

Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you:….

This is at least part of the reason we have come to church today.

Ephesians 4:11-14 (KJV) puts the third part of the Great Commission like this:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

You see,

·   It is not enough just to go out and get people saved.

·   It is not enough to start churches and get people to join and become soul winners

·   It would not be enough if we just gathered Christians together and had Bible studies

What churches are supposed to do is:

·   Go to all nations and try to win others to Jesus

·   Baptize those who get saved into local churches and

·   Equip the members of those churches with everything Jesus taught us in the Bible