“The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked. A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.” (Proverbs 10:3-5 ESV)

You might have heard of all of these get rich quick schemes: invest in gold, invest in the stock market, give some prosperity preacher lots of your money to get tons in return. None of these ways work, especially the last one. No, God has a sure fire way for you to get wealthy. His providence. God makes the rich and the poor. There are also rules as to gain wealth in the Bible, like in the above verse:

1. Don’t be wicked. Wickedness can lead to poverty. Wasting your money on your lusts will leave you bankrupt. This can be the case as buying beer to get drunk, cigarettes to help you in your addiction, or buying internet pornography. These will bankrupt you.
2. Work hard. Get a job, spend less money than you make, and save. Laziness will make you poor and a slave to your debtor. This might mean to live below your means and work harder than your willing to work.
3. Work while you can. Like farmers need to plant as early as they can to get a good harvest, everyone needs to work hard while they still can. At the time for work you need to work. Laziness will make you poor.

As with all proverbs there are exceptions to the rule. Things happen that overrule these principles: war, famine, disease. That is why it is ultimately God who makes people rich or poor. Proverbs are general principles. Yet none of this matters if you die and go to Hell. We need to realize we are spiritually bankrupt and headed for Hell because of our sin. Yet God is rich in mercy and sent His Son to pay the penalty of our sins and redeem a people for himself. Anyone who repents of their sin and trusts in Jesus will receive God’s rich mercy and have everlasting life. So we need to use our earthly wealth to share the gospel, help the helpless, and have riches in heaven. Ultimately, spiritual riches are better in eternity than earthly perishable riches.

Thank you for reading this I hope that this has blessed you. For additional resources you can go to Josiah’s sermons for examples of going verse by verse through the Bible and using context to explain it. You can also go to the Resources page to see the Using Hermeneutics Book Series. If you buy these books they will teach you how to study God’s Word and you will be helping this ministry greatly. Please consider buying my books to help support this blog, I can’t do this on a regular basis without you. Lord bless you and study God’s Word.

“I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.  Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” (Psalm 2:7-12, ESV).

Maybe you have heard the phrase, “No matter who is president Jesus is King.” That is a nice phrase, but, it misses the point. Yes, we can take comfort that Jesus is sitting on the throne and nothing is outside of His control. Yet this phrase can be a platitude to comfort you when your candidate you voted for lost the election. Worse this phrase doesn’t make any demands on your life. Yet every instance of the scriptures saying Jesus is King does make demands on your life. Consider the prophetic verse for Jesus above in Psalm 2.

1. God the Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. We should love the Son, Jesus Christ, and surrender to him our lives.
2. Jesus rules over the most powerful rulers of the earth. They will be accountable to Him on judgement day for every evil thing that they have done. He shall break the proud and shatter them. How much more does this apply to you?
3. Jesus will bless those who submit to his Lordship, “kissing the Son”, and take refuge in Him, seek Him as savior. Anyone who repents of their sin and trusts in the Messiah, Jesus Christ, will be saved. How? Well this verse doesn’t tell us but the New Testament reveals that He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin and rose from the dead to give us new life. That is why if we repent and trust in Jesus to save us we will be blessed with eternal life.

Thank you for reading this I hope that this has blessed you. For additional resources you can go to Josiah’s sermons for examples of going verse by verse through the Bible and using context to explain it. You can also go to the Resources page to see the Using Hermeneutics Book Series. If you buy these books they will teach you how to study God’s Word and you will be helping this ministry greatly. Please consider buying my books to help support this blog, I can’t do this on a regular basis without you. Lord bless you and study God’s Word.

“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works:  to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.” (Romans 2:1-11, ESV)

Preached at Porterville Congregational Christian Church

August 18, 2019 morning service

©JosiahNichols all rights reserved

Email: josiah.rob.nichols@gmail.com

Intro: Many people will agree with Paul about humanity in general, but not about themselves. Reason, they think they are better than others. Yet, Paul shows we are not better.

Body:

1. Self-Righteousness Won’t Save You
2. Condemning others for their failure, won’t save you from the law. Ex. Condemning someone for going 100 miles over the speed limit won’t save you from the Law for going 20 mile over.
3. God rightly judges all sin. Ex: God will punish Hitler, but he will also punish all liars, thieves, and adulterers.
4. Self-Righteousness Will Condemn You
5. 2 rhetorical questions to make a point. Rabbis and other teachers would often repeat themselves in a different way to drive home a point. Wives repeat.
6. 1^st question already addressed in first verse, self-righteousness won’t save you.
7. 2^nd question reveals motive, they believe judging others will earn God’s kindness. It’s like Hitler saying “yeah, I might have killed 11 million people in my concentration camps, but Stalin killed 50 million of his own countrymen.” It is like what happened in Genesis 3 Adam blamed Eve & Eve blamed the serpent. So God judged all of them.
8. Self-righteous sinners only make God more angry because they not only know better, but they also think God will pardon them. That would make God unrighteous.
9. There Will Be a Day of Wrath
10. Vv. 5&6 God’s wrath is righteous and fair.
11. Those who seek Him in Christ will receive what they seek: glory, as sons of God, honor, as citizens of heaven, and immortality, as inheritors of eternal life.
12. Those who reject Christ & trust in their self-righteousness, overlook their sin, and do not obey the truth but their lusts, will receive wrath and fury from God.
13. This is repeated again for emphasis in verses 9&10 but Jew & Greeks is added to encompass all of humanity, this also shows that Jews are self-righteous.
14. Tribulation and distress are repeated to show the kind of wrath and fury that the self-righteous will receive.
15. Glory & honor are repeated to emphasize the glory and honor of belonging to Christ, but peace is added as another dimension of eternal life.
16. God shows no partiality is emphasized to show how fair and impartial God’s judgement will be.

Conclusion

Don’t trust in your self-righteousness. It will condemn you. Only righteousness in Christ will save you. Here is what Jesus said about false converts and the self-righteous,

 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21-23, ESV). We need to repent of our sin and trust in Jesus Christ and His work on the cross.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father,

We only trust in you for our salvation. There is nothing good in us that would have us earn our salvation. Our righteousness in only filthy rags. We need Jesus to clothe us in his righteousness and be adopted as your sins and daughters. We trust in your salvation alone, through Jesus alone, found in scripture alone, for your glory alone. It’s in Jesus name that we pray, Amen.

People wonder why there are so many different interpretations of the Bible. The reason is because they are not reading it the way the author intended it to be read. Here are 4 ways you are reading your Bible wrong.

1. Verse of the day. It is great to read a Bible verse. But not out of it’s context. The Bible was not meant to be read as an inspirational verse calendar. It is like ripping your thumb off your hand to be inspired by it. A thumb removed from the body is horrific. So is a Bible verse.
2. Reading it like it was meant for you. The Bible was originally written to specific people or churches. There is a lot of cultural stuff involved in the passages. There might be some principles in the passage you can apply or learn, but you most likely don’t have an ox you used for plowing or have to worry about going into Babylonian exile (reference to my first book, When My Ox Gores My Neighbor).
3. Allegorizing the Bible. The Bible was not written in allegory, written with secret meaning that are deciphered by some made up code. You don’t have to spiritualize every passage. God meant for the Bible to be interpreted literally in its historical-grammatical context within its genre.
4. Not reading it according to its genre. The Bible has poetry, historical narrative, prophesy, proverbs, and apocalyptic literature. When we try to read something that is historical narrative as poetry (like Genesis 1-11) then we get a wrong and distorted interpretation.

Thank you for reading this I hope that this has blessed you. For additional resources you can go to Josiah’s sermons for examples of going verse by verse through the Bible and using context to explain it. You can also go to the Resources page to see the Using Hermeneutics Book Series. If you buy these books they will teach you how to study God’s Word and you will be helping this ministry greatly. Please consider buying my books to help support this blog, I can’t do this on a regular basis without you. Lord bless you and study God’s Word.