Dr Greg Bahnsen - Proverbs: Proverbs 3:1-8 (Tenderness, Truth, and Trust) (Part 6)

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days. Reading, writing and rithmetic taught to the tune of a hickory stick. You all know that song, don't you? Reading, writing, arithmetic, from which we get by deleting a couple of letters at the beginning of two words. The three R's. Reading, writing, drop the W. Arithmetic, drop the A. And this we commonly call the essence of a curriculum, at least in the traditional sense of the term. The curriculum of a proper school emphasizes reading, writing and arithmetic. The three Rs. This morning, as we come to God's school to learn how he would have us live our lives, we're going to learn the three T's, not the three R's. Tenderness, truth, and trust. Very important elements of the Christian life. And we read of them in Proverbs the third chapter, verses 1 to 8. Please turn with me then in your Bibles to the word of God in the book of Proverbs, chapter three, where I'd like to read the first eight verses. Hear now God's word, my son. Forget not my law, and let thy heart keep my commandments. For length of days and years of life and peace will they add to thee. Let not kindness and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck, write them upon the tablet of thy heart. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in Jehovah with all thy heart, and lean not upon thine own understanding in all thy ways. Acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes. Fear Jehovah and depart from evil. It will be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones, and thus far the reading of God's word. In Proverbs chapter three. We begin another section as chapter two began, with the affectionate words of Address. My son, here the teaching of wisdom submit to me. The same tender call occurs in verses 11 and 21. In this chapter you look at verse 11. My son, despise not the chastening of Jehovah. Verse 21. My son, let them not depart from thine eyes. That is the precepts of God and knowledge. The author here is calling upon us, who are students, to learn wisdom as at a father's mouth, and from him with care. We have to remember Proverbs 1:8, which we have studied already. That says, my son, hear the instruction of thy Father. We recall how we learned there that the Son is the pupil, being told by his teacher to listen to his Father. It is not necessarily the Father who is speaking, although The Father can certainly utter these words. And the student of wisdom in Proverbs 3 at the first verse is called upon to be attentive and to be compliant with the teaching and the guidance that has been received. And this is expressed both negatively and positively where we read, do not forget, but rather remember you might have in your translation, keep, do not forget my teaching, but let thy heart remember, keep my commandments. We have to hearken back again to Proverbs 1:8, where the Son is told, hear the instruction of your Father, don't forsake the commandments of your mother. Verse 25 of the first chapter says, but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof. Wisdom says, you were not teachable, you need to be. And in Proverbs 2:1 2, My son, if thou wilt receive my words and lay up my commandments with thee, so as to incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thy heart to understanding, then things will happen. What we have in Proverbs 3:1:2 is a recapitulation. It's a reminder of how Proverbs approaches life, how the teacher brings wisdom to the pupil, how he must remember, he must be attentive, he must be compliant. And the consequences of heeding the wise teaching that you have received According to verse 2 here will be long life and peace. Those are exactly the rewards of wisdom that are repeated in verses 16 and 17. Length of days is in her right hand, in her left hand are riches and honor, her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. This again recapitulates what we have learned already in Proverbs 1:33. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell securely, and shall be quiet without fear of evil. In chapter two, verse seven, we have read, he layeth up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to them that walk in integrity. Verse 11 of chapter 2 Discretion shall watch over thee. Understanding shall keep thee. And then finally, verse 21 for the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. So the beginning of chapter three is kind of bringing us up to date, my son. Store up these commandments. Be attentive, be compliant, and then you will have long life, you will have prosperity, and in particular it says, and you will have peace. I wish we could take time. Perhaps a future series would give me the time to talk to you about peace. In the biblical understanding of that, the Hebrew word is shalom. Shalom is translated most commonly peace in our Bibles. But in a sense that doesn't do justice to the word and all of its rich connotations in Hebrew. The Hebrew word is broad in its understanding. It includes things such as social harmony. To grant peace is to be harmonious with those in your society, those in your family. To be at peace is to have prosperity and health and safety, and above all, to be right with God. Just think for a moment of the closing words of the Aaronic benediction which we often hear pronounced in our congregation. We read of the Lord blessing you and keeping you, and the Lord making His face to shine on you and be gracious to you, the Lord lifting up his countenance on you and granting you peace. Shalom. When God grants shalom, that's the same as saying that he has shined on you, he has sworn, smiled upon you with all of the benefits of his grace. That's the meaning of peace. Peace in the most general sense is one's overall well being in all aspects of life. And to wish peace upon someone, to say shalom to someone, peace be with you, is equivalent to saying, may everything go well for you in life now and forevermore. May everything go well for you. Peace. This is what Proverbs promises us. If we will listen to the commandments, if we will hear the guidance and teaching of wisdom, then we will have length of days and shalom. We will have peace. Now, after this recapitulation that we find in verses 1 and 2, we are given two specific instructions, two which we will consider today. And they are to be tender hearted or kind, to be truthful, and finally to not trust in our own thinking but God's, from which I get three T's, to be tenderhearted. To be truthful. To be truthful to the Christian life. Let's begin with verses 3 and 4 where we learn that wisdom makes us kind and honest people. Let not kindness and truth forsake thee, bind them about thy neck, write them upon the tablet of thy heart. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. You know what's amazing about this is that we are promised the path to finding favor and a good with both God and man. We can do to gain acceptance in the eyes of men. I can tell you some of the things you could do if you wanted to find favor in the eyes of men. And there's a lot we can do to have acceptable behavior in the eyes of God. I can tell you much about that. But you know what's tricky is how to do both at the same time to find favor in the eyes of men as well as favor in the eyes of God. And Proverbs shows you the way. Proverbs says, if you will do this, so shalt thou find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man. I should explain by the way, in verse four, where I have good understanding in my translation, you may have that as well, perhaps is best translated good repute or a good reputation. You will find favor in the eyes of men. You see, because it's so hard to find favor in the eyes of men and the eyes of God simultaneously. Because that's so hard. Most of us tend to oversimplify. Most of us tend to pit social favor against divine favor. We tend to think it's one or the other. We can't have both. And having done that oversimplified pitting of one against the other, then we can become spiritually lazy. And we do become spiritually lazy at just this point. And we can feel justified in compromising one for the other. We do that in circumstances where I maintain the conflict is not necessary. Now, sometimes the conflict is, but not always, not nearly always. For instance, I want you to think of yourself as taking a stand for some moral point, but taking that stand in a self righteous or perhaps a rude fashion. Now, when we do act that way, we're rarely winsome to others. But you see, we dismiss this social disfavor sometimes in our own minds as the cost of taking a stand for the Lord. Wrong. You see, what gained the disfavor in a situation like that need not have been and probably wasn't the substance of what you stood for. It was the style with which you stood for it. You see, sometimes our style, we don't work on our style. Taking a stand. That seems a strange thing to hear from this pulpit that is so conservative and so principled. We make a stand for these sorts of things. We're supposed to work on style. Yes, you are. You're supposed to work on being able to speak the truth in a winsome fashion, an effective fashion. I don't pretend that style is going to melt the hearts of people. I don't pretend that. Lazy. I'm lazy. And we are all wrong if we don't think, how can I express myself in an effective fashion? Not just how can I express myself truthfully and likewise. You see, a congenial spirit and a smooth style of relating to others which has gained you friends and kept you in favor with people is often a tremendous and self imposed obstacle to a holy walk with God. Some of the most compromising people I know are the easiest to get along with. And that's just their problem. They're too easy to get along with. And then, you see, we dismiss our compromises and we dismiss our silences as the cost of keeping the doors open for evangelism and influence. Wrong. Wrong. We are rationalizing. The goal is not to avoid awkward social situations. That's not our calling. The goal is to win respect for your desire to please the Lord. And you see, that's much more difficult, isn't it, to take a stand for what is right, but do it in a winsome fashion, in a way which will get the word into this person. To say it in the way they need to hear it so that you can accomplish something positive takes thoughtfulness, takes planning, takes prayer, takes finesse, takes work. That's what we don't like. It'd be much easier to say you're wrong and let it go at that. But to say you're wrong in a way that edifies and that builds up, that takes work. And also to smooth over awkward situations and to remain friends with people when you must speak the truth. But to do so in a way that they respect your holy stand, that takes work. Anybody can smooth over social circumstances. Just don't say anything you want to, you know, be happy with everybody. Have them happy with you. Don't say anything that bothers them. But that isn't the goal here. The goal isn't to compromise social favor for divine favor or divine favor for social. Proverbs says you can have both. In many, perhaps most situations, true wisdom comes to expression in both the horizontal and vertical concerns. Concerns for favor of men and favor with God. After all, it's God himself who tells us to love him and our neighbor as ourself. Psalm 111, verse 10 says, the fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom. Good repute have all they that do his commandments. You begin with the fear of the Lord, you gain wisdom, and then you'll have good reputation with men as you keep his commandments. And about the growth and the development of Jesus as a young man, Luke tells us in chapter two of his Gospel, Jesus advanced in wisdom and age, and in favor with God and men. Wisdom promises you that. Wisdom doesn't promise that everybody's always going to be happy with you. It promises you, though, you can have a good reputation with men and also have the favor of God. So what is the path recommended to us by Proverbs for doing this? How do we gain this dual favor. How can we find a good reputation in the sight of God and men? Verse three is the answer. It offers the guidance we need. It tells us, let not kindness and truth forsake thee. Christians need to be people observed about this. About this piece of instruction is that kindness and truthfulness are not pitted against each other any more than the favor of God and the favor of men are pitted against each other in this passage. But usually we think of kindness and truth as being pulling against one another, don't we? Isn't that true? Being truthful is not, in biblical perspective, a license for insensitivity and unkind remarks. To tell the truth is not to tell it unkindly. So we often think. And on the other hand, being genuinely kind does not require compromising your integrity and not telling the truth. How often have we learned that? It's supposed to be a social grace to be be able to lie and not hurt somebody's feelings. But it's ungodly and it's foolish, and it doesn't show reliance upon the Lord. It calls for trusting yourself. It's the way of the world. Contrary to natural wisdom, which is really foolishness, the way which shows genuine wisdom sees truth and kindness going together. In Hebrews. Excuse me. In Ephesians the fourth chapter, verse 15, we read this expression, speaking the truth in love. You see, the two don't exclude each other, even if choosing to do one without the other is easier. You need to know that love does not mean telling lies, and telling lies is not the way of love. Truth and love complement each other. They don't pull against each other. They don't exclude each other. In verse 25 of Ephesians 4, Paul says, Putting away falsehood, speak truth, each one with his neighbor. And yet Paul concludes the paragraph in which that verse is found in verse 32, by saying, and be kind one to another. Tenderhearted. Speak the truth and be kind and tenderhearted. Truthfulness need not be tough and calloused. It can be tenderhearted, can be kind, even when the truth being communicated is uncomfortable. Notice how often the attributes of tender kindness and faithful truth are joined together in Proverbs. I mean, they go hand in hand. It's like horse and carriage. Proverbs 14:22. Turn to that in your Bibles. Proverbs 14:22 says, do they not err that devise evil, but kindness and truth shall be to them that devise good? Where you may have the translation mercy. I'll explain why in a moment. Proverbs 16, verse 6 by kindness and truth, iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of Jehovah men depart from evil. Proverbs 19, verse 22, where the concept is there, even though the words do not appear exactly that way. That which maketh a man to be desired is his kindness. And a poor man is better than a liar. Don't be a liar, but be a man who is kind. Proverbs 26. Most men will proclaim everyone his own kindness, but a faithful man, who can find him? And then Proverbs 20, verse 28 one more kindness and truth preserve the king, and his throne is upholded by kindness. Kindness and truth. Kindness and truth kind. Now to get these together, you've got to start saying them together. So you think them together and categorize things. Kindness and truth go together. Wisdom calls for that, and how precious and how not be forsaken. Oh, give up any that is to say, they must adorn us. Remember Proverbs 1, verse 9, how children are told that the commandments of their parents shall be a chaplet of grace unto their heads and chains about their necks. And so kindness and truth must adorn our necks so that they are recognizable to others who come into contact with us, and they have to be internalized as well. Remember how Proverbs 2:2 has taught us so incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thy heart to understanding. The heart must feel this kindness and truth. It must be from inside that we obey God and do these things. Just as the law of God is written upon the heart when we by God's spirit obey it with inner conviction, so kindness and truth must be written upon our hearts. By kindness I mean tenderheartedness. The reason for that is that the Hebrew word chesed, the Hebrew word is very difficult to translate into English. In fact, very learned theses have been written on the one question. How should we translate the Hebrew word hesed? How should that come across in our language? It has so many different connotations. For you see, it refers to God's faithfulness and loyalty to his gracious covenant promises. And therefore it shows the loving kindness of God. It shows the loyalty of God. It shows the mercy of God. Perhaps the most general term we can find in English for that kind of attitude and behavior is tender hearted kindness. Loving kindness. For the sake of alliteration, I will call it tender heartedness. Tenderheartedness and truth need to be written upon your heart, must adorn your neck, must never be forsaken in your life. If you're a wise person, it's this word chesed, which is repeated throughout Psalm 136 and the 26 refrains that we find. For his mercy endureth forever. You remember Thanksgiving morning, how we did that in our responsive reading. For his mercy is for his chesed, for his covenant faithfulness, for his loving kindness. For his mercy endureth forever. Let me be very blunt with you brothers and sisters. We so often are not kind people. God has been so kind, so merciful, so faithful, so generous to us. And we do not reflect that. We don't reflect that in the way we deal with one another. We don't reflect that in the way we deal with the members of our family. We don't reflect that in the way we deal with those in our society, but those with whom we work. And yet kindness should be about our neck so that when people think of us, they think, oh, what a kind person he or she is. What is kindness? Well, we go on and on. I'm going to touch just a few facets of it. Where does God's kindness begin? What is God's love if not his generosity? God is a generous God. God is a giving God. He gives and he gives and he gives beyond measure, doesn't he? The Bible says in James the first chapter that we come asking for instance wisdom from God. He gives liberally and doesn't upbraid in the process of doing it. God is a liberal, beneficent, generous being. Are you generous? Are you generous with others? Generous toward their faults, generous toward their needs? Generous in wishing to give of yourself, self sacrificial, putting yourself in the secondary position that others may come first? Are you a generous, kind, tender hearted person? It isn't hard for me to identify in my life and experience those people that when you say generosity I think of. It's a rare trait. But I know generous people, people who have been generous toward us. And I don't mean necessarily in a financial way, but generous with their love, with their understanding, giving people. That's kindness. That's chesed. That's the mercy of God coming to expression in our lives. Are we generous people? Secondly, are we compassionate people? Do we care when others hurt with those who rejoice? Compassion, the word itself means to have the same passion, to have a passion with somebody, to feel along with someone else, to be sympathetic, compassionate, so that you think about what others need and you try to supply it out of your generosity. You are compassionate to people, you do things to help them and you don't do it to manipulate them. Oh, that's the tough part to say, if I do something good, then I know that I either get praise or I get to be one notch up. Or perhaps in the future I will have a reciprocal kindness shown to me. God doesn't bless that way. God doesn't love that way. God loves and he gets walked on and he loves some more. God's compassionate. And we need to learn that if we're to be tender hearted people, we need to be altruistic people, if I can use that word. Altruism means you put the needs and the desires of others ahead of yourself. You are other directed, you are other oriented rather than self oriented, selfish and self centered. And kindness is forgiving. Maybe that tops off the list, doesn't it? Kindness is generous and compassionate and directed toward others. Altruistic. And it's forgiving. You know, when you're learning the three Rs, you find out very soon that education requires unwilling discipline. Unwilling discipline. That's why teachers give homework and enforce it. Why there's a grading technique. It's hard to learn to read and to write and to do your arithmetic. It goes against the grain. It's not something that comes natural to us and friends. Forgiveness doesn't come natural to us either. You will not learn to be a forgiving person without unwilling application. Discipline, hard work, doing your homework. Forgiveness and a forgiving spirit do not come spontaneously. So you're looking at your life today and you're saying, I'm not kind, I'm self centered, I'm not generous, I'm stingy. I'm not directed toward others. I'm directed toward myself and I find it hard to forgive. Well, then you need to pray. Practice kindness. You need to do your homework. Right now, you need to do your homework. I want to ask you to speak out loud for everyone in the classroom this morning. But all of you who are students of wisdom, sons and daughters of the most high, think right now where you have been unkind and unforgiving towards someone. Ask yourself, in what area of my life must I start this very afternoon to start showing some generosity, to start breaking down and being compassionate? And then ask yourself what steps must be taken to accomplish that. Inner resolve is where it starts, but if it ends there, it's no good. How can you become a compassionate person, a generous person toward others? The second T. Tenderness is followed by truthfulness. The Hebrew word emet is the same as our English Amen. And it signifies the attributes of reliability and accuracy and faithfulness, dependability, truthfulness. How can truthfulness come to characterize? Your life. You know, I think in a very real sense, being truthful may be the hardest of the laws given in the sec, what's often called the second table of the law. And you know why? Because to murder someone takes some effort. You got to find an instrument of some sort or some method of choking the life out of them. And you need to find the time when they can't defend themselves. I mean, it takes a little bit of effort. And adultery too. You know, adultery may be glamorous in the eyes of the world and may come spontaneously, but it doesn't, you know, it takes some thought. You know, you have to have a willing partner, obviously, and you have to have the right place and you have to have the right technique and so forth. Adultery takes some work, but, you know, it doesn't take any work to lie. Just comes like that to say what is convenient to get us out of a spot, to say what will help me rather than advance the cause of truth. We learn in our society to have no integrity, to not do what is principled, but to do what fits. And that's why, in addition to kindness, you need to have as well integrity, compassion, which is forged by principle. Oh, find me a person who can speak the truth to me in love. Not a person who can love me and let the truth scamper away. And not a person who can come and pound the truth in me in a way that makes me feel hated. Find me a person who can speak the truth in love. And you found a wise person, a godly person, a trained person, a spiritually mature person, tenderheartedness and truth. What does truth call for? Let's think about some of the aspects of truth this morning. Obviously, it calls for accuracy and we all fall down there. That is to say, we just don't say what is the case, do we? We say things which bend the truth to our own advantage or at least to the advantage of those we're trying to protect or help. We all do that. We are not accurate. You know, an accuracy doesn't simply mean saying outwardly what is exactly the case. It means saying it in such a way as not to mislead someone. You know, if you're very clever at all, you've learned ways to speak what is technically true but will give the wrong impression to people. Isn't that right? You know, that's a great skill in communication. Not great spiritually, but I mean, it's a tremendous skill. The world develops that in us. The ability to say something which if we are called on the Carpet for it. We're innocent, but in our heart of hearts we're as guilty as night. You know very well that we are not an accurate and truthful people. Truth also calls for honesty. Honesty, children, what does that mean when you take an examination at school that you are honest? What does it mean if you adults work for someone and you aren't giving your full effort for those hours you're being paid or you're submitting vouchers for reimbursement that are liberal in your own behalf? Are we honest people? How about our vows? Let me begin with one that's real obvious and one that more and more I'm seeing how much work needs to be done on. That's the marriage vow. How many people do we know who, when things are going tough in marriage, say, but I committed myself and I'm a man of truth, or I'm a woman of truth. I am dependable and reliable. I will keep my vow and not say, but it doesn't feel good or it hurts or it's too hard. Trust and obey. For there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. How many people trust and obey to gain happiness? You know, we get it backwards. We say, let me think, let me find out what appears to give me happiness and that's what I'll follow. And God must certainly approve of my happiness. But how often do I hear that in counseling? It's a disease of epidemic proportions among us that we say, but it won't make me happy to do that, so God couldn't possibly want it. Well, we're going to come to that in just a minute about not leaning on your own understanding. But truthfulness, honesty, integrity means that when I take a vow and I find out that it hurts, I keep it. Psalm 15 who is the man that dwells in Jehovah's holy hill? Who is the one who ascends up the hill of Zion and can go into the temple of God? Only the one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his voice to vanity, who has sworn to his own hurt and changes not. Stop and think about it, friends. Our Christian religion depends upon what promise keeping. If God doesn't keep his promises, Christianity is gone, it's wiped out. There isn't anything for us here. If God is not a promise keeping God, if he is not loyal to his covenant, even when it hurts him, him, even when we have walked on him and we have been disloyal, if God doesn't keep his promises. What hope is there for us? Do you think that anyone can approach unto God then who will not himself keep his promises? God expects fidelity in our hearts, honesty, accuracy, keeping our vows, keeping our promises. And what about truthfulness when it comes to confessing Christ? Is not our silence a sin against the truth? When we don't take a stand for Jesus Christ and the social circumstances, we find ourselves a stand for Jesus Christ in school, a stand for Jesus Christ at work and in our neighborhood. If we do not try to live out our principles of Christianity and profess the name of God when it is called for, we are not living the truth. And walking in the truth is encompassed here too. To walk in the truth is to be people of the covenant, people who identify their lives, their own meaning and significance in terms of God's work and God's requirements. Truthful people, you say. But this is awfully tough, Pastor. You're calling on me to be tender hearted, and I find that hard. And you're calling on me to be truthful, and I'm not sure I have it in me to do that. There's one more T, though. Trust. What does Proverbs say in the fifth verse? Trust in Jehovah with all thy heart and lean not upon thine own understanding in all thy ways. Acknowledge him and he will direct thy paths. Or it could be translated, and he will make your paths straight. You see, wisdom follows God, not ourselves. I didn't ask you this morning to kind of whoop it up inside you. To be tender hearted and to be truthful. You need to be changed. You need to stop relying on yourself, as a matter of fact, and start leaning on the Lord. Trusting in the Lord is set in contrast to leaning upon our own understanding. You get into an awkward social circumstance, an awkward situation at work, a tough time in your marriage. What do you do? You lean on your own understanding. You say, how can I find a way out? What's the best thing to do here? Instead you should say, I trust the Lord. I'm going to be tender hearted and true. I trust the Lord, so I'll just be tender hearted. I won't retaliate. I won't try to be mean, but I will be true. I'm going to do what is good for others and be forgiving and show integrity in my relationships with others. And I'll do it trusting the Lord. Someone comes along and says, you can't possibly do that. What do you mean you're going to tithe when you're not even sure how you're going to pay your bills this month. By trusting the Lord and leaning not on my own understanding. What do you mean? You're going to tell the truth and have people see what you're really like and what you're thinking? By trusting the Lord and not leaning on my own understanding, what do you mean? You're going to be forgiving to that person when they've walked on you? What a risk you're taking by trusting the Lord and leaning not on my own understanding by trusting the Lord being set in contrast to leaning on our own understanding, we find out something about our human nature and its fallen condition. If not leaning on myself is the opposite of trusting in the Lord, that tells me there's something radically wrong inside. I am defective. I am spiritually askew. I'm off track. Human nature is fallen. And that shows us secondly, the necessity of divine revelation. If I am not to trust myself, then I need help from outside. I need God to shine the light. I need God to show the way to direct my paths. And thirdly, it shows that the only true way of rectifying my condition is by getting outside myself and trusting God Faith. When I can't do for myself what is required, my only alternative is to trust the Lord. So here we have a straightforward warning against self deception, against self and against self confidence, and certainly against intellectual pride. Don't don't rely on yourself when you get into a jam, don't rely on yourself. That's how you got into the problem in the first place, isn't it? By letting your own thinking guide your paths and see if that's how you got into the problem. It's not likely to be the way out of the problem. When someone comes to you, be it your pastor or the session, your husband or your wife, your sister or your brother, your friend, a fellow worker. When someone comes to you with biblical counsel that applies to your life, would you please understand that the words well it seems best to me to do this are never appropriate? Don't ever say when someone says God has said for you to do, don't ever say, yeah, but it seems best to me this. That's the problem. God says. But then you say Proverbs says, don't lean on your own understanding, but rather trust the Lord in all things. Don't trust your own heart. Isn't that what most Christians do? We are a lazy lot of people. We are a self serving lot of people. Instead of being students of the scripture and learning daily the discipline of God, we go through life thinking well, I've got this inner gyroscope and I'll just kind of. I'll just kind of feel my way through. And Proverbs condemns you don't trust your heart, lean on the Lord. The Holy Spirit leads us by means of the Word that the Spirit has inspired. He does not lead us by mystical promptings and inner feelings that could have any number of unspiritual causes, not the least of which is Satan, and perhaps the least harmful of which is your stale breakfast cereal. Who knows why you're having those inner feelings? The Holy Spirit directs you to the Word so that you don't trust yourself. You don't think the inner gyroscope has got to be right. You say, no, I trust the Lord. And you know what this teaches us? God must dominate our lives entirely. Isn't it beautiful? Notice what it says here. God must dominate us so that we Trust him with all your heart and acknowledge him in all, all your ways. You see, nothing is excluded from the Lordly domination of God in our lives. Not any aspect of our inner soul. All of our heart, our thinking and our reasoning and our planning and our feeling and our choosing. With all of our heart, we trust the Lord. And there's not any area of our outer behavior that's excluded. We must acknowledge him in all of our behavior, whether it's devotional or vocational or familial or sexual or recreational or financial or political. But in all your ways, acknowledge Him. What that means simply is that he's the Lord. He's the Lord. And no one says, lord, I'm keeping back this part from you. Trust in the Lord with all thy heart. Don't lean on thine own understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge him and he'll make your paths straight. Don't be wise in your own eyes, but fear God. Depart from evil and you know what the outcome will be if we honor God in all of our ways. It will bring us physical health and strength as well as spiritual. The Hebrew says a healed navel and moist bones, which is a very graphic way of saying all of the sin sickness will depart. All of the drying up unto death will go away. And you'll be invigorated, refreshed. You know, it's taken modern science. What a joke. It's taken modern science all this time to figure out that the inner spirit and character of a person affects the outer health. We're just now learning that when people are under stress, their immune system goes down. That's when they get sick. That's when all sorts of things happen when they are not feeling right about themselves and they don't take care of themselves. The outer health is affected for good or ill by what happens inside the Book of Proverbs knew it years ago. Well, we're having a terrible time in our educational system. People all around us are pointing to the dreadful consequences of a progressive education and education that's even more liberal than that. And we look at our society and we see these illiterates all about us and what's the call Back to the three Rs? Reading, Writing and arithmetic. And we have in our churches the spiritual equivalent of that illiteracy. We have very weak, misguided Christians. Things are not good. Our bones are drying up, our navels are afflicted, spiritually speaking. And what we need to do is get back to the three T's to learn to be people who are tender hearted and truthful and what makes all that possible. Trusting God in everything we do. The three T's be a good idea all this week to wake up and think about that today. Am I going to be tender hearted? Am I going to be true? And am I going to trust God for everything I am and will ever be? If you do, it's going to be strength to your body and health to your soul. Let's pray. Lord, drive home to our hearts the lesson of the three T's, Lord, set yourself before us as the model of those very things. Help us to be as generous and as compassionate and as faithful to promise, as accurate and true in all of our ways as you are. Teach us to be like you. Teach us to trust you, to get out of ourselves, to look to you not only for our strength but for our guidance. And oh, drive from us the foolishness of leaning on our own understanding. Drive from us the foolishness of thinking that we can work our way out of our own problems and live our lives by our own lights. No God we walk on, we stumble on in darkness. If you do not shine the light upon our way, we trust you do now make our paths straight and give us healing both spiritual and physical, to your glory and to the benefit of your people. For in Jesus name we pray. Amen.