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Podcast 24

(This is a computer generated transcript of this podcast.  This is NOT a typed transcript and it has not been edited. Expect grammatical and syntactical errors.)

Hello and good day. Good to have you with me. I am B.R.Maul and you are listening to Living God’s Way In An Ungodly World. We do live in an ungodly world. We live in a world that wants to be independent from its maker, and that is why we come together each and every week and we talk about God’s way of doing things.

Because this world is very loud, very boisterous, and is doing everything possible to point God’s children away from him. The ruler of this world, the devil himself hates God’s children, hates God, and pays everything that God has created that he himself cannot have. So again, welcome. It’s good to have you here with me.

This is part two of the topic Fear, which I entitled. Fear is God’s Tool, But The World’s Weapon. As we talked about last week, and we’ll talk more this week and for the next couple more weeks, we’ll see over and over how God uses fear to build up his children and how the world uses fear. People down to do everything possible to enslave people.

The devil loves using fear and as we’ll talk about in the next week or two, how love and fear their polar opposites. And that’s the devil’s way. The devil will take something of God and either go the complete polar opposite, or he’ll lie and lie to try to make it look like what he actually has is the same thing as God.

So as fear grips the human heart, it causes people to look for a way to feel safe and secure. Now evil, those of this world, the evil that resides and rules this world use fear in order to control you. Laced in empty promises, the world delivers a false sense of security. Can you see that today, beloved? Can you see how fear has been driven into countries, societies, and communities around this world? So people will quickly, without hesitating, give up freedoms under the guise that their government, that those who are in power will protect them. Take a look at this pandemic, the Covid 19 and the year 2019.

How around the world it went and country upon country, the leaders jumped on this bandwagon. Delivering the unknown upon their people about what is this Covid-19 and that fear of its killing everybody. If you get it. It’s a death sentence, and we can look back and the righteous can look at the wicked and quite plainly point out that that is so far from the truth over and over again in the news.

The real news, not the fake news. People who would post the truth, and the truth will always come out no matter how much wickedness, the evil of this world is doing everything possible to suppress the truth, and I admit they do a rather good job of it and they pray on the naive, they pray on those who don’t do their homework.

Because, beloved, you need to learn to start digging for the truth. Whatever you do, don’t just turn on your television, hear what they say, and take it as the truth. One. Must not watch it or listen to it and take it as the truth. You need to dig. And what does digging do? Dig to see who is telling the story and if they have anything to gain from the story.

Over the last four years now since the pandemic was declared around the world, those who are telling lies were telling us things that didn’t even accommodate what in the past was and is truth well, such as a lot of people in the medical field never have they prescribed wearing a mask to help prevent the spread of any disease.

Why? Because it doesn’t, studies have showed that catching the viruses, the cells that contain the virus through the mask is like taking a net. The kind that you would use on a tennis court and try to catch thousands and thousands of golf balls. Well, of course some are going to stick. You can look at that, take your mask off and it’s moist, maybe has some snot on it. But see, the dead cells, the snot are large. They’re the ones that will be caught. It’s the ones that are contagious that make it through, that our system does not get that are so small, they go right through the fibers of the mask. So the ones who are covering up the scientific truth are the ones who had something to gain, or they were afraid they had the fear of losing their jobs.

So suddenly doctors, nurse practitioners, even nurses, would suddenly agree and just go with the flow that the politicians that the rulers of the world are saying, go ahead. We need this shot that they call a vaccine. Look back. And they use fear. They used fear to close stores. They use fear to take control over schools.

They used fear they used it and they continue to use fear. Now, before I forget my analogy, those who are telling the truth, they’re the ones who have something to lose. Those were and are the doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, those in the medical field, the scientists who know the truth and understand that it’s the truth that we need to survive.

They’re not in it to make money. They’re not in it to control. They’re the ones who either have or are still threatened to lose their careers, their medical license, their businesses, their reputations. So beloved, if you are a Christian, take the responsibility as we are told, as Christians, put aside your fear, the fear of man.

And place that fear in God and he will guide you. I promise you, you look to God, you fear our God, and he will give you strength. He will give you the wisdom and knowledge of what to do. He will guide you and build you up. Whereas the world if you get so caught up with fearing the world fearing. Your reputation will be tainted, fearing that you will lose your job.

Fearing that people will no longer like you. Fearing that people will disagree with you and say, I don’t like you anymore, and just walk away and no longer invite you to holiday, get-togethers. Fear of all of that. That is fear of the world. God only uses fear to build up those who love him. I ended last week with this little saying that I had put together myself.

To love God is to know him. To know God is to fear him. To fear God is to walk in his ways. To walk with God is to love him. So it goes around and around today. Proverbs will help us. Better understand how our relationship with our loving and Holy Father and our relationship with the world around us affects the fear that is in our life.

There’s no way of getting around fear. It is part of who we are, but how fear affects us depends solely on whether it is in God. Or if our fear is of the world, Proverbs one versus 24 and 33. In Proverbs, wisdom is personified as a woman and this woman is the one who is a explaining herself to you the circumstances and take note how the circumstances are due to the result of the choices that people make.

So with that said, let me start verse 24, because I have called and you refused. I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded because you disdain all my counsel and would have none of my rebuke. I also will laugh at your calamity. Okay, I’ll pause right there. So there’s some stuff going on here.

Wisdom is available to all of us. It’s not a secret. Cults usually make it sound very enticing because they have some secret that no one else knows about, and the knowledge that they have will set you free or make you wealthy or make you live forever. But wisdom is free to everybody. But everybody must make a choice to either pursue wisdom, which we have learned through the discussion and learning of God’s word over these past few months.

That wisdom only comes from God. Now there’s worldly knowledge and we go to universities and you can read books that people wrote and all that. That’s wonderful and there’s some pretty fun knowledge in there, but that’s not wisdom. So, All wisdom comes from God, but wisdom is making it clear that here is a person which represents all lost people.

Here’s a person who has refused wisdom. Even when wisdom has stretched out her hand, no one regarded it, ignored it, and goes even worse. These people disdain. All of wisdom’s counsel and will refuse any rebuke from wisdom. So now with all this behavior, negative behavior from a person who is refusing God’s wisdom, wisdom then says, I also will laugh at your calamity.

I will mock. She says, when your terror comes notice wisdom says, when your terror comes, not if. Why is that? Because we all have terror come to us, some more than others, but terror can easily just be a trial in a person’s life, and for a believer, that’s what it is. For a born again believer, it’s a trial.

There is no terror. Now, I say that boldly because as a born again believer, I certainly have trials and there can be scary moments in my life. Sure. But I don’t have terror. I don’t have fear of the world because I have placed my fear in my Holy Father. I fear him far above what anything the world can do to me.

Continuing on. When your terror comes like a storm and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call on me. But I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. I’ll pause right there. The interesting thing about that is when we’re told they will seek me diligently, They of course, being those who have refused to read God’s word, those who refuse any wisdom, those who refuse the rebuke of God’s children, those who refuse the rebuke of righteousness because they do that, even when seeking wisdom diligently, they will not find wisdom.

An example that I often use when teaching or preaching this particular passage is perhaps when a person loses a loved one and this person does not know God, and even if they are born again, they still don’t know their heavenly Father. So this isn’t just for non-believers, but without the wisdom of God.

That person loses a loved one and suddenly all these emotions that come bearing down upon us when that time happens, there’s no understanding. There’s no wisdom to tie together what is going on. In fact, people will often say things like, I don’t get it. I thought God was loving. How could he do this to me?

Or how could he take such an innocent person away, someone so young. There’s a lot of questions that are suddenly thrown out there, and that quickly reveals the shortcoming of one’s relationship with the living God, because those answers are in the Bible. They are there for all to see, to understand, to consume, and to make a part of you as God’s children.

So that person in this scenario quickly is seeking an answer, what is going on? But they’re not going to find the answer because they’re waiting too late. The terror is already upon them. In situations like this, I quickly pray that a person who does not know God, does not know Jesus Christ as their savior will in fact turn to him.

And accept Jesus Christ as their savior and to know God and to pull in closer to God instead of push God away. So continuing, they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. Well, there’s that word we’ve been talking about fear.

And did not choose the fear of the Lord. Now, to someone outside of Christianity, that can sound silly. Why would you choose to fear the Lord? That fear is that reverent fear. Just like a little child fears, mom and dad knows that mom and dad has the ability to take care of or not take care of that child.

That mom and dad, if that child is misbehaving, can take things away that the child wants, such as dessert, right? Child at the table is misbehaving and complaining about dinner and throwing the thing around, and then suddenly dessert is set on the table. Their eyes light up and ooh, I want some, and mom or dad says, Nope, you don’t get that.

It’s that reverent fear. The child also knows how much mom and dad loves that child and that love is reciprocated. So because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, verse 30, they would have none of my counsel and despise my every rebuke. Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their own way and be filled to the full with their own fancies.

You don’t want to be left to your own ways, Beloved.  Verse 32, for the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. Verse 33. But whoever listens to me as wisdom will dwell safely and will be secure without fear of evil. Without fear of evil. That’s amazing. As we walk with God, as we read his word daily and as we communicate with him, we pray to him daily.

We come before him daily, and when we choose the fear of the Lord, we are told here and I can witness to the fact that we can live secure without fear of evil. Because there is nothing that evil can do that is worse than what God can do. Talk more about that soon. Proverbs two verses 10 through 12. When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you. Understanding will keep you to deliver you from the way of evil. From the man who speaks perverse things. Here, the scene is painted or drawn up. Just a little more different. Cause now here’s a person who is taking in God’s wisdom, who is reading God’s word, who is welcoming the rebuke of wisdom, because that’s what happens when we read God’s word, beloved.

The law is like a mirror. We look at it and it shows us how we can’t do it. We can never make it to heaven. We cannot be our own saviors by trying to keep the law because we are sinful, because we live in a fallen world, because we are fallen without Jesus Christ as our savior. Without the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, the law clearly shows us we can’t do it. And so in Proverbs 2:10, when wisdom enters your heart, now that’s somebody who isn’t just reading the words, like sitting in a high school or college classroom, just reading a book and trying to study it. We can’t study the Bible that way. We can in other ways, such as historically, but you can’t study the Bible with the intentions that the Holy Spirit will decipher it for you until you are doing it with love and you are not using just your eyeballs, you’re using your heart. Cuz when wisdom enters your heart, not our head, our heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul. So now this person is consuming God’s word, and it is pleasant to the person’s soul, their very being.

And it says, discretion will preserve you. Understanding will keep you. So with discretion and understanding, that also shows that not just enjoying God’s word, opening one’s heart, in other words, to God’s word. But when a person uses discretion and understanding, that’s really looking into meditating on it, asking God questions, getting together with other Christians, brothers and sisters in the faith, and talking about it, helping one another to better understand God’s word and applying it to one’s life.

With that verse 12. To deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things getting delivered from evil, from the man who speaks perverse things which the man doesn’t represent. Of course, just one person but represents evil. Perverseness, his chain changing, slanting the truth.

Mutilating God’s word. Wisdom is very important, and listen to this, beloved, please listen to this. Wisdom is very important and is the key in knowing God and defending ourselves against the lies and the evil of this world. Well, you could be thinking right now, well, I thought that was Jesus that did that.

I’m referring and speaking directly to born again believers to my brothers and sisters, because somebody who does not have Jesus as their savior, who is not born again, this does not apply. That person is already lost. There is no hope, and they will fear the world. The world will have control over non-believers.

But there are many Christians who are born again, but they’re not walking with God. They’re not giving God any time. How they became born again, I’m not sure, but that moment of time has passed and enough time has gone on that they have waited into the lust of the world and have lost sight of their love of God.

So with that, wisdom is the key in knowing God. And knowing God is the key to defending ourselves against the lies of this world. Proverbs four verse seven. Wisdom is the principle thing. Therefore get wisdom. And in all you’re getting get understanding. Let’s look at that. It’s blatant. Wisdom is the principle thing. That right there just supports my statement. Cause that’s another way of saying the key thing. This is the principle thing. And so if wisdom is the principle thing, you need it. So it continues on, therefore get wisdom and in all you’re getting get understanding. What does that look like? That looks like as simple as opening.

The Bible that’s getting wisdom. Open your Bible, beloved. Read it. Stop putting it to the side. Get through the temptation of having to watch any evening show, playing any sport, reading any other books, anything. Whatever it is, find something in your busy life. Drop it, get rid of it, and in its place, put time to read the Bible.

Now, doing the right thing, beloved, is a choice. You do not have to be evil, wicked, or of this world because even if you’re born again, you can backslide and become evil, become wicked, and become of this world. So don’t think just because you’re born again, that you’re done, it is wisdom. That is the key.

That is the principle thing to keeping you off the path of wickedness and keeping you on the path of righteousness. But it’s a choice. If you are born again, it’s a choice. And if you’re not born again, please hear me, it is a choice. If you are not born again, you have that choice. You have the choice to turn to God as soon as you feel that Holy Spirit tugging at you.

Whether it’s this message, whether it’s a sermon, whether it’s a song, whether it’s at a funeral, whether it’s at a, a wedding, whatever situation you may be in, the Holy Spirit chooses certain times and tugs at us. Jesus is knocking at your door of your heart. You must answer. It is a choice. You do not have to live wickedly. You do not have to be a slave to sin. You do not have to fear this world. You don’t have to fear the globalist. You don’t have to fear losing your job, losing your home, losing even your life because you will have placed your fear in God and not of anything of this world. Proverbs four 14 and 15. Here is what I mean by a choice.

Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it. Do not travel on it. Turn away from it and pass on. That’s pretty simple, right? For Born again believers, just turn your view to the Lord. Get that wisdom by reading his word. Do not stop and you can easily make this choice.

If you are lost,  if you are not born again, well then it is time to repent, to confess the Lord Jesus. And in your heart believe that God has raised them from the dead. Then you’ll be born again. And when you are born again, you too can make these easy decisions. Let me read it one more time. It’s like little warning signs.

Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of evil. Well, what does that look like? Don’t start doing wicked things. Don’t hang out with people who are doing wicked things, who are already walking the path of wickedness themselves, who are walking in the way of evil. Don’t join them.

Stay away from anything that keeps you from looking upon God. Stay away from sin. And verse 15, avoid it. Do not travel on it. Avoid it. Think about avoiding something or someone you ever get with a group of family and friends, and perhaps there’s somebody there that for whatever reason you’re trying to avoid them.

Well, what do you do? You don’t look their direction. You walk around, make a wide girth around them. You do not engage in conversation. You avoid them. Now, as a Christian, I would hope that one isn’t doing that because that would be of course, harboring hatred or anger in your heart. But I have covered that in other podcasts, and we’ll talk more about that in future podcasts.

But we’re talking about walking in the path of evil and wickedness. Just avoid it. Turn away. It says, turn away from it, and pass on. Say, turn away. Don’t look at it. Keep moving on. Keep your eyes on God. Keep your eyes on the righteousness. How do you do that? How do you not enter the path of awaken? How do you not walk in the way of evil?

How do you avoid it and not travel on it? How do you turn away from evil and move on? The answer isn’t very far. Go to Proverbs four versus 20 through 27. It reads My son. This is King Solomon writing it, but this is the Lord God speaking to us. My son. Give attention to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings.

There’s a lot of action words here, beloved. Give attention, incline your ear. Verse 21. Do not let them depart from your eyes. Hmm. What does that mean? It means keep reading it. Keep them more action in the midst of your heart. Verse 22, for they, again, these are the words of God for they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh.

Now there’s something, it’s even health to our flesh, not just our soul, cuz our soul and our flesh. Are connected. They have a symbiotic relationship. Verse 23, keep your heart with all diligence. There’s keep, that’s intentional. Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it. Spring. The issues of life keep is protecting here.

So we could also say protect your heart with all diligence. Being diligent is being very careful. It’s not just doing whatever, Christian, you need to stop just listening to whatever kind of music you want to listen to, because there’s music out there that’s not good for us to be listening to. It’s not protecting your heart, it’s letting it in and become a part of you.

What you watch with your eyes, Christian, stop watching. Just whatever you want. Use diligence, use caution. The Holy Spirit is tugging at you saying, don’t do it or stop doing it, then don’t do it, or stop doing it because all the stuff that we do, that we listen to, that we watch, all of that becomes a part of who we are.

It stays in our hearts. And as King Solomon says in verse 23, for out of it, the heart spring, the issues of life. Some people have this notion that they, for some reason, can do what others can’t do. They can go ahead and watch whatever they want to watch, listen to whatever they want to listen to, hang around with whoever they want to hang with, do whatever they want.

But you know what? It won’t affect me. Yes, it will. And when it talks of spring, the issues of life, a person can’t help it. Watch movies or shows that there’s a lot of swearing and cursing and hang around family and friends, beloved, that swear and curse and think, you’re not going to do it. You’re wrong. And I say that out of pure love, you are wrong because it will spring out of your heart.

Verse 24, put away from you a deceitful mouth and put perverse lips far from you. Notice that in proverbs to verse 12, that one reads to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things. So that perverseness, we want to avoid. Putting away from you a deceitful mouth that’s lying and put perverse lips far from you, that’s mutilating the truth.

That is bending things to fit one’s lusts thoughts, what they say. So if you’re saying perverse things and if you’re being deceitful, it’s evil. Verse 25. Let your eyes look straight ahead and your eyelids look right before you. Hmm. Well, what does that mean? Well, that’s the analogy of walking the pathway of life when we’re walking the pathway of life.

Hopefully you’re on the path of righteousness and on the pathway of righteousness. You should be looking straight ahead because on either side to the left and to the right, there’s evil all over that wants to get your attention, that wants to pull you off that path of righteousness, which it hates. The devil can’t stand it. The devil just thrives on getting everybody that he can off of the path of righteousness. But keep your eyes straight ahead and your eyelids look right before you. So even if you gotta close your eyes for a few seconds, you keep pointing straight ahead so you don’t get off that path.

Verse 26, ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the left or to the right. Remove your foot from evil. It’s a choice, beloved. It is a choice. You can remove your foot from evil if you are born again. If as a born again believer you are looking to God, if you have placed your fear in God, you can remove your foot from evil.

If born again, beloved, you can turn to your God. And fear him. And God will use that fear as a tool to strengthen you in times of trial, to bring you closer to him in times of need. Or you can stay focused on the world and fear the world. Fear losing your job if you don’t abide by the lies that they make you do.

I applaud those doctors and nurses during the pandemic that said, no, this is wrong. No, I’m not doing it. And their life was turned upside down, but they weren’t going to let fear rule them, at least not the fear of the world. Fear losing your home. Fear what others are saying about you. Fear not being invited to holiday gatherings because those people don’t want you around because you’re a goody two shoes.

You follow the law, you do the right thing, but if you fear the world, you’re going to do whatever it takes to try to stay in the world’s acceptance category. Beloved, the world does not use fear the way God uses fear. Look around you, listen and watch the real news, and even though it’s happening to other people, it’s coming to you.

The world will cut you down and beat you down into submission with fear until you’ve had enough. You just want your comforts of life back. You just want your money back. You just want your job back. You just want a good reputation and it doesn’t matter because if you have that stuff through the world, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

It’s not real. They’re all promises that are empty. Because you see, those are all promises from the devil himself. He has trained his demons over the centuries very well, and even though it’s the people, it’s flesh and blood that’s often mocking and ridiculing those who are righteous. It’s the flesh and blood that is lying and covering up scientific facts so they can make money and keep their own jobs.

Even though it’s flesh and blood, it’s people. Remember, we are up against powers, powers, and principalities of this world. Beings in the spiritual world that we don’t see that are doing this. Evil people have choices. Yes they do. But remember, it’s the devil who is the father of all lies. He hates God. He hates Jesus, but Jesus already defeated him.

He can’t defeat Jesus. So he turns to those that Jesus loves, and he will either do everything he can to prevent them from being saved by filling them full of lies, misleading them, thinking that they are born again, that they’re saved, but they’re not. Or for those who are born again, he will do everything to make you miserable, to make you so worthless for God’s kingdom because you will just curl up and hide from the world.

I’m going to end with Psalm 119: 120. My flesh trembles for fear of you. That’s capital Y, capital you as in God, and I am afraid of your judgments. That’s a person who fears God. One more time. My flesh trembles for fear of you. And I am afraid of your judgments, placing your fear in God above the living God, beloved, he won’t let you down.

No way. He loves you so much. Look to him. Place your fear in him. And the two weeks yet to come, we will be looking at two different books. We’ll be looking at the book of First John and the book of Matthew for more information about fear, because yes, fear is real. Fear affects all of us. If I can be of any help, please go to my website, brmaul.com, that’s brmaul.com.

Click on contact, send me an email. I will get back to you. Whatever I can do to help. If it’s prayer, answer any questions that you may have, some guidance. I’ll do whatever I can or point you to the right place in God’s word. I pray that you do open God’s word daily, that you’re praying to our loving God daily meeting with Christians, brothers and sisters in Christ on a regular basis.

And worshiping the Lord. Sing praises to the Lord. He loves you so much. If you can support this ministry, it is very much so appreciated. Again, just go to the website, brmaul.com, click on support this ministry, or the button, donate and there are different ways for you to do that, and certainly pray for me. Pray for my family. And pray for all who hear my voice, that as they listen to God’s message to them that they open their hearts.

And until next time,

God bless.

Songs

“Heroes Inspire Hope” and “Mountainscape” by Humans Win

“Piano Dream” by we20fifty

“Untold Days” by Giuseppe Rizo

“Floating-Ethereal and Fast Minimalist Piano with Soft Melody for Light Drama” by Gerardo Garcia Jr.