Proverbs chapter 29 tonight, reading from verse 13 through 17. Verse 13 through 17. Last week we covered verses 8 through 12. We titled that Wisdom and Foolishness. Tonight there's four different subjects and five verses, but I'm just going to title it The Rod and Reproof. He says here, beginning in verse 13, He said, the poor and the deceitful man meet together, the Lord lighteneth both their eyes. The king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increases, but the righteous shall see their fall. Correct thy son and he shall give thee rest. Yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul. Heavenly Father, we do thank you tonight again for this privilege in the middle of the week. We thank you for your love and mercy to us. We thank you for the safety you've given to each of us this week. We just pray now, Lord, for thy will to be done. We pray for thy presence to be with us. And Lord, we pray that you'd teach us by thy word and thy spirit. We ask all of these things in Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen. Again, there's four different subjects and five verses here. We just titled this, The Rod and Reproof. And notice with me as we read in verse 13 again. He says here in verse 13, he said, the poor and the deceitful man meet together. The Lord lighteneth both their eyes. We find here in this passage when he talks about them meeting together. We know what the poor is, that's the needy man or woman. And the deceitful here would be the oppressive man, especially a lender or creditor in this particular case. This would be the oppressed and the oppressor, or the poor and the rich, or the poor and the usurer. And I never say that word right, but you know what it means. But notice with me, we found that they meet together. I want you to turn with me to the New Testament, hold on there, and Proverbs, and notice in Matthew chapter five, Now, when he says they meet together, I believe what he's saying here, what this means is that both need mercy and both need salvation. In other words, God will give each of them light if they will come unto him. Now, I believe that's what it's saying. And we would see an example of this with Lazarus and Zacchaeus. But notice as we come to Matthew 5, and I'd like to read from verse 44 and verse 45. 45 is the one I want to focus in on. He said in verse 44, but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. And that's the opposite of what the world tells us to do. Then he says in verse 45, and this is the verse I want to connect with our text in Proverbs, he said, "...that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven, for He maketh His Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Do you realize Today that those that are lost in our community got the same sunshine, got the same weather that we got today. God was gracious to them. He was gracious to us. And that's the ideal here in our text is that we find that as the sun shineth upon both, God will meet with both, God will save both, that's the ideal. And again, we'll see this and I'll just give you the passage and you can write it down in Luke 16, 22. It speaks of Lazarus. We know that he was a poor man, and Luke chapter 19, verse 9, Zacchaeus was a publican, was a tax collector, probably a more wealthy man, and we find that they both found mercy and salvation in the presence of the Lord. We'll go back with me to Proverbs, and he says again in verse 13, he said, the poor and the deceitful. Again, that's the deceitful here in this passage, deceitful man would be again the oppressor or the creditor. He said, the poor and the deceitful man meet together. The Lord lighteneth both their eyes. In other words, again, both need salvation and mercy, and God will give that to either one. Now notice with me as we come to verse 14. This is a subject that has come up many times throughout the book of Proverbs, again, dealing pretty much with civil government. And he says here in verse 14, the king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever. And in other words, if a king will truly execute justice and judgment, especially to the poor, should be to all rich and poor, but in this case, especially to the poor, his throne shall surely be secure. Now, we've seen this. As a matter of fact, in this chapter, we've already seen two verses dealing with kings and rulers. In verse 4, he said, The king by judgment, that is, upright decisions. The king by judgment establishes the land, but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it. In other words, he's comparing the righteous king with the unrighteous. The unrighteous would receive bribes and would not bring about justice. We also found last week, as we were closing out, it said in verse 12, if a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked. And again, all through this book, if you want to write some of these verses down, chapter 20 and verse 28, it deals with the king and righteousness. Chapter 16 and in verse 12, and one other passage is chapter 25, and in verse 5. I want you to turn with me to Jeremiah, and notice with me in Jeremiah chapter 22. Jeremiah chapter 22. The book of Jeremiah is centered around the children of Israel, and it's centered around Jeremiah preaching to them and many rejected his word and they ended up in captivity for 70 years in Babylon. You'll find that as you read through these few chapters here in the context that talks about Jerusalem being destroyed, but notice what he says as we come to verse 22, chapter 22 rather, verses 1 through 4. I want to read these verses in dealing with what a king should do. And if you take a note, Psalms 72 verses 1 and 2 will also speak on this as well. Again, this has to do with dispensing justice to all, the rich and poor, as God does. Notice verse 1, Thus saith the Lord, Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, that sitteth upon the throne of David, thou and thy servants and thy people that enter in by these gates. Thus saith the Lord. Now here's what he's telling the king, he's telling the rulers. He says, execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoil out of the land of the oppressor, and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. Verse 4. For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he and his servants and his people. In other words, he's saying to the king, you do right and God's blessings will be upon you. Notice also in chapter 23 of Jeremiah, and this here is talking about the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And keep in mind it's Solomon that wrote the book of Proverbs, and he was a king for many years, and so he speaks of kingship often. In Jeremiah chapter 23, you'll notice with me as we come to verse 5 and 6, this is messianic, it's speaking of Christ as a king and how that he will judge. It says in verse 5 and 6, Jeremiah 23, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise up unto David a righteous branch and a king, shall reign and prosper, now notice this, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and this is his name whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. So kings need to take note and reign as the Lord Jesus Christ would. Now go back with me. Notice back as we come. to chapter 29 again, and reading verse 14 one more time. And these are good verses, and again, there are many, several chapters, several verses, and we've got at least four or five sermons just on kings and rulers just in our Proverbs series. So verse 14, the king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever. Now, notice with me as we come to verse 15. Now, verse 15 and verse 17 kind of tie together, but we'll just keep these in order as we're doing. But notice in verse 15, and this is where I took the title from, because we got two verses here, verse 15 and 17 are speaking of the same thing. He said in verse 15, the rod, and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. Beginning, I'll get to this in a moment, verse 17 said, Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest, yea, and he shall give delight unto thy soul. Now this is another subject that has come up many times in the book of Proverbs. We only have about, what is it, Isabella, about 180 sermons so far, and hopefully we'll get through with this in a few months. But we have about 180 sermons, so we've preached at least between 10 and 15 sermons just on the home, dealing with fathers, dealing with mothers, husbands and wives, and dealing with the children. And so we find in this passage in verse 15, he speaks of the rod and reproof. We find that both give wisdom. And both are essential to given wisdom and to drive away foolishness. We'll see that as we put a few verses together. He said, the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. So let's talk about the rod and reproof just for a moment. The combined influence of these two is God's way and it's a wonderful balance. And sometimes reproof is not enough. Many times it's not enough and the rod is needed. And this involves, when we talk about the rod and reproof, this involves correction and chastisement. Now, notice as we turn, I want you to back up with me to chapter 19, and I'll just briefly read these. We've covered these. Again, I wrote down because I'm thinking, how many sermons? Do we have, just in Proverbs, not counting over the last 34 and a half years in the church that we've preached otherwise, but just in Proverbs, here's just a few. We've got one, fathers and children in chapter four. We got one title in chapter 10, verse one, distress parents and wayward children. We got one in chapter 13, verse 24, spare the rod and spoil the child. Chapter 17, verse 6, we got one we titled, Families Crowned with Glory. And then chapter 22, in verse 6, Train Up a Child. All of us know that verse and probably got it memorized. Chapter 22, in verse 15, we're going to read both of these, Foolishness is Bound in the Heart of a Child. That was the title of the sermon we preached. And again, there's others. And then in 2003, we wrote an article and 2007 preached the sermon, The Rod of Correction. That's an article we have in the library. As a matter of fact, Dr. Bob Jones Sr. said to a lady who asked him to pray for her son, he said, my praying won't take the place of your whipping. And so I put that quote on front of the article. I said, that'll work. Now, let's talk about the rod, first of all. And it is to be used when reproof fails. When we talk about reproof, we're talking about correction, rebuke, we're talking about words, pointing out faults, teaching, training, we could use a multitude of synonyms. So we have these two means by which we train children. But he mentions the rod first, so let's look at just a few verses. Notice in chapter 19, we'll be reading in chapter 19. And you say, what is the rod? Well, the woods are full of them. The woods are full of them. They come in all sizes, shapes, and colors. And you could call them sticks, switches, limbs, whatever you want to call them. You got them for every size. If they're one year of age, you can get a little switch. And as they grow older, you can get bigger ones out there. But God has designed this purposely, and he's given us everything that we need. And so they're all sizes. Now, notice as we come here, and I'm gonna be reading chapter 19, and in verse 18, we'll just give you just a few verses, make just a few comments on this. You've heard me say this before, but we had a young man. He was basically grown, but I think he was probably about 18, 19 years of age at the time. He was in our church, and the family used to sit back here. And I was preaching on this. I think it was when I actually preached the sermon dealing with the rod of correction. And what I did, I went into the woods and got several different sizes. I got little, little small, and then a little bit longer and a little bit longer. And I got one was about half the length of this choir loft wall back here. It was long. I left the leaves and everything on it. And so I went through and I said, now this is for this age. Hold up one of the switches. I said, now this is for this age. Another one for another age. And I pulled that one out, and it was long. It was probably 10 feet long. And I put it over my shoulder and stepped back to the pulpit, and I said, and this, and I called his name, and I said, this is for young men like this one right here. But God has given us everything that we need. Now, notice with me as we, Come here to chapter 19 and verse 18. Now, here's the thing. We're not talking about any kind of abuse. We're not talking about that. Now, the Bible uses the word, we're gonna see, the Bible uses the word beating a child. It's not talking about abuse at all. And this thing can be overdone or underdone. And it can be done in the wrong way and attitude. You can whip a child. If you whip a child out of anger, you've done, blown it with that child. And so it can be underdone. There are those that say, oh, I love my child too much to whip it. They're lying. God, I'm going to show you that God says otherwise. Then there are others go to the extreme with whipping their children. And you're going to destroy that child if you do either one of them, or if you whip a child out of anger. And I'll tell you this, if you have to tell a child to do something more than twice, your child is not well trained. I'm just going to tell you that right now. Now notice with me in chapter 19 and in verse 18. See, expository teaching, and that's what we do on Sunday night and Wednesday night, we do topical on Sunday morning, you get to cover everything, see. You can't be accused of picking out passages you like. You're gonna come to it. Like in our series and Mark and Timothy and whatever, God's just dealing with everything. So cover every aspect of our lives. He said in verse 18 of chapter 19, chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crime. In other words, do the proper training, the proper discipline and chastisement. And it says here, and let not thy soul spare for his crime. Don't let that change your mind about whether you should whip him. Because who knows, he may grow up to be a song leader or preacher and he's gonna need that voice. Notice with me as we turn to chapter 22 and verse 15. Chapter 22 and in verse 15. And here's a good reason why that we need to discipline our children. Again, we'll talk about the reproof in just a moment. Reproof should be the first, thing that we do, and the rod comes secondly. Here's one of the reasons that this has to be done. He said this in verse 15 of chapter 22, and I guarantee most of you parents have this memorized in training your children. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. That's why he said The rod and reproof, both of these, bring wisdom. But in this passage, it also drives away foolishness. And when he says that foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, it's a strong hold. It is there. And a lot of people think their children are little angels. This is in every child. Now, there are some easier to train than others. We all know that. but it's bound in the heart of a child. And so, now notice with me also in chapter 23. In chapter 23, I'm gonna be reading verse 13 and in verse 14. And there's other passages, I just picked out a few. And if you're taking notes tonight, chapter three, verses 11 and 12, the rod of correction is a token of love. Now God says that, God says that because God chastens his children. How many belong to God tonight? Okay, listen to chapter three, verse seven, and I'm gonna be reading in verse 11 and 12. It says, and this is quoted, by the way, in Hebrews 12, verses five through 11, great commentary on this. Chapter 3 is speaking of God's children, you and I. He said, We find that the rod of correction and the reproof is a token of love. Hebrews 12, I just gave you, and especially verse 10 and 11, it tells us that the rod yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness and also produces holiness. Now notice here in chapter 23, I'm reading verse 13 and 14. Withhold not correction from thy child, for if thou beateth him, he's not talking about abuse, this is just the way God says it. For if thou beateth him with a rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with a rod and shall deliver his soul from hell. See why people want to get away from the King James Bible. Find something a lot lighter. Now go back with me to our text. Go back to chapter 29. And he says here in verse 15, he said, The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. So now think about this. The rod, we know what that is. It speaks of discipline and chastisement. Reproof speaks of correction. Again, words. It can be rebuke. It can be pointing out faults and sins and discrepancies. It has to do with teaching and training. I should have told you to hold on chapter 22. I'm going to read a verse on training. Go back with me to chapter 22 in verse 6. And if you're taking notes on this word reproof, You'll find that in chapter 12, I'll do this first, chapter 12 in verse one. Now listen to this carefully. Whoso loveth instruction, loveth knowledge, but he that hateth reproof is brutish. We also find in chapter 15 on this subject of reproof. In chapter 15 and in verse five says, a fool despises his father's instruction, but he that regardeth reproof is prudent. He also says in the same chapter in verse 10, Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way, but he that hateth reproof shall die. He goes on to say in verse 31 and 32 of this chapter, the ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise, but he that refuses instruction despises his own soul, but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding. So this word reproof has the ideal of teaching and training. Now notice in chapter 22 in verse six, when we came to this passage, we spent a whole sermon on this. And we titled it, Train Up a Child. And notice as we come here to verse six, it says, train up a child in the way it should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. I gave you about four different views on this passage. Mine, I'll tell you mine in just a moment, but there's four different views on this. And there's some people even think that, you know, if you train them right, they can go wayward for the next 50 years, but they'll eventually come back. There are people, you know, that teach that. But here's what I believe about the passage. train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. That's what I believe about it. I do, I believe that. And if we fail in that, we just need to say we did and keep praying for our children and whatever, but that's just what I believe about it. Well, notice back with me as we turn to chapter 29, verse 15 again. Verse 15 again, and by the way, how do we train? There's at least three ways. You may come up with some other synonyms. We train by instruction, that is speaking to them. We've already talked about that, reproof. We also train by discipline. We've talked about that with the rod. But we also train, and I think this is one of the most important ways, and that's by example. You're not going to say one thing to your children and do otherwise and ever accomplish anything. What you teach them, you better live. And what you say to them, you better live that. You better be the example before them. because your example's probably gonna be much louder than the words and even the rod. All right, now notice in verse 16 as we come to this passage. By the way, one other one on this, there's many. Revelation 3.19, the Lord again and his people. He says, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Then he goes on and talks about repentance in the passage. Now we come to, let me finish up verse 15, there's still another thought here. The latter part of this, the second clause says, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. And this is so true, isn't it? Child left to himself. In other words, he's not trained, he's not disciplined, he's not been taught. And it says, bringeth shame to his mother. Now, this would be true of the father as well. We find passes in Proverbs, you wanna write a few down, chapter 10 in verse one, we preach an entire sermon on chapter 10 in verse one, we title it, Distressed Parents and Wayward Children. And also in chapter 17, I'm gonna give you two verses in that chapter, verse 21 and verse 25. Now this affects both the father and the mother, but sometimes the emphasis is upon the mother. And I believe it is on the mother here because as one other writer put it, he said, she is the chief superintendent of the early discipline. In other words, as a man has to work, the mother is with the child much more than a man is. Now, a man needs to play a part. The husband and father play a part in training children. But you know yourself, just look at some children acting up in the grocery store, and what's your first thought? Well, I feel for that mother. I'd like to talk to that mother. You know, that's the first thought a lot of times, bring the mother to shame. And that is so true. Well, notice in verse 16, he says, when the wicked are multiplied, now think about this verse, when the wicked are multiplied, as in Noah's day, when you began reading in Genesis chapter six and verse one, you'll find the sons of God married the daughters of man. This is two different belief systems that he's talking about in the passage. and of marrying those who are not believers, that's the concept there. And wickedness was growing by leaps and bounds in the days of Noah. And he says here in verse 16, he said, when the wicked are multiplied, transgression increases, but the righteous shall see their fall. Again, in the days of Noah, the wicked men were multiplied. And what did God do? He destroyed all but eight. He destroyed probably millions of people at that time. Again, from Adam to Noah, at least 1600 years. And so we would see it then, we would see this truth again at the Tower of Babel. We see it in Sodom and Gomorrah. In other words, let's read it again. When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increases. That makes good sense, don't it? It's gonna happen. And the same is true with America, with our own country. We see transgression increase as people become more wicked and disregard the word of God. But notice what he said in closing. Now again, you can write down Genesis 6. I'm going to say verses 1 through 12. I mean, God speaks of the wickedness and the righteousness of Noah and the wickedness of the men and women at that time and destroyed the whole world with a flood. Again, in Genesis 11, 8, the Tower of Bible. And then in Genesis 15, 16, there's another illustration given there to Abraham of a nation that would eventually be destroyed. The latter part of verse 16, he said, the righteous shall see their fall. Noah saw the fall of the wicked and a good verse to write down in Psalms 37-36 the righteous will see the fall of the wicked eventually. Now verse 17 we'll read this and we'll close and notice what he said in verse 17 and again this ties with verse 15 he says, Correct thy son and he shall give thee rest. Isn't that true? Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest, yea, and he shall give delight unto thy soul. The word rest here has the ideal of peace. ease of mind, satisfaction, comfort. You could add a lot of other synonyms. And the word delight, delighting the soul, that's just a very special pleasure that we have when we see our children, grown children walking with the Lord, young or grown, that they're walking with the Lord. Correct thy son, he shall give thee rest, and he shall give delight unto thy soul. Well, we'll stop right here and we may finish the chapter next week. Would you stand with me, please? Father, again, we thank you tonight for your love, your mercy, your kindness to us. We thank you for the salvation you have given to us through Jesus Christ. And Lord, we thank you for your word that we can know how to live and how to follow you, how to serve you, and even how to raise our children. And we ask all of these things in our Lord and Savior's name. Amen.