Proverbs 13:9-12 says and a new president-elect

We wake up this morning to a new president-elect.  I knew I would be typing and saying this but I just didn't know who it would be but now we know.  Donald Trump is the winner and no doubt there will be about half of the nation happy and half of the nation sad as in past elections.  No matter the results, as Christians we were going to wake up this morning and do what we have done every morning regardless the outcome and continue to pray.  Let us pray that we will continue to pray that our elected officials acknowledge God and the commandments of His Word, for their salvation, and the wisdom to follow God's counsel that we have been looking at lately in the book of Proverbs.  I found myself on my knees last night or rather early this morning asking God to guide the churches of America to be churches of God and doing what churches of God do more than ever before.  May our focus change from who is in the White House to who we are to witness to of our great God who sent His One and only Son to die on the cross for our sins.  We show love to Him as we show the greatest love to others by telling them the gospel and showing its effects with our very lives.  No duty is greater than that for those who bear the name "Christian."

Today's verses are Proverbs 13:9-12, which read,

v.9 - The light of the righteous rejoices, but the lamp of the wicked goes out.

What is within the one who follows after God doesn't go out because it is not fueled by oneself but the One who can't be extinguished.  The light of God is eternal but the false light of Satan will go out.  It is the fulfillment of God's plan from the beginning that evil will end some day.  Those who do not follow after God do have some type of light for a time but it is extinguishable and will be snuffed out by God's holy righteousness against sin.

Light shines and so it is something of action that brings rejoicing or gladness.  The lamp, the temporary vessel to contain some light, of the wicked will go out or dry up.  The light of the righteous can not be contained to a container but is to reside within His followers to be shown to others.  "Hide it under a bushel, NO!, I'm going to let it shine."

v.10 - Through insolence comes nothing but strife, but wisdom is with those who receive counsel.

Insolence is to be boiling with pride, arrogant and rebelliously proud.  This type of life brings nothing but strife or contention or a struggle.  These are those who reject the wisdom of God and His counsel.  Instead of being proud, the follower of wisdom gets wisdom as he or she receives or accepts God's plan for life.  We don't just follow God's wisdom we obtain it as we apply these practical proverbs to our lives.  All of us are acting on something.  Are we acting upon our own pride and plan?  It will end in a struggle.  Are we acting upon God's wise plan and humble to receive it?  It will end in more of God's wisdom and more godly counsel to receive and follow.

v.11 - Wealth obtained by fraud dwindles, but the one who gathers by labor increases it.

We all receive things in this world but the question is to how we inquire it.  Do we receive wealth or substances by fraud?  Do we obtain that wealth through practices that are vain and prone to change as readily as your next breathe?  Or do we receive wealth by labor, by the work of your hands?  We put our hands doing what is tried and true and it results in greater wealth.  It matters to God how we earn what we have.

Another way to look at this is the time element.  We want to get rich quick.  The wealth that God wants us to have requires slow and gradual working of our hands.  A cross reference to this proverb is Proverbs 20:21 which reads, "An inheritance gained hurriedly at the beginning will not be blessed in the end."

v.12 -  Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

Hope of eternal value is in the Lord Jesus Christ.  When we defer that Hope and put it off for another day it makes our heart sick.  The word for sick combines weakness, profane, and twisted.  We are spiritually sick because we have rejected the only Hope that can make us spiritually well.

The Hope of eternal value, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the fulfillment of the desire of eternal value.  We receive the tree of life, salvation, our eternal presence in His presence.  Tree refers to wood and the idea of a door that is able to be shut because you have entered into some place.  There is no greater fulfillment in life than to act now upon the Hope that brings salvation.  

That Hope is light that is not extinguishable and that Hope gives wisdom and counsel and that Hope is displayed in our work and how we work and that Hope brings fulfillment now and forever.  It reminds me of the song by a Baptist minister named Edward Mote in 1834.  "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.  I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name.  On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand."  Let's pray.

"Lord we want to get rich quick. We want to defer what is ultimately good for us to obtain something that is inferior and extinguishable.  Why?  May we see the eternal value of Your love and Your words.  May we obtain what You are giving by humbling ourselves to receive and apply it through steady hands of faithfulness to Your plan.  May our hope now be in You.  Amen."

Pastor Adam