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The purpose of preaching is to help people out of their situations, and the purpose of teaching is to help people avoid getting into those situations in the first place. We need a good dose of both. There's nothing more refreshing than being bound by something and someone preaching you out of it and into God's glory. But there's also something special about teaching that sticks with you and causes you to not fall into the same old traps again and again. I have been in and around churches where the pastor always preached and never taught, and those churches tended to be very unstable and volatile situations. They would have awesome revivals with people getting the Holy Ghost and their "breakthroughs" all of the time, but on the flip side, their retention rate of converts was very small, and truthfully they needed to be preached out of situations more than was probably needed, because a little teaching would have helped them avoid the trap altogether! I've also been in churches where it was all teaching and such people tended to know what they believe and be fairly stable, but usually had lost their passion and zeal for reaching the lost. A perfect church would have a perfect blend of both. We need preaching. We need teaching. They are not in competition with one another, but both are working together for the same cause: to get people to heaven!

The book of Proverbs is the book of teaching and instruction in the Bible. The majority of it was written by the wise man Solomon and it provides insight into everyday living in dose size format. To use modern vernacular, it's a book of "one liners." And while perhaps the translation from Hebrew to English has reduced the "zing" or "zip" of the play on words and such, the truths that they convey are just as real and as needed today as in ancient Israel. The key word of Proverbs is "wisdom" and that is what Godly guidelines and teachings applied to ones' life is called and the object of Proverbs according to Solomon is so that we might learn and gain wisdom. That said, the book of Proverbs is hard to teach, because there seems to be no real division or continuity to the book. Almost every verse jumps to a different subject and so while there is some overlapping of subjects, the verses and one liners that go together are scattered throughout the book. Because of this, most preachers just tend to use a verse here and there from the book and never really any dedicated study of all of the content.

There is one part of the book, however, that does take a somewhat structured format. It's found where we read our text in chapter 22 and scholars have long taken note that here for a moment, Solomon changes focus and pauses for a moment to introduce the next section of wise sayings and principles that he is about to give. And then the saying that follow have a little more information and slightly more detail than others. Some think that this special section of the book was written to prepare Solomon's son for the throne and thus the special emphasis. Others think that these are the principles that Solomon thought the most important to grasp to live Godly in everyday living. Whatever the reason, Solomon wanted the reader to get something special out of and pay close attention to this part of the book.

It's not obvious in the King James Version that this is a special section because there is some controversy over a word in Proverbs 22:20. In our text we read it as:

The word in question is the Hebrew word for "excellent" here. It can mean "excellent" so there is nothing wrong with this translation, but it can also mean "a great threeness" or to our modern day minds "thirty." And many scholars have noted that immediately following this verse, Solomon just happens to give thirty wise principles with which he places special emphasis. That is why the New Revised Standard Version, the New International Version and many other translations translate these verses something like this:

And then in verse 22, he starts the thirty wise sayings. What I would like to do, is to take a few lessons -- there's no way to cover them all in one service -- and teach on these thirty principles. This is the Solomon plan to being smarter. From our text we find that learning these thirty principles will:

1. Cause our life to be more pleasant (Prov 22:18).

2. Be fitted in our lips, or already be there when we need them (Prov 22:18).

3. Cause us to trust in the Lord more than anything else (Prov 22:19).

4. Help us to know the words of truth (Prov 22:21).

5. Make us able to answer others with truth when they ask our opinion (Prov 22:21).

The latter is important because in our other text we are commanded to:

Apostolic Christians ought to be known for their wisdom and wise answers and actions. We should live our lives in such a way that people of the world come to us asking for help and advice. If we claim to have Jesus, and we claim that He truly is the answer to everything, the we ought to be able to bring wisdom in other's lives when asked. Unfortunately that isn't always the way it is with Apostolics. Because just the Holy Ghost by itself does not necessarily bring wisdom. It begins to work on us to bring truth into our lives, but ultimately it will be learning the Word of God that causes us to gain wisdom.

And maybe we aren't as wise as we should be because we don't know where to start. This lesson begins to fix that. Let's take a look at some of the principles that Solomon said would bring wisdom and truth and a more pleasant existence into the lives of those who learn them. Call it "Thirty Ways to Being Wise." We could make tapes and do seminars! We could change the world!! Actually, let's start with ourselves, first!

There is a human tendency to kick people when they are down. The scripture forbids such behavior and teaches over and over again that God champions the causes of the unfortunate. You may remember the verse of scripture that Jesus chose to read to introduce Himself to Israel. He could have read any scripture, but the one that He chose to read was NOT the one about Him being the everlasting Father and the Almighty, even though that was certainly true. The first thing that Jesus wanted people to see Him as, was:

The Messiah was sent not to the well, but to those who were sick! The Messiah came to reach the down and out and the brokenhearted! We must reach out to such people, because only when we do such things, do we truly become like Jesus! The scriptures say:

If you want the Lord to deliver you in time of trouble, preserve you, keep you alive, cause you to be blessed upon the earth, protect you from your enemies, and heal you when you are sick, then you must reach out to the poor! I would say that our bread ministry is very important, because it's an organized way to do all of this and help others!

There is a spiritual side to this principle also. And it comes with "how do you define 'poor'?" It's an arbitrary definition that is defined by your present situation. Whether you realize it or not, you view people as either "poor" or "rich;" as either people who are worse off than you, or better off than you. In every one of our minds is a list and we rank people as to how we view their lives compared to us. And the human tendency is to treat people differently depending how they rank on our list. If we consider them as "poorer" we tend to treat them differently than the people that we esteem. But the Bible says for us not to treat those who we deem worse off any differently than anyone else. Jesus was the fairest human being that ever lived. He corrected Simon Peter who was one of His closest companions, even calling him a "devil," in one place -- and Peter's correction was well deserved. But Jesus also refused to help pile stones on the woman caught in the act of adultery. He forgave her, and dismissed her accusers by pointing out their inconsistencies. We tend to forget that the fact that the woman was "caught in the act of adultery" meant that she had to go home to face the wrath and face of a husband who would be quite upset. I've heard preachers tell the story as if she got up and lived happily ever after. But she still had to go home and face the music and spend the rest of her life with the shame and the pain in her home that her actions had caused. Jesus didn't stop her from reaping what she had sown, but He didn't add to it either! I'm talking about treating people the same! Be careful that you treat those with whom you are not close with the same objectivity that you treat those who are companions.

Choose your friends wisely, because who you choose around with today, will be whom you are like tomorrow! We must show ourselves friendly to everyone, but we must also guard carefully with whom we "hang out" and frequently fellowship. You can tell much about a person by the people that they choose to hang out with. People without ambition and goals tend to hang out with people who are without ambition and goals. People who are carnal and sinfully minded, hang out with people who are carnal and sinfully minded. Gossips find gossips. People who want to talk about God and the Scriptures, tend to gravitate toward people who do the same. People who pray and are faithful tend to find others who are likewise.

Here's the way that you can use this principle to your advantage. Find someone that you respect and look up to and desire to be like and befriend them. Spend time with them. Do something special for them. Choose friends that are going the same way you are going and exhibit the characteristics of what you want to be, and sooner rather than later, you will find yourself developing those characteristics. You will become like whom you hang around, choose your friends wisely!

According to scripture, co-signing is one of the worst business decisions that you can ever make under any circumstance. It's bad, because if the person doesn't pay, then they get to keep the item or benefit, and the creditors come after you! And Solomon said "they'll even take your bed out from under you." Solomon mentioned the dangers of co-signing over and over in the book of Proverbs. I think this was one principle that he had obviously learned the hard way!

The problem with co-signing is that you take away any personal responsibility from the individual in question. And if they needed you to co-sign in the first place then the one thing that they need to learn the most is probably personal responsibility. And so the answer is simple: don't do it. If you have the money to help someone out or want to buy a car or something for your children, go right ahead, but if you are signing onto something, put your name on it as the sole owner, that way if they refuse to keep their end of the bargain and you have to pay the goods, you have something to show for your investment.

There is a spiritual principle here too! We shouldn't put ourselves in debt to the lack of responsibility of others. Don't fight other people's battles or live your life indebted to their bad decisions. I've known people who were close friends with people who stopped living for God and then they backslid also because "of what their friend did." I've known people to not live for God because they had a family member that didn't and they didn't want to "betray them." I've known people to not get baptized because "aunt so and so didn't." That's foolishness. Don't get bitter over someone else's gripe. It ain't scripture, but it should be: "he who fights another man's battles has to get into the mud with him." Or as Bro. Tenney always said: "a bulldog can win a fight with a skunk any day, but it 's not worth the stink." When you allow yourself to get indebted to someone else's issues and lack of personal responsibility, it affects you and rubs off on you! Don't co-sign, either physically or spiritually!

We must clarify between traditions that are good and traditions that are bad. Solomon is not talking about holding on to family traditions that go against the scripture. He is referring back to when Israel went into the Promised Land and God divided the land among the tribes which was then divided among the families and so on. They placed rocks on the boundaries of Israel and the boundaries of their family lands that were to never be removed. These landmarks were important, because every 50th year -- called the year of Jubilee -- all land reverted back to it's original owners. No matter what. If you got into debt and had to sell your land, then the person who bought it only had the land until the next year of Jubilee and then he had to give it back. Because of this, land was sold and valued according to how many years it was to the next year of Jubilee. If you had thirty years to go, the land price would be higher. If it was in the 49th year, you wouldn't be able to sell it. And God did it this way because He had given the Promised Land as a permanent inheritance to the tribes of Israel. No matter what happened, God wanted each family to have a lot of inheritance in the Promised Land.

Because of that, the landmarks were very important because they marked the boundaries of what had been decreed by God in the beginning. They established what God's Word had instructed in the early going and had said was to always be! To remove the ancient landmarks was to disregard the commandment of God! And change things to suit your need.

There are some landmarks that were established by God long ago that people are moving today. There were some things that God decreed "don't go past here" but people have moved them further out. God said that the original plan was one man and one woman together and that homosexuality was an abomination. But people are moving the landmarks. God said that His house was important and that we should worship Him in Spirit and in Truth above all else. But people have moved the landmarks. And now they cannot tell if they are in the Promised Land or not. They don't know if they are saved or not. They aren't sure if they are obeying all of the Bible or not, because they have moved the landmarks that God had set up!

Let me preach just for a few minutes and then maybe I'll get back to teaching.

God established some guidelines and boundaries and landmarks that defined the Apostolic Church. He said that unless you repent, you would die in your sins. He said to baptize in the name of Jesus Christ by full immersion. He said to tarry until you received the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. He declared to Phillip that "if you have seen me you have seen the Father" and that "in Him dwelleth ALL the fulness of the Godhead bodily." The early Apostolic church taught that ALL scripture is given by inspiration from God and was to be obeyed! They taught that Jesus was coming back for a pure bride that had separated herself out of the evil lifestyles of this world and had lived holy and ready. He taught that we must put Him first and fight the fight of faith and hold onto the doctrine that was once delivered unto the saints. There are people nowadays that have been trying for a long time to move the old rocks upon which this church was founded around to suit them. But let me say that you'd better leave the landmarks of our fathers alone! What God decreed in the beginning is still the way it should be! And there is coming a year of Jubilee that will be the Jubilees of Jubilees. On that 50th year, they didn't plant crops and work, but rather they blew a trumpet and then spent the year feasting and celebrating! One day the trumpet's going to sound and we who have kept to the old landmarks will rise to meet Him in the heavens for a Jubilee celebration to end all! But you'd better not move the old landmarks, because you will find yourself on the other side. You'd better believe it like the Early Church did. Remove not the ancient landmarks.

A man's gift will make room for itself. But the principle here is that a man who is diligent, and takes his job seriously and who is disciplined and hard working will be noticed and will work for kings, eventually. The key is that those who will be exalted will be those who were good workers BEFORE they were exalted. Too many times people say "if I worked for them, I'd work hard." But you will only get the better opportunity when you have been faithful in the lesser. Are you working for a mean boss? Then work as if he were the king, and eventually a king will take notice of you and hire you. But if you work half-heartedly, then you will stay there for the rest of your life.

This applies in the spirit world as well. People don't become preachers or whatever and then suddenly begin to study the Bible and pray and fast and win souls. But people who God exalts are people that were doing the work diligently and faithfully BEFORE they had a title or position. The King of Kings will exalt and take note of such people. I've known young men in Bible College who wanted to be pastors and such and who were always being fired from their secular jobs because of laziness and disinterest. I've heard those same men shrug and say "this is just a secular job and the boss is mean and besides I'm waiting for God to give me a better job that deals with spiritual matters." And those guys are STILL waiting for God to give them a better job, because the King saw how they worked for the mean man and didn't want them in His business! It's those who are faithful in the small, everyday things that God will say "I could trust them in my kingdom's work!"

Here Solomon gives some words of advice to eating with someone important. He speaks of minding your manners and such and that is very important, so much that many corporations will only hire people once they have taken them out to dinner to see how they eat. But there's more here than just table manners, because the scriptures warn that the offerings of a ruler "are deceitful meat." That is, they are not free but are being given to you because he wants something.

This is just a fancy way of saying that "nothing in life is for free, and there's always a catch." Beware of that. Jesus freely told you to "count the cost" before you dive into the kingdom of God. There is a cost. There will be a daily cross, and the giving up of things that your flesh desires. But we need to remember this in daily life too. Some people are suckers for things that say "FREE." Nothing worth having is ever free. Even the Holy Ghost requires you to repent of your sins to God and surrender all of yourself first. In the secular world, always read the fine print that follows the little dainty that the ruler is giving you!

The other spiritual principle here is that Solomon warns against letting your appetite cause you into receiving something that is harmful to you in the end. You'd better be careful that your appetite is for things that will help you and heal you and not hurt you! Scientists say that you crave only things with which you have had a past experience. If you crave chocolate, then it was because you were introduced to and tasted chocolate before when you were younger. Maybe your spiritual appetite longs after things that are sinful because of the past. You'd better reign it in and even "put a knife to thy throat." In other words, control your appetite and don't let it cause you to eat something that may be sweet at first but will bring destruction to your soul!

Riches are temporary even if you get them. People whose primary goal is to be rich are wasting their lives. There is nothing wrong with getting more for your family and being blessed, but your number one goal in life should not be to have a lot of money. Jesus said:

What Jesus was saying is that your priority should be the will of God in all things. If a person ends their life with a billion dollars in the bank but not having done the will of God, then what is that in eternity? But if a person ends their life having done the will of God, but with only the basics and necessities for everyday living, what is that in eternity? The problem with people whose number 1 goal is to have extravagant money, is that eventually they will choose the money over the will of God which then reveals what is really "god" in their life! And in some people's lives, it is the will of God for them to be rich, but very few people can handle it. Most allow the extra pleasure and things to pull them away from sacrifice and doing what God wants them to do.

Since we tend to become like those whom we associate, we must avoid close and constant fellowship with people with impure motives and evil intentions. Jesus ate with sinners but only with their redemption in view through a meal here and there for a limited amount of time. The people that He willingly surrounded Himself with were those who had chosen to follow Him with faith and sacrifice. The New Testament warns us from even sitting down and eating with hypocrites, those who say that they are a Christian and yet continue to willfully sin (1 Corinthians 5:11). This is because in your close fellowship, you will be affected by them!

In scripture, the term "evil eye" is a figure of speech for someone who is "hard, grudging, stingy, and has an hypocritical attitude." With such people, the Bible commands us to separate ourselves, because that hypocritical attitude and grudging spirit will infect us! And remember this: no matter what silly and superstitious traditions your native culture has about "evil eyes," to God, an evil eye is any one that is focused on anything other than Him!

I wished that I'd learned this a long, long time ago. My daddy tried to tell me, but I didn't understand until recently what he was trying to say. I've spent hours giving instructions and trying to bend over backwards by helping people who aren't interested in changing, don't think that they need to change, and are going to go out and do whatever the want to regardless of what you, the Word of God, or even the President says! Such people are -- according to the scripture -- fools, and Solomon said that if you want to have a peaceful life, don't bother correcting a fool.

There's a simple test to see if you are someone else is a fool according to scripture. The Bible says:

Correct a wise man and he will learn from it and apply it to his life. Correct a fool and "he will despise the wisdom of your words" and probably despise you for it. I've known people to rather proudly state "I've always got to learn things the hard way." Don't be proud of that. It's nothing to be proud of because it means that you are a fool. We are all going to learn some things the hard way, but if you can never take a Godly warning and you can't take correction and admit that you are wrong and you've always got to "do things your way" and learn everything the hard way, then you're a fool according to scripture. You can do things your way a hundred times and reap the heartache from it and still continue to do things your way and despise the correction of others. Such is the way of the fool.

And if someone proves themselves to be a fool, then don't waste your time correcting them or telling what they did wrong. They'll hate you for it, and no matter what you are going to say, they are going to go do what they want to next time anyway. It only makes you upset and it's not worth it. Solomon says to learn an important lesson and once you know people are as fools, don't bother correcting them. Even old Solomon found out a long time ago: it's not worth the effort or the drama!

When my mother used to have to tell me something twice, that meant it was extremely important for me to get! Again Solomon wanted to remind you: "don't move the landmarks." In one way of looking at it, this verse is just a combination of not taking advantage of the poor and not moving landmarks principles that we have already studied. The other way of looking at it is that to move the landmarks of the boundaries around Israel, the children of Israel would have been moving onto lands owned by people that were not children of Jehovah God. That is the landmarks served to mark the line where one crosses from being a Child of the Everlasting Father to moving into the realm of those who were sons and daughters of the King of Kings!

So the warning is repeated! Don't move the old Apostolic landmarks that defined the church, because not only are they placed there so that you can view them and remember their significance, they serve as the dividing line between light and darkness. Between those who are in the Promised Land and those who are not. Between those who are children of God and those who are "fatherless."

Landmarks in this sense served one other function. They were a mental fence that warned to go beyond this point is to leave the promises and blessings and protection of God. Remember that if there is an old landmark in scripture, it's there for a reason, and that reasons is your protection. Those who are wise will not move the old landmarks!