Here’s a statistic that will rock your socks off.  Almost half of all married men and just over a third of married women will have at least one extra-marital affair in their lives.  That’s a devastating statistic.  And just because someone happens to be a Christian – it doesn’t mean that we’re immune.

Welcome as we kick off another week looking at stuff, life things, every day things that you and I deal with day to day from a different perspective. And yes we’re continuing in a series of message that I’ve called, “Wisdom That Works”.

Wisdom’s an amazing thing, it’s a seductive concept. I mean who doesn’t want to have more wisdom? Who doesn’t want to be wise? Ridiculous isn’t it? Of course we all want wisdom; of course we all want to be wise. But well, there’s a problem with wisdom. Wisdom is kind of a double edged sword.

It’s about having the knowledge that comes from experience but it’s also about applying the knowledge. You see the theory of knowing is not enough. Someone who knows that treating other people well and loving them and sacrificing for them, someone who knows that and yet spends most of their life not doing it, well we wouldn’t call them wise would we?

In order for someone to be wise they need to know it and do it, that’s wisdom. And the sort of wisdom that God shares with us is the sort of wisdom that actually works. So last week and over the next few weeks we’re spending some time ransacking the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. Written by King Solomon, one of the wisest men that ever walked the earth.

And my encouragement to you as we kick off this week is that we take his wisdom, the wisdom from God, and actually apply it to our lives. Why? Because it works.

I remember back at college one of our lecturers in a subject about, I guess, foundational issues of Christian living, said to each one of us who were training for some sort of ministry or other, he said there are 3 things that can bring you unstuck. Girls, gold and glory or in the case of women guys, gold and glory.

In other words people whom God calls to serve Him often stumble in infidelity or because they start loving wealth too much, we spoke about that last week, or because they seek the glory and they fall in pride. It’s not a bad executive summary is it? Girls or guys, as the case may be, gold and glory.

Well today we’re going to chat a bit about the girls/guys thing or impurity and infidelity because it’s huge. Statistically almost half of all marriages fall apart and in fact of those that remain only a fraction are what you’d call happy marriages. The sorts of marriages where people really thrive.

The facts about marital infidelity, sexual unfaithfulness to a spouse, are absolutely astounding. Poll’s in the US show that although 90% of married people disapproved of extra marital affairs, 15% of wives and 25% of husbands have experienced extra marital intercourse. Those numbers increased by another 20% when emotional affairs and sexual relationships without intercourse were included.

So 35% of women and 45% of men have had an extra marital affair. That is absolutely frightening. I mean a marriage is supposed to be the most wonderful relationship. Fulfilling, life long soul mates. And yet almost half of all men and over a third of all women have some sort of extra marital affair. Doesn’t that blow you away?

But I suspect this is nothing new, almost 3,000 years ago Solomon, he’s instructing his young sons with wisdom from his years of experience, spends a whole chapter, the 5th chapter of the Book of Proverbs on this subject of infidelity. In fact it’s one of the very first subjects he deals with comprehensively in the Book of Proverbs.

Maybe the stat’s were pretty much the same back then as they are today. So have a listen to what he had to say to his sons. Proverbs chapter 5 beginning at verse 1:

My child be attentive to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding so that you may hold onto prudence and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a loose woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil but in the end she’s as bitter as wormwood, as sharp as a two edged sword.

Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol. She doesn’t keep straight the path of her life, her ways wander and yet she doesn’t know it.

In other words, guys the grass may well appear greener on the other side but this seduction that promises so much is going to kill you. Even though the thought of an affair may be oh so seductive, oh so tempting it leads only to bitterness, pain and ultimately to destruction.

I remember a man that I used to work with back in my days in the IT industry who had two affairs outside his marriage. Two that I know of anyway. I knew the husband and wife quite well. He was lured into this trap, he followed his desires and his emotions and it almost destroyed both of them.

By Gods grace his wife was a Godly woman and strong and with great faith and their marriage weathered the storm but the pain. And of course as much as all maybe forgiven the memory, the memory never ever, ever goes away. And the crazy thing was they had everything.

And here’s the advice that Solomon has for his sons. Here’s the wisdom that really works. Proverbs chapter 5 beginning at verse 7:

And now my child listen to me, do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house or you will give your honour to others and your years to the merciless and strangers will take their fill of your wealth and your labours will go to the house of another.

And at the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are consumed and you will say, ‘O how I hated discipline and my heart despised reproof. I didn’t listen to the voice of my teachers or inclined my ears to my instructors. Now I’m at the point of utter ruin in the public assembly.’

The advice, the wisdom that works, keep away, simply don’t go there, don’t go to the door of her house, don’t put yourself in a position of temptation. Don’t spend time alone with members of the opposite sex. Don’t form close bonds, close friendships, close relationships that could head in the wrong direction.

Keep yourself to yourself, just don’t go there or it will ruin you and you will spend the rest of your life regretting it. And the alternative was? Pretty obvious, Proverbs chapter 5 beginning at verse 15:

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone and not for sharing with strangers. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

May her breasts satisfy you at all times, may you be intoxicated always by her love. Why should you be intoxicated my son by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord. He examines all their paths.

The inequities of the wicked ensnare them and they are caught in the toils of their sin. They die for lack of discipline and because of their great folly they are lost.

In other words find your fulfilment husbands in the arms of your wives. Wives, find your fulfilment in the arms of your husbands. Okay they’re not perfect but let’s get a revelation today, they never will be, ever.

But they are the life long soul mate that God has given you and that is the right place, the only place in God’s eyes to discover and experience and enjoy and revel in and be intoxicated with beauty and intimacy.

45% of men, 35% of women have affairs. You might think this is an odd subject for us to be discussing today but judging from the statistics Solomon was absolutely right to make this a high priority.

My prayer is that you will never ever know the pain and the bitter regret of adultery. Please listen to Gods word today, please heed His warning. This is God’s wisdom, it is wisdom that works.

There are two things that most of us really hate.  Firstly – when someone looks down their noses at us and secondly when someone lies to us.  And not only do we hate it, but God hates it too.  With a vengeance.  And if God hates those things, well, maybe – just maybe – they’re worth steering clear of, don’t you think?

A few months back I had the privilege to be able to speak to a Church on mother’s day. And the message that I chose to speak about was on the 5th Commandment of the 10 Commandments:

Honour your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land that God is going to give you.

The message was called, somewhat tongue in cheek, “How To Get More Out Of Your Parents?” We looked at what it means for children to honour their parents and the incredible blessing that flows out of that. Both right then and there because parents love to bless their children, I mean we’re hard wired to do that but also for the rest of their lives as they learn the lessons they need to learn in order to become adults and parents themselves.

And afterwards several people came and spoke with me and they all expressed the same sentiment. They had been blown away by how practical and how down to earth Gods word actually is. They never realised that God, in this thing that we consider to be a stuffy old book, the Bible, gives us such incredible practical wisdom that makes our lives better.

It’s pretty sad because He actually does. God loves us, He reveals Himself to us as our Father. To the shock and the horror of the religious leaders of the day Jesus actually called God the Father Abba which translated means Dad. So if Gods our Dad, if He loves us so much why wouldn’t He want to give us down to earth practical wisdom and advice?

Well He does and He has. And that’s why we’re continuing this week in the Book of Proverbs, a father’s Godly wisdom and advice, King Solomon to his sons, God our Father, Dad, to us.

And what we’re going to be looking at today are some of the things that God hates. Now we don’t often think of God hating anything. We think of God as the God of supreme love, a love so great that He would send us His only Son and that’s the point.

See He loves us so much and He hates sin so much that the way to set us free from that sin that ruins our lives and separates us from Him was through the supreme act of love in all history, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross to pay for my sin and yours.

So, does God love us, you and me, right now given all that we’ve done to rebel against Him? Right at this instant? In Jesus Christ the answer to that question is a huge resounding “yes!”. Of that there can be absolutely no doubt. Believe in this Jesus who came to die for you and for me, to pay for our sin and to rise again to give us a new life. Believe in Him and we are forgiven. Full stop! End of story.

But does God hate our sin? Well in Jesus Christ the answer to that question is also a huge resounding yes. So gravely does God view our sin that He doesn’t sweep it under the carpet, He deals with it by letting His Son Jesus die for us to deal with the sin.

And through King Solomon God tells that the sorts of sin that He really hates, we’ll have a look at just 2 of the 7 that He lists today. But first let’s have a listen to all of them. Proverbs chapter 6 beginning at verse 16:

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to Him.
Haughty eyes,
a lying tongue
and hands that shed innocent blood.
A heart that devices wicked plans,
feet that hurry to run to evil,
a lying witness who testifies falsely
and one who sows discord in a family.

Now for much of my life I thought all this religion stuff, this God stuff of being, well it’s just out dated moralising. All they want to do is impose their morals and their rules on me and control me and get me to conform to some belief system I don’t believe in. Give me a break.

And to be honest that’s what religion is, that’s why Jesus railed against religion and all the religious nuts of His day who wanted to heap rule after rule after rule on the shoulders of people who were already burdened with great loads.

But the list we just read out there, theseven things that God hates, that are an abomination to Him that none of us would have a problem with any of them. I mean take the first one, haughty eyes. Fancy God hating haughty eyes. But have you ever been around someone who looks down on you?

I remember before I became a Christian I visited a woman’s home, an elderly lady, the mother of a friend of mine. And I looked around as if to say, ‘well this isn’t decorated to the latest fashion’. Years later when I was in a desperate time in my life, when God had brought me low, she was the person that gave me somewhere to live.

And she encouraged me and she strengthened me and it turns out that that first time I visited years before she noticed the way I looked around her place, she noticed my haughty eyes and remembered them all those years later. Why? Because haughty eyes are a sign of arrogance and superiority in the heart. Looking down on people belittles them in order to exalt us.

I remember a woman, a Christian, who would every now and then stick her head into our office here at Christianityworks. Instead of engaging with our staff and asking them how they were, how things were going, instead of caring for the people she looked around with haughty eyes. And those haughty eyes have brought her so much grief in a recent time, much, much grief.

Listen to me, that sense of arrogance and superiority that some people have because of their ability or their position or their status or their wealth or just their own distorted view of themselves, this is an abomination to God. God hates it.

The original Hebrew word for haughty means to lift up, to raise, to exalt on high and the only person we’re meant to exalt on high is Jesus, God Himself. God doesn’t share His glory with anyone and those people who look down their noses at others for whatever reason are doing something that is really an abomination to God. It’s something God really hates, arrogance.

Now number 2 on the hit parade here, the things that God hates, is a lying tongue. Let me ask you something, do you like it when someone lies to you? Do you like it when someone deceives you? Of course we don’t, I don’t either. Lying equals deception, deception equals dishonesty and dishonesty makes a person rotten to the core.

They purport to be one thing on the outside, sweetness and light and all things good but on the inside there’s something completely different. And so that we don’t notice they tell us lies. You know I don’t even like lies where people are trying to protect me and not hurt my feelings.

Back in the days when I was in business if we bid on a job and missed out 90% of the prospective clients wouldn’t give you a straight answer as to why. Me, I just wanted to know why even if it’s because the CEO of the client organisation was a friend with someone who is opposition to us.

I mean if that’s what happened just tell me, it’s okay, but tell me the truth so I know and so if there’s anything I can do better next time I can take steps towards improving.

See the lying tongue takes all sorts of different forms. From not telling the truth, in other words a bald faced lie to, as a character in one of the very funny British sitcoms Yes Minister said ‘being economical with the truth’. In other words not telling the whole truth. Even telling the truth in theory but playing on the situation and the context so that the recipient gets the wrong impression.

We have all told lies in our lives. We can be so clever in hiding the truth. We can think that we’re so smart but listen to me a lying tongue is an abomination to God. It is something that He hates.

Now let’s just say that God is in fact God, humour me, God’s God, He’s all powerful, that one day He is going to judge the living and the dead and that that judgement will have a huge eternal impact on you and me.

Let’s just say that’s true. Well doesn’t it make sense to avoid the things He hates and two of the things He hates are haughty eyes and a lying tongue.

There are three things that most of us really hate.  Firstly – someone who punishes the innocent, secondly someone who makes wicked plans and finally someone who heads off and executes those plans.  Turns out – God hates those things too.  And if God hates them, well, maybe – they’re worth steering clear of, don’t you think?

I’m pretty sure that you have some people in your life that do things that really annoy you. In fact sometimes those things really hurt and sometimes they can hurt so much that we hate them. We often focus our hate on the person but, by and large, if they stop doing that one thing that was hurting us we’d probably stop hating them.

And that’s because the thing that we really truly hate is the thing that they’re doing to us that hurts us. Sometimes it’s someone who kind of lords it over us and doesn’t let us get on and do what we’re good at. Sometimes people belittle us or rejects us. The list is endless. Whatever it is we hate what they’re doing and so we can end up hating them.

Now as we continue looking at the sort of wisdom that works, Gods wisdom, I’d have thought it makes a lot of sense to look at the things that God hates. King Solomon in the Book of Proverbs chapter 6 lists seven things that God hates. Things that are an abomination to Him.

Why should we look at them? Because things that people hate is a two way street. We can not only be on the receiving end of some bad stuff but shock horror, as difficult as this may be to believe about ourselves, we can be the ones dishing it out.

So let’s have another look at the things that God hates. Proverbs chapter 6 beginning at verse 16:

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him.
Haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that hurry to run to evil,
a lying witness who testifies falsely
and someone who sows discord in a family.

As I said yesterday none of these things are particularly contentious. I mean you and I can’t really go to that list of seven things that God hates and argue to toss on this one or that. They’re all pretty obvious aren’t they? They’re not very nice. And yesterday we looked at haughty eyes, the sign of a proud heart, and a lying tongue.

So right now we’re going to look at the next three in that list, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devices wicked plans and feet that hurry to run to evil. Those three seem to me to go pretty naturally together don’t they? Hands that shed innocent blood.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen this. Of course I’ve never seen blood shed, praise God, I’m absolutely sure that many, many people listening around the world today who actually have. In my experience though what I’ve seen is people who lord it over others and punish and ride and bully people who don’t deserve it.

It’s exactly the same. Bullying is something that happens all the time amongst children at school, it happens in the work place, someone who’s stronger either because of their personality type or because of their position or both, decides to start playing with someone else the way that a cat plays with a mouse.

It’s so incredibly cruel and sometimes the perpetrator doesn’t even realise they’re doing it. They’re shedding innocent blood because the pain that this behaviour is causing the recipient is beyond anything that words can describe.

Can I tell you? Bullying, just toying with someone, treating them this way, it isn’t some sport it is a sin, it is something that God hates, it is an abomination to Him.

It’s something I used to do before I became a Christian. It’s something I don’t do now because it’s wrong and because I don’t one day want to be a sinner in the hands of an angry God. And some people, some people in their hearts devise wicked plans.

Proverbs chapter 6, verse 18 we just read it. These are people who scheme. ‘How can I get back at this person? How can I make it so that they’ll never do this again?’ The old adage, don’t get angry just get even.

Or how can I get my hands on something I don’t deserve or haven’t earned? Perhaps if I do this and twist that and lie this way and deceive that person that way. Perhaps then I’ll be able to trick them out of the thing that I really want for me.

Jesus said murder begins in the heart. If you’re angry with someone it’s the same as murdering them in Gods eyes. If you look at a woman or a man who’s not your wife or your husband, as the case may be, with lust and desire it’s exactly the same as committing adultery.

What we do in our hearts and our minds, what we think, the anger, the resentment, the vengeance we harbour and the schemes and the plans that we devise in our hearts, all that matters an awful lot to God. And wicked plans in our hearts, listen to me, are an abomination to God.

Sometimes people make us angry and sometimes we want revenge or at least justice which ultimately involves some form of recompense, that’s a natural reaction. But if we let that brood in our hearts rather than forgiving the person. The more it takes hold of us and grips us and takes over our lives it becomes a wicked plan.

That’s why the Apostle Paul writes centuries later to his friends in Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 26. He writes:

Be angry but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

In other words, you’re going to get angry sometimes but don’t let it fester because if we do something else happens. Because there’s a natural consequence to that and that consequence is in fact the third thing on our list of things that God hates that we’re looking at today. Things that we do that are an abomination to God.

It’s this, it’s feet that hurry to run to do evil. See what happens in our hearts overflows into our lives. Thoughts turn into actions just as sure as God made little green apples.

And the more we allow some injustice or some evil desire to fester in our hearts the more prone we are to devise wicked plans and the more likely we are to go and run towards evil just as the moth flies towards the flame to its own destruction. The more likely we are to execute the evil plans, the more likely our feet are to run towards evil.

It’s exactly what James writes in the New Testament centuries after Solomon wrote this wisdom book of Proverbs. Have a listen, James chapter 1 beginning at verse 13. He said:

No one when tempted should say, ‘I’m being tempted by God’. For God cannot be tempted by evil and He Himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one’s own desires, being lured and enticed by it and then when that desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and that sin, when it’s fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived my beloved.

It’s a natural cycle. It begins with evil desires of our heart and they grow into actions and those actions are sin and sin ultimately leads to death. Think evil, devise evil plans and our feet are going to run towards doing evil things and towards our inevitable destruction.

This isn’t some reluctant sinner here, let’s understand, this is someone that is running towards sin, embracing it. Launching themselves into an evil act because of the darkness they’ve allowed to fester and to brood and to ultimately to control their hearts.

Friend this is just such great wisdom. God hates a scheming heart and He hates it when we execute our evil plans and do evil. There are things that God hates; He hates them to a point where they are an abomination to Him. That’s why our hearts are so important.

That’s why it is so important that we spend each and every day with God alone, some time to let Him direct our hearts. To let Him warm them and inspire them and lead them and fulfil them and cleanse them. Because when our hearts are set upon God there isn’t any room for evil desires to take hold and to conceive sin.

Whatever it is in our lives, we’re all different, whatever it is this is the wisdom from God that works and I implore you heed His Word.

There are two things that most of us really hate.  Firstly – someone who lies, who bears false witness.  And secondly, someone who sows discord in a family – and not only do we hate those things but God hates them too.  With a vengeance.  And if God hates them, well, maybe they’re worth steering clear of, don’t you think?

There are some things that my beautiful wife, Jacqui, hates. She hates it when I show indifference to her new shoes that she’s just bought. She hates it when I’m a bit too hard with our daughter. She hates it when I don’t take the time to listen to her and understand her.

There aren’t many things like that but those would be just about at the top of her hit parade. Now I’m your typical male and just quietly between you and me, shoes, well you know, to me shoes are something you put on your feet to stop them from getting cut up and dirty and cold and the only reason to buy new shoes is because your old ones have a hole in them.

I can hear all the women saying, “See, typical male.” Well, I’m sorry, I am. So over the years I’ve been trying to learn not to do things that I know Jacqui is going to hate. I still do sometimes of course as I’m sure she’d tell you, it’s still very much a work in progress for me. But I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that I don’t want to do things that upset her.

I love her and so I’m trying to learn not to do those things, a slow a learner as I may seem to her to be. And it’s the same with God. There are certain things that God hates. He hates them with a vengeance. They’re an abomination to Him and I don’t know about you but I love God and the last thing I want to do is to do the things that God hates.

So, over the last couple of days in this series of messages called Wisdom That Works we’ve been looking at the 7 things that God hates. Let me read them again to you, Proverbs chapter 6 beginning at verse 16:

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to Him.
Haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that hurry to run to do evil,
a lying witness who testifies falsely
and one who sows discord in a family.

Now we’ve managed so far to chat about all of those except the last two, the lying witness who testifies falsely and the one who sows discord in a family.

Now law courts are not a place where I’ve spent a lot of time. Once for a car accident when I was aged 19, several times with soldiers who’d been charged with this or that when I was an officer in the army and once to be sworn in as a Justice of the Peace.

I’ve never, for instance, been at a murder trial or anything serious like that but I can imagine the gravity of proceedings in a serious trial. There’s a lot at stake, justice itself is at stake, that there should be a fair trial with a burden of proof resting with the prosecution. The defendant is on trial; his or her whole future depends on the outcome.

Imagine if an innocent person were convicted and to some extent the victim or the victim’s family or both depending on the nature of the alleged crime, in a sense they feel a bit on trial too. For them a large part of the process of healing and recovery involves justice being done.

So imagine in a highly charged, high stakes trial for a major crime with so much at stake, imagine that a crucial witness lies. And as a result there’s a miscarriage of justice either in one direction or in the other. That’s something of an abomination isn’t it? We can totally understand why God would hate this and yet people lie all the time in day to day life.

They say and do things in the work place that will get their work colleagues in trouble. They tell the boss one thing when something entirely different has actually occurred. “Oh well, that’s not the same as lying under oath in a murder trial.”

But what God’s saying to us here through Solomon in this Book of Proverbs, what He’s saying is, “oh yes it is. It is exactly the same thing. It is an abomination to me when you as a witness bear false witness. It is something I hate.”

I trust you find that a bit of insight into Gods nature and Gods wisdom as sobering as I do. Last week we saw Solomon kick off this wisdom book of Proverbs with a statement that:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

I trust that it’s become clear why he said that. You know we start bearing false witness quite early in our lives. Of course I never blamed my sister for something I’d done wrong, not much. Of course I did and I’m sure if you had brothers or sisters you’ve been both on the receiving end and the dishing out end of that little equation.

And that leads us to the last of the seven things in this list of things that are an abomination to God. Someone who sows discord in a family. Families are such a precious thing. Hard sometimes isn’t it to be part of a family? Whether it’s a husband, wife with stresses and strains of modern life tearing away at their marriage. Conspiring, seemingly, to pull them apart.

Or the pressures of bringing up the children and holding down a job and paying the mortgage and putting food on the table. And as I remember it’s not particularly easy being a child growing up in a family either some days.

As we move into those teenage years we want to spread out our wings and have our own way and yet we’re still subject to the authority of our parents which is why so often there is conflict in families.

I guess the point that I’m making here is that there is already so much going on in life that puts pressures on our families and the last thing a family needs is pressure from within. The last thing a family needs is a husband and a father who is so domineering that his wife’s personality is being suffocated or his children are being provoked.

The last thing a family needs is a mother who doesn’t show respect to her husband and who undermines his authority in front of the children. And the last thing a family needs are children who deliberately set about rebelling against and dishonouring their parents.

In each of those cases it’s about sowing discord into the family and it’s like sowing seeds for weeds. Those weeds grow and they thrive and they take over the good fruit that should be growing in a family. I know that relationships in families can be highly charged and that’s why, listen to this, that’s why God hates it when we sow discord in families.

Husbands, love your wives. Wives, honour and respect your husbands. Mums and dads nurture love and discipline your children and children, obey and honour your parents. This is not complicated. And in living out our lives that way, in a family, that’s how we honour God, that’s how we show that this family who believes in Jesus, who professes a faith called Christianity is different from the rest.

Is a family ever going to be perfect? No. Am I ever going to be 100% perfect father? No. I’m me and I’m going to make mistakes just as you do. But friend when we set about being peace makers in the home, when we turn the other cheek, when we discipline our children out of love rather than out of anger and resentment then what we’re doing is we’re sowing good seed that will bear good fruit.

I know that this is a journey this wisdom thing. I know it’s frustrating and I know that to sow peace rather than discord involves sacrifice and pain sometimes. But it’s pretty obvious isn’t it? All seven things in that list that God hates, that list of abominations, each one is obvious. Let’s listen to it again one last time:

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are abominations to Him. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely and one who sows discord in a family.

My friend, none of those are complicated. None of those are rocket science. None of those are up for grabs or up for debate or they shouldn’t be in that list. They are clear, they are unequivocal, they are wrong and God hates them.

I want to encourage you to take this list on board. Proverbs chapter 6, verses 16 to 19. The seven things that God hates, they’re an abomination to Him. Hey, let’s avoid them.

Let me ask you – throughout your life, no doubt, there have been times where you’ve experienced discipline – as a child and as an adult.  So – did you ever enjoy the experience back then?  Chances are – the answer’s no.  And what about God’s discipline?  Have you ever experienced that?  Something worth chatting about.  So …

I can honestly say as I look back on my life that there is not a single time, not one, when I’ve enjoyed being disciplined. I remember as a child I was a lively sort of a lad as you could probably imagine, I was into everything and inquisitive and full of beans.

Since I was old enough to sleep in a bed rather than a cot I’ve been getting up at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, it’s just the way I’m wired. I was never shy or retiring, always out there and into everything. So it’s not surprising, growing up, I had more than my fair share of discipline.

More than the odd belting when I grew up not that I’m necessarily suggesting that’s the best way to discipline a child. And then as a teenager and a young adult when I was studying at the Royal Military College Duntroon to become an officer in the Australian Army, that is where you learn what discipline’s all about. And then in the workplace.

I can honestly say there is not a single time that I’ve enjoyed being disciplined. But looking back on it without that discipline I think I would have grown up to be an absolutely unbearable person. Completely horrible.

Discipline’s never fun at the time but it’s an important part of our lives and I think it bears some thinking about so today, today we’re going to spend a bit of time unpacking this whole thing of discipline.

There’s not a one of us, I suspect, who can’t think back to the time when we lived with our parents, those of us who were fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to grow up with our mum and dad or at least one of them. And as we think back to the times that we remember when they disciplined us they aren’t happy memories are they?

I can remember how unfair discipline felt at the time. How much I hated being disciplined. Man, why do things have to be like that? Why did God have to invent a world where we’d have to learn by being disciplined?

Well today we’re continuing in our new series called Wisdom That Works and right in the next passage of the Book of Proverbs, a book of wisdom written by wise old King Solomon to his younger sons, right in the next bit that we’re up to we get an answer to that question. Why do we need discipline?

Now let’s have a listen. We’re looking at Proverbs chapter 6 beginning at verse 20:

My child keep your father’s commandment and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Bind them upon your heart, tie them around your neck. When you walk they will lead you, when you lie down they will watch over you and when you awake they will talk with you.

For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of an adulteress. Do not desire her beauty in your heart and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes. For a prostitutes fee is only a loaf of bread but the wife of another stalks a mans very life.

Can fire be carried in the bosom without burning ones clothes? Or can one walk on hot coals without scorching the feet? So is he who sleeps with his neighbour’s wife. No one who touches her will go unpunished. Thieves are not despised who steal only to satisfy their appetite when they’re hungry.

Yet if they are caught they pay seven fold. They will forfeit all the goods of their house but he who commits adultery has no sense. He who does it destroys himself. He will get wounds and dishonour and his disgrace will not be wiped away. For jealousy arouses a husbands fury and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge. He will accept no compensation and refuses a bribe no matter how great.

Now the example Solomon uses here to his sons is the example of adultery. And he kicks off by talking about the huge investment that he and the mother of these young men have made in them. Through their commandments and their teachings and the reproof of their wisdom.

And the counsel is to hang onto those, to bind them on your heart, to tie them around your neck. Why? Because they’ll protect you. They’ll watch over you. They’ll guide you. When we head off and want to do something stupid like adultery but it could be anything, it could be dishonesty or it could be dissention or back biting. It could be anything.

When we want to head off in the wrong direction the wisdom given to us by our parents will be like a lamp and a light and show us things for what they are. The wisdom of our parents and for you and me the wisdom of God will protect us.

Now wisdom always involves discipline. It involves us being taught the hard way sometimes not to head off in a certain direction because we’re going to get hurt. You and I, we naturally shun discipline but have a listen to what Solomon says to his lads and what God has to say to you and me here and now in Proverbs chapter 6, verses 23 and 24:

The commandment is a lamp, the teaching is a light, the reproofs of discipline are the way of life to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of an adulteress.

You pick that? The reproof of discipline is a way of life to preserve us from the consequences of wrong doing. And then of course Solomon goes on to lay out the horrible things that happen to the young man who commits adultery not withstanding the seductive nature of what’s on offer.

Discipline as a way of life – ouch. You see we have this idea that if we’re succeeding things should always be getting bigger and better and faster and greater. Things should always be on the up and up and we should be getting more influence and more successes and more, more, more. That’s the picture we have of life.

And then all of a sudden when things take a turn for the worst, we think to ourselves, ‘oh woe is me. Has God forsaken me? Where’s God? What’s God doing? Why is this happening to me? Me, me of all people.’ That’s how we want to carry on.

Come with me to the New Testament, 1,000 or so years after Solomon wrote the Book of Proverbs to the letter to the Hebrews chapter 12. Have a listen to what God has to say about discipline. Hebrews chapter 12 beginning at verse 7:

Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children. For what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? If you do not have that discipline in which all children share then you are illegitimate and not His children.

Moreover we had human parents to discipline us and we respected them, should we not then be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live. For they disciplined us for a short time as seen best to them but He disciplines us for our good in order that we may share in His holiness.

Now discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore lift your dripping hands, strengthen your weak knees and make straight the paths of your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

You see discipline is a way of life. It’s Gods way of helping us to grow. Jesus said every branch that bears fruit He prunes to make it bear more fruit. So the next time God disciplines us and this isn’t about punishment and justice, that happened at the cross when Jesus died for us.

Discipline is about teaching and learning and pruning so that we’ll bear more fruit. So the next time God is discipling you and me remember there is a purpose that goes way beyond our desire for comfort and convenience. God has a plan and instead of flapping around and wondering what the blazes is going on, here is Gods advice.

Lift your dripping hands, strengthen your weak knees and make straight the paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather would be healed.

In other words, don’t fight with what God is doing; go with what God is doing. Don’t get your nose out of joint, don’t worry or complain or grumble. Be healed. Now that, that my friend is wisdom that works.