The Book of Proverbs
Getting Ready For The Second Greatest Day Of Your Life
Lesson 6 Part 1
God’s plan from the beginning was that most people would be married.
Proverbs explains how to become the type of person that would make a good partner;
and how to find that partner for life.
What does a Biblical, godly husband or wife look like? In Titus 2,
where God describes what a healthy, mature believer looks and acts like. The grace-energized
life of Titus 2 is the best type of person to invest the rest of your life with. No one is ever
perfect. But we can see where someone is headed today. Look for a pathway headed God’s way as
Titus 2 describes. You will be headed for a wonderful life.
Since God’s Plan from the beginning was that most people would be married–Proverbs explains
how to become the type of person that would make a good partner; and how to find that partner for life.
What does a Biblical, godly husband or wife look like?
We will see in Titus 2, where God describes what a healthy, mature believer looks and
acts like. The grace-energized life of Titus 2 is the best type of person to invest the rest of your life with.
No one is ever perfect. But we can see where someone is headed today. Look for a pathway headed God’s way
as Titus 2 describes. You will be headed for a wonderful life.
In Revelation 5 and Revelation 8, it says that in front of God’s throne – here’s God sitting on His
throne – there is a bowl, right there, in front of His throne. It says the bowl is the incense of the
prayers of the saints. Now are you guys saints? Let’s hear that out loud. Are you saints? Yes! That’s right.
When a saint prays, their prayer goes straight up and into the bowl. It’s the only thing you can drop right
in front of God. See, my children, when they used to make me little cards and stuff, I collected them.
Anything my kids did, We collected. We put them in this box. That’s nice. Do you know what’s nicer? When we
pray, boom, it goes right at the feet of God. He collects prayers. How many do you have in your bowl? Have
you thought about that? That’s why the more you understand the Lord, you pray without ceasing. It’s like you
can’t disconnect from dropping those right in the bowl in front of His feet. So, let’s drop some stuff in front
of the Lord.
When I pray, we pray together. The Bible says we’re supposed to be agreeing in prayers. You should actually be
listening to people’s prayers and in your heart, anything they say that’s right, you say, yeah, Lord I agree with
that. The Lord said if any two of you…do you know that verse? Agree as touching anything, I will do it.
Jesus said that. That’s why it’s so important in our community that we are in agreement. That’s why the best
thing in life to do, and that’s what our lesson is about today, is to marry the one person in life you can most
agree with. God says our prayers are powerful as a couple when we agree in prayer.
Let’s pray. Father in Heaven, we ask for You to open the eyes of our understanding. That You stir our hearts like
You want to so that we will not just hear all these things. We will not just be readers, but we will become doers
of Your Word. By your grace, for the glory of you, O God, we pray. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
The book of Proverbs is about living life God’s way. We were born wanting to live life our own way.
All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. We want to live our own way. God says, no, I want you to live My way.
So, living God’s way comes to the next topic in the book of Proverbs. We’ve talked about being saved, that’s being
wise, being servant-hearted, wanting to do God’s will, being selective, careful like Solomon wasn’t, submissive,
not proud like Lucifer was, and becoming Satan.
Now we’re looking at the topic of being singular. Now this is how Jesus put it. In the Sermon on the Mount, He said,
if your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light. Do you guys remember that in the Sermon on the Mount?
Jesus talks about an eye single. Now I want to talk about singularity in one area. It’s the topic of marriage.
That’s a huge topic in the book of Proverbs. Marriage is, for most people throughout most of time, most people
have been married. Have you ever thought about that? We have this new thing in our generation. Did you know your
generation isn’t getting married? The generations before were living together. Now, they don’t even live together.
They just have no desire for marriage or children.
America has become an amazing place. Our birth rate is going down. For America, unless we get more immigrants,
we’re going to start declining like Japan is like Western Europe is like most countries are. In most civilized
countries, their birth rate is going down. You have to have two children just to keep the population even. The
average right now is 1.7. So two people need to have two children or population declines. Right now, they’re
having 1.7. I can’t make my finger only 0.7, but why? It’s because of this. Let me give you an illustration
before I jump into marriage.
Isn’t that like a hallmark card? Isn’t that the idea? This perfect wedding shot. That is not how most people
think of marriage. When I was young. You come up behind a car. There’s this head of a guy. Right next to him,
it looks like another head, but it’s so close it almost looks like it’s one person driving that car.
Do you know what you’ve come up behind? A dating couple. The guy’s here,
and the girl is so close to him you can’t see light between them. They’re like that.
Okay, now if you’re driving down the road, you get up behind a another car, and you see a head here. Over on
this side, you see another head. What do you see? A married couple. That’s what Americans think. Romance,
excitement, everything is dating. Who wants to ever go to that and be married? Probably there’s a car seat
between them. That’s why they’re not sitting close. But it doesn’t matter. Marriage isn’t very exciting for
people. Do you know why? Because it’s hard. For two selfish people who want their own way to unite and have
a shared life is very hard. But God says marriage is the second greatest day of your life.
At a Wedding. They all come in with the pretty music and they’re standing there in front of Pastor.
He has his Bible. H say, welcome to the second greatest day of this couple’s life. There’s whispering
in the congregation. They go, is this a second marriage for them? What is he talking about? See, it’s
an exciting moment as a pastor. Pastor’s love weddings and funerals because everybody
listens. Did you know that? Everybody listens at weddings and funerals. In church, they don’t listen. They’ve
heard it all. So, they’re all whispering. I say, yeah, it’s the second greatest day because I’ve heard their
testimony of the greatest day of their life, which is the day they bowed in faith and trusted the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Okay, why would I say that marriage is the second greatest day in someone’s life? What did God pick to portray
the greatest joy of Heaven? What is Heaven going to be? Heaven the place, the physical place, is like a bride
adorned for her husband. That’s how God describes Heaven. God describes Heaven like it’s a wedding! Yet, who
wants to be married? It’s because most people don’t even understand the Christian life, let alone Heaven or
God’s designs for marriage.
So, let’s talk about this. First, the context. God’s will is revealed in my character. We started in chapter 1,
God wants to make me wise, not foolish. Remember we were talking about wisdom. Secondly, God wants me to be
teachable. We went through that, not stubborn. We looked at the stubbornness in Proverbs. God wants to make me
righteous, not wicked. God wants to make me humble, that was last time, not proud. The book of Proverbs not
only talks about being wise, teachable, righteous, and humble, God wants us to be self-controlled. But the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness, meekness, temperance, what? Self-control. Do you guys
remember that? It’s a fruit of the Spirit. I showed you, right there, that God offers wisdom. We submit to it,
so God gives us grace. How do you get self-controlled? By submitting to God and asking for His grace.
Okay, from Proverbs, what makes a great marriage partner? Let’s start with Proverbs 25. Grab your Bible and
look at Proverbs 25:28.
“He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.”
Number 1, God wants to make me self-controlled, not rash.
God says wise people seek a biblical temperament.
Now, I have to write this down.
God wants me to have a biblical temperament. I showed you this verse on the first day, and I want to remind you
of it again. It says, But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easily entreated,
full of mercy and good fruits. God wants us to have a biblical temperament. This is what it looks like.
James 3 talks about it, but how does Proverbs describe it? He who has no rule over his own
spirit is like a city broken down without walls. God says wise people are self-controlled. They are not
like a city whose walls are broken down, which means defenseless.
Number two, God says wise people have a calm spirit. Look at chapter 17:27.
“He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.”
He who has knowledge spares his word. Now here it is, And a person of understanding has a calm spirit.
The wisdom that is from above is first pure. So, when I invite God to pour out on me His wisdom,
His grace keeps me pure, and makes me peaceable, gentle, merciful, without partiality. That means
that you’re impartial, you’re not discriminatory and good. That’s what God is dumping on us all the time.
It doesn’t affect us unless we accept His grace.
What is grace? It’s the desire and power to do God’s will. I want what God wants. So, God says, if you want
to be wise if you want My grace, you’ll have a calm spirit.
God says wise people are, look at this, slow to anger.
Proverbs 29:8
“Scornful men bring a city into a snare: but wise men turn away wrath.”
Scoffers set a city aflame,but a wise man turns away wrath. When you get a really wise person,
they’re the ones that come into a tense situation and it calms down. They don’t inflame it. They are
slow to anger. They’re like control rods.
God says wise people are cautious, not hasty.
Proverbs 19:2
“Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good; and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth.”
He sins who hastens with his feet. The people that are hasty. God says wise people think before they act.
We’re supposed to think before we speak. We’re all supposed to think before we act. We’re not supposed to be rash.
Do you remember Saul? King Saul. A mighty victory happened in Israel. He didn’t know who did it. It was his own son,
Jonathan. Jonathan had killed a whole bunch of Philistines and was getting weary, so he took his spear and bumped
into a beehive, bumped into it, got honey on his spear, ate it, and it strengthened him. Saul said, if anybody has
eaten anything, I’m going to kill them. Now that’s called being hasty and rash. He didn’t even think about what he
was saying.
Then he found out it was his own son. So, he rashly said, okay, we’ll even kill Jonathan. Do you know what
the whole army did? They saw that Jonathan was a beautiful picture of wisdom, and they said no, that’s rash,
King. They resisted the king. See, God says, wise people, and Saul wasn’t wise, think before they speak and
think before they act. The whole book of Proverbs is filled with that.
Okay, now let’s put all that into application. Two people, two sinners, two fallen humans, two self-centered
at birth people, want to come together. Do you know what God’s mathematics is? In marriage, one plus one does
not equal two. Isn’t that neat? In God’s math, one plus one equals one.
Here’s why. Our goal is to find someone that you want to marry, and what you find is, you have a shared goal.
You want a life and a marriage that’s useful to God. What I told Naomi was, there’s something we can accomplish
together that we could never accomplish apart, individually. There are things that I could do alone that are
wonderful, but there is something God wanted for us to do together that we could never do in parts.
The greatest thing in life is to be useful to God. If you think about it when you get to the end of
Revelation 22, there are only two things left in the world, in the universe: God and His servants.
That’s what it says, His servants, all the way through Revelation 22 it talks about His servants.
What is a servant? Someone who does the will of another. A servant is someone who does what I tell them to do.
My will, they have taken as what they want to do. What’s left in Revelation 22 is God and all the people who say,
not my will, Yours. I want to be Your servant. That’s the greatest thing in life, to be useful to God. How does
Paul open all of his epistles? The same way. Paul, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whoever.
The greatest thing in life is to be useful to God and what God offers is to have a life and a marriage that is
useful to God.
So how do you find that person to marry? What’s a biblical marriage and a biblical partner really like? This
Proverbs is the most beautiful marriage guide in the world. Oh, by the way, have you all started your Proverbs
devotionals? Have you started? So, you should at least write one word. I don’t know. They haven’t
told me.
So, marriage is to be a joyful river. Let’s read this. Oh,
Proverbs 5:15
“Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.”
Look at this. Some of you could pick this for your devotional. It’s fun to read all these words.
It says in verse 15, drink water from your own cistern. Do you know what that means? Let me put that in
English. Focus on your own wife or husband. Verse 15 of chapter 5 is where I am. Running water from your own well.
Should your fountains be dispersed abroad?
Drink water from your own cistern and focus your desires on your own wife. Running water from
your own well, should your fountain be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets? Should you be pouring
out all your desires on every young lady on the streets? Have you ever been to an American mall on a Friday night?
They’re all walking around and it’s like everybody is looking at everyone, they’re looking at their shoes, they’re
looking at their outfit. Many of them are walking around in what chapter 7 of Proverbs would describe. Have you
guys read chapter 7 yet? It says, wearing the clothing of a harlot. Do you know what a harlot is? A hooker, a
prostitute.
Do you know how to know? In an American city? By the way, in Los Angeles and New York City, in America, they’ve
just both passed laws that no longer prosecute prostitution, okay? The police no longer will arrest a woman for
being a prostitute on the street. Do you know what’s happened? Read the newspaper. There are entire sections of
New York City now where ladies are only wearing underwear. That’s all. Imagine the worst swimsuit on the beach,
the worst outfit you could think of. They’re lining the streets, walking out to the cars, banging on them, trying
to stop the drivers. How do you know that they’re what do they do to advertise the fact that they’re a prostitute?
It’s what they’re wearing. Do you understand what Proverbs 7 says? It says a woman can choose clothing that
absolutely, watch, rivets the eyes of men. The Bible says marriage is supposed to be to a woman who chooses not
to dress like that. Do you understand that? That’s what 1 Timothy says, that a godly woman is a woman who dresses
modestly, and a godly man doesn’t spray all of his desire on every woman in the street. Let them be your own and
not for a stranger with you,
Proverbs 5:17-18
17Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.
18Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Verse 17. Let your fountain be blessed. Rejoice with the wife of your youth. That’s the wonderful scripture.
Number two, marriage is to be seen as goodness and favor from the Lord.
Proverbs 18:22
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.
We should regularly tell our wife’s that you are the greatest gift I’ve gotten in life. You’re
the one person in the whole world I would like to spend all my time with. Did you know that? Really, it’s honest.
Now I’ll tell you one thing that isn’t true, but I’ll tell it to you anyway. Sometimes at night, I wake up, and I
can’t sleep. When I’m real still, I go like this, and I open my eyes, not make any noise, and I look over at Naomi,
and do you know what I see? She has wings. She’s an angel. I’m actually living with an angel. But as soon as I
make any noise, whoop, they go in. That isn’t true, but I do say that all the time.
Okay, number three. Look what God says, not in Proverbs. Marriage is to be to a companion of our youth that we make
a covenant with for life. Guess what? When I met Naomi, I weighed 175 pounds. I play all of Sports.
I ran with the guys. We used to run the bleachers. I did everything, I just was athletic. Now look what
she has. I am losing my hair. I’m losing my teeth. All my muscles have moved down here, and everyone knows how
men get really big, their stomachs grow and everything. I’m no longer like I was in my youth.
I’ll tell you another story about Naomi. She still says she love me. Now, you know what? After being married for
53 years. She still thinks I’m handsome, even though I’ve gotten old and fat. Marry someone who is a companion
of yours through life. It’s very exciting. This is what God designed marriage to be.
“Only one life to live and soon is past
Only what’s done for Christ will last!”
Hoping to make the time I have left count for the glory of God.
Lesson 6: The Book of Proverbs Getting Ready For The Second Greatest Day Of Your Life Part 1