I don't think it is tonight, but Proverbs 16 this evening. Go down to verse number one, and we'll start there. We'll read a few verses tonight, and just get what the Lord put on my heart. Notice number one, the Bible says, the preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth the spirits. Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. Everyone that is of a proud heart is an abomination to the Lord. Though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished. By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged, and by the fear of the Lord, men depart. from evil, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you again for tonight. We sure do thank you, Lord, that you love us the way that you do. Lord, unconditionally, Lord, almost unbelievably, Lord, we don't understand why you would love somebody like us, but we sure are glad that you do, Lord. And it's not just something that you've said to us, God, there's evidence of it in our life, Lord. There's a grace that has been applied. There's been mercy that has been experienced. There's a love that has been felt. a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory, Lord, all benefiting because you love us. And I pray, Lord, tonight that you just simply help us from the word of God tonight. Lord, make it plain, make it simple, make it, Lord, understandable to every age group and every age that is represented here tonight. And I just pray, Lord, you make it personal tonight, Lord. We did not come here, Lord, expecting to get something for somebody else. God, we need what we need tonight. Lord, and I'm thankful, Lord, that you've got enough to provide every need that is in here tonight. We ask you tonight, Lord, you just simply help us from the word of God, it's your word, Lord, it's sharper than any two-edged sword, God, it can divide to the asunder, Lord, and I pray, Lord, tonight, Lord, you just simply let us see, God, exactly how powerful your word is tonight, Lord. Would you have it behind the cross of Calvary, God, empty out of myself and fill me with the spirit of God, and Lord, let me simply be used by you one more time, Lord, I sure do find great joy, and Lord, a wonderful life in serving you, God, Lord, even through the hard times and the difficult times, Lord, I've seen your grace on display. I've seen your faithfulness, God, and I'm so glad that I get to serve you. Help us to be, Lord, about your business. Help us to be out sharing the gospel and telling others about you. Lord, why would we not tell others about a life that we enjoy so wonderfully? Lord, we love you, we thank you, and we'll give you all the glory and all the praise. In Jesus' name we pray, amen and amen. Let me ask you now, how many of you tonight love prepositions? To be honest with you, every time I think of the word preposition, I go back into my school years and I've told you beforehand, though I passed my English class and though I did what was required of me, I would by no means say that English is my favorite subject. To me, it was not as interesting as science and history and lunch. I had to go through it and I learned some things and the Lord has a sense of humor because when I'm studying my Bible, I can't tell you how many times I had to go back and say, I ought to call my English teacher and tell them thank you because they put up with me but also they taught me some things. But we're gonna see her tonight, we'll preach her what in the world is a preposition. Some of you may not have made it that far into school yet, you may not have learned that yet, and just wait, your turn's coming, amen? You're gonna learn about it one day, but here's a preposition, here's the dictionary definition of it. It's a word governing and usually preceding a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element in the clause. See, that's why I didn't like English class. They give you a definition that doesn't make no sense. All right, what is, you know, in science, when they gave you a definition, it made sense. England, I got that right, what in the world does that mean? So let me put that into you in Richmond County educated Hexable language. It is a phrase that is preceded by a certain word that helps describe something in the previous part of the sentence. In essence, we see it in our Bible when we think about the Great Commission. The Great Commission could simply say, go ye. Right, we understand from that phrase we are to go. But then there's a prepositional phrase. Go ye into all the world. And so now we understand where we're supposed to go. We're to go into all the world. And so tonight as we look at Proverbs 16, the first six verses, you will see a handful of prepositions. Matter of fact, we see the word from, which is a preposition. We see the word unto, which is one. We see the word to, we see the word unto. of, and I think we might even see the word for somewhere in there, right? And we see these prepositions that are given to us and these phrases that are tied to them help you and I understand some things as in relation to our relation with the Lord. And we're gonna see tonight, in the next few weeks, we're gonna look at some prepositions for a few weeks. So don't tune me out, don't cut me out. I promise you, this is not an English lesson, and we are gonna move on from here. But before we get into all that, notice tonight, there are certain things that are the Lord's. Look at verse number four. He hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. He said, that is a theological statement there. Right, that is something that I believe because it's in the Bible, but oftentimes I feel like my ability to explain that and to express that is quite inadequate. Right, and that's the same thing as trying to explain to somebody the Trinity with just human terminology. or human examples. I've heard many different kinds and many different explanations and no doubt they are good, they're well-meaning, but they always seem to fall short. Right? You think about the explanation concerning the Trinity, well you say you can think about water, right? In essence, water can be in three states. You have liquid, you have a solid, which is ice, and you have gas, which is vapor. And at the end, it's still water. But may I remind you that the God that we serve doesn't operate in different modes in that sense. In essence, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son, they are equal, they are the same, they are one tonight. They don't operate just in different modes. And so it's one of those, you can go back and forth, back and forth. I am a father, I'm also a son, and I'm also a husband, but I'm the same person. And that helps you understand some of those things, but at the end of it, you're like, I don't get that. Because there's an element of faith that comes to the word of God. But we see here tonight, the Bible said that there are some things for the Lord. He said all things are for himself, even the wicked things, for the day of evil. Now we know that God did not create sin, rather it was a choice of man, but at the same time, the Bible says that even the wicked things that God, they're his, and he can use them as he sees fit. And can I say that causes me to scratch my head? That causes that little hamster in the run on the wheel, and he's not sure where to go. But a good example of this is John chapter number 13, verse 27. The Bible said that Satan entered in to Judas. To do what? Harm. To betray the Lord. And so here is Satan thinking, I'm in control, I have turned the table, I have changed the prerogative, and now I'm going to use Judas to, in essence, lead the Lord to a place where he's going to die. But in the reality of the scale of things, it was God's plan all along. Right, Judas was filling the parts. Satan was really enabling what God had already designed to be done. Because the Bible said that Jesus was a lamb slain before the foundation of the world. So we see that all things are for himself. But look at verse 11. Here's another thing that is the Lord's. It says the Bible, the Bible says a just way and a balance are the Lord's. Now, these are not prepositional phrases. These are declarative statements. These are understanding that the balance and the weight are the Lord. Preacher, what in the world does that mean? That means God is the only one capable of judging perfectly, rightfully, without bias or prejudice. His judgment, his observation, his just weight, his balance are perfect. In essence, if God said it, it's true. And if God said it is not true, then it is not true. If God said it is right, then it is right. If God said it is wrong, then it is wrong. Why, preacher? Because he's the only one that gets to make those kind of rules. and those kind of observations. So just weight and the balance are the Lord's. And we'll see why in just a few moments why that's important. Why is it that we go off of God's standard and not man's? And why we don't change with the times? And why don't we try to fit in to our culture? Why don't we try to preach a more inclusive message? And every time that stirs me up, right? Because the gospel that we preach is a rather inclusive message. Whosoever shall believe on the Lord shall be saved. Whosoever call upon the name of the Lord shall, whosoever means anybody will. Or anybody can. Anybody has the opportunity to do so. Tonight, it's a rather inclusive, but we're gonna see tonight why it's important that the just way and the balance are the Lord's and not left up to men or individuals. But before we go into that any further tonight, the first preposition we're gonna look at is the word to. Right, and we're gonna look at things that are abominable to the Lord, and things that are acceptable to the Lord. So our first preposition that we'll look at tonight is this word, to. I was gonna, I wrote it down in a way, and I was like, that doesn't even make, how can, it didn't make grammatical sense. I said, well, I can't preach a grammatical message and have an ingrammatical title, or grammatically incorrect title. And so I titled my message, Prepositions Part One. We'll look at the word two. Notice number one, there are things that are abominable to the Lord. Definitely in 2023 and here on out, this style and this kind of preaching where it's just line upon line and precept upon precept, it's not even really hard preaching per se, it's just biblical preaching. It's going out of style for you and I to look at a crowd or to look at people or to look at a part of our society and say that is an abomination before God. That's not gonna make you popular. That's not gonna make you liked. You're not gonna be everybody's favorite Facebook pastor when you say things like that. But the other night, we were driving home and my mother-in-law handed her phone over to Shiloh. And on that phone was the original Rudolph. The clay animation, I don't know if it was the original one. To me, it was the original. So when I grew up watching, we watched it every year. And it seems like every time around Christmas, the Lord allows me to sneak this into a message somehow. But to me, it's probably the greatest Christmas movie that I've ever seen. It's probably the original Rudolph elf, and then everything else falls underneath that. Preacher, what about Miracle on 34th Street? I don't think I've ever seen it all the way through. I've slept through it many times. But Shiloh's watching the original Rudolph. It's one of those that I can quote just about every line from it. You know, if you watch it with me, you're going to see something on the screen. You're going to hear me saying all the different lines. Yukon, Cornelius, nothing. Right? I mean, I love the movie, but she was watching it. And you know the story that he's not necessarily the bad guy, but he's the one that everybody's afraid of. What's his name? Abominable. Right, he's that big woolly booger, he's white, he's got a purple face, he's got those gnashing teeth, and everybody's scared of him. Until a dentist elf finds out that he's actually not mean, he's just got a toothache. He pulls out all of his teeth, and now him, which was once abominable, is cute and nice, and he's putting the star on top of the Christmas tree. And I say our society has tried their best, and really it's probably from the pits of hell, from Satan himself, has tried his best to take that which God has labeled abominable and make it cute. to take that harshness away from it, to make it seem as if it is not as bad as God makes it out to be. And some of you who've been around a lot longer than I have can go back to a time, even within our own country and our society, that the things that fly today would never have flown in your day. It would not been allowed, it would not been supported, it would not been to everybody get on board with it. And everybody support it, not just in society, but definitely not in the church. But we're living in a generation where churches have completely dropped the standards. And you see, we can always point out, well, it's just them, it's just them, it's just them. But even within the Baptist realm tonight, there are Baptist churches having drag shows. and crazy things like that. And it's not that preacher, if you're gonna reach them, you're gonna be like them. Can I say, I don't think Paul ever dressed up like a woman. I don't think Paul ever went to, let's hang out at the bar and we'll have hymns and hops and drink beer and sing the hymns. I don't think you would have found Paul over there. We can see that in the, go read Corinthians. Paul didn't say, all right, y'all are doing good. He said, no, y'all aren't doing good. Y'all need to get this straightened out. But we're gonna see some things tonight in Proverbs 16 tonight that God clearly calls an abomination. And before we step way out into the LGBTQ plus seven crowd over here, or to this crowd over here, we know that judgment must begin at the house of God. In Proverbs 16, it's not necessarily an out there that he's dealing with. He's dealing with his own children. He's trying to teach them, hey, yes, that's wrong out there, but be careful, because you can have things wrong in here, too. And we're gonna see tonight, there's two things he calls right here that are wrong, that are an abomination. Verse five tells us what a proud heart is. Look at verse five, everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Now, just the wording right there tells us that all of us are capable of it. Everyone. In essence, every one of us at some point in our life, and let's be honest, multiple points in our life are gonna have to deal with our heart. Our heart is going to, that bitter root, that seed of pride is going to well up again and it's a struggle and a temptation that everyone will face. What is pride, preacher? It is taking God off the throne of our hearts and putting ourselves there. This is my life, this is my heart. I make the decisions around here. In essence, here's what pride boils down to. It is you and I telling God, I know better than you. And we often think of it in that chest poked out, that nose up in the air. I'm better than everybody. I don't make mistakes. I'm the best at this. I'm better at that. But can I say pride also takes a different route as well when we step back and say, well, there's nothing God can do for me. I don't know, God can't help me. The reality is tonight both of those are an example of pride and the Bible said it starts with a proud heart and God doesn't play with proud hearts. God doesn't say, you know what, it's okay, you've earned the right to have and to think that way. No, God's word says a proud heart is what, an abomination. before the Lord. And see, it's one of the, oh, preacher, no, no. No, we're not gonna call it cute. We're not gonna take what God is clearly and directly against and say, oh, in every other case, preacher, it applies, but not in my case. I had a man tell me one time, this was years ago. He said, Tate, I know what the Bible says, but me and God have an understanding. How many of y'all think about conversations you had seven years ago and thought, why couldn't I have thought about that in the moment? I got a real good answer for them now. I just didn't have it in the moment. But I got to thinking about that conversation I had, that man said, I know what the word of God says, and me and God have an understanding. And I'm thinking, well, if you really know what the word of God says, then you and God don't have an understanding. God's not gonna say, I'm gonna set my word to the side so me and you can agree on some things. God's saying, here's what my word is, you gonna agree with it or not? Bumper sticker, God's word settles it, or God's word says it, I believe it, that settles it. No, really, God's word settles it. Whether you believe it or not tonight. But the Bible said a proud heart is abominable unto God. Not only a proud heart, but verse number 12 said wicked actions by authority. Look at verse number 12. It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness, for the throne is established by righteousness. And once again, these are those verses that we, we often, when we hear verses like this, our mind goes straight to the political. to the rulers of our land, the leaders of our land. And no doubt the application is there. It's interesting, the political thing. When the political election doesn't go our way, the first verse, God establishes kings. And he does. But not just in bad election cycles. And not just on the political national level, elected official level either. But in churches as well. God establishes the pastor. But in the home as well, God establishes the father, the leader of the home. Last time I checked, my Bible said that God is the giver and taker of life. In essence, the children I have in my house, God gave them to me. He established that throne, per se, or that place of authority in my home. I didn't earn it. I didn't necessarily stand in line and say, all right, it's my turn now. God blessed and God gave. And God allowed me to be in a place of authority, not just in the home, but in the church. And then also in your life, God has allowed you and God has placed you and set you up in some places of leadership tonight, a places of authority. It may not actually come with a name tag and a specific job title, but God has you in a place of leadership. And the Bible says that when you and I take that place, and we abuse it or we use it for an unintended purpose that God has desired, he calls that an abomination. He calls that a very, very bad thing. We love to remind each other about everybody. I tell you what, I'm sick and tired of what President Joe Biden's doing. And no doubt, I'm with you tonight. I'm to the point where it's like, man, I turn on talk radio and I turn right back off. There's not a whole lot I can do to fix anything. And if I get upset and I punch the radio, he ain't coming to fix it. And I ain't gonna have a radio. But in essence, when we realize tonight that God has places and places, that it's not our job, it doesn't entitle us to anything. But rather, it gives us the opportunity to serve God and to show others what the Lord has done. You did not put yourself there, the Lord did. And in essence tonight, it's not your position. It's not your place of entitlement. It's a place of service. And I understand in the home sometimes the father has to put his foot down. We ain't gonna do that. We ain't gonna say that. You ain't going there. You're not wearing that. I understand that tonight. But can I say being a father doesn't entitle you to anything necessarily more or less than it's a place of service. I think there's some homes definitely in America where what the father's doing is an abomination to the Lord. I think there's churches in America with what the pastor is doing before and outside the view of the congregation is an abomination to the Lord. Oh, if we're gonna preach it in the White House, we better preach in the church house. If we're gonna preach in the White House and church house, we better preach it at our house because the truth applies tonight. Well, here's the thing. Why is God against pride? Why is God against arrogance? Well, he knows where it ends. Look at verse number 18. Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud. In essence, God's saying you do a whole lot better with a whole lot less spoil. A whole lot better if you humble yourself. The Bible doesn't tell us, God, make me humble. The Bible says, humble yourself before the Lord. Make the conscious choice, the personal choice that I know that I don't deserve the place on the throne of my heart, God does, and I'm gonna let him have it. I'm gonna bow my will to his. A realized ending, and wouldn't you rather forfeit the spoil than experience the fall? Pride only leads in one direction, it's a fall. Let me ask you preachers, does God have any leeway, any wiggle room on these issues? No, he holds the balance and the weight. He's not changing his mind on it. There's no such thing as self-justification. Look at verse number 25. There is a way that seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Then you go back to verse number two. All the ways of man are clean in his own eyes. Don't you dare tell me what to do. I feel fine about that. I don't care how you feel. What does the word of God say? Because me and you are really good at justifying ourselves. The only problem is we might justify ourselves, God doesn't. Oh, you feel that way? Okay, then it's fine then. You know why our society is trying their best to get our young people to think there's no such thing as absolute truth? Because absolute truth convicts. Absolute truth causes you and I to realize that we're accountable to God. to somebody greater than us. And there's no such thing as relative truth. There's no such thing as absolute truth. Well, that in itself is an absolute truth. It's an oxymoron, but at the same time, and the reality is we'll say, well, if it's good for me, then it must be okay. That's not true. We gotta always go back. What does the Bible say? There's no such thing as self-justification. Verse number five, there's no such thing as size justification. Everyone that is a proud heart is an abomination to the Lord, verse five. Though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished. We live in America, and the reality is, I grew up thinking that the homosexual crowd was the majority. They're on the news. They're on all the stories. They're all the heroes of all these different things. I thought, man, everybody must be going that way. Gotta find out it's still less than 1% of our country is that way. But the reality is, I don't care if it was 99% of our country. It's still not right. I don't care if 99% of the church says it's OK. It's still not right. Because there's no such thing as size justification I think here in Augusta alone, there was at least 16 Methodist churches that pulled out of the Methodist convention. Why? Because they began to ordain homosexual ministers. 16 churches pulled out, lost all their support. Matter of fact, I drove by the one there in Hephzibah. They were a United Methodist church. I drove by, they covered up United. I said, praise the Lord. I don't know if they'll be open next week. But they made the right decision. Because there was pressure. If you pull out, you lose all your funding. Matter of fact, we are an independent Baptist church. You know where independent Baptists came from? Men who were willing to pull out of the Southern Baptist Convention because of what they were starting to teach and believe. They said, that's why the majority of independent Baptist churches are in storefronts. Or they started off in storefronts because they lost their church buildings. They were stripped of those things. when they made a stand. Even if they said the whole convention's going that way, we're not going that way with them. Because there's no such thing as size justification, no such thing as self-justification when it comes to abominable things. Let me ask, what abominable things are you trying to justify instead of just trying to get right tonight? We see there are things that are abominable to the Lord, but notice number two tonight, there are things that are acceptable to the Lord. There are things that are acceptable. You ever had someone come in and do some work, or you did some work from somebody, and you tried your best, and they looked at it, and they were like, oh, that's OK. It's acceptable. There's a lot of school projects that I did that they turned out to be acceptable. Why, preacher? Because I did them the night before I was supposed to turn them in. Nothing like writing a 12-page paper the night before. Nothing new to my science fair project and making 30 days of observations in one night. But it was acceptable. It wasn't my best work, no doubt, but it was accepted. But tonight we're talking about things that are accepted. We're not talking about that. We're talking about things that please the Lord. Things that bring him pleasure. Look at verse number seven. When a man's ways please the Lord. So there tonight we understand there is a way or there are things that you and I can do that please the Lord. And that ought to bless our hearts tonight because we're coming from a place prior to our salvation where nothing that we did pleased God. The Bible says your righteousness is filthy rags. There was nothing we brought to the table prior to our salvation that God stepped back and said, that pleases me. And the reality is tonight, it is not of our work still tonight, but rather we are working from what God has given to us in his son. And when you and I work in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit, that pleases God. And so we see that there are some things that are acceptable to the Lord. And look what it says right here in verse number seven. When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Now they might not agree with you, but they'll quit arguing with you. They'll say things like, yeah, I'll tell you what, I ain't for all that getting up early and reading my Bible before I come to work. That fella sure is honest. I'll tell you what, I don't see why they go to church three times a week. They do got a good family. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not a holy roller. I don't sit at my lunch table by myself and pray before I eat. That fella seems to got something I don't. They'll be at peace with the, I can't argue with what I'm looking at. I can't argue with what I'm seeing. And so we see that when you and I begin to please the Lord, God will even take our enemies and shut their mouth. They may not get on board with you. They won't quit getting in your way. We see two things tonight in Proverbs 16 that are acceptable to the Lord. Verse 13 through 16, we see that wise leadership is acceptable to the Lord. Verses 13 through 16, righteous lips are a delight of kings. And they that love him that speaketh right. The wrath of a king is as messengers of death, but a wise man will pacify. So we see that a wise leader leads in their speech. How they talk, and not just how they talk, but what they say and who they say it to. And wise leadership understands, we go back to that first point, wise leadership understands tonight that God has placed us in this position. It's not an earned position, it's not because we paid our dues per se, it is because God has placed us in this position. I think he's still the Speaker of the House, I don't know if that's changed since then. But the man that's the Speaker of the House now, his name was Mike Johnson, he's from Louisiana. And I watched a little bit of his speech when he got nominated in. And he said a statement, he's got a lot of flack for it. The statement that he made was, I believe that God has placed me here. That God has put me in this position. And of course, the one side was saying how it was racist and going down the line of all this kind of thing. I sat there and I thought, that's the kind of leader I want. A man who understands that his place of authority and his place of decision making is not up to him, but it is God has placed him there. But a wise leader leads in their speech, verse 13 and 14. We'll get a little bit more into that in just a few minutes. But notice this, they're also leading their countenance. Look at verse number 15. In the light of the king's countenance is life. In his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain. Christians are some interesting people sometimes. We are the people that will be so excited that God has placed us somewhere and God has allowed us to serve him, given an avenue for us to live for him and to do a great work for him and we'll be upset about it. It went mad about it. Oh, I gotta go to church. Oh, I gotta teach Sunday school. Oh, I gotta do this. Can I say that stuff rubs off on people? For the longest, I thought, I really did think that the worst thing a Christian could do was go into full-time ministry. Because I heard story after story after story after story after story after story after story. of bad things and bad people and this and that, and no doubt they are out there tonight, no doubt there are problems and there are issues. I'm not naive to that, but the reality is I find great joy in what God has allowed me to do. Because you're looking at someone tonight who ought not to be here, who ought not to be allowed to do this, and ought not to be able to see and experience what God is doing. Just take a look around tonight. On a Wednesday night, look how many people we have in church tonight. There was a time and there was a period where it was not this way at here. But look what the Lord's done. And I could easily walk in and say, you know what? Oh, Lord, I gotta preach to some people tonight. Oh, why me? I sit in my office a lot of times like, Lord, why? Lord, am I really the only one he could find? Well, there's far more qualified, far more better, but Lord, I'm here. I'm like that fellow whose only reason why he's on the baseball team is because mom and daddy signed the paper and paid for him to be there. We had a guy on our baseball team, our rec team, his name was Gerald, could not play baseball worth a lick. Joe was fast, but he could not play baseball. And in the rec league you had to play three outs in the field, you had to get one at-bat. And Gerald always came in at the end of the game. Sometimes we were up by a lot and it didn't matter. Sometimes we were down by a lot, didn't matter. And so the coach's plan was always wait until the last inning to put Gerald out in the field and then let Gerald hit. Finally came to a game where he was close. The coach's strategy was not working. We had one opportunity to get a man on base, to get a hit, and now it comes down to Gerald. I remember Gerald, he walked up to the base. He stood there. Didn't even take the bat off his shoulder. And finally, we just yelled, swing, Gerald. Might as well swing. And he swung, hit the ball. It went 10 feet in front of him. But he was so fast. Man, he, I mean, took off, beat the throat of first base, overthrew first base, he took second base, and before you know it, Gerald scored the winning run just because he showed up to play. And sometimes that's how I feel as pastor. Lord, I'll show up. I can't promise much more, Lord. It requires the countenance. Boy, wouldn't it be wonderful if I have a church that we come in here and, well, we're just glad to be here. We're glad to serve him. We come in sweaty and nasty from work, but we're excited to be here. We're hungry, but we're still glad to be here. Wishing Preacher would hurry up. Preacher, I love you and all, but I'm hungry. Amen, I'm right now done. Look at verse number 16. They lead in their desire. How much better it is to get wisdom than gold, to get understanding rather than being chosen to silver. Well, what a blessing it is in my life to open up the word of God and just simply give you what God has showed me and to watch it work in your life. And to watch God take what he's given to me, it's working in my life, me to give it to you and watch it work in your life. I really enjoy it when I type them things out on the band. And knowing y'all read them. And knowing that y'all, actually, unless you're just, all right, preach this, let me type amen real quick. but to watch it, right, because I desire for God's wisdom to be in my life and for it to grow and for me to know more about him and to grow in my faith and to get more wisdom. And the more I, here's what I realized, the more I desired, I've seen some of y'all wanting it too. I think that's how it's supposed to be. Wise leadership pleases the Lord. Well-spoken words please the Lord. Look at verse 23 and 24. The heart of the wise teaches his mouth and addeth learning to his lips. Boy, how many are having a lot of fun teaching your mouth how to talk? Sure don't come easy, does it? It's required instruction. Sometimes you're going to have to stop that mouth. Don't say that. And there's a realized value. Look at verse number 24. Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bone. Now, I was reading my Bible and studying, I said, well, out of all the things the Lord could compare that to, why a honeycomb? I mean, he could have very well put honey bun in there. Banana pudding. Peach cobbler. Those are all, why a honeycomb? So I googled, what's so special about honeycombs? Found out he wasn't talking about the cereal. I found this out, honeycombs provide nutrients. Matter of fact, they encourage most people that if you have a beehive where you can get your hands on a local source of honey or honeycomb, it's one of the best things you can eat. I don't think it was by accident, Brother Kim, we was talking about honey earlier. God said pleasant words like a honeycomb. They provide nutrients. They also provide protection. They're antibacterial and antimicrobial. There's things in a honeycomb that if you eat it, it'll keep you from getting sick. Here's what I really like. They help you to have a healthier liver. Pleasant words help you to live better. What about that? They're pleasant like a honeycomb. They give strength to your bone. Didn't you know your words, you didn't know your words could have that kind of impact on your life, did it? They provide strength and health to the bones. They're like a honeycomb. In well-spoken words, please the Lord. Are you hoping to please the Lord or are you planning on pleasing?