There's a story told about a young lad, a young boy in Africa, who found a leopard cub after its mother had been killed. And he took pity on the leopard cub and took it home as his pet. in his village loved the leopard cub and they used to play with it and fuss over it because it was so soft and cuddly and cute. And it went everywhere with the boy and drank milk from his hands. But there was a hunter in the village and the hunter warned him that the boy had brought great danger into the village. And he said to him, little leopards grow into big leopards, and big leopards kill. But the boy didn't believe him. The leopard seemed so cute. It seemed so tame. Over the years, or over the months, should I say, it grew into a gentle giant, and the small children would even ride on its back. And everyone thought how lovely this leopard was, until one day, When the children were out playing, one of the children tripped and grazed his knee and the leopard got the scent of blood and suddenly its demeanor changed from a cute, gentle pet into a snarling, wild animal. Now, I don't genuinely know how that story ended. I hope it was a happy ending. I'd like to say the hunter came and rescued the children. We'll go for that ending. But the lesson remains the same either way. Little leopards grow into big leopards, and big leopards kill. And the application of that story is that sometimes we can play with sin. We think, oh, it's just a little lie. It's just a little lack of honesty. It's just a slight bending of the truth or it's just a thought. It's just a small thing and the warning is little sins become big sins and big sins kill. And there is truth in that. It reminds me of what one person wrote. They said, watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny. We all, I think, can resonate with that. Those small choices we make, lead to big things in the end. So that's true. But there's one thing that I don't like about that application to the story. In the story, we learn that little leopards grow into big leopards, and big leopards kill. And the implication is that little sins are safe, but they grow into something which is bigger and dangerous. A baby leopard is safe, I think. I'm not entirely sure, don't quote me on that. But I don't think a baby leopard could do much harm to any of us. But is that really true, even of little sins? I'm not sure that is true. Our so-called little sins are harmful in themselves. Now of course a little lie may not harm many other people. There are big lies people can tell, politicians can tell big lies which lead thousands if not millions of people astray and that you could say in a sense is more dangerous than the little lie which you just tell yourself which doesn't affect other people. but we shouldn't minimize the danger of that little lie to yourself. Imagine it like this. Imagine that you're in a village and your cup is poisoned, but the village well is safe. It's better that the village well is not poisoned and your cup is, but not for you. Does that make sense? You don't want that poison to spread to other people because the more people affected, the more danger and the more devastation. But you don't want your cup to be poisoned either. You don't want you to suffer either. Do you see the point? Even a little anger in your soul, which you don't act out on, is still harmful to you. Better not to act on it than act on it, but you're still damaging your own soul. A little lustful thought, not acted on won't harm other people. but it will harm you. And that really, as a long way of introduction, is really what this proverb we're looking at this morning is teaching. Let me read it again. It's Proverbs 24, verses eight and nine. God's Word reads, he who plots to do evil will be called a schemer. The devising of foolishness is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to men. That proverb is teaching us that it's not just what you do outwardly which matters, it's what you are on the inside which matters as well. Doing things outwardly is harmful and bad. But what you do in the privacy of your mind is also serious. That word schema, as you notice, it said, he who plots to evil will be called a schemer. And it seems like that word schema is used as a kind of derogatory term, a bit like we might use the word troublemaker, or a lout, or if you're older, a scallywag, something like that. That's what that word is sort of getting at. It's saying the person who plots to do evil, even in the privacy of their own minds, they'll be labeled a troublemaker. They are demonstrating evil, even in the secrecy of their thoughts. Again, that's what the beginning of verse nine says. The devising of foolishness is sin. Even just plotting it in your own head, even if you don't act on it, The Bible says that is sin because you're revealing something about your heart. What you plot and what you scheme in your mind is reflection of what your heart thinks. That is, by the way, the explanation to the picture on the front of your service sheet. I like to do slightly cryptic ones sometimes, and that's the meaning behind it. This proverb is getting at the heart. and your heart can be full of love or it can be full of evil thoughts. So the message is very clear from this proverb. Don't fool yourself that just because your sin is hidden in your mind that it's just happening in the privacy of your imagination and you're not living it out in practice. Don't delude yourself. that that is not sin. Don't delude yourself that that is not doing harm to yourself, even if it's not doing harm to others. And if you're harming yourself, you will do harm to others in the end anyway. This is the same as what Jesus taught. Perhaps you've already thought of these verses in the Sermon on the Mount. And do you remember what Jesus said when he was telling people what the Old Testament law taught, but then he told them what he taught? And he said, of course, in verse, let me find the, In verse 21 of Matthew chapter five, Jesus says, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder. And whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. You see, he says, the Old Testament law said do not murder. And that's right, we shouldn't murder. But he says, even being angry, with your brother without a cause puts you in danger of judgment. To make clear again, better to be angry and not murder other people. You don't want your sin to spread, but don't think that your sin doesn't matter simply because it doesn't hurt other people. Another example, look at verse 27 of Matthew 5. Jesus said, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Again, you may not act on your imagination, but Jesus says the imagination reveals what's in your heart. And you are an adulterer inside your heart because your imagination reveals it. Because what you think in your heart is what you are, not what you put on public display. We actually looked at this a few months ago, you might not remember, when we were looking about the evil eye and the Book of Proverbs was warning about those who have an evil eye, those who have an evil heart. And it's said in Proverbs chapter 23, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. And that applies to women as well, just in case you're wondering. As a person thinks in their heart, so they are. That's the real you. Not the front you put on for other people, which we all do, let's be honest. Not the outward look only. It's what you are in your heart. That's the warning of this proverb. You might have a question. If you're listening carefully to the proverb, something strange happens at the end of verse nine. Let me read it again. Verse nine says, the devising of foolishness is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to men. The devising of foolishness is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to men. Now when I first read that, I thought, that's a strange mixture of thoughts. What's a scoffer got to do with foolish thinking? It sounds like it's what they call a non sequitur. Have you heard that word? It's when someone says something and they make a logical statement but the two bits don't work together. A bit like if I said something like, the sky is blue so we must all eat cheese. You'd think, what? That doesn't make any sense. Those two things do not go together. And that's what I felt like when I first read that verse, verse nine. The devising of foolishness is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to men. The person, Solomon, perhaps, writing this proverb seems to change topic mid-proverb. He's talking about foolish thinking, and then he's talking about scoffers. What link do they have together? Why does Solomon put those two thoughts together? Well, I think the answer comes when we consider what a scoffer is. What is a scoffer? It's not perhaps a word we use perhaps so much, perhaps we do. We talk about people scoffing at things. But a scoffer is someone who ridicules something as foolish which is good. Or put another way, someone who dismisses something that is good as though it was bad. That's what a scoffer is. They see something wise and good and they laugh at it and they say it's foolish and unwise even though it is the opposite. And did you notice the strong language that's used in this verse? It says the scoffer is an abomination to men. A scoffer is an abomination and the Bible only uses that word of very serious evil. Of when things are twisted and perverse. When something is contrary to nature. And the reason is because a scoffer is taking something which is good and they're demeaning it as something which is bad. I'll give another example of that in Proverbs 17, verse 15. It says, he who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord. Judges who say to wicked people, you're good, and who says to good people, you're wicked. That's an abomination to the Lord. And that's the link between scoffing and evil thinking. Both the scoffer and the person who imagines evil things, they both demonstrate a sick heart, a heart which doesn't see things clearly, a heart which loves evil and hates good. It's one thing to be forced to do evil, isn't it? Perhaps if you're a student of history and you look back at the people in the, perhaps Germans in the Second World War, and there's a horrible book called, I think it's called Ordinary Men, I think it's called. And it's about a battalion, if that's the right word, of police officers in a German city. And before that, they were just ordinary men. just ordinary police officers in Germany. But when the Nazis came to power, they got led into greater and greater evil. And they were just obeying orders. They were just doing what they were told. But then they looked back and they realized the great evil that they had done as they obeyed orders. But that's one thing, to do evil because you're forced into doing it. That's bad enough. That's not good. We shouldn't allow people to force us to do things which are wrong. We should be willing to suffer the consequences of not obeying. But that's one thing, because when you're doing that, you acknowledge that what you're doing is bad. You're just scared of the consequences if you don't. At least you're seeing things clearly, even if your behavior is wrong. But the people being spoken of in these verses, they're not like that. They actually love the evil. They want to do the evil. Nobody's forcing them to. They love it in their hearts. They have evil imagination. They scoff at what is good, and they lap up what is evil. That is the link between the two types of people. Here's the reality. Naturally, we're all a bit like that, aren't we? Naturally, there is something inside of us which loves evil and hates good. If you don't believe me, just take a little look back at your imagination over the last week, over the last month, over the last year. What have you imagined in your heart? Remember, what you imagine reveals who you are. What do you daydream about? What do you want? What do you love? That reveals the sin which is deep down in our hearts. Yes, outwardly, we condemn the rapist. Outwardly, we condemn the adulterer. Outwardly, we condemn the murderer. But how often have we imagined doing some of those things in the privacy of our own mind? When someone has hurt us, And we feel that bitter rage and we would delight to end their life. We don't do it. Of course we don't do it. But we imagine it. Like David on the roof of his palace when he saw Bathsheba bathing. And of course, in his instance, he did act on it. But the step was made when he looked with lust. Do you see, the Bible makes very clear that in our hearts we're not as good as we sometimes like to believe or we like to present to other people. It says here, he who plots to do evil will be called a schemer. But we could just as much say, as Jesus said, he who imagines strangling the life out of someone who has hurt us will be called a murderer. He who looks lustfully at a woman who is not his wife or a man who is not her husband will be called an adulterer. Because, as someone thinks in their heart, so he is. Now I just want to make it very, very clear again before we draw to our conclusion. It is better to not act on your thoughts. Is that clear? Don't think, and I hope there's nobody who would actually think like this, but don't think, well, I'm already a murderer in my heart, so I may just as well be in reality. No, better to keep your sin and your poison to yourself. The point of this proverb is simply to say, don't think you're innocent just because you do that, as you should. God's eyes reach deeper than that. That's the devastating reality of sin. We're far sicker than we want to believe. But that'd be a very miserable way to end this message this morning. This proverb gives us a devastating diagnosis of our hearts. And I'm sure all of us, to some extent, feel the bite of that knife, if I can put it that way, of this proverb. We can see that we're not as good as we sometimes think we are. But this verse is only the diagnosis. This verse doesn't give us the cure. Thankfully, the Bible is bigger than this one verse. If it wasn't, we'd all be guilty and we'd all be in great big trouble. But the Bible also gives us the cure. What we've looked at so far is good for us. We need to know the diagnosis. When you go to a doctor, you want him to tell you or her to tell you the truth, the truth about your condition, because then you can understand what you can do about it, or what the doctors can do about it, what medication you need to take. Diagnosis is good when there's a cure. And thankfully, in the Bible, there is a cure. And the cure isn't God telling us our sin isn't as bad as we think it is. That's what we try to do. Have you ever done that yourself? Perhaps even right now, as you're sitting in the pew, you're kind of thinking, well, I'm not that bad. I'm not as bad as someone else. And we try to justify ourselves. But the Bible says that's not a cure. That's just putting whitewash on woodworm. It doesn't address the problem. The cure in the Bible is not trying to make yourself think that you're better than you are. It's telling you the truth about what you are and then telling us that God's grace is so much greater. God's grace is able to cover us even though we are so sick. Our situation is Tragic. Our situation is devastating. Our situation is, without God, hopeless. But God's grace is able to cover even the worst of sins. You remember what Jesus himself said, don't you, in the Gospels? He said, a physician is not for those who are well. The doctor is there for those who are sick. And Jesus said he came into the world to save sinners. He came to the world to save schemers. He came to the world to save scoffers, like all of us are or have been in our lives. And he says, come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That's the gospel. Not that we're good really, but that we're really, really bad, but Jesus has come to save really, really bad people. And when he died on the cross, he took all your sin, all your shame, all your guilt, if only you would trust in him. If only you would turn to him, if only you would look to him, then all your sin is paid for on the cross. and he gives us a new heart. To replace that sick heart, he gives a new heart, a heart of love. Now, of course, we still have to wrestle with our sinful nature. We still have to wrestle with those feelings of hatred and of lust and all the evil, sinful desires that we have naturally in our bodies. But God gives us something else through Christ, a new heart which loves him and loves others. And we're called to feed that heart and to starve the evil heart. And one day, wonderfully, the Bible says we'll be pure, we'll be holy, we'll be changed in the twinkling of an eye, the Bible says. No more will we have a sick heart in any sense. but we'll be completely new, all because of what Christ has done for us. That's the cure to the diagnosis that is given to us in this proverb. Flee to Christ, run to him, accept the forgiveness he offers. And it's interesting, that really is the only way to peace. You trying to whitewash your life, trying to make yourself believe you're better than you are, or to minimize the seriousness of the evil that you have done and that I have done, that never leads to lasting peace. Isn't it better to say, I've done bad things? I've done things I'm ashamed of. I've done great evil in my life, but I'm forgiven. I'm washed. God sees all that sin. He sees all that shame. And yet he forgives me. That is the only real foundation of peace. That's the only real way of finding a lasting cure. Not through imaginations, not to try to make ourselves seem better than we are. but receiving and enjoying the forgiveness of God. So I wonder about you this morning as I draw to a close. Have you been forgiven? Do you feel the sting of these verses? Do you realize that in your heart you have done things which are shameful and you perhaps do things which are shameful? Well, if you do realize that, be encouraged there's a cure, there is hope, there is hope through Christ. You can be forgiven, you can be washed, and you can be made new through him. And that's why I've chosen as our final hymn, a hymn which is in the inner, the second inner page of your service sheet, and it's a hymn just rejoicing in God's grace to us and the forgiveness that he offers to us in Christ. It's what gift of grace is Jesus my Redeemer. There is no more for heaven now to give. He is my joy, my righteousness and freedom, my steadfast love, my deep and boundless peace. So let's close by singing what gift of grace is Jesus my Redeemer. He is my joy, and my majesty so free, as clear as now, when I hear my heart is free. ♪ Oh, how sweet and divine ♪ ♪ I can see for the twilight of day ♪ ♪ What you are to me ♪ ♪ The night is gone, the time of the singing ♪ ♪ Good evening, good evening, good evening ♪ ♪ Good morning to you, good morning to you ♪ ♪ I never want to forgive you ♪ ♪ For you did show me the price that I should pay ♪ ♪ Jesus, tell me a sign before my eyes ♪ ♪ And lead me straight to your throne of grace ♪ ♪ Though the days are easy, I can see I am free ♪ ♪ There no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt I know He will renew me to the sound of great joy. Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light