PROFITING FROM PROVERBS

“Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words” (Proverbs 23:9).

Jesus’ commentary on this verse is most striking, and goes directly to the heart of the matter: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you” (Matthew 7:6).

“Dogs” in the Bible usually refer to unsaved people. What is the only thing that you can give to an unsaved person? The Gospel. Of course, we are speaking of spiritual things here. If a man is hungry, feed him, and pray that that will make him receptive to hear the Gospel, but the only thing of any real importance that one can give to the unsaved is the old, old story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The plain fact of sin and salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. Heaven, hell, and judgment.

Don’t try to explain to them the rapture, the beast, the left eye, the Antichrist, or any of those things. He won’t have any idea what you are talking about. You are talking into the ear of a fool when you are speaking to an unsaved person, they know nothing of the things of the Spirit of God. You are wasting your breath and squandering valuable time which needs to be spent on the Gospel. Get him saved, and somewhere down the road those subjects will be desirable to the new Christian, but not now.

“Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words,” he won’t understand it. The Lord Jesus Christ practiced this truth: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). He realized that there were some things that His disciples could not understand. Now, later on, after the Resurrection, and after He had breathed on them and they had received the Holy Ghost in Acts 1; then he told them those things. “Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen” (Acts 1:2).

Jesus could not tell them things in John 16, but after John 20 He was able to because then they could understand them. And so is it true with unsaved people and carnal Christians. Can fleshly, worldly believers understand spiritual truths? Paul answered this: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ” (I Corinthians 3:1).

You can’t talk to a carnal Christian about the pure Word of God in the King James Version, and biblical separation; they look at you like an alien from another planed—they just don’t get it. The best thing you can do for them is be a friend to them and get them into a Bible-believing church. It is not some nice dialogue that will reach them, but good old hard-nosed preaching. It is not counseling and debating but preaching. Let God take care of them, put them under conviction, they get right with God and the light of understanding will shine on them.

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Speaking to those whose eyes and ears are closed is quite the challenge. One thing I recently learned while doing research is that it is better to start by

LISTENING

to them first. All have questions about life. Keeping the answers (drop ideas? = seeds) simple and loving is best. Like talking to toddlers, actually.

https://www.intouch.org/read/magazine/faith-works/are-you-listening

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