Church Of The Lost Sheep

"Congenial conversation—what a pleasure!     The right word at the right time—beautiful!" Proverbs 15:23 MSG [This is the 15th message in this series] In this series we are highlighting two-liner verses from the Book of Proverbs. Discerning In the previous lesson from this series, we have delved deep on discernment We shall continue on with this and look at this gift of the Holy Spirit in action. Words There is an old saying that goes like: Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. This is actually a common day proverb. It has been around for a long time, but largely inaccurate. [It is human made] Our words have real and lasting power. Words have the ability to build up and the power to tear down. It is a tool and a weapon. What we are now or where we are at, are largely shaped by the words we have said in the past, or the words spoken by others. Joy A good word can encourage. It can lift people up. It can turn someone's life around.

"A scoffer seeks wisdom yet finds none, but knowledge is easy to the discerning." Proverbs 14:6 TLV [This is the 14th message in this series] In this series we are highlighting two-liner verses from the Book of Proverbs. Discerning In the previous lesson from this series, we touched on discernment. We shall segue right through and talk about this gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God comes to every believer bearing gifts. These wonderful gifts are available to those who have placed their faith in Christ. Discernment is one of those gifts from God. The second line of this couplet is telling us that knowledge comes easy to the discerning . Meaning Godly knowledge comes naturally, or effortlessly to those who have the Holy Spirit of God. Teachers of the Law Jesus showed us this fact during His clandestine conversation with Israel's teacher, Nicodemus. The great Nic, with all those years of studying Scriptures under his belt and the massive amount of

“Beware of false prophets. They come to you disguised as sheep, but in their hearts they are vicious wolves. You will know them by what they produce. “People don’t pick grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles, do they? In the same way every good tree produces good fruit, but a rotten tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a rotten tree cannot produce good fruit. Any tree that fails to produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into a fire. So you will know them by what they produce." -Jesus of Nazareth, 1st century Matthew 7:15-20 [This is the 9th message of this series] Fruit In a previous lesson on another message series, we have discussed how the Apostle Paul wrote to the first church in Thessalonica about believers who weren't really believers -- Feeding the Sheep: Endurance . Now, as we read from the excerpt from the passage above, Jesus already spoke about wolves who were passing themselves up as sheep in His Sermon on the Mount.