Transcription
[Applause]
If you ever look back at your past and say, "What was I thinking?" I'm just trying to see how many honest people we have who will admit that there's some season in your life when you look back over your life at choices and decisions and things and people you hung out with and habits you adopted and stuff you did that you look back and say, "Man, that was crazy." Amen. Giving you a second chance to tell the truth.
How foolish would it be for people today to dress up like that? You would think there's something wrong with that person. Come on, somebody came up in here with the big collar shirt, come on, with the Apple hat. Uh, they came dressed up like that. You would think that there's something wrong with that person. And the reality is, it looks foolish if they were to do that. But the reality is, when it comes to our behavior, some of us are going back in our past and recalling and pulling into today stuff that we used to do that we should not be doing anymore.
I want to talk to you today about, "I'm not going back." Tell your neighbor, "I'm not going back." Tell them on the other side, "I am not going back." Tap the person in front of you. Turn around to the joker behind you and say, "I don't know about you, you might go back, you might want to rehearse, you might want to be in that, but I am not going back." Can I get an amen right there from somebody?
Now, let me, this is a one-point message. One point. That's it. I'm learning y'all can't handle three points. I have to give it to you one point at a time. I want you to walk out of here with that mindset, with that mentality, with that thought: "I can't go back. I won't go back. What do I want to go back for?" I want you to walk away with the mentality of this thinking in your mind: When the devil introduces to you opportunities to go back into doing the things that God has delivered you from, I want you to say to yourself, "I am not going back."
Because we're moving forward. A matter of fact, God has something to say about going back. As a matter of fact, that's what Proverbs 26 says to us. Allow me for just a moment to read for you verse 11. It says in verse 11, "As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." I didn't call you a fool. The God of the universe did. God says, "I have a thought. I have a thought about somebody who goes back into something that they used to do." God says, "I have a mentality about that." Matter of fact, he calls you a fool.
There's some fools sitting around you. There's some fools on your row. Go ahead, look around and see if you can figure out who they are. Y'all notice if they don't turn around and look, they know they a fool. Yeah. The Bible calls you a fool. It says, "This is what a fool does." The B, as a matter of fact, this is God's, this is God's thought about it. I mean, think about it. If somebody came in here today, bell-bottom pants, Apple hat, uh, big collar shirt, and sat next to you with their Bible in their hand, come on now. Y'all would say, "Huh, something wrong with this joke. Something ain't quite right with him." And you would say he's a fool. That's what God is saying when, when you return to your folly.
Let me, let me define, matter of fact, before I talk about folly, let me talk about the fool. Because, because the Bible in many places talks about a foolish person. Matter of fact, in this 26th chapter, there's a lot of things it says about a fool. In verse one, it says, "Honor is not fitting for a fool." In chapter 26, verse 1, a fool doesn't deserve honor. In verses four and five, it says, "Don't answer a fool according to his foolishness." In verse six, it says, "Don't send a message by a fool." Verse seven and nine, verse seven and nine say, "A proverb is useless in the mouth of a fool." Verse eight says, "Don't give honor to a fool." Twice in the same chapter, it talks about honor is not fitting for a fool. Don't give honor to a fool. A fool is a dishonorable place to be. And verse 11 further says, "A fool repeats his folly." A fool goes back to doing foolish things. That's what folly means. It means foolish things.
As a matter of fact, the word "fool" and the word "folly" have similar definitions. It means to do something stupid. Y'all ever done something stupid? Why y'all acting like I ain't talking to y'all? I'm talking to you. The last thing I want to do is something foolish. The last thing I want to be referred to is as stupid or silly. Yet God says when somebody behaves in certain ways, they are a fool. As a matter of fact, it's so foolish that God compares the behavior of a fool to a dog. Wow. Come on, talk to me. As a matter of fact, he says in verse 11, "The same way that a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool returns to his own folly."
A dog will vomit, and you do know, a vomit, when a, when a dog vomits, that's the expulsion of something from his stomach. It's normally an indication of something wrong. It's normally an indication of an eternal condition. And a dog will vomit and go back to that vomit and eat that vomit. That's distasteful, nasty, painful. But yet God is saying, when your behavior is such that you go back to that which God has delivered you from, your behavior is like a dog who goes back to his vomit. Wow. That's amazing to me.
See, I've been learning something about dogs. Y'all know, I'm, I'm training my dog. No, no, no, that's not right. Let me, let me rephrase that. The dog trainer is training the owners of the dog how to manage the dog. Can I get an amen? Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. What I discovered is the way we had been trying to teach this dog was wrong. So the dog trainer is training us, training, he's really training the parents and the kids in my family, the owners of the dog. By the way, that's not my dog. That's my wife's dog and the kids' dog. He's training the dog handlers how to handle the dog. Because our, our dog, left to himself, will behave in certain ways. He's driven by his nature. He will chew on anything. I mean, he'll chew on anything. I saw him chewing on the, uh, uh, the wall. The wall. He's chewing on the wall. Um, if he gets angry when you take something from him that he wants, he digs and buries stuff. He goes into the garbage and eats stuff out of the garbage. He, he drinks from the toilet even though he has a water pan. And he does that because he doesn't know the difference. See, that's how doggish behavior is. You can't tell the difference between the toilet and the water pan. I'm going somewhere if y'all just hang with me for just a [Applause] [Music] second. Somebody on your row got doggish ways.
The other day, we came, well, yesterday, last night, we came home from the couple's retreat. And while we, um, when we pulled up to the house, the dog started getting excited. He was at the window, jumping up and down, barking, excited. He saw the car pull up. I mean, he was so, he was just going back and forth, jumping up on the window, scratching the window, just excited. When we get out of the car and start walking into the house, there he is, run over to the door, jumping up on the door, trying to open the door like this, just, just excited. Which I was receptive because when I come home, nobody gets excited that I'm coming home. When I first, you know, I've been traveling so much over these past few years that when I come home, it's no big deal because I'm always gone. When I first got married, um, and had kids, they would, they would be so excited when I came home. They would meet me at the airport. They ain't been to the airport in [Applause] years. So now I'm excited that at least the dog is glad to see me come home.
And since I know that he's a dog that if left to his own choices, the door opens, he'll dart out the house and run up the street somewhere. So we have to be careful when we come in the house. So I came in with my brief, my suitcases, and bags, and stuff that we had. And I'm trying to make sure he doesn't get out. But thinking that he's going to jump up on me because he's so excited, I open the door. My wife, I, I'll go in first. My wife's behind me. And he's excited, but not about me. He's doing everything he can to get around me. I'm thinking to get out the house, but he's excited to get the first lady and jump on first lady. He wants to see her. And I'm trying to say, "Hey dog, don't you know that I'm the one that put this roof over your head? Don't you know that I'm the one that buy the dog food for you? I'm the one that's taking care of you. I need you to show me some appreciation up around here." But he's a dog, and he doesn't know how to appreciate who he really needs to appreciate.
Wow. He got so excited. We went into the living room. He was so excited. He just ran around and around in big circles, just in big circles. He's so excited. We've been gone for a few days. He's so excited. Now, then he starts chasing his tail. That's what dogs do. They chase their own tails. A dog would chase anybody's tail, even their own. Y'all ain't got to like me here today. Y'all ain't got to like me. I'm talking about doggish behavior. Here's what the text is: "The same way a dog goes after its vomit, a fool will go after his folly." A fool will go back to that which is stupid.
As a matter of fact, the word "folly" means foolish. And think about the times in your life when you've made foolish choices and decisions. Foolish the way you managed your money. Foolish with the purchases that you bought. Foolish with the credit cards and charging them to the to the max. Foolish with the debt that you incurred. Foolish with the loans that you gave. Seems like to me somebody ought to be smart enough to learn not to make the same mistakes. Here's the definition of insanity: You continue to do the same thing looking for different results. You done foolish things on your job. How you treated and responded to your supervisor. Thought you were being a big dude, big woman, big somebody by telling the boss off, giving them a piece of your mind. I told her. But when they wrote you the pink slip, we see who had the last say. Stupid. How we, we treat our family members. How you treat your spouse. It's foolish, ladies, for you to think that you can make your man think [Applause] emotionally. Was that a dog I heard back there? [Applause] It's foolish, men, for you to think your wives will ever think logically. It's foolish. No. Oh, no. Oh, oh. Now y'all talking to me now. Women don't think logically, they think emotionally in your normal sense. That's the reality of the fact. Amen. I feel the tension in the room. It's a fact.
All I'm trying to say is, it's foolish to go back and think that the ways that you've always dealt with your spouse that hasn't worked is going to work by you going back to the ways that you used to try to get them to change. That's foolish. It's foolish. It's foolish. God says to us, it is, it is a devastating thing for us to go back to our bad behavior, our bad habits, our bad language, our bad thoughts.
As a matter of fact, let me conclude this message. Since it ain't going nowhere, let me just go ahead and bring it on in because this is just a one-point message I got for you today, which is: Don't go back to that which is foolish. The behavior of your past is foolish.
Let me conclude like this. I go walking every morning this week. I decided to go walking and take my dog. I'm sorry, my wife's dog, their dog. That's not my dog. I walk with him many mornings. And I walk in my community, up and down the street where I live. I walk in my community. And, uh, we, I've been able to train him not to pull on the leash, but to walk alongside me. Don't want to hear of me. But this particular day, I decided when I was walking, my wife decided to walk also. And because my pace is a little different than hers, I have to get my heart rate up and to do what I need to do to be healthy and keep my blood pressure down and burn off calories. I have to walk a little faster than what my wife can walk. And so, so I'm always ahead of her. So this day, I was ahead of her. This time, I have the dog. And so we're walking up and down our street, up and down our street. And this day, with the dog, here's what I discovered. When, when I, when I got to a certain place and point, the dog, my dog Jasper, began to pull on the leash. He began to pull to get away. And what he was trying to do is, he saw my wife, and he wanted to go over to my wife. So he's pulling on the leash, and I'm trying to get him to come back, come back, stop, heel. But nothing I said would deter him. He pulled. So I just finally let him go, which I could not do in the past because he'd run, whatever. But this day, he ran to my wife. She grabbed the leash, and they walk. But next time, when we cross each other, now he's pulling on the leash to get to me. So he's pulling, and she's trying to pull back and hold back, and she lets it go, and he comes to me. And this pattern repeats itself. And that's the way some of us are. We're happy with where we are until something from the past shows up. Somebody, something, some place gets in your atmosphere, and you're pulling with everything you can to leave where you are to get to something that you shouldn't have.
The scripture says, "As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." All I'm trying to tell y'all to do is don't go back.
When I was in the seminary, Dr. F. Professor would say, "All of us have some dog in us." Let me repeat that. Y'all missed it. Every person has some dog in them, be it poodle or German Shepherd. You got some dog in you. And the question is, who's going to call the shots? Are you going to call the shots? Is the Christ in you going to call the shots? Or is the dog in you going to call the shots? I don't know about you, but I'm not going back. Amen.
Today's dynamic message from Pastor Jenkins is one that has the power to change your life, but it can only do so if you have a heart and soul that belong to Jesus Christ. Perhaps you want to be able to make such a claim, but you don't know how. It's simple. You just have to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins and rose again with all power. Your sins are now forgiven, and you're part of the family of God. Welcome.
Maybe you're already saved and in need of a church home, one that will nurture your growth and development as a Christian. Or perhaps you were once in fellowship with God but have since drifted away and are ready to return to your first love. Whatever the case, we'd love to have you become a part of the First Baptist Family. Simply contact us at 307-73-3600 or visit our website at www.fbcglenarden.org for more information on any one of our four convenience service serves or our 100-plus ministries designed to meet your most intimate needs. First Baptist Church of Glenarden, where God is developing dynamic disciples. [Music]