 Hey man, keep your place there in First Timothy chapter number five. So tonight we're starting a brand new sermon series. It's a book series and we're going to look at a story of this book this next few weeks and look at this story in light of the Bible. I'm really looking forward to this. I like this story very much. I'm hoping that most of you have read through the story of the book by Jane Austen called Pride and Prejudice. We're going to be looking at five different sermons. I don't usually do five-part sermons series, but there's so many great things in this story to look at in light of the Bible. So let's get started tonight. I look down at First Timothy chapter number five and look at what the Bible says in verse number 14. Now this story, Pride and Prejudice, is a story about, now this isn't a verse by verse study through Pride and Prejudice, right? So you're going to get kind of a whole story because we're going to look at concepts throughout this story. But first of all, before we even look at the Bible, what is this story about? The concept of the story is a fictional story, but it is a great story and throughout the sermon series I also want to show some tidbits on why it's such a popular story even though it's not something that actually happened. It's not an actual thing in history that happened. It is fiction, but it is very good fiction. The story is about the search for marriage. That is the first thing. If you just want to encompass the entire book itself, it's about the search for marriage. Notice how I said the search for marriage, not the search for love. So that's a difference that you will see in this story versus many romances or whatever kind of other novels that you would read in modern times or even God forbid you would go watch some romantic movie today, something like that. It is not the search for fornication. It is not the search for, you know, this redefined definition of love which basically has been turned into lust today. It is literally the search for marriage. There are several young people in this book and they are looking for husbands and they are looking for wives. It is the search for marriage. Now, you could say that yes, the search for marriage should encompass the search for love, but that's not the case in every single case. Not everyone marries for love. And you'll see that actually in this story, you know, as well. Look, I hope that all of you marry someone that you love one day or have married someone that you love, but that is just not reality for everyone and we also see that in this story. It's such a real story that can really be applied to things that we see today. So that's the first thing. It is a story about the search for marriage and that is ingrained in the Bible. That is a true righteous search for a young person. Look down at verse number 14 of 1 Timothy chapter 5. I told you we're going to look at the concepts in this book in light of what? In light of our truth which is the Bible. Look at verse 14. It says, I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. Turn to Proverbs chapter 18. So the Bible there is saying that young women should marry. Young women should get married. Look at Proverbs chapter 18 and look at verse number 22. You say what about young men? What does the Bible say about young men? Look at Proverbs chapter 18 and verse number 22. So we're looking at the overall concept of the book. It was written in 18, 20, 18, 13, something like that in the early 19th century. But it is about the search for marriage, the search for husbands and the search for wives. Look at the young men advice in the Bible here in verse number 22. It says, whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing and obtaineth favor of the Lord. Meaning a young man that finds a wife to marry is being blessed. That is a blessing that is given from God. So here's one of the first reasons that people today even, this is considered a timeless classic this book. And one of the reasons that it is so enjoyable and so well liked by people even today is because many people, the vast majority of people, even today in our society, want to get married. Even though it has been removed from Hollywood, it has been removed from modern stories or modern novels today, the stats show, depending on what you look at, about 85% of people when asked that are not married and never been married, about 85% of people want to be married. They have a desire to be married. So this resonates with people, this search for marriage. Now look, today's culture is attacking this. Today's culture is attacking marriage, which is God's institution between a man and a woman. It's teaching men that, you know, this is the fornication culture. It's an attack on marriage. Look, not the Bible, but the culture today is teaching men that they don't need marriage. They don't need marriage because fornication is so openly accepted by both men and women that men don't need to get married to have physical access to women today. That's unfortunate that women have fallen for that, but it's the truth. But it is what? It's an attack on marriage itself. And that's the attack that men are underneath. But look, women are being taught the same thing. Women are being taught to downplay marriage. You'll see many things in this book about women wanting to be married for that security, for that protection of their husband, for that security blanket that marriage gives. That's what women today are being taught against though. Women today are being taught that you need to go out and you need to become a man. You need to go out and you need to get out on the workforce. You need to be able to support yourself. You don't need to rely on a husband for those things. You don't need to accept that women and men are to have different roles in the family. You need to go out and fill all the gaps and be that man yourself. That's what women are being taught today. That's feminism in a nutshell. But again, what is it? It's an attack on marriage. But it's interesting because one thing that the devil and all his cultural changes has to deal with is that every single person has Romans 2.15. Every single person that is born that is unsaved today still has that conscience, that law that God wrote in their heart. That's why when you do polls today, most people still want to get married. The vast majority of people still desire marriage. And that's what this book is about. That's one of the many, many reasons that I'm going to show you why this resonates with so many people and why it is such an enjoyable story, even though it's a fictional story. Why? Because marriage is honorable in all the Bible says. And that's what is written in people's heart. And that's what normal people with an intact conscience, that's what they desire. It's very simple. So Pride and Prejudice is about, it is told from the female's perspective on this pursuit for marriage. It is really told. Look, there's many different stories in this book. But it is told mainly from one young lady's travails in assessing the character of prospective husbands in her future life. And there's so many valuable lessons to be learned from what she went through in assessing the character of people that could possibly become her husband. Look, it's the most important decision that a Christian young woman will make is who she chooses to marry, who she chooses to follow in her life, and who she chooses basically to be her leader, her husband in her life. It's a very important decision. It's defining. It's a defining decision for that young lady's life. So this woman is assessing the character in this book of really two men is what we're looking at is the main storyline is this Elizabeth Bennett is trying to assess the character of two men. Let me just give you the kind of the rundown of how it goes for her on the first shot. All right? And then we're going to look at how she finally figured it out and how the way she figured it out is actually I'm going to show you biblical and it will work for you as well. So you're saying, well, I would like to find a wife or I would like to find a husband. Well, everything that I'm going to show you here is from the Bible and it will work for you. And look, if you don't do it this way, you're rolling the dice and the dice are loaded against you in this culture today. So we have this story of this young lady. She has four sisters and she is trying to assess the character of two men. The first man, his name is Mr. Darcy and he is the kind of the main character of the book. But his demeanor is he's disagreeable. He doesn't say much. He seems grumpy all the time. And then, of course, he's rich, so everyone just assumes that he's prideful because that's why he's quiet because he thinks he's better than everybody. So everyone thinks he's pompous just because he has money that he inherited. And he's a very quiet person. He doesn't say much at all. And so people make all these assumptions about him. This is the prejudice part of the book, by the way. People make all these assumptions about him. That's what prejudice means. It's like predefined assumptions that you make about somebody. So the main prejudice about this, and look, it was Mrs. Elizabeth that made these prejudice assumptions about Mr. Darcy because of the fact that he wasn't well-spoken. He wasn't really spoken much at all, especially when he didn't know anybody and he didn't know her. He was a man of few words. He was a man of few words, especially at the beginning half, probably, of the story. Then you had another man that she had met and that she was trying to assess the character of. And his name was Mr. Wickham, George Wickham. This man was the opposite of Mr. Darcy. He was very friendly. He was very charismatic. He was very funny. He was easy to talk to. Everybody liked him, this man. The two characters were very different. So what did she do? She decided, she made her decision very early on that Darcy had bad character and that George Wickham had good character. Spoiler alert. This is not a verse by verse study through Pride and Prejudice. It's a study using the Bible to look at this story. But she was wrong. She was exactly wrong. She got the decision she made at the beginning was the opposite of what turned out to be true. She made a wrong assessment. And that's what we want to avoid tonight. Now there's a profound quote and I try to read books with a highlighter because whenever you read something that is just a profound quote, I like to just highlight it. So I don't have to go back and search for it later. But there's a very profound quote in chapter number 40 where Jane, Elizabeth's older sister, she finds out because one of the things from the, if you watch the movie, you couldn't finish the book and you watch the movie, I'm going to try to point out things that you missed there too. All right. But in the book, Jane actually knew much more than she did in the movie. You know, you just can't put all these characters in a movie that's two hours long. But one of the things that was in the book that was not in the movie was that Jane was informed was happening with, see, and with Elizabeth. So they find out the truth about Mr. Wickham and Mr. Darcy and who's really the good one and who's really the bad one. And there's a profound quote where Jane says this. She says, one has got all the goodness and the other all the appearance of it. So here you had the man that looked good was actually bad. And then you had the man that looked bad was actually good. Jane was completely wrong. Still read the book, but she was completely wrong in her first assessment. So the question is, how did she figure it out? How did she figure it out? Is it biblical how she figured it out? What does the Bible say? And can we, can you use that same method to figure out or assess someone's character in who you would like to marry or just assess someone's character in general? This isn't just about young people who want to get married. This will work in any assessment of character. So really the subject of the sermon this evening is assessing character. How do you assess someone's character and how do you get it right? And we can see how not to do it and how to do it both from Mrs. Darcy and what she turned to 1 John chapter number three. So here's the problem statement right here. First John chapter number three, what was the problem? The problem statement is this. What people say is not always who they are. That's the first problem right there. What are you telling me people could say? One thing and they're a totally different person? Yes. Everyone thinks they are great. This is why like, you know, resumes are, you know, I don't want to say they're completely worthless, but they're pretty much worthless. This is why they have interviews. Yes, you have a resume, but a resume is just a bunch of lies and what people are telling you and how great they are is what they turn out to be many times. But you have to actually interview people and talk to them and find out who they really are. What are you trying to do? You're trying to assess them. You can't just listen to what people say. Unfortunately, I wish you could just listen to what people say. But unfortunately, you cannot. So here we had, here we had this man. We had this man, George Wickham. He sounded very good to everyone. Everyone loved this man. Everyone thought that he was just the greatest guy. Everyone thought that he was friendly and funny and everybody liked to hang around with him. Then he had this other guy who, you know, this Mr. Darcy who was rude. He was so bad at expressing himself verbally that people just, he was, look, he was so bad at making himself known to people verbally that when he proposed the first time, he proposed marriage to Miss Elizabeth for the first time, he literally tells her he loves her and asks her to marry him. She had no idea that he even, it was a shock to her. I mean, I think the quote from the book was, her astonishment was beyond expression, the book said. She had no idea that he even had any interest in her. That's how bad he was at expressing himself. All right, so he had one guy who was very good, very good, sounded great, and another guy who was just horrible at it. And people just assume all the wrong things. Look down to 1 John chapter 3, look at verse number 18. Look at what the Bible says here. It says, my little children, let us not love and work, neither in tongue, but look at this, but in deed and in truth. Look at the next verse. It says, and hereby we know that we are of the truth, and we shall assure our hearts before him. So what the Bible here is saying is that truth, being a truthful person, is when your words, let me just, let me say this the other way. When your deeds match your words, that's being in truth. That's being a truthful person. But the problem is that not everybody's deeds match their words. That's the problem statement tonight. That's the problem that Miss Elizabeth had in this book, with her first character assessment, and why it was such a complete failure. So the question is, how can I tell? How can you tell? If someone's going to come and tell you that they're super great, and tell you that they're awesome, and that could be a complete lie, you say, well, I just don't know the person very well. I just met them. Well, obviously there are some things that can be done. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 13. The interesting thing is that Elizabeth's mistake became her answer. And that's what I want to show you from the Bible tonight. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 13. And when you turn there, so the question is, how do you assess someone's character? How do you find out if their deeds match the words, the wonderful words that they're telling you? I'm going to read for you Deuteronomy 1915, and you're turning to 2 Corinthians chapter 13. But Deuteronomy 1915 is a verse I've gone to many times. But the Bible says this says, One witness shall not rise up against a man for iniquity or for any sin in any sin that he sinned. At the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses shall the matter be established. And in 2 Corinthians chapter 13, the only reason I read that to you instead of just 2 Corinthians chapter 13 is because I want to show you just the core, you know, Old Testament core of this concept of two or three witnesses in the Bible. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 13 in verse number 1. The Bible says this, it says, This is the third time that I'm coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. Elizabeth's mistake became her answer. She didn't have any witnesses. She did not have two or three witnesses to the accusations, the story that was being told about Mr. Darcy. She just took one witness, she took one person's side of the story and she just ran with that and make all her presumptions from there and she was completely wrong. And how was it solved? It was solved throughout the story. And look, I don't know if Jane Austen meant to do this, but she solved it through witnesses for Mr. Darcy. And it's, I'm going to show you how complete these witnesses were in the story. So Mr. Darcy goes and he professes his love for Elizabeth Bennett and tells her that he wants to marry her and he does it in this horrible way that's rude and all this and she just rejects him outright, but then she accuses him of two particular things. She accuses him of separating her sister from his friend and then she accuses him of ruining Mr. Wickham's life by taking away his living and all these different things. Then Mr. Darcy goes and he writes a letter to Miss Bennett explaining himself and telling his side of the story of these two accusations that she laid in front of him. The first one, he's like, yeah, I did it and he just owns it right there showing that he's a truthful person. He doesn't try to, I mean that's just a tip for you right there. He doesn't try to cover it up, he just, he's like, yeah, I did it and you may not understand it, but I did it in defense of, I did it in defense of my friend, I did it for protection of him and I'm sorry that that hurt your feelings, but I did that. So he was pretty honest about the first one, but in the second one he explains the wickedness of this man, George Wickham, what he had done, what he had done to his sister, what he had done to other people, how he was a thief, he had unpaid debts, he had gambling problems, he was a serial pornicator, just living a wicked life and he was a wicked man and he was cut off from the estate and he just explained his side of the story, but he does something very important in the, at the end of the letter which is this, he gives a witness, he gives a witness to the story that he is telling and he says, you know, check with Mike, he encourages her to go to his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, for verification of everything in the letter. He literally provides a witness, he says, this man, this is my cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, he's witness to all these events, he's an executor of my father's will, it's really a brilliant witness because the fact that he was an executor of Mr. Darcy's father's will shows that he even had the trust of Mr. Darcy's father. So he gives, and he tells her, go to him and ask any of the details of the things that I told you in this letter. So look, she realizes right there, she doesn't even need to go to him. She realizes, like, why in the world would he even put that in there if this wasn't true, if this guy wouldn't corroborate the entire story. She realizes it's not even necessary, she's not a stupid person. She realizes that it's not necessary to even consult him because of the fact that he put it in the letter to have him. So that covers the accusations. That covers the accusations that Mr. Wickham brought against him but she still doesn't really know who he is as a person which brings in the second witness that we see in the story. And she is on a trip, a traveling trip through England with her aunt and her uncle and they happened by Mr. Darcy's estate when he's not home and it was a common thing where there was these largest states in the countryside, you could actually tour the home. So kind of against her will, she goes with her aunt and uncle and she tours this magnificent estate of Mr. Darcy when he's supposedly not home and they meet the housekeeper. They meet the housekeeper, this older lady, her name is Mrs. Reynolds and the entire time she is giving the tour, she gives this incredible witness to Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, Elizabeth's aunt and uncle, and she gives this incredible witness to Elizabeth herself on how wonderful of a person and how great of a man Mr. Darcy is. It gets to the point where even Mr. and Mrs. Gardner are like, what in the world? What we've heard all this stuff about, I mean how could this be true? I mean this woman literally was with him since he was a child and she's giving this incredible, you know, witness to him. She makes this quote that says this, there's another profound quote, turn to Proverbs chapter 22 where we were this morning, but she gives this quote that is also very biblical and she says this about Mr. Darcy. She says, I've always observed that they who are good-natured when children are good-natured when they grow up. Look at Proverbs 22 in verse number 6. I don't know if she knew she was being biblical when she said that, but the Bible says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. So the Bible says that how you train the child when they're young is how they will be when they are an adult and Mrs. Reynolds was basically saying that he was raised very well as a child and he was good-natured as a child and that's why he's such a good man with good character as an adult. Now, I mean, just to go off on this, you know, you think it's important how you train your children? You're literally forming their character now. You're forming their character when they're 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old. And if it's not formed there and it's when it is formed there, whoever forms it folks, that's the way they're going to be when they're older. And I'm not saying adults can't change. I'm not trying to depress you tonight, but I'm saying that, like, character problems that are formed when people are young are very difficult. They're very hard ruts for some people to get out of. Train them well when they're young and when they're old, they will have good character. Even the aunt and uncle question the account of Wickham at this point from this housekeeper that is just giving this over-the-top, you know, witness of Mr. Darcy. But the important lesson here is that now we have a second witness and this witness is even more profound because it's a witness of his entire life. That's a super valuable witness right there. She's been there the whole time. She's been there the whole time. And she even said about Wickham that he turned out to be a wild man. So she gave a witness on the other side as well. She was with him for years and years and decades and decades. Now here's for us. People that have bad character will not have a Mrs. Reynolds. They will have no one that can do that. They will have no one that can back them up on their character for their life. So that's important. So where are the witnesses of the people that you're trying to assess their character? So far we have two. What's the third one? We got three witnesses here. The third one is Miss Darcy, Mr. Darcy's sister. And this one is a super important witness as well because it shows Mr. Darcy's compassion and he was portrayed to his younger sister as a father figure to her. He was portrayed as a protector. He was portrayed as somebody she was under his care. Many of the things that he did in getting rid of Mr. Wickham were in defense of his sister. This is a super important witness for Miss Darcy because it showed his protective qualities. It showed what type of husband he would be in the way that he acted towards his sister. And through these details of these three witnesses that you see, you kind of see the brilliance and the fullness of this whole story on just how these three witnesses that I just listed to you just kind of completely cover the character and the type of man and the type of husband and the type of life that Mr. Darcy really lived even though he didn't talk good, even though he couldn't speak well. Now, what about George Wickham's witnesses? There wasn't any. It was only himself. And Elizabeth recognizes this later in the book when she realizes that everything that he said is only corroborated by him and him alone. And as a matter of fact, when he came to town, no one knew him. He was in the army and in the regiment nobody really knew where he came from. Nobody knew who he was. He was kind of this guy when he got in trouble later in the book like nobody really knew much about him because he moved around all the time. There was only his story. He was a man constantly on the move in his life. He had debts everywhere he went. He was this serial gambler. He had elopements everywhere he went seemingly. He was this serial fornicator. So he was constantly in trouble and thus constantly on the move. He was constantly being moved around and even towards the end of the story when he moved the last time, he's moved around because he got in trouble. Because he got himself in trouble. This is a sure sign. This is a sure sign of character problems. This is what Jacob said to Reuben, unstable as water. Somebody, look, people that can't stay put, people that can't stay in a job, that are constantly moving around, constantly changing what they want to do or where they need to go, who they need to work for, all these different things. They can't stay in a job. People that can't stay in a church, same thing. I've often said about our church and I kind of say this on purpose. I kind of say this on purpose because for the vast majority of people it doesn't bother them when I say something like this. But I've said this many times. I say sooner or later in a church like this, sooner or later we spend so much time together and we have so much in common and we're in such unity together as a church as we should be. Look, sooner or later we're going to find out who you are. That's how it works in a church. And look, some people have been very offended when I said that. I've had people come in my office after I've preached that and say, I don't like what you said there. And it turned out they were very, very bad people. And eventually we did find out who they were. But I always take notice on that because most people, you say sooner or later we're going to find out who you are. Most people in this church are like, hey, I want you to know who I am. I want to be friends. I want you to know where I came from. I want you to know what I'm interested in. I want you to know who my family is. I want you to know who my kids are. I want your kids to know my kids. Look, we're not a motorcycle club here. We're connected on the deepest levels. We agree on pretty much everything in this church. These are like deep-rooted friendships here. I mean, this isn't some shallow club or something where we all get together and paint a picture or something and write about a book. This is a deep-rooted relationship, the relationship that you will have with your brothers and sisters in Christ. You shouldn't be trying to hide who you are. It's not going to be possible. That's the problem. That's the problem. It's not going to be possible. That's why after one year, two years, people like this, they've got to go. They've got to go. They're church hoppers. They're like, people figure it out. They've run up the debts. The jig is up. They've got to go and they can't hide it anymore. These are the George Wickham's. These are the Wickham's. So, this is what you have to ask yourself tonight as we go through the story. What would people that have known you for years say about you? This is a good question to ask. What would your witnesses say about you? You're like, well, Pastor, I just got saved. Not that long ago. Okay. Well, if you just got saved, not that long ago, you need to get stable. You need to get stable. You need to get in church. You need to start building that testimony now. Like, when to start building your testimony is kind of like when you should plant a tree, like yesterday. Right? I mean, you should plant a tree yesterday because, you know, time matters. You have to start building those witnesses now because those witnesses are going to matter. Young people that want to get married. Young people that run in our circles that want to get married need to very carefully understand this point. You need to understand that with the crowd that you are running in, you meet somebody from another church. Look, there is people from, like, we know hundreds of people in all these different like-minded Bible. I mean, this is turning into such a Bible-believing explosion in this country. It's a wonderful thing. All these just Bible preaching churches popping up and all these families getting into church and going soul-winning. But here's the thing. People are going to come here and ask your parents about you because your parents aren't a good witness. Nobody was asking anybody's parents here because Ted Bundy's parents will say good things about him. You know, the parents aren't a good witness. You know what they're going to do? They need to break it to you. They're going to ask the pastor. Happens all the time with every single person. As a matter of fact, you may not know this, but many of the relationships over the last several years that have turned into marriages were actually suggested by pastors. Pastors talking like, hey, you know, I got this guy and hey, I got this girl. And, you know, what do you think about that? And they're actually suggested. The pairing was suggested. But I guarantee you if some guy from our church likes, you know, wants to, is interested in some girl from Verdi Baptist Church, I guarantee you that a lot of questions are going to start being asked and they're not going to be asked to you. They're going to be asked to me. And say vice versa. Look, everybody's checking everybody out in these cases. Every single time. That's what you need to understand. You know, what are they going to say? Like, you know what I judge by? You know what I judge by? Look, I judge. I judge by actions, not words. Words mean very little to me. Like, almost meaningless. Don't be rude to me. That's not what I'm saying. Don't just come and yell in my face. But words are very low on the quality scale. What you do matters. That's what matters. How faithful is this young man to church? How faithful is this young lady to church? You got some, you know, guy from some other church and he's interested in a gal here and he's three to thrive and she's, I've told guys this to their face. I've had guys when I was at Verdi Baptist Church I've had young men come with me soul winning and ask about certain ladies at the church and just be like, you know, they're like a visitor to the church and I'm like, she's three to thrive. She's a soul winner. Like, she would have no interest in you. I told her right to their face. I wasn't the pastor, so I could be a little rougher with people. But they're just like, guess what though? That young man actually got interested and now he's married. So the point is this, is that people are going to be looking for witnesses. They're going to be looking for witnesses of your character because they don't know you. They don't know who you are and they're going to be looking for reliable witnesses of your life. What have you been doing for the past two years? What are you going to be, you know, what you've been doing for the past, you want me to tell you what someone's going to do in the future? Look at what they've done in the past. It's likely to be the same. So the number one thing that she used, there's two things I want to show you tonight. The number one thing that she used, the first thing was witnesses to assess his character properly. Now, here's the second thing that you need to understand. The second thing to assess character, what she missed in the first assessment was not the things that Darcy said. What she missed in her first assessment, first of all, she didn't have any witnesses. That's number one. The second one is this though. What he didn't say was more valuable than what he did say. He said very little. And as a matter of fact, turn to Proverbs chapter 25. Turn to Proverbs chapter 25. One of the things that really stuck out to me was even before he proposed to Miss Benjamin, before he professed his love to her and he proposed to her, he knew that this Mr. Wickham was talking trash about him to her. He knew well before he even proposed to her, but he said nothing to defend himself. That is a huge benefit to his character right there. You say, why in the world? If I knew somebody was talking trash about me, I'd get back in their face and I'd talk trash right back to them. But that is not what the Bible says. He just let it happen. He let it happen at the expense of himself to protect other people. Look at Proverbs chapter 25 and look at verse number 21. It says, If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink. I'm not saying he did that. For thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head and the Lord shall reward thee. The north wind driveeth away rain, sort of an angry countenance, a backbiting time. That's all he gave was an angry countenance. He said nothing. He didn't go do this, he said, he said thing to Miss Bennett he knew that George Wickham was in her ear just like telling all the, to the end of the story he never asked what Wickham said. He didn't care because it wasn't the truth and all he cared about was the truth. He didn't feel like he needed to jump down in the mud with the pigs and that is a great testimony of his character right there. So what he didn't say was very valuable in showing his character. When he did address it in the letter he did it properly with what? With witnesses. He didn't just write some letter that said, this is my side of the story. He said, no, this is what happened and this man can back it up. This man is solid in the way he did that. See, because often times and we should all kind of take a lesson from this. Often times when you find men like this, these men of few words, one thing that you will realize when you find men like this, men that just speak very little, what you will find is when they do talk it's profoundly important in what they say. I don't know if you've ever known men like that that don't say much, but when they do say something it is very meaningful when they do say something. And I want to use an example of the letter that he wrote to her explaining the two things. This is the letter that he wrote to her in the book, but he explains these two accusations that she made against him and then he ends the letter in this very profound way. He ends the letter in this sentence that says this. Think about it, this is a man of few words. This is a man that she thought was uncaring. This is a man that she thought was harsh and rude and pompous and prideful and he ends the letter with this statement. He says, I will only add, God bless you. And that was profoundly important to her and she even mentioned it at the end of the book when she goes to marry him. She said that, you know, you're a do, you're a goodbye showed charity in itself. She basically said that like your last sentence showed that you love me in that last sentence. But he was a man of few words and he's a man that when he said something he meant it. He just didn't say much at the beginning and the things that he did say were not he was not a flatterer. He was not out to just tell everybody what they wanted to hear. He just said, but what he did say he meant. And I'll tell you what, I'll take that every time. I'll take that every time over somebody that is just blabbing flatteries constantly and just trying to make people feel good and make people think that they're great. I will take someone that is, that just doesn't say things the right way but they're just genuine. I'll take that every single time. So here's the conclusion folks especially for young ladies is the conclusion to this first sermon is if somebody sounds good and let me just let me single out the ladies here because the ladies are in special danger on this one. If somebody sounds good it does not necessarily mean that they are good. Why would I say women are in more danger than this? Because women are more emotionally, easily emotionally manipulated than men. You can agree with that or not but the Bible says it all over the Bible women are the weaker vessel. Eve in the garden was, you know, she fell for the subsidy of Satan. See, flattery and look, some men specialize in this. Some men brag that they specialize in this. These are like what in my generation guys would call, oh, I'm a player. What does that mean? It means it specializes in going up and just like saying a bunch of garbage to young ladies to try to get them to go along with him and go into fornication or whatever. Today they call it, I just learned this a couple months ago, today they call it Riz. Riz or whatever. I don't even know Charisma, is that where they get that from? But he's got the Riz or whatever, somebody explained that to me two months ago, the guys were talking, he's like oh, he's got Riz, I'm like what? Were you talking English here? But the point is that men specialize in tricking young women. So what men say, what young men say does not necessarily mean that that's who they are. Young women need to understand this. And they do it with two methods. He had two methods, his first one was flattery. He said, okay, I know where the prejudice in the story came from, but his first one was flattery. And what does the Bible say about flattery? Flattery is always bad in the Bible. In Proverbs chapter 29, verse number 5 the Bible says, a man that flattereth his neighbor spreadeth a net for his feet. What does that mean? Somebody that is flattering you is out to try to hurt you. He's out to try with Riz. He's out to try to snare some girl into his traps, into sin. He's trying to convince her that he's something that he's not. He's trying to manipulate her emotions to think that he cares about her when he doesn't. Guys laugh about this stuff. This is what players and Riz are all about. So Wickham used the same tactics of flattery. He was always, this is beautiful and just was always like flattering the young ways. And look, he was very good at it. They believed him. He made them feel important but he was a very bad person. But guess what? You say, where's the pride come from? And look, Darcy had some pride too. But there's only one person that gets fooled by flattery and that is a prideful person. Flattery doesn't work on somebody that is prideful. If I went to a conference and I was at a conference with Pastor Anderson and Pastor Jimenez and all these great pastors and somebody came up to me and said you're the best pastor I've ever seen and your sermons are way better than everybody else's. I'd be like, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to steal my car right now or what's going on here? Because this is how people at work they flatter the boss, right? They say boss, you're the best ever. But it's the prideful boss that says, I am the best. Well, well, that young man has it exactly right. I'm going to give him a promotion. And then they come in, boss, I love what you've done with everything and you make all the best decisions and you're just like I am awesome. I'm the smartest boss ever. And then that person does get, look it works there's many prideful bosses out there. There's many prideful people. But flattery only works on the prideful. Remember that. So flattery works on you. You're a perfect person. It's very simple. So he used flattery. That's the first one. But the second one in Young Ladies Everywhere, please listen very closely to this and tell all your friends. The second one he used was sympathy. Sympathy. He made Elizabeth feel sorry for him. He made her feel bad for him. Young ladies all across everywhere that are listening to this do not marry someone that you have sympathy for. Fixer uppers, that's for your house and maybe your car not your husband. You do not want to fix her up for a husband. He's going to be in charge. He's going to be leading you for the rest of your life. You don't want one that's broken. You want one that's good to go out the garage. You want one that's strong, that can lead. Look I would rather have somebody, you know I'm the father of a daughter. And I would rather, I don't want some fixer person, you know it's just not going to happen. But, you know, a woman would make a disastrous decision if she married a fixer upper that she felt sorry for. Happens all the time. You want somebody that is going to lead strong and confidently and through the direction of the Bible. And look he may lead strongly and confidently and be young and make stupid mistakes. I'd rather have that than a fixer upper. Because a fixer upper is a disaster. Like I said, that's for your house. That's for your kitchen floor. That's for your cabinets not your spouse for the rest of your life. The point is this, what people say should be taken of very little value. There must be proof that they are a very good character through witnesses and listen to the things that they don't say on top of the things that they do say. You say, well, you know, I don't have any witness. I just got here. Just got saved. They must build witnesses. This isn't something to roll the dice on. This is the rest of your life. This must be built through time. And the Bible gives us some very clear methods here. And all we have to do is follow these methods. And they will work for you. They'll work for you assessing somebody's character as well as your spouse's young people. But they're very good at just assessing character in general. Now, let me say one last thing here. Let me say one last thing. Feminists today like to hijack this story. And I wouldn't even have put this in the sermon, except the book that I bought for everybody was kind of one of these cheap paperback reprints and there's a bunch of them at the beginning of it. And feminists love to hijack this story and say, this was a strong independent woman. Miss Bennett. Wrong. You don't get this one. Feminists. This was not a feminist story. Every young woman has the right to assess the character, to find out the character of the man that she is going to marry. That is her right to do so. And especially in this story her father is there to help her make that decision. That's why her father has authority over her. But her father, and this is another thing you don't get from this, the movie that's in the book. Her father had checked out. He had checked out. He didn't care about anything. She was actually bitter towards him because he had checked out on the girls and who they would marry and with her eccentric mother. He had just checked out. He just wanted to go in his his library and read his books and be left alone. But that was the point. She had the right to assess the character of this young woman. She was not a single lady and young men that are not married need to understand this. A single lady is not under your authority until she's your wife. You can't be some single guy in a church and just think that every single lady is under your authority. What are you reading? No one is under your authority until you are married. And a young lady has every right to assess the character of a negative husband of hers. Every right. Now look if she comes off as rude and contentious she's going to drive away the good ones. I definitely wouldn't advise that but that's not what happened here. You just had an intellectual person to figure out who this person was that she was going to spend the rest of her life with and be under his authority. There is nothing feminist about that at all. She's going to follow this man for the rest of her life. I think that she didn't really have the protection of her father but it is a great lesson in character assessment. Just what we're looking at tonight. She got look, she got fooled. It's a good success story too because she got fooled but she figured it out before she got married. God forbid she would have not figured it out and married the other guy. We'll talk about that more in the coming weeks. Every young lady and every young man should assess the character using these biblical methods of the person they are going to marry because look it's a life long decision. It's a life long decision and it can be the best thing that ever happened to you. That's what the Bible is telling you that marriage is honorable and all. It's the best blessing that God can give you on this earth. Other than your eternal life a great marriage a wonderful wife and a strong wonderful husband is one of the best blessings that God bestows on us as people in this fleshly life that we have. And it's super important that we follow these rules follow God's rules to get it right. What people say doesn't mean much at all. Let's bow our heads.