When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even the man’s enemies live at peace with him.When a man’s ways please Yahweh, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.When a man’s ways please Jehovah, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
4 sermons cite this verse
Look at Proverbs 16. when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. It's gonna change how you approach conflict. You're not gonna be rushing to gossip, quick to assume the worst about people, backbiting and criticizing. There's gonna be a way that you're gonna choose to live at peace with all men, so much as lies within you. You're gonna believe the best. You're gonna seek to work things out. You're gonna go to your brother. You're gonna talk things openly. You're not going to hold on to and carry resentments. It's going to cause there to be peace that follows after you. Goodness and mercy everywhere you go. It changes things. Huckleberry, everything. I'm not just going to give you one hour on Sunday, God. I want to give you my whole life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There's not an area of your life that this won't impact. Now, what we're going to do in the weeks of the series is we're going to look at different ways. …
… in verse 24, as God began to bless him, he had great wealth, favor, wisdom, and there was rest all around him, peace with all of, Bible said, when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. And he had that kind of favor that there was nothing. Notice the words now, rest and peace all around him. He's sleeping in his bed in his palace. He's, he has, He doesn't need security. God is his security. And he is blessed and highly, highly, highly favored of God. And then something happens. The Bible said that he began to marry strange women, meaning they were not of his faith. They were not of the covenant. They worshipped idols. They worshipped, you know, we cleaned that up. They worshipped idols. If you were an idol worshiper, you were a satanic worshiper in the Bible. Always remember that. Check me out in history. I'm talking about child sacrifice. I'm talking about witchcraft. I'm talking about deep occult. …
But now, what is the best thing for you to do if your friends scorn you? Well, do not defend yourself! Do not get bad-tempered about it. Do not answer them. The best reply is, in most cases, complete silence. Only speak when you are quite sure that it is better to speak than to hold your tongue. Never give scorn for scorning. Remember that a worldly man may resist evil if he will, but Christ says to his friends, "I say unto you, resist not evil, and when you are smitten on one check, turn the other also." I know that many of those good old non-resistance texts are looked upon as being quite out-of-date—as part of the Bible that is not to be preached. Well, when I get information from the skies that the text is to be covered over or silenced, I will say nothing about it—but as long as I find it there, I must say to you that that which men of the world call "pluck" and "fine spirit" very often comes only from the devil! Why are there fights and wars? They come from your own lusts. The Christian's only answer to the persecutor is the answer of the anvil to the blows of the hammer. He bears them, bears, bears them and breaks the hammer by bearing them! This is how the Christian Church triumphs. She has never made a good hand at carnal weapons. It was an ill-day for our Puritan sires when they took up arms. It did religion no good in this land, but I believe, threw it back for a long time. It is for the Christian Church to suffer and to suffer on in confidence and in faith, and to make the world see that the anvil will outlast a thousand sets of hammers and will triumph when they are all broken to dust! You, dear Friends, especially will find it to be your wisest, as well as the most Christian course, to bear everything that is put upon you and to make no return except by being more kind and more generous than ever towards those who are most unkind to you! …
While travelling through the mazes of life, another form of the preparation of the Gospel of Peace will be of essential service to us, namely, peace with our fellow men. The Gospel of Peace leads us into the closest bonds of amity with our fellow Believers, although, alas, it is not always possible to prevent offenses arising, even with the best of them! If we cannot make all our Brothers and Sisters amiable, we are at least to be at peace on our side—and if we succeed in this, no great disagreement can arise, for it always needs two to make a quarrel. It is well to go to bed every night feeling, "I have no difference in my soul with any of the members of Christ's body. I wish well to everyone and love them all in my heart." This would enable us to travel in right royal style over fields which now are often stony with controversy and thorny with prejudice. Theological conflicts and ecclesiastical squabbles would utterly disappear if we were shod with the true spirit of the Gospel of Peace. An unwillingness to think harshly of any Christian is a sandal most easy to the feet, protecting it from many a thorn. Wear it in the Church, wear it in all holy service, wear it in all fellowship with Christians and you will find your way among the brethren greatly smoothed! You will win their love and esteem before long, and avoid a world ofjealousy and opposition which would otherwise have impeded your course. …