Wise Counsel
About this sermon
In “Wise Counsel,” Pastor Dean Odle presents a Scripture-centered message about the authority of Scripture, spiritual leadership, holiness. Drawing especially from Psalm 119, Proverbs 11, Psalm 33, Psalm 9, the teaching emphasizes that Scripture is presented as the standard for doctrine, discernment, and daily obedience. Odle connects that foundation with the conviction that leaders are accountable to teach faithfully, serve the flock, and model the character they proclaim.
Chronological teaching outline
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Odle focuses on the authority of Scripture while working through Psalm 119. The message argues that Scripture is presented as the standard for doctrine, discernment, and daily obedience. It connects this with the conviction that God calls believers to reject compromise and pursue practical holiness. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on the authority of Scripture while working through Proverbs 11. The message argues that Scripture is presented as the standard for doctrine, discernment, and daily obedience. It connects this with the conviction that leaders are accountable to teach faithfully, serve the flock, and model the character they proclaim. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on the authority of Scripture while working through Psalm 33, Psalm 9, Matthew 4. The message argues that Scripture is presented as the standard for doctrine, discernment, and daily obedience. It connects this with the conviction that God’s commands reveal His standard and direct the obedient life. The practical emphasis is to trust God’s promises and refuse decisions governed by fear.
Odle focuses on holiness while working through Psalm 73, John 8, Proverbs 20. The message argues that God calls believers to reject compromise and pursue practical holiness. It connects this with the conviction that the Holy Spirit leads, equips, corrects, and strengthens believers who yield to God. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on the authority of Scripture while working through Psalm 14, Isaiah 30. The message argues that Scripture is presented as the standard for doctrine, discernment, and daily obedience. It connects this with the conviction that God’s commands reveal His standard and direct the obedient life. The practical emphasis is to trust God’s promises and refuse decisions governed by fear.
Odle focuses on spiritual leadership while working through Hebrews 12, Proverbs 12, Proverbs 19. The message argues that leaders are accountable to teach faithfully, serve the flock, and model the character they proclaim. It connects this with the conviction that God calls believers to reject compromise and pursue practical holiness. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on spiritual leadership while working through Hebrews 13. The message argues that leaders are accountable to teach faithfully, serve the flock, and model the character they proclaim. It connects this with the conviction that baptism is examined as an act of obedience and identification with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. The practical emphasis is to remain watchful, grounded in Scripture, and ready to obey Christ.
Odle focuses on eternal judgment while working through Luke 16. The message argues that the reality of final judgment gives urgency to repentance, salvation, and faithful witness. It connects this with the conviction that salvation is presented as God’s work in Christ that produces a changed life and continuing faith. The practical emphasis is to trust God’s promises and refuse decisions governed by fear.
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- 0:00:00
father one of the greatest songs of praise and worship ever written I thank you Lord because it is the truth you are great the day is coming Lord you will come to take us home we will bow before your throne The Joy will fill our hearts Lord we are looking for that day because you are coming and Lord we are grateful that we can know you through Jesus we can know you now we can hear your voice we can walk with you we can do your will on this Earth God we praise you today we thank you for today in Jesus name amen and amen so we want to welcome you fire and grace church this morning welcome those listening by Blog Talk Radio and welcome those listening by Facebook live this morning watching um praise God it's been a long week been a tough week but God is good amen um I want to share just briefly uh kind of blowing my mind we uh not this past Friday but a Friday a week ago so just a little over a week we posted uh the video on YouTube of part four of God's Flat Earth and the power of His firmament and that was part around part three I'm sorry we posted that just a little over a week ago and we are now around maybe probably by now over 3 200 views in just a little over a week it's wonderful hearing from people from all over the country I just have been blessed and encouraged and just amazing testimonies that are coming in you know only had a few uh negative folks one was a Roman Catholic another one was uh two or three were atheists uh so you know I'm not too worried about what they think anyway but point being is it's blessing a lot of people a lot of people said that I for them I'm not saying I'm the one of the first pastors but they said that for them and all they're looking at uh videos and stuff and research on the internet that I'm one of the only pastors that they found that's addressed this in a church setting so anyway if you haven't seen that you can go you just YouTube search by name you'll find it um but anyway this morning the lord has laid a message on my heart and I guess I kind of need these reading glasses Let's uh got a lot of scriptures to cover this morning so let's go to uh The Book of Proverbs we'll start there this morning uh you can turn me down on number one just a hair please it's a little a little loud in here proverbs and let me pull up I have so many notes this morning
- 0:03:02
um let's go to Proverbs Chapter 11 first today the the message teaching whatever you want to call it this morning has to do with the subject call of wise counsel and uh the Lord just really dropped this in my heart um praying on Saturday or Friday I can't even remember now it's been so many days of running together um but this is something that's really been stirring on my heart for a while because I'm discovering that we live in a generation now it's blowing my mind nobody wants to listen to Godly counsel advice and certainly not they're Elder um it seems like particularly this younger generation everybody wants to learn the hard way everybody's just determined that for some reason they can't listen to anyone that might have been through something already ahead of them learn some lessons by going through it the wrong way or making wrong choices and actually learn and heed their counsel and their advice and avoid the same disasters pain and suffering that uh their Elders have experienced for some reason stubbornness abounds in the human race and even among those who claim to be born again Spirit-filled god-loving Christians they just can't seem to listen to Godly counsel now what I'm going to share with you today there are several I I can't even I don't even know how many verses are here and I'm probably not going to get to them all and I'm not going to get to all the examples okay but I'm not just talking about listening to the counsel of a person that's part of it a Godly person in your life okay we'll get to that in a second because really what I'm talking about you know I'll show you this in the Bible but there are three counselors three types of Godly counsel that you should seek out that you should listen to uh and and seek to obey and heed wisdom and advice I'm going to show you number one the word of God the written word of God the Bible Genesis the Malachi Matthew to Revelation in fact but we may turn there in a second but the verse is Psalm 119. verse 24 it says David writing here the psalm he says Lord thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors and when he's using the word testimonies here it means God's written record of his dealings with his people his Commandments uh his statutes
- 0:06:02
his law and God and David says your testimonies your word your written word they are my delight and my counselors right so the first one is the word of God the scriptures the Bible the multitude of passages and verses and stories and examples that we have the examples we have of people in the Bible what I love about the Bible is the Bible doesn't just give you the people who did everything right tells you about the people some even good people who did some very bad things and made some terrible mistakes now why would God include those in there well he would include those in there so we would learn from them and not do the same thing right we would see this example so number one is God's word should be our number one counselor we should seek out and listen to right God's written word the Bible I'm going to come back to that in a second number two is this if you are a born-again Christian and you have the Holy Spirit In You you should through prayer through fasting through meditating on God's word you should have over time through repentance turning from your sins and obeying God you should be developing or have developed an intimate relationship with God and His holy spirit that dwells within you so that when you have a problem when you have the need of counsel or advice or wisdom or discernment about a direction you should be able to hear the Lord speak to you the Lord Jesus speak to you by his holy spirit inside of you I'm finding that so many Christians claim to be born again they claim to be born again they claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit or have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them and yet they never hear or discern God's voice in a matter and do the right thing okay but we should be Consulting God's word as a counselor we should be Consulting the Holy Spirit within us as a counselor and yes finally we should also seek out Godly Elders Godly men and women who can give us biblical sound holy spirit-led advice that will help us now trust me I know the world is screwed up right now and I was a lot of people out there that you can't get good advice or good counsel from and we're going to talk about that a little bit this morning but this is this is so important because I'm listening listen I'm having
- 0:09:05
I I don't just pastor this church okay God has has always worked it where I end up you could call it mentoring discipling teaching trying to train uh or encourage help many other people that that don't attend our church here in Opelika Alabama and what blows my mind is people will say Pastor Dean you know the word you know the word like nobody I know I got a call the other day from somebody I hadn't seen a long time the reason they were calling me they said I knew you'd know where it is in the scripture I knew you would know uh the answer to this and so they called for Godly counsel and advice all right so this happens I'm telling you all over the place but what blows my mind is how many people will say Pastor Dean you know the scriptures Pastor Dean you're anointed the holy spirit's in you Pastor Dean you know tell us where it is in the scriptures and or explain this to us right you know divide the word show us where what all this is talking about and what I'm blown away is how many times I will get a phone call an email have a conversation with people that they want they want they ask give them the scriptures give them the counsel for my own life things that I've learned after 30 years of being a preacher and a Christian and how many times they don't do anything that I counsel them to do whether it was straight Bible whether it was how I handled the situation uh in my life that either sometimes I'll tell them how I handle the situation wrong and don't do it that way or how I handle the situation right and you know if you try this it might work that way right I'm just blown away by the people that nod their head I know what you're telling me is true I know you're trying to help me and then they go off and they do the exact opposite and end up in a greater disaster and a greater problem in a greater difficulty I cannot tell you over the years how many people have said these words to me I should have listened I should have taken your advice and put it to practice let me show you these verses and we're going to turn to them I said Proverbs 11 right Proverbs 11 verse 14. it says where no counsel is the people fall but in the multitude of counselors there
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