Seeking The Gift of Wisdom

All of us want to make good decisions. I'm going to say that that's the case for everyone. I don't think anybody wants to make bad decisions, but we all want to make good decisions. In a sense, we all seek to be wise. We all want to say the right thing at the right time.

We all want to be able to accept correction and seek humility in order to honor God and in order to be His servants, His children. That's why He has brought us to be a part of the Church of God in this age.

It's a wonderful time to be a part of the Church preceding Christ's return. We're looking forward to that. We have something really positive, really wonderful to look forward to. But as I've said, we seek to have good judgment, we seek to have good sense, and we want good outcomes in the relationships that we have in our family with one another, with our coworkers, everywhere we go. We desire to do that. Now, to give a definition to common sense, I'd like for us to think about common sense a little bit. The definition of common sense would be, common sense is sound, practical judgment concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive and understand and judge that is shared by everybody. Now, that would be a definition if you look it up in the dictionary, you know, the thing that is described. But I think perhaps most of us have heard a very familiar statement about common sense.

It's that common sense doesn't seem to be very common. It doesn't seem to be really all that available as far as good sense, we should say. I was looking at an article in Psychology Today by one of the psychologists, Jim Taylor. He says there's not a whole lot of sound judgment going on these days, so it's really not very common. The common sense were common that most people wouldn't make the kind of decisions they do every day. People wouldn't buy stuff they can't afford, they wouldn't smoke cigarettes, they wouldn't eat junk food, they wouldn't gamble. If they wanted to get really specific and timely, politicians wouldn't speak to others the way they do, they wouldn't be tweeting pictures to strangers. In other words, people wouldn't do the multitude of things that are clearly not good for them. He was just pointing out that the decisions that people make, the way they represent themselves, and certainly we could say there's been a massive decline in that. Even in the discourse among the political parties here in our country, we see that it's almost a lack of civility and certainly not even remotely close to good sense. So how is it, as the people of God and living in the age that we live in, how is it that we can have more wisdom, that we can grow in understanding? I know all of you are aware that the Book of Proverbs is one of the books in the middle part of the Old Testament. It's in a part of the books called the Writings. And the Book of Proverbs is a book that is said to be a book of wisdom, and it was given to us from God to be able to help us get wisdom. And I would say that we should all be seeking that gift, the gift of wisdom that God extends. See, we don't have to be unaware as to what wisdom is. We don't have to be unaware as far as where to go and where to study and where to find. In Proverbs 4, verse 5, it says, Get wisdom. Get insight or understanding. Do not forget or turn away from the words in my mouth. That's just one verse I'm going to read more along that line in Proverbs chapter 4. But it's very clear that the people of Israel were told, and the people of God today are told, that we need to get wisdom. We need to request wisdom from God. And so I want to give a little bit of an overview of the Book of Proverbs today. So if you want wisdom, if you really seek wisdom, you're able to find it very clearly written down from our Heavenly Father. Now, we might also realize, and I think most of us do, that the Book of Proverbs was primarily written by a king in Israel, a king named Solomon. And whenever you study the life of Solomon, you see that he grew up in a royal family. He grew up as the son of David. He grew up in the house of the king of Israel. And later he would become an incredible king ruling over the house of Israel for 40 years himself.

But I think we also know, well, that whenever you see the decisions that Solomon ended up making, or at least many of the decisions that he made, certainly didn't appear to be very wise. And so the fact is, he didn't follow his own advice, and ultimately was riddled with adulterous and idolatrous relationships. Now, whether he ever recovered from that, I don't know.

That's perhaps not my... I don't have that prerogative. Nor do you decide that. God will decide that. We see at the end of the Book of Ecclesiastes that he said, after going through much over the thoughts that he had about human life, he said, ultimately, the whole duty of man is to fear God and to keep his commandments. So that was clearly correct information. And yet we see many, many problems that Solomon had himself. And I was thinking, you know, maybe one of the Proverbs, and this is not one of the Proverbs, this is just one that I made up or one that I guess somebody else made up, but you surely would think kind of applies to Solomon as do as I say, not as I do.

Because that's ultimately what he did. And yet, I want us to ask ourselves, why did Solomon ask for good judgment and wisdom when God asked him what he would like? Why did he ask for that? See, that's a pretty good example, I'll have to say, and I'll point that out later as well. You know, that is something we should ask for. That is something that everyone, and all of us as members of the Church of God today, we need to ask for wisdom. Let's take a look at this. In Proverbs chapter 4, which I quoted from earlier, Proverbs chapter 4, this is in the beginning part of this 31 chapter book, and it starts off in verse 1 and says, Listen, children, listen to your Father's instruction.

Be attentive that you may gain insight. And so this is part of the instruction that we read very clearly here in the beginning of the pages of the book of Proverbs. And he says in verse 3, when I was a son with my Father. And so as we read in chapter 1 verse 1, these are the Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel.

So Solomon is the one who's writing this, and yet he says in verse 3, when I was a son with my Father, chapter 4 verse 3, when I was a son with my Father, Tinder, and my mother's favorite, he was clearly favored by Bathsheba, and he was small.

He was young. It says, he taught me, his father, the king, King David, taught me and said to me, let your heart hold fast my words, keep my commandments and live. In verse 5, who told Solomon to seek wisdom? Well, his father David, he said, verse 5, get wisdom, get insight, do not forget, do not turn away from the words of my mouth, do not forsake her, do not forsake wisdom, and she will keep you.

You should love her, and she will guard you. And in verse 7, he says, the beginning of wisdom is this, get wisdom, whatever else you get, get understanding. And so this was directly instruction that Solomon had been given when he was small. Whenever he was taught by his parents, in this case, directly his father David, who told him, one thing you need to get, one thing you need to seek, one thing you need to know that is going to be beneficial for you is that you need to seek to have wisdom.

So I want to go back here in 1 Kings, chapter 3. This is the account where David has recently died. And there's a certain level of apprehension in the Kingdom of Israel. There's some vying for position and responsibility, and who's going to be the next king? Ultimately, of course, we know from the record that Solomon would become the next king of Israel.

But here in 1 Kings, chapter 3, it says in verse 5, well, let me back up. Verse 3, Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David. In verse 5, at Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and the Lord said, ask what I should give you. And Solomon said, you have shown great and steadfast love to your servant, my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness and in righteousness and in uprightness of heart toward you.

And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and given him a son to sit on his throne today. And now, in verse 7, oh Lord, my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child, and I don't know how to go out and how to come in.

Solomon, at that point, viewed himself still as pretty young, still as somewhat humble. It says he loved God, or at least that had been his training, that had been what David had passed on to him. And so it says in verse 8, your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people so numerous they can't be numbered or counted. And so he says in verse 9, give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, the ability to discern between good and evil, for who can govern this your great people.

In verse 10, see that was the request that Solomon made. I need your help. I need understanding from you. I need guidance and wisdom from you. And in verse 10, it pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this, and he said to him, because you have asked this, and that you have not asked for yourself long life, for riches, or for the life of your enemies, but that you have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right. I now will do according to your word.

So clearly, at the right time, Solomon made the right request to seek wisdom, to get wisdom. And so I now do, in verse 12, according to your word, indeed, I give you a wise and discerning mind. No one like you has been before you, and no one like you shall arrive after you. Now, that's quite an impressive directive from God. That's what God would offer him. Thankfully, Solomon paid attention to some of what David told him, and he knew enough to ask, or to seek wisdom and discernment, being able to be the type of king that God would want him to be.

So I want us to jump over here in chapter 4 and be able to see exactly what the outcome of God's gift to Solomon was. See, was Solomon just smarter than everyone else? Was he just an incredible intellect? He was quite perceptive and able to just put everything together? Well, he at least made one right choice there, at least one request that was correct.

He wanted to seek wisdom, and when he asked that of God, God was happy to see that he wanted that. And so here in chapter 4, in verse 29, it says, God gave Solomon very great wisdom. He gave him great wisdom, discernment, breadth of understanding, as vast as the sand of the sea.

So that Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than anyone else. His fame spread throughout all the surrounding nations. In verse 32, he composed 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs did he write. He would speak of trees from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows in the wall.

He would speak of animals, of burbs, of reptiles and fish. People came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon. They came from all the kings of the earth to be able to hear the wisdom that Solomon had. Now, I want us to think about that because, like I said, the Book of Proverbs is able to help us. It's not just Solomon's wisdom. It's God's wisdom that he imparted clearly to Solomon. He gave Solomon a gift, a gift that, of course, I'm sure God knew, he would later write down and make available to all of us.

And yet, of course, later Solomon would neglect and forget a number of those instructions. But that doesn't take away from the validity of the guidance that he gives us in his inspired word. I want us to look again at the beginning of the Book of Proverbs. The Book of Proverbs kind of has, well, you could say three or four sections in it. And many of these are proverbs that we have read or had read to us or used as memory verses.

I'm sure all of us could quote some. Whether we know exactly where they are, we could probably quote some of the proverbs. Isn't that correct? Does anybody have a favorite proverb or one that you think about?

Uh-oh. Nobody wants to venture out. Now, I know that most of you know Proverbs 3. What, Amanda, what is your favorite proverb? 27-17. 27-17. Okay, we all have to look that up now since none of us know what it says. 27-17. Iron sharpens iron and one person sharpens the wits of another. Now, you've all heard that. We've read that as a, I guess that was a theme of one of our conferences not too long ago. And yet it's clearly a valid principle. It's clearly something that can be utilized in numerous different ways. But this is the type of thing that I'm saying. I think others of you might have some that you would have in mind. Who would have any idea when it says, trust in the Lord with all of your heart?

And don't lean to your own understanding, but in all of your ways acknowledge God. Oh, my wife has heard of that one before. She reads that. 3-5, that's right. 3, let's, we better go to that to be sure. So I'm reading the right one. Trust in the Lord. 3-5. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Don't rely on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. See, those are verses that we have commonly used or read. There are verses in Proverbs 14, 12 and 16, 25 that says there is a way that seems right unto the man. But the end thereof is the way of death. See, we know what some of these say. But, see, we don't have the 3,000 Proverbs of Solomon. We only have 375 of them. That's why we can't hardly remember them. It's hard to remember some of them. Some of them maybe stand out more depending on the way that we might use them or the frequency with which we use them. We can remember it a little bit easier. But I think if you think about it, you probably know of others. Proverbs 15, verse 1 says, It's soft answer turns away wrath. Again, we know we can almost fill in the blank as far as what that says or what that in a sense means. And yet, there are many others. I want us to read here in the first part of the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 1, verse 1, the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, the king of Israel.

And here in verse 2, actually in the verse 7, first seven verses here, it says what the theme of Proverbs is. It says, Why did God write it down? Or why did God inspire Solomon to write it down and then God giveth the authority of the words of the Bible, the authenticity of God having given Solomon the wisdom that he used in writing these down. It says in verse 2, for learning about wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight, for gaining instruction in wise dealing and in righteousness and justice and equity, to teach shrewdness to the simple. Now, none of us like to think of ourselves as simple, especially as we age. We don't think of ourselves as being young or immature, but that's really what this is referring to. You see the references to the simple or really the immature, those who are young who need to be taught. And actually, you see other descriptions of people who are in that category and they're just called fools. They don't know and in some ways they don't even want to know. But here, he says these Proverbs are written down in order to gain instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice and equity, to teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young. But the wise also hear and gain in learning and discerning acquire skill. And so it's not only for the immature, not only for our young people here today, because these are, in a sense, somewhat easy to read and easy to even memorize. If you try to remember certain ones you would be familiar with, I think most of you probably know Proverbs 31. Cain's a large section, number of verses dealing with a virtuous woman. That's an instruction that, again, we've taught in the Church of God for many decades. But that comes right out of the book of Proverbs.

But you see, in verse 5, the let the wise hear also hear and gain in learning and the discerning acquire skill to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles. And then he concludes this introduction with, in verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and fools despise wisdom and instruction. So I would say there's a pretty good record here to show that, well, we ought to seek, we ought to get the wisdom that God offers. We ought to get not only what I'll read about later on, even in the New Testament, you see this admonition, but here in the Old it's very clear.

That we need to have a proper respect toward God, we need to have the fear of God in order to fully begin to grow in knowledge and in wisdom and in understanding, because all of these are in a sense tied together here in the book of Proverbs.

You actually find the wisdom that's written about in the book of Proverbs generally signifying moral discernment between right or righteous ways and evil ways, as well as skill in the proper conduct of business.

Some of the contrasts you have that wise contrasted with being foolish or just folly, or seeking wisdom and not seeking folly. That's some of the contrasts that you read about here, especially in the first few chapters. You do find, and again, I would say probably again, most of us are familiar with Proverbs 26, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but in verse 4 and 5 you have what sometimes appears to be a little bit of a problem.

It's not a contradiction. Again, if people want it to be a contradiction, they can make it that way, but it is clearly not. It says, answer a fool according to his folly, and then in the next verse it says, don't answer a fool according to his folly. Now, why is it that that type of information is there? Well, it's because it's talking about two different situations, two different circumstances, two different people that are being addressed. Some needing to be addressed for one reason, and others needing to be addressed in a different way. And so in order to know the difference, what do you need? Well, you need wisdom. You need some discernment. And so you find that there are particular proverbs that sometimes are situation sensitive, and not always universally applicable. You know, it may just be a very narrow statement about something that you can learn. Wisdom is being able to know the difference in that type of situation. A wise person is one who is sensitive to the right time and the right place, and wisdom is knowing the right time, the right circumstances to apply the right principle to the right person. So that requires help from God. That requires wisdom.

Many of the proverbs, like I said, there are, I think, 375 that are included here in this book. Some of them are directly appear to be words that Solomon wrote down or he had written and compiled. Some of them appear to be the words of the wise. You know, again, in a little different format. At the very end of the book, you see King Agor or King Lemuel. And whether those are references to Solomon, I don't think anybody can know one way or the other. But at least they also give insight or instruction about in the last couple of chapters of the book of Proverbs.

But what we've already established was that the wisdom that Solomon had and what he was given from God to actually write down for us was wisdom, not just on a human level, not just from his own ability, but wisdom that had come to him as a gift from God. That is what we find about the words that we read here. And you find in many of Solomon's Proverbs that they involve, in many of the verses, there's kind of two sentences, and they are either contrasted or they are compared or they are very similar, reinforcing the idea, or they might have some type of parallel. So there's a lot of different ways, perhaps, of looking at different ones of the Proverbs, even as we had mentioned. Iron sharpens iron, even as a man should sharpen his friends. Now, there might be different things that you would learn from studying or from thinking about that proverb. But as we see them compiled here in the pages of the Bible, they obviously take on the authority of the Bible, and they are available for us to be able to learn. Now, maybe we haven't spent a lot of time reading or studying them, and actually to go through and try to delineate each one of them, and what is this talking about, what does it mean? That would take a long, long time. But if we read these, and if we learn the principles, well then that's going to help us grow in wisdom. Like I said, chapters 10 through 29, I'll break these down into just three sections, chapters 10 through 29 seem to be pretty much the Proverbs of Solomon or the Sayings of the Wives. And whenever you read through those chapters, they all take on a similar kind of a format.

And some of them, you even find a few of the Proverbs that are repeated. Like I mentioned, 1412 and 1625, they say the same thing. There are several others that say the same thing. And yet you have to realize, well, God may be emphasizing something that He really wants us to understand. So one of the sections is chapter 10 through chapter 29, where you have a verse-by-verse listing of the Proverbs of Solomon. The last two chapters, chapters 30 and 31, as I said, would be another section, and they appear to be written by somebody else, King Agar or King Lemuel, and yet it could have had Solomon's influence.

And yet they're also written in kind of a parabolic form or a proverb form. And so even though they may not just be one statement, they may be several verses about a given topic. But you can read through those and be able to find knowledge that God would want us to have that would be in the level of wisdom from God.

And then the final section is really the first one, and the one that I want to focus on today, is chapter 1 through 9. See, what do we find in Proverbs chapter 1 through chapter 9? Well, we've already read the first few verses. It's talking about that we need to seek wisdom.

And really, if you read through chapter 1 through 9, you'll see a contrast between seeking wisdom and seeking folly. And what it's showing is that, well, you need to seek wisdom. You need to get away from folly. And there are many different descriptions that we find here. And so it amazes us over and over to seek a wisdom from God that is just extraordinary. Here in chapter 1, let's go through these. I'll go through some of these rather quickly. He says in chapter 1, verse 10, Now, what is he pointing out there?

He says, that's ridiculous. Don't do that. Don't follow that way. Here in chapter 1, verse 20, he says, wisdom cries out in the streets. And so I'll just point this out in verse 20. It kind of personifies wisdom as, in a sense, a woman here because it's using the feminine verbs or the feminine pronouns.

I guess it is. Wisdom cries out in the street. In the square, she raises her voice. The busiest corner, she cries out at the entrance of the city gate. How long, in verse 22, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in your scoffing? And hate knowledge. Fools hate knowledge. Give heed, in verse 23, to my reproof, and I will pour out my thoughts to you.

I will make my words known to you. And so, in a sense, this is laying the groundwork for what's going to be covered in these chapters. Hear from chapter 1 on up to through chapter 9. In chapter 2, he says in verse 1, My child, again, wisdom is appealing. My child, if you accept my words and you treasure up my commandments within you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, if you indeed cry out for insight, if you seek it like silver in verse 4 and verse 5, then you will understand.

Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and you will find the knowledge of God. See, again, this is very important for young people, but it's also important for all of us to know that, well, the Bible is made available for our education and for our instruction, for knowledge, for gaining understanding and insight, but to gain wisdom, and he's appealing to us to have wisdom from God. In verse 6, he says, For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. Verse 10, for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Now, again, in some ways you can say, well, this is saying that, well, if we don't really seek wisdom, then we're kind of on our own. You know, we're going with our own understanding, with whatever we think is right. And yet he's telling us, well, seek wisdom from God, seek wisdom from God's Word, and then we are able to receive that into our heart. Here in chapter, oh, let's drop on down to verse 12. He says, It will save you from the way of evil, from those that speak perversely.

Verse 16, You will be saved from the strange woman, from the adulteress, with her smooth words. And so here he's using, and again, you think this seems kind of unusual for Solomon, with all the problems that he would later have with adultery, with idolatry, with all of the corruption that he went into. Why would he write like this? Well, perhaps he wrote much of this before he ever got into that. I don't know.

But this certainly does show us the contrast between the right way, the righteous way, the godly way, the way of wisdom, and the way of immorality, the way of promiscuity, the way of, and the description here regarding marriage, is the sanctity of marriage and the breakdown of marriage whenever adultery is involved. And he actually focuses a lot on that here in these chapters that we're focusing on today.

In chapter 3, you see another section that I'll just point out to you. Chapter 3, verse 19, again saying that wisdom from God is more than just human thoughts of Solomon. It says in verse 19, the Lord, by wisdom, founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens by his knowledge. The deeps broke open and the clouds dropped down the dew.

See, what this was pointing out is that God used wisdom in the entire creation. And if we jump over to chapter 8, chapter 8, you see, and again this is still in this first section, chapter 8, verse 22, this describes the part that wisdom played in the creation of everything.

It says in verse 22 of chapter 8, the Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Verse 24, when there was no depths, I was brought forth. Again, this is mentioning wisdom or talking about the fact that wisdom was used by God in his entire creation.

There were no depths. In verse 24, I was brought forth, and there were no springs abounding with water before the mountains were shaped. In verse 25, before the heavens were established, I was there. In verse 29, when he assigned to the sea its limits, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth. Verse 30, then I was there beside him like a master worker. I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world, in delighting in the human race.

This is a description of the fact that the wisdom that God used in putting together the entirety of the creation, and not just the physical creation, but even the angelic realm that was created before that. God was using his wisdom, wisdom from God, and wisdom that we can even see he gave to some degree to some of the angels.

Because we find, in describing Lucifer, and describing his rebellion against God, he should have known better. He became arrogant. He became resisted. He is, in a sense, the author of violence and resisting and rebelling against God. And yet, whenever you read that in Ezekiel 28, and particularly verse 17, it says, from the day that you were created, you had been perfect. You had been given every advantage, but ultimately, iniquity was found in you. Maybe we should read that here in Ezekiel. Ezekiel 28, talking of Lucifer's rebellion, he says in verse 12, talking about this magnificent being that he had created, again with wisdom, You were the signet of perfection in verse 12. You were full of wisdom. You were perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the Garden of God. Verse 13, on the day you were created, they were prepared. As an anointed carob, as guardian, I placed you. You were on the holy mountain of God. You walked up and down in the stones of fire.

You were perfect or blameless in your ways from the day that you were created. Verse 15, until iniquity was found in you. In the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence and you sinned. And so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God. In verse 17, it says, your heart was proud because of your beauty. And you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. See, clearly, having been given some wisdom from God, Lucifer didn't use that properly, even as we see being given a gift by God. As Solomon was of wisdom, he didn't use it properly. But see, he affected many people there in Israel. Lucifer infected the entire world. He infected, beginning with Adam and Eve, all of mankind with an attitude of false understanding. And you could say, corrupted wisdom.

But let's go back to Proverbs chapter 3 again. You see, in these chapters, and again I only want to point out briefly what is in each one because for the lack of time to go over them more thoroughly. But when you read through this, you see wisdom being exalted, it being personified, it being given as an instruction. Follow me. It's almost begging mankind to follow the wisdom of God that's revealed in His Word. Chapter 4 gives more parental advice. We read part of that before. Verse 10, here, my children, accept my words after the years of your life, that your years of your life may be many. Verse 11, I have taught you the way of wisdom, I have led you in the path of uprightness. Again, in some ways this is somewhat poetically written. That is a part of what Solomon had a certain level of ability and capacity to do. And yet it certainly points out how valuable seeking the right way, the righteous way, as opposed to the immoral way that is being written about. In chapter 5 you see the high value that is placed, the purity and sanctity of the proper use of sex and marriage. Again, you would have thought that Solomon would have known something about that. And yet, he writes about it here in chapter 5. Verse 1, my child be attentive to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding, so that you may hold on to prudence, and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a strange woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil. He says it may be appealing, but that doesn't mean it's the right way. He points out, again, a right understanding of marriage, a right understanding of use of sex.

Verse 15, drink water from your own sister, flowing water from your own well. Again, using that as an imagery of a husband and wife being faithful to one another and one another fully. Verse 16, should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? He asks that question, let them be, in verse 17, for yourself alone, and not for sharing with strangers. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the life of your youth. See, that's clearly the admonition. That's clearly, you know, you can avoid so many problems by maintaining faithfulness.

You see this continued more so in chapter 7, and I will let you go ahead and read that on your own, because it's very clear in chapter 7 how that he points out the wisdom of being faithful, the wisdom of drawing close to God, and the contrast to that is a lot of heartache, a lot of suffering, a lot of distress, a lot of anguish, and of course this is what the world needs to know. You know, you try to talk about the sanctity of marriage, or you try to talk about, you know, the need to understand even words like fornication or adultery. Those go right over the head of many people today because they don't want to know. They want to dismiss that entirely. But that isn't the case here in this section.

In chapter 6, you see several kind of practical admonitions that Solomon makes that would be wise. In verse 1, he gives some warnings against cosigning alone. He's talked about as being surety or giving a pledge to your neighbor.

In verse 6, he says, go to the ants, you lazy bones, consider their ways and be wise. And so he talks about laziness, he talks about diligence. Verse 12, he says, avoid the scoundrel. A scoundrel and a villain goes around with crooked speech, winking the eye and shuffling the feet and pointing the fingers with a perverted mind, devising evil, continually sowing discord. On such a one calamity will descend suddenly in a moment, damaged beyond repair. Eric clearly points out how that, you know, troublemakers need to be avoided. If we are a friend of troublemakers, then we will be associated with them. We will be drugged down with them as far as what Solomon's instruction is. And here in verse 16, says there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him. Then he lists these haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness that testifies falsely. And finally, the seventh, he says, it is abominable, one that sows discord among the brethren, among the family. Proverbs 6, 16, we've read many times before because it needs to be understood. Now, this is not just information that God is throwing out there and saying, well, you know, maybe you'll like that. Now, this is information to guide us in a way of wise living and wise decisions. As I said in chapter 7, you have continual discussion there of the false attractions of adultery. Chapter 8, an appeal to follow the way of wisdom. And chapter 9, again, another appeal. Maybe we can read part of that. In verse 6, or verse 1, I guess, of chapter 9, wisdom has built her house and she is hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her animals, mixed her wine. She has sent her table. She has sent out her servant girls and calls from the highest places in town. You who are simple, come in here. To those without sense, she says, come and eat of my bread and drink of the wine that I've mixed. Lay aside immaturity and live. Walk in the way of when in sight. She is using the imagery of a woman. One, a false woman, an adulterous woman, or promiscuous woman on one hand, folly and death being her outcome. But then, wisdom is described as a righteous and good and honest woman upholding the word of God. And in chapter 9 as well, he says in verse 10, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is inside or understanding.

Again, this is, in a sense, laying the groundwork. This whole section that we've looked at today is describing the need to be wise. The need to seek understanding from the word of God. And you know, you read through this, and like I can point out in chapter 10, as I told you, this kind of begins a different section, a different section that has just one proverb after the next from verse to verse. But you see this whole book, it points to the need to get wisdom. And yet, I want us to look at what we find in the New Testament here in a couple of places, because you also have verification of the need to do that, even by the Son of God, who stresses the fact that God gave Solomon the wisdom that he wrote into the book of Proverbs. Here in Luke 11, Luke 11, you see Jesus saying that there would be a sign in verse 29. There is no sign that would be given except the sign of Jonah. So here he was talking about the fact that he would die and that he would be in the grave three days and three nights, as Jonah had been in the fish, three days and three nights. And he says in verse 30, as Jonah became assigned to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be assigned to this generation. And he says the Queen of the South, being the Queen of Egypt or Ethiopia, will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon and to see something, and see now, something greater than Solomon is here. See, Jesus pointed out that God had given Solomon that gift of wisdom. But he was saying that, you know, I'm here now and I'm even greater than Solomon. I have more wisdom than Solomon. And I hope that all of us can realize that as we have been brought into a relationship with God, as we have been brought to Jesus Christ and to be a part of the Church of God and to be given the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have a need to seek that wisdom from God. Not the wisdom, as I described, that has affected the world of wisdom that has been corrupted, but a wisdom that is from God. And you read about that in James chapter 3. And the more I look at this, the more I marvel at what it is that James wrote down. He says in verse 13, who is wise and understanding among you? If you are wise, if you do seek to be wise, if you seek wisdom from God, well then show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness that is born of wisdom. So this is actually a remarkably important section in this book of James. Because here he's going to make a contrast between the corrupted wisdom in the world, the wisdom that Satan extends to the world of rely on yourself, go your own way, do what seems right in your own eyes, make up your own rules. That's the wisdom that is commonly available. And yet he describes that here. In verse 14 he says, If you are affected by an attitude of bitter envy and by selfish ambition in your heart, see those are both the corrupting factors that Lucifer fell prey to. He became so envious and so angry and so hostile toward God, and he had such selfish ambition that he wanted to overthrow the throne of God. And he of course injected that attitude into Adam and Eve as they followed him instead of following God. He says in verse 15, such wisdom doesn't come down from above. It is simply of this world. It is earthy. It is unspiritual. It is devilish. And for where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.

See, that's actually a description of why the world is the way it is. People have a corrupted wisdom, a wisdom that seems right to them but is not according to the word of God. But then he makes an amazing statement here in verse 17, but the wisdom from above.

The wisdom from above is first pure and peaceable and gentle. It's a wisdom that is willing to yield. It is full of mercy and good fruit without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And it produces a harvest of righteousness that brings about peace for those who make peace. To hear he's contrasting a wrong wisdom, a corrupted wisdom, a devilish wisdom, which would really be worldly wisdom that is based in envy and based in selfishness and carnality. With godly wisdom, which as you can read is pure and peaceable and gentle, willing to yield and full of mercy and full of good fruit. That's the type of fruit that God wants each and every one of us to produce. And so I think you can see there's every reason, every reason to seek that wisdom from above. Seek it not only from the book of Proverbs because we do have much written there, but seek it from God as we even ask him, as Solomon did, for a gift of wisdom. A wisdom to be able to make good choices. And what I said earlier about how amazing it is that James is writing this down. You know, James, who wrote this book, was a half-brother of Jesus Christ. He lived the entirety of his life with a big brother who personified godly wisdom. He lived the entirety of his life. Jesus was always his big brother. And even though he didn't accept him, he didn't believe him, he was with the others for some time, not really accepting who Jesus was. But after his death and his burial, after his resurrection from the dead, you find James and others of his brethren and his mother all fully knowing who Jesus was. And then writing, in some ways, about that. And so I think it's amazing that James would have had the perfect example of someone who was pure, who was peaceable, who was gentle and willing to yield in full of mercy and of good fruit and not partial or not a hypocrite, but one who produced peace in everything he did. See, that's a description that I think that not only James would grow in understanding as God would help him do that, but that we should grow. We're wanting Jesus Christ to live in us. We want him to be the way that we live. And if we're going to be like him, then we're going to have to. We're going to have to seek the wisdom, as described here in verse 17, wisdom from above. And a part of that wisdom we can read about in the book of Proverbs. So I hope this is an introduction to this. I surely will need to go through at least one or two other sections of this to try to give a little more of an overview. But I hope you can see the value and the importance and the significance of seeking wisdom from above. And as Solomon said, every one of us need to get, get that wisdom.