Today we are studying the Old Testament wisdom literature. I want to begin with a... Could we turn it down just a little bit? I think I'm just a little bit too loud. If I begin to have any kind of an emotion, you're going to be distracted by the volume. Thanks. I want to begin here with Ecclesiastes 12, verses 12 through 14. And it says, My son, beware of anything beyond these, of making many books. There is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed to judgment, and every secret thing, whether good evil and we're coming to the end of our study of hermeneutics and within our study of hermeneutics we're ending with wisdom literature and it is so important that we use everything that we have learned so far that we remember that which we studied within the entire redemptive historical narrative. It's important that we remember the law of God, that we remember the gospel, that we remember the eschatological timeline that exists, that we don't have an over-realized eschatological timeline when we're reading wisdom literature. And this is actually a verse that at one time I had hung, at one time in my life I had a very large library of theology books, and I actually hung this verse over one of the bookshelves. But one thing that we're reminded of in wisdom literature is that the pursuit of knowledge is absolutely futile without knowledge of God. It's absolutely futile. Seeking after knowledge in and of itself has absolutely no foundational basis apart from a knowledge of God. And we dealt with that in more depth as we walked through apologetics, but this is something that you're going to see throughout life, you're going to see throughout history, and you're going to see throughout Scripture. I mean, with the knowledge of God, how do I even know what I know? If I don't know God, how do I even know what I know? What's my basis that there's a correlation between what's in my brain and what I believe is I'm interpreting through my eyes? What basis do I have in assuming that there's a correlation between the two? What basis do I have in assuming that things were one way yesterday and then they're just going to continue to be this way today? You have no basis. for any of that apart from a knowledge of God. Wisdom books that we're studying, we have Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Psalms, also called the Song of Solomon. This is a quote from the book. The wisdom books, where the bulk of the Old Testament calls us simply to obey and believe, this part of it, the wisdom literature, summons us to think hard, as well as humbly, to keep our eyes open and to use our conscience and our common sense and not shirk the disturbing questions. So within the wisdom literature, and we've kind of lumped these together, and they're really not all the same. If you've read the books, they're not entirely similar, but they have certain similarities between Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. The Song of Solomon is probably the most unique of all of them. But within them, I would say that you have a focus on logic. In some of them, you have a focus on emotion. There's a focus on an unexplainable tragedy, and then you have an emphasis on just general principles which exist within life. And we're lumping them all into this genre of wisdom literature, but they're not all the same. Every one of them needs to be approached individually, and this is just going to be an overview of all of them. One of the imperatives in wisdom literature is that you think. And that's especially true in Ecclesiastes and in Proverbs. Job and the Song of Solomon, not as much. There's a lot more emotion within those. But personally, I was perplexed at the age of 21 when I became a Christian. And I had read through the first chapter of John. I came to an understanding of who Christ was and what Christ did and where I stood in reference to God. And it was then that I believe that I became a Christian. John was the first book I read, but I was surprised when the second book that I read, it was Ecclesiastes. And I was just absolutely amazed and I was shocked at just the incredible depth of thought that existed within the pages of this book. I mean, I didn't know Christianity at the time. I didn't know Christianity had deep thoughts. So much of my experience with the church was not anything that had any kind of depth. But one thing that we have to remember in understanding wisdom literature is that it has to be understood within a knowledge of God. See, my thoughts and my philosophical pursuits prior to that were ultimately empty. They were ultimately vanity because the only way that anything philosophically can make sense is through having a knowledge of God. And by knowledge of God, I mean a knowledge and an understanding of that which He has communicated to us through His Word. Only then can we have a foundational basis for anything that we know or that we understand. And so, in reading this, don't forget the narrative in which all of this is occurring. Wisdom literature exists within that of a sinful and a fallen world. And the greatest dangers that we run into as sinful human beings who approach wisdom literature, especially in the Proverbs, is when we read the wisdom literature and we forget the knowledge of the gospel. You neglect the knowledge of the fallen and sinful world, and you neglect the knowledge you already know about the gospel, and you merely read these as just, as though it's some kind of a roadmap through life, that if I'll just check off all of these boxes, that I will hereby be in this position. These aren't formulas that you can just use so that I can be most successful. Wisdom literature additionally in Ecclesiastes points to just the absolute futility of anything without God. Knowledge is futile without God. Pleasure, absolutely futile without God. It will lead you nowhere. Your desires and pursuits towards knowledge, where do they ultimately lead you? If you went to public school, perhaps you were told, well, you need to learn this in the first grade. And so why do you need to learn that which you study in the first grade? Who remembers? I'm the only one. And so you can go to the second grade. And so why do you need to study everything that you need to do in the second grade? Because if you don't do what you're supposed to do in the second grade, do you know what's going to happen? You're not going to go to the third grade. So you need to learn everything that you're going to learn in the second grade so you can go to the third grade. And it goes on and on and on. I could keep going. But that's ultimately it. Well, why do I need to learn what I need to learn in college? Why do I need to learn what I need to learn in high school? Well, so you can go to college. And you ultimately, where is the ultimate end to this? What is the ultimate purpose for all of this? What it's doing is it's putting you as the center, you as the central aspect. I'm not at all criticizing knowledge or the pursuit of knowledge or the study of knowledge. I'm just saying it's absolutely futile and it's empty apart from relationship with God. You have absolutely nothing there. It's just a perpetual cycle of foolishness. Same thing with pleasure. Where does pleasure ultimately get you without a knowledge of God? seeking another pleasure, seeking something else. You have no real basis through which your mind is to interpret that which you experience. It goes nowhere. It just goes towards, okay, now towards something else. The acquirement of wealth. What good is the acquirement of wealth apart from a knowledge of God? You have no baseline whereby to determine what ultimate wealth is. I remember one wealthy person was asked, you know, how much is enough money? And he just said $1 more. It never ends. There's never going to be an end, because it's just this idea of this pursuit and this desire of the attainment of wealth and possessions. And there's no real end to it. Life itself is ultimately futile without God. Without God, there's no explanation for anything in existence, anything. And we, in our so-called scientific endeavors, believe that we explain the existence of everything in existence, and all of our great knowledge in science, that we end up making statements that, although it may be a very long thesis, can basically be summed up in this idea that absolutely nothing became something, and that something blew up, and that something that blew up became everything. And through a long period of time, of difficulty and trial and chance, all that just became. It's just what is. It's foolishness. It's futility. A quote from the author is, while wisdom books do not stress the standard elements of the salvation story, covenant, promise, redemption, and forgiveness, although it is in there many times, and you do see it within Job, you see it in Ecclesiastes, They do nonetheless assume the theological underpinnings of the rest of the Testament. And this is the two main things that I want you to grasp and hold on to out of this lecture, is that anything in life is ultimately futile without a knowledge of God. And the second thing that I want you to walk away from is that the teachings within wisdom literature, specifically within the Proverbs, within all of the ones I mentioned, they don't exist within a vacuum. They exist on top of the assumptions within the rest of Scripture. And since they do, we cannot and we should not teach them as though they don't. We should not create curriculums that teach wisdom literature to the exclusion of the rest of Scripture. I mean, you're going to end up, what you're going to end up is some kind of a VeggieTales, especially the later VeggieTales version of moralism. These aren't secret instructions that are hidden within the book of Proverbs whereby you can bring into your workplace and then you can just instruct all of your fellow co-workers at the exclusion of the rest of scriptures. It shouldn't be our desire to take wisdom literature at the exclusion of the rest of the Bible and try to infiltrate our workplace, try to infiltrate public schools, try to infiltrate the Boy Scouts and other such organizations with a goal of trying to communicate this truth. Because what you're doing is you're cursing people. You're taking something that was given to be a blessing and you're making it into a curse because you're divorcing this wisdom from the only source of life that it ultimately has, which is the rest of the scripture, which is the knowledge of God. It's very dangerous. It's very prideful. And what you're doing is instead of helping these people, you're helping these people to create greater judgment. Because these people do what they already do even more now, is that they justify themselves through comparison. They look at their lives, they check off their list, and they say, I'm better than that guy. I'm OK. I'm in a good standing. I'm in a good family because we're not like them. I don't do this. I did this, therefore I'm not like this. And ultimately, if we look at it, none of us ultimately in an ultimate sense, live up to any of these lists that we could make. None of us ultimately work hard as much as we should. None of us ultimately do any of these things. All of us ultimately fall short. So my prayer is that we will utilize the wisdom of literature within the context of the Scriptures as a whole and not divorce them from that as though this is some kind of a secret pathway whereby we can use this to get ahead, or we can use this to try to sneak in the Word of God. And I understand why people do that, because they're trying to kind of go with the system and kind of sneak in the Word of God, but you end up not really doing that. Unless you have some kind of an intent of bringing the gospel in with people at some point, you're not really helping them in any way. The theological foundation of wisdom is this, the fear of the Lord. is the beginning of knowledge. It is the baseline, the foundation from which we can have any kind of wisdom or knowledge whatsoever. Starting with this theological foundation and using the salvation story, the wisdom books build a practical theology for living faithfully each day. One of the goals of wisdom literature is the formation of godly character. We see this within Proverbs. It presents a rational and ordered norm of life. But it's key to understand these are not, these are norms, these are not universals. One of the quotes from the book says, many proverbs in the book are not universals, but rather the norms of life. God has set in place an ordered, rational world and it all makes sense. If you work hard, you will prosper. If you don't, You will be poor. Wise, righteous, hardworking people can expect a blessed, prosperous life, while foolish, sinful, lazy people can expect a hard life. But as we said, these are general norms. In a sinful world, these are not always true in our specific sense. Now, in an ultimate, fulfilled, eschatological sense, they're absolutely true. Jesus will come back someday and he will make all things right. He will set the record book straight. I mean, you may have a boss that shows you favoritism. You may have a boss that shows favoritism and the upright may not always prosper materially because sometimes they're persecuted. And in their persecution, they're going to actually have less material possessions than an unrighteous person within that situation. But I'm also not saying that's always true. What I am saying is that in an ultimate sense, they're true. But in a specific sense, you may not see that played out in a specific situation in the world. And the greatest example of how Proverbs don't always flow out in a specific sense is going to be our other wisdom book, the book of Job. See, this idea of a proverbial approach, it's not going to help us grasp or understand every aspect of life. It's not going to help us understand tragedy when it strikes in our life. It's not going to help you understand cancer. It's not going to help you understand the death of a child. It's not going to help you understand persecution. Within this tragedy, we have to rely on the Creator. Job was a righteous man. He wasn't even a self-righteous man. He trusted in a Redeemer. Job said he knows that his Redeemer lives. He raised his children in godliness. And he's a man that absolutely lost everything. So when Job asked the question, why? God never answers the question why. God comes back in questioning Him even asking the question. Basically, who are you to ask me this question? And if you go through life utilizing Proverbs, divorced from the rest of Scripture, you're going to be absolutely confused in your life when tragedy strikes. And what you're going to do is you're going to be Job's friends. To someone else, when they're having tragedy, and things are going well for you, you're just going to merely come back with proverbs for them. Well, obviously, you didn't do this. Your child didn't stay faithful for God. So obviously, you didn't raise the child right. That's not their intent to answer every little nuance, because at like Job, We don't know everything. We don't have the entire picture laid out before us. We don't have the whole story. We have what God has given us. And when we come to an area where we have not been given knowledge, where we do not have knowledge, we just need to trust. We need to have faith. Don't fill in the blanks. Next we have Ecclesiastes. It shows the failure of the rational to provide meaning. An intellectual search for the meaning of life and it names numerous exceptions to the ordered rational universe that are revealed. Meaning in everyday life is only found through relationship with God and that's the ultimate point that the writer makes. And we see that. What's ultimately going to happen with someone who seeks knowledge, who seeks anything apart from a knowledge of God, is they're going to be in the exact situation that Romans 1 talks about, where it says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown them. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power, divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. And so what God does is He turns people over, people who deny Him within their life, He turns them over to futility. And lastly, we have the one that doesn't quite fit into this genre. It's a very unique one. It's very poetic, and it's the Song of Psalms, and it celebrates love, and it brings an aspect that we don't always see because love is something that is not logical necessarily. You don't logically, through a syllogism, through A, B, therefore ultimately C, explain love. I remember, I may be dating myself, but Leonard Nimoy, he's the guy that played Spock in the original Star Trek, but he He did an album where he sang, and he had a series of songs that he sang about logic. And one of the songs, when basically boy makes girl and girl meets boy and they get together, is that logical? And it's not. It's not logical. Love is not logical. I'm sure none of you have ever done what I'm about to explain. But this is my wife and my relationship. And so one day, Janice looked at me, and she said, I love you. I said, I love you too. And I just asked the philosophical question, why? Why do you love me? To which she said, oh, well, I love you because you're so hardworking. And I love you because you're so kind, and you're a good father, and you take care of me. which I thought for a second, and I said, well, what if I was unkind? And what if I didn't take care of you? And what if I was a terrible father? And we went down this whole list that she named of reasons that she wasn't really naming. She wasn't really telling me why she loved me. She was telling me things she loved about me. But the question I asked was, why do you love me? And we got to the end of this, and she finally just said, I don't know. I don't know why I love you. I know I do. And that's even tied up in the French phrase. It's je ne sais quoi. And I might not have said it right, but it's je ne sais quoi. It basically means I don't know. And that's the French explanation for love. It's not something that's logically explained. And something that we have within this beauty of this emotional love, which you see within the Song of Solomon, is how can you look at the existence of love anywhere? And I'm not saying that we need to allegorize the book, but how can you look at the existence of love and not reflect on the love of God for His people? Because really, how do we logically explain the love of God? We can try to be cold theologically and say, well, you see, God just did it for His own glory. That's why He loves us. And that's what He does. He communicates His attributes. But God does everything for His own glory. I mean, is God not glorified when someone goes to hell and receives the due punishment of His wrath? Is God not glorified when He made the world? Is God not glorified when He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous? I don't think that even fully fills in everything. I don't think we have a full answer there. for the why. Just like Job didn't have a full answer as to the why all the tragedy was happening in his life, we don't have a full answer as to the love of God. And even if you can look and say, well, look, I can fully understand why he loves this church. Can you tell me you fully understand why he loves you? I don't think so. Why? Why do you believe and another person doesn't? A large majority of wisdom literature is poetic, and so that means that the points that we made in the previous lesson on poetry are necessary for the interpretation of wisdom literature. And you need to recognize this as you read through it. You may be reading through Job, and you have to recognize, oh, I've got a parallelism here. You may be reading through Proverbs and recognize, oh, this is a simile. Or the whole, I'm not going to go through the whole list that we walked through. Walk through a very long list and just Review those and know those and recognize those because they're just going to be there. And the author assumes that you're picking up on that. The author is writing this with the assumption that you know this information. Just like the writers of the Gospels, they wrote them with the assumption that you knew who the Pharisees were. They just assumed. Maybe you had some knowledge of Maccabees, you had some knowledge of Jewish history, and you would know who the Pharisees are. They don't come in and explain to you who the Pharisees and the Sadducees are. They just write it assuming that you know it. The same thing is true here within literature. They're writing it with the assumption that you know what these poetic elements and devices are. Here's an example of parallelism just for review. Parallelism is a standard structure feature in wisdom literature. Job 6.2, if only my anguish could be weighed, all my misery could be placed on its scales. Another one, Job 38, 16. Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Remember, this is the Lord asking Job a rhetorical question. Basically like, okay, so you're going to question me and what I'm doing. Who are you? Where were you when I made everything? This is one of the most fantastic parts of the Bible is Job 38 through the end, where God just like lays down one after the other. And nobody, nobody answers him. Other one. Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with a string of pearls. That's Song of Solomon. It's another example of parallelism. Wisdom literature also relies on figurative imagery to communicate its message. The Song of Solomon especially, much of the symbolism and the figures of speech within this book are completely foreign to us. So just as by way of reminder, gentlemen, remember when you're reading the book, it comes from a different culture. So do not look at your wife and say, honey, your hair is like a flock of goats flowing down a hill. She's not going to take it as a compliment. Don't look at her and say, you know, your teeth are like twin sheep. Each one of them has a pair. It's not going to relate. Compliments and such are culturally specific. Proverbs, always remember the individual Proverbs reflect a general nugget of wisdom and not a universal truth. And within Proverbs, this is, now we're looking at, we're glancing at the books now more specifically. So we're looking at Proverbs. And within Proverbs 1 through 9, just how it's broken up, you have longer poetic units, not just two lines of parallelism. Proverbs 10 through 29, it's more of the traditional form that we call a proverb where you have the two basic lines. Proverbs 30 through 31 are unique within the Proverbs and they have a longer text structure. Just examples of American Proverbs. Look before you leap. The early bird gets the worm. One bad apple spoils the whole barrel. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. All that glitters is not gold. Don't count the chickens before they hatch. So we have a familiarity with this idea, this concept of a proverb. It's usually a short and pithy statement, and it gives some kind of a practical wisdom within life. So here's one in Proverbs 10.4. Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth. So my question first to you in glancing at this one, the question is, is this always true? Okay. So that's a great example. There are people who get an inheritance and they're completely lazy and they squander that which they were given. There are people who work very diligently and they don't have great amounts of wealth. And how do we explain that? I have a passage here that says lazy hands bring poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth. How do I bring those two together? We've already given the answer previously. So this is just a little bit of a quiz of what I already talked about. But how do I bring the two together? I have in my life experienced this experience that there are times within my life that I've seen that it is more profitable for you to be lazy than it is profitable for you to be diligent and hardworking. all things being equal. So I'm interpreting what you're saying to mean, apart from the influence of a sinful world, this would be true. Am I right? Apart from someone subsidizing slothfulness in life, this would be true. Okay? Just as a general principle, as a general rule. That's excellent. Just remember, we're in a sinful world that's in rebellion to God. And understanding that we're in a sinful world that's in rebellion to God, that we're rebelling against the natural order of God. which God made. So when we read the Proverbs, and I'm going to walk through all of these four books specifically on just a general idea and a general way of how to interpret them because many of the verses within these books, you don't just grab that verse and just run through it. You need to stop and I need to Think of how this particular verse flows in with the book itself. Proverbs, not as much. Job, very much so. Very, very much so. Do not just grab a verse out of Job and go running off with it. You need to understand how this lies within the book itself, and then you need to step back and walk through all of these steps. So we're going to grasp it in their town. We're going to explore the literary context. We're going to note the structure and the basic units within the book. We're going to measure the width of the river to the cross. This is obviously in an agrarian context. Within an agrarian context, especially outside of the modern era, and probably still within the modern era, but even more so here, hard work was very important. Because if you were not diligent, if you were slothful, you did not plant your crops at the right time, and you did not get anything out of it. If you did not plant your crops at the right time, they would begin to produce fruit at the wrong time, they would freeze, you would lose them all, or it would be hot at the wrong time, and they would all die. So especially within a graying context, we can see this. Is this always true? The verse that I read, is it always true? No. No, it's not always true. Consider this next one. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats bursting with wine. So does this mean here that if I give a tithe or I give an offering to the Lord that it's always going to grant me wealth? There are those that really, really like passages like this. Were you saying something? It doesn't mean that. That's a good answer. No, it doesn't mean that. No, it doesn't mean that. But God does bless people who give to Him. And within this one, you can say, in an eschatological standpoint, ultimately, yes. When all things are made right, when all things are set straight, ultimately, you are blessed there. You may not always see everything here, What's worse, and this is where the Proverbs are abused, is when you look at someone that does not have wealth, and I just grabbed this verse, as though this was the only verse in the entire Bible, as though this is the only verse in the Bible that talked about money, or the only verse in the Bible that talked anything about gaining or losing property. And I had someone that was standing in front of me who lost his job, and whose house was getting foreclosed on, and I said, look here. God's given us promises. God's given us these principles within His Scripture. And if you will just give your wealth the first fruits of your produce, then your barns are going to be filled with plenty and your vats are going to be bursting with wine. Therefore, I can logically say here that you don't have that. You're not being blessed. Therefore, you did not rightly give to God. That's sinful. That's terrible. You're being Job's friends at that point. Raise up your children in the way of the Lord. How many times has that one been abused? How hurtful it is for someone who has lost a child to the world to hear such a saying. Not saying that it doesn't matter that you raise your children. Of course not. That's foolishness. That's foolishness to say that you as a parent, it doesn't matter how you raise your kids. But just merely to take this and say, well, your child is not following in the way of the Lord. Therefore, I can logically deduce that you didn't do your job as a parent just merely from that. It's a misuse of the Proverbs in that point. Step three, within the Proverbs, we want to cross a principalizing bridge. Typically, Proverbs already have a general principle. It's not universal. Look at the biblical map. Many of the Proverbs are affirmed in the New Testament, one of which that is not specifically affirmed is the gaining, at least as far as I can remember, the gaining of wealth in this life from following God. It doesn't mean that that's not true or that that doesn't come about, but we make a mistake when we just look at a promise within the Sinaitic Covenant and we just rip that out and say, look, if you'll just do this, then you're going to get these blessings. And what we're doing is we're divorcing that from its context. We're missing the fact that there is a whole list of other things in there that it said that you need to do in order to get those blessings, and you're not doing those things in your life. You're not dressing that way. You're not cutting your hair that way. You're not eating that way. Most likely you're not. New Testament doesn't promise material blessing for righteous action in the same way as the Old Testament. Paul never says that you're going to get material blessing for the way you live. Jesus actually said the opposite. Jesus said that for righteous living that you may actually lose property, that you may actually have less possessions on account of what you do. Lastly, we're going to grasp the text in their town, catch the big picture, and see what the text is ultimately telling us. And the number one key there is to look at it within all of scripture, not forget everything that this is based upon. Job. Always remember the smaller passages. We need to situate the smaller passages into the context of the complete story. As I said, don't be like Job's friends. Don't talk to someone like they talk in the midst of their suffering. Your job when someone is suffering is not to solve it. And at the same time, that doesn't mean if someone did something foolish to get themselves into a mess that you don't need to communicate with them what they just did and why they're in that situation. But at the same time, when you have someone who is suffering, who just has something tragic that happened to them, it's not always your job to solve it. I mean, I reflect on, and I don't ultimately know why he cried, we can speculate, but you see Christ show up at Lazarus' tomb, he purposely waited a few days before he came, and he's dead. And he doesn't come up there and just start trying to theologically solve their mourning. He weeps. And sometimes I think that's something that we need to do, we just need to weep with people. But Job is the one book where you have to be careful how the passage that you're gleaning lines up with everything else in the story. There's two things you need to remember with Job. Number one, everyone in the whole story gets in trouble except for the young guy. God comes back and criticizes everyone for what they said. You need to consider what each person says with what you know already to be true with other parts of scripture. And you also need to reflect on that with the Lord's rebuke at the end of the book, which I believe is starting around chapter 38. I mean, I've known people who were in health and wealth prosperity teachers, and they would just take one of the verses out of Job and therefore teach, look, if you will just do this, then you will get this. And it's an abuse of the text because God actually criticizes them at the end of the story. One other difference in this book is that it's got a plot, which is unlike Proverbs. So here's the basic flow of the story. With Job 1 through 2, you have Job getting afflicted. Job 2.11 through 37, 24, you have Job and his friends search unsuccessfully for a rational answer to Job's problem. And remember that they can't come to a rational answer for this problem because God never gave it to them. God never gave them that insight. Lastly, 38 through 42, 6, God answers Job and his accusers. And at the end, Job's friends are rebuked and Job is restored. So within Job, we need to grasp the text in their town. We need to identify the literary context and understand that the lessons from this book are not brought out until the very end. Until you get to chapter 38 through the end, that's where you get the lessons. And also, Job's friends are not the heroes. Those are not the ones that we're trying to emulate within the story. Step two, measure the width of the river to cross. You can't assume that all tragedy is ultimately connected to satanic involvement. We have, as far as I can remember, three times where you have the Lord interacting with Satan. You have the garden, you have this part in Job, and then you have Jesus in the garden. Jesus in the, I'm sorry, Jesus in the wilderness. And so we should not take this one book and just assume that, oh, well, here, I know that there's a demon around every corner, because there's books like this. There's books like this that somehow believe that they can glean satanic involvement in every tragedy that exists in life. Maybe there is. Maybe there isn't. My question is, even if you have that information, by the way, which you don't, but even if you have that information, what are you going to do differently? Like, how is that going to change anything that you do in life? What's the point of writing these books that talk about this demon, and that demon, and this demon's name, and how they end up influencing this, when ultimately, you already have an understanding through the Bible of how you should be responding, how you should be believing, and what you should do. What was Job supposed to do differently within the story, except that maybe just trust God and recognize that God is good. Remember what he already knows about God, not question God's providence in what he did. But the truth is, Job already knew that. That was already information that he had. So if they cross the principalizing bridge, the river is narrow and shallow, so the principles are fairly easy and straightforward. The principles in Job aren't divorced from us, and we can understand how they relate to us. Lastly, we consult the biblical map. The New Testament does not repeat this picture of peace and prosperity as a result of righteous living. Please remember that. And the New Testament rather suggests that righteous people will glorify God by enduring their unjust suffering. And this is somewhat true within the Old Testament. But ultimately, ultimately, in an ultimate sense, this will be true. In an ultimate sense, they will have peace and prosperity as a result of the righteous living. As an ultimate sense, this will be fulfilled, not as a result of your righteous living, but on account of that which Christ did. And you will be rewarded for the living which you do within your life as a result of that which God does through you. through His Spirit. And lastly, grasp the text in their town. Our focus in grief should not be why, but on God and His character. Because no matter what's going on in your life, you ultimately know that God is good. And one thing to remember in the midst of persecution, in the midst of struggle, is that what are the two big things that can happen to you? Maybe three. Number one, you're going to lose stuff, which is bad. Number two, people that you love and know about are going to die. And number three, you're going to die. But I want you to think of that in the long term. Ultimately, when you die, what are you going to take with you? You're going to take with you absolutely nothing. Ultimately, someone could take your life on account of persecution or because of tragedy. Ultimately, in tragedy, you could lose your life. But think about it. Ultimately, you're going to lose your life. I mean, this is something that God has already said is going to happen. You are going to die. You are going to die, and you're not going to take any of your stuff with you. And ultimately, the people that you love and you know about are all going to die. So ultimately this is just something that you already know is going to happen. It shouldn't be a surprise when any of it does, but ultimately it is painful and it is a part of the curse that God has placed upon all of us. Ecclesiastes, always remember to interpret a passage in light of the entire book and the ultimate answer which is found in the end. That's another one that you do not want to just grab one verse out of and just run with it. Hebel, that's this idea of being meaningless, meaningless, meaningless. All things are meaningless, sometimes translated vanity, vanity. Things look as if they have substance but in actuality they do not. You could look really scientific and very intelligent and you're arguing for nothing becoming something and blowing up and becoming everything and it's ultimately meaningless. There's nothing there. You can be telling someone that their ultimate fulfillment will be found in finding the significant other, and ultimately it's meaningless. There's nothing ultimately there. And that's kind of this idea of Hebel. The author recognizes the futility of trying to find meaning in absolutely anything in life apart from God. So within this, we're going to grasp it within their town. Apart from God, life is meaningless. Wisdom's not bad, but it's not going to provide us with ultimate meaning. So the authors make these three points. Number one, apart from God, life is meaningless. Wisdom is not bad, but it doesn't provide meaning. Number two, wisdom does not explain the contradictions in life. It only points to them. And lastly, life, therefore, is not a puzzle to be completely understood, but life is a gift to be enjoyed. And that's the danger that we have when we take anything in life and we divorce it from its ultimate source, which is God, is that we're divorcing the gift from the giver. And we're divorcing the only thing that gives that gift and that blessing any kind of significance, that gives us any way whereby we could understand or interpret, basically interpret, that particular gift. We have no basis. So step one, we kind of made that point. Wisdom doesn't explain the contradictions in life, it only points to them. Therefore, what we need to do is we need to trust in God. Additionally, life, therefore, is not a puzzle to be completely understood, but a gift to be enjoyed. Sorry, I double-did those. Step two, measure the width of the river to the cross. We have a limited understanding of death and we have They have a limited understanding of death and very little concept of the afterlife within this particular book. Our modern day is full of this. Our modern day is full of people trying to find meaning in life apart from God, and you end up in a philosophy that has no foundation. You end up with medicine that has no foundation, education that has no foundation, the desire for love and relationships, which has no ultimate foundation. I'm running a little out of time, but a quick story is I had a friend of mine and I were sharing the gospel over in Rice Village, and we were right across the street by the Baker Street Pub, and we were talking with a doctor in residence. And he was, you know, as we were talking through the gospel, and we began to interact with one another, and he made the point, you know what, I'm not like y'all. I don't just stand around and just talk and just run my mouth. and just talk to people. I'm actually helping people. I want you to know something. You know how many lives I've saved? And then he began to just, in detail, tell me about all these lives that he had saved. And my friend looked at him, and he said, you know what? all those people are going to die. Every one of them. Every single one of them. Every one of those people focusing especially on people that were in poverty. All of them are going to die. And this doctor became very angry and very offended. Like, well, what do you mean? I saved their lives. They're not going to die. He's like, no, they're all going to die. You put off the inevitable. But ultimately, all of these people are going to die. And that's the point. Even in the pursuit of helping others, is meaningless apart from a connection to God. What is my basis whereby to throw out philanthropy and to help people with no connection to God just for the sake of doing it? What if I'm helping someone so they could sin more? What am I ultimately doing? What is my ultimate purpose in doing that? Apart from a connection from God, what that doctor did had no real purpose. But there is a purpose there that you can have. You can recognize that man was made in the image of God. And that since man was made in the image of God, you should respect man. And people should be respected. And for that reason, what the doctor did was good. But apart from that reason, you have no ultimate foundation or way to interpret that what you're doing. Step three, cross the principalizing bridge. There's a narrow river, so most of the principles are very similar. They're easy to understand. And no aspect of life can be explained No aspect of life can be explained apart from God. They all ultimately point to Him. All of the gifts that He gives us ultimately connect us to God in some way. But when we divorce Him from that, when we divorce the gift from the giver, that is where we have the sin of idolatry that begins to plague, and that gift becomes a curse. The New Testament stresses that our relationship with God is through Jesus Christ, and we have a clearer picture of the afterlife. Lastly, we're going to grasp the text in their town. Remember, apart from the relationship with Jesus Christ, life is meaningless, absolutely meaningless. It is vanity. And lastly, we have Song of Solomon. It's a collection of love poems between a young man and a young woman. At the beginning, you have the courtship. Then you have the wedding. Then at the end, you have their life of love. So step one here, we're going to grasp the text in their town. These were likely read and they were sung within a wedding. They were a conversation between a husband and a wife. We measure the width of the river that we're going to cross. There's a wide river with this one. A lot of the imagery doesn't communicate to the modern reader. You're going to need a commentary to have an understanding of what these mean. For instance, I said your hair is like a flock of goats. That sounds really bizarre. You look at goats and you kind of think, well, that's a stinky animal. Goats were a sign of wealth. These particular goats had beautiful hair. They were goats with black hair. And the hair would be used for clothing. And when they were along a side of a hill, you just kind of had this beautiful rolling black going down. So if you see that, it's basically like you have beautiful black wavy hair. That still doesn't even communicate the idea Cross the principalizing bridge. The godly person is to live to seek a godly life. They should be madly in love with their husband or wife, and they should express it in strong emotional terms. This isn't my strongest book. I'll just come out and tell you. I am a whole lot better at interpreting the book of Romans than I am at interpreting the book of the Song of Solomon. But so much of it, when I read it, what I'm telling you what I get out of it is just kind of this picture, this emotional picture of love. And that doesn't always flow in such a way that it's logically explained like the book of Romans is. The New Testament affirms this principle, of course. And lastly, married couples can apply it verbally in expressing their love towards their spouses. Like I said, that one doesn't fit easily into the other genres of wisdom literature. And we put it in wisdom, but it's almost on its own. But the two things that we need to get out of this is, Everything in life, all blessings in life, are absolutely vacuous apart from a connection to the Creator that gave them to you. So you have no wisdom whatsoever apart from the knowledge of God. And lastly, remember, the wisdom literature does not exist within a vacuum. Do not use the teachings that you have within wisdom literature at the exclusion of the rest. of Scripture. Does anyone have any comments or questions or points of contention? Perhaps you think we should use them at the exclusion of Scripture? No? Okay. We have about 15 minutes until we will begin worship. Please use your time wisely.