one of them but we'll read Proverbs chapter 1 verses 1 through 5 and we're leading up to our text in 1 Kings chapter 3 and before we go any further let's go to the Lord in prayer and ask his blessings upon the class and Paul would you please lead us in that prayer? I pray for the Sunday school class that we're about to have right now. I pray for the lessons and the thoughts that are going to be delivered to us on wisdom. I pray that these words will resonate into our hearts and into our minds, wherever we reflect, and grow more knowledgeable. Amen. Okay. We've, uh, let's, uh, let's look at Proverbs chapter one, the Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment and equity. What is equity? Anybody want to give us a little definition of equity, Vicki? Fairness, exactly. That's a good, clear, succinct definition. And then in verse 4, to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion, a wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsel. Now, we're looking at the subject of wisdom. As I said, leading up to our primary passage in 1 Kings chapter 3 and talking about Solomon's prayer for wisdom, how he got wisdom, his attainment of wisdom, and his use of it. application of wisdom, and then the fact that it was acknowledged. Those three things all go together wherever the true wisdom is in play. Obviously, it's been attained if it's in play. It's in play, meaning it's being applied, and people are going to acknowledge it. And all three of those things are visible, brought out in 1 Kings chapter 3 in Solomon's case. Now, we talked about the fact that there are two types of wisdom in this world. In this world, we have the visible world and we have the invisible world. We have a dichotomy. In terms of so many things, there are two types of wisdom. There is that, and they're described in the book of James. James talks about first, he says there is a heavenly wisdom that comes from God. This is a wisdom that is pure. It is powerful. And then there is a hellish wisdom. The origin of this wisdom is it's straight out of hell. And it is inspired by hellish forces. And when we think about this kind of wisdom, we think about the wisdom displayed by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The cunning, the craftiness, the subtlety, the slickness, the slyness. of unregenerate people. They can be pretty cagey, they can be pretty wise, but it is a hellish kind of wisdom. And we need to be able to discern, to understand, to recognize the difference as Christians, to understand when we're being played by somebody that is employing this wisdom that is from below And whether we're talking to somebody who is manifesting wisdom that is from above, heavenly wisdom. So we looked at those things. We recognized last week. that intelligence and wisdom are not the same things. We talked about how animals have a certain intelligence. In fact, even Proverbs chapter 30 talks about different species of animals that are noted for their wisdom. The rodent, the coney and the different, different animals, the ant and for insects and mammals and so on and so forth. So intelligence is not the same thing as wisdom. There are a lot of people who are intelligent about a lot of things, but there's dumb as a stump when it comes to other things. And so, um, this morning we're, we're looking at, um, at these things. Now just real quick, let's turn to Romans chapter 15, Romans 16 and verse 19. And this really is, in a way, it's a A bottom line statement in Romans chapter 16 and verse 19 says, for your obedience has come and brought unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf, but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple. concerning evil. Now any parent could take that second half of that verse. I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning that which is evil and get some good leadership, guidance, and direction in raising their children. You want them to be wise unto that which is good, but you want them to be be ignorant concerning that which is evil, ignorant in a sense. In other words, they don't need to know everything there is to know about the evil things in this world. I remember when our children were little and time came that we got a television set and my wife took and wrote out this verse, that second half of Romans, I would have you wise unto that which is good and ignorant unto that which is evil. And she pasted it on the television sets. And just a reminder there. And so this is the purpose of wisdom, whether you're a child or an adult, is to be sharp in recognizing, identifying things that are evil, but at the same time having a real appreciation for and an ability to recognize and understand what is good, goodness and evil. Now think about another verse in Romans that just came to mind. It says, overcome evil. with good. And I think that's in Romans chapter 12. Overcome evil with good. And then at the end of Romans, Paul says, we're not surprised then to find him saying, I would have you wise under that which is good and ignorant under that which is evil. So because we want our children, we want ourselves to be able to overcome evil. And so, no surprise to find those verses together. Now, in Ephesians 5, I know we've already looked at this, but in Ephesians 5, verse 16, or verse 15, Paul says, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. Redeeming the time because the days are evil. See the association there again between wisdom and evil. We live in the most, I think it's fair to say this, I think this would be correct, that we are living in the most evil times, when evil is more powerful, more prevalent, more blatant than ever in the history of mankind. And we can look back in the Bible times and other times and say, boy, it was sure a lot of evil then, but there is more evil going on now than ever before. I think that's a fair statement. So we got down to, just started the first of these three points, the attainment of Solomon's wisdom is in view here. Now over and over and over and over and over again in the Bible it says, get wisdom. Get it. Get understanding. And the Bible says when you're, uses this this kind of illustration, when in getting wisdom and getting understanding, he says we're to go after it like a person would go after what? What would be an example? Like you'd go after gold or silver. You think about somebody who is prospecting. And the first thing that they have to do in order to get gold or silver or pearls or anything else, first thing they have to do is they have to be able to locate it. They have to be able to get an idea of where the vein is, where the gold is, let's say. They have to first be able to locate it. Same way with wisdom. We have to know where wisdom is found. The likelihood of finding gold sitting in your living room is pretty low. You got to get out there in the mountains or wherever in the stream where there's some likelihood of finding gold. The likelihood of somebody this Sunday morning getting any wisdom sitting in their living room, reading the newspaper is pretty bleak. The likelihood of them getting some, attaining some wisdom being in the house of God under Bible preaching and teaching is a lot stronger. You got to go, like yesterday everybody was trying down there at Montauk. Where did they want to go? They wanted to go where the fish were. People there who were interested in getting fish weren't shopping all the goods in the camp store. They were out on the riverbank. They were chumming the waters. They were going to this spot, to that spot. They were listening to others say, hey, I just caught some good ones down here. Oh, well, that's a good place to go. People who knew more about fishing, who were successful. It's the same way the first step involves location. It involves knowing where the source, knowing where to go to get wisdom. They're just simply places that you know. If you really want wisdom, you don't want to go there. If you really want your kids to have wisdom, You don't set them up with a lot of resources like video games and nonsensical things. That's not where they're going to get wisdom. They're going to get wisdom when you're reading to them, explaining things to them, reading the Bible to them, and so on, and teaching them. And so this matter of source is important. We would call it, let me put it this way, we would begin with reading the Bible, perusal of the scripture. The Bible says that's the main place that we're going to get it. So we'll say more about that in a minute. But when you look at Solomon and you read verses 5 through 15, You see this, this is where we, we, we looked at this last week, so we won't spend any more time with it. But number one, Solomon, the first things brought out is his awareness of his lack of wisdom. That's where it starts. Awareness of his lack of wisdom. I mean, that's as fundamental as anything could be. If you think you know it all. then you're not gonna avail yourself of any opportunities for wisdom, because you think you know it all. You're the smartest person in the room. There are a lot of places this morning, if you were having this class and you passed out a little poll and said, this is not for anybody's notice but yours, unless you want it otherwise, but put it on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the highest, where you think you are when it comes to wisdom. Now, here's what I found out in the past. You pass out a poll like that, and some of the people that will turn it back in, they'll have a nine or a 10, or they might even etch in an 11, in all seriousness. And they are some of the most obtuse, spiritually dumb people in the church, but they think they're a 10. Have you ever met anybody like that? And a good poll would be, what about the leadership in your life? I thought about doing this. This is just for your own recognition, but not only where are you on a scale of 1 to 10, but where do you think, in all charitableness and everything else, but just in reality, where do you think the leadership that is important in your life and in your family, where are they on a scale of 1 to 10? Be honest about it when you fill out your poll. Because here's the question, is it not important that those who are leading you, whether it's a father, mother, older siblings, pastor, whatever, your leadership at work, where you get your livelihood, is it not important that you have some confidence in their leadership? It's very important, critically important, especially where parents and pastors are concerned. So here is an awareness. Solomon had it. He was aware of his deficiencies that I'm like a little child, relatively speaking, where I need to be with all of these responsibilities I have. I'm like a little child, relatively speaking. It doesn't need to know when to come in, when to go out. And that was, what does that say about, what does that say about, tell you right off the bat about Solomon? Right off the bat, what does that tell you about him? That he was a what? He had a spirit of Humility, which is the queen of all of the graces and the gifts. It is the humility. If a person is only going to go any further with anything else just to the degree that they have humility in their life. So Solomon had that and therefore he was conscious at the same time, simultaneously, He was aware of the demands that were on him. He's so deficient, but there are all of these demands that his position as king of Israel is going to put on him. So that's where we stopped. And we were thinking about people in the Bible that were tremendous, had tremendous leadership ability. Now, we're not talking about perfection in every way now, but tremendous leadership ability. I'll name one, Abraham. Now, there are more than one, but can anybody just tell me real quick, what's an example in the Bible of Abraham really showing leadership ability? Anybody give me one? Probably shouldn't do this because, again, if I was sitting out there hit with a question, my mind would go blank. Well, his family, yeah. What about this, John? What's that? Yeah. Right. What about the story of the battle of the five kings against four? And when Abraham went out, to confront all of those kings, I think it was the five kings in their armies that had taken Lot captive. He defeated them all and was able to rescue his nephew. It kind of reminds me right now, some of you won't remember this, you're not old enough, but back during that mission in Tebe, I think that was the name of it, where the Jews sent Israel sent a rescue force over. Netanyahu's brother was killed during that. But to bring back all of these people, Israelis that had been hijacked, went all the way over to Entebbe and rescued them all and brought them out. Now that took some real strategy, some real leadership ability. That's what Abraham did. Maybe in a more striking display of leadership, He went out against these multiple kings and their armies, their forces. Somehow he was able to defeat them and accomplish his mission of bringing Lot back. So never underestimate the stupendous ability for leadership that Abraham had. And then, of course, there's Joseph. Everybody's familiar with the story of Joseph. Joseph's leadership during a time of famine, et cetera, was responsible for the salvation, physically speaking, of not only the Egyptians, but even his own people, the Jews. And it was recognized. Here again, in all of these cases, it was recognized. Who recognized his leadership ability first? Potiphar. Then it was recognized by Pharaoh who made him his prime minister. So you'll see that again in these others. And then what about Moses' leadership ability? How many people was, roughly speaking, was Moses responsible for leading out of Egypt? Anybody? Just have to get within a million. Brother Mike, or Rick? About 2 million, actually a little bit more than 2 million. But that's a lot of people to deal with. And his leadership ability, all of these people, there's different things involved in their leadership, what they did connected with their leadership that is a common, common component of good leaders. And then one of the primary best of all leaders that you'll find in the Bible was Joshua. Everybody knows the story of Joshua. Joshua went from victory to victory to victory to victory to victory. The only thing that he had as a defeat would have been that incident in Ai, which was because of Achan, and so on. But Joshua was a stupendous leader. And you see that all the way. People recognize it. When Joshua was a very, very old man ready to pass off the scene, he called the people together, and all of Israel came out to hear what this elder statesman had to say. So all of these different examples, and right there in the book of Joshua, here's a tremendous one. Brother McDowell, I remember when I was at your church at Fossil, I don't know if you remember or not, but we had a special thing for the men before the meeting started, and I taught on Caleb. Caleb is one of, that passage of scripture where Caleb said, I want that mountain, and so on and so forth, it has every, every distinctive of what makes a leader, what leadership is all about in that story. Then you have several in the book of Judges. You have David and on and on and on and on. In the New Testament, you have the Apostle Paul exercising great, great leadership. One thing they all had in common was wisdom. You can't be a good leader without some degree, exceptional degree of leadership. Now, I just wanna make this mention. I appreciated what the pastor said Wednesday night about the church should be able to question and discuss truth. One thing that we all have in common, every church should have this in common, we are in the pursuit of truth. of imbibing. more and more truth so that we can put it into practice. Now, a church is not to be like a bunch of little foundling birds just hatched out of their eggs with eggshells sticking on their little feathers, sitting in their nest with their beaks open all the time till they're 50 years old. They're still there with their beaks open. waiting for the mama bird to come over, the daddy bird, as is the case in some species, and drop a worm in from time to time. They're supposed to get to the place where they can feed themselves. Now here's a question. When it comes to Christianity, when it comes to a church and church members, should church members be able to feed themselves? Have you ever heard any disgruntled church member say, I'm going to leave the church because I'm just not getting fed? Have you ever heard that or heard of it? Yeah, I'm not getting fed. Poor, as they would say in New York, poor you. People are supposed to feed themselves. After a while, our little babies feed themselves. And that's the goal. Tossing this out here, I feel like I can speak in this way because I'm a pastor myself. I've been a pastor myself. Something that I have recognized is that, and I think people go overboard on pastoral authority and it can result in cultism at its worst extreme. But what is involved in there is that, and it's not just pastoral leadership, but any leadership, there is a legitimacy to the leadership, and there is an illegitimacy. In other words, we have to be conscious of what is legitimate in terms of somebody's leadership, and we also have to be aware of the limitations better on somebody's leadership. Just the second, I thought about several years ago up in Fort Leonard Wood, and this was not too long after they started really bringing women more and more into the military, and they had a big scandal up at Fort Leonard Wood because of the DIs, the drill instructors, that were taking advantage of their positions to sexually abuse these recruit women. Now, they definitely had their authority as drill instructors, but their authority did not extend to what they were demanding of these women and threatening these women. and using their position to get. People need to understand that a church, just like any other, most other successful organizations, understand that you have leadership and that wiser the leadership is, the more it wants leadership reproduced. The greatest proof of a true leader is that they have reproduced themselves. Right? That's the greatest proof. If somebody can be a great leader and when they leave everything falls apart because everybody are like those little birds that don't know what to do with themselves now. And here comes the owl or the eagle or the snake and they're done for. So when you study the New Testament church, it's very, very clear about leadership in the church. I've said no doubt hundreds of times in the last half century, leadership of a church is not a one-man show. Now, I'll give you an example of that. Let's turn to Acts chapter 6. And we're all familiar with that chapter, but as we turn to this, Don't miss this statement that I'm going to make right now. And that is that every church needs as many wise men and wise women in it as it can possibly have. We want to produce, we want to have people getting wiser and wiser and wiser. So in Acts chapter 6, now the apostles did a wise thing. They said, it's not meat for us to leave the Word of God and serve tables. Here's what we're going to do. That was wise. They said, we're not going to even pretend like we want or should be handling every jot and tittle of everything that goes on in church. They had over 3,000 people by that time. And a problem developed. The problem that developed was there were a great many widows in the congregation. Now that was a problem because Christianity demands that a church take care of its widows. See that they have enough to eat and so on and so forth. Here's the second part. The problem had contained kind of a sticky wicket. And the reason that it got to the boiling point where something had to be done is that you had these Grecian, these widows of the Grecian background And on the other side, you had all of these widows who were Hebrews, true blue Jews. So you had the Jewish widows and the Hebrew, and some of the Gentiles began to perceive, whether it was right or not, some of them got the idea that our widows are not being taken care of as well as these Jewish widows. And so here's the first sign of some trouble brewing. Well, you know what the apostles did? Because they were good leaders, they jumped right on that. They jumped right on it. And their solution was not for them to somehow figure it all out by themselves, but their solution was to delegate leadership and authority and responsibility over these widows. And so they chose how many men? Anybody remember? Seven. You forgot, didn't you, Brother Joe? See what I mean? What is your name, last name? I'm just kidding. So they chose seven men. Now remember, thousands of people involved. You say, well, there couldn't have been thousands of widows. No, but listen, if one of the widows involved is my auntie, you got more than widows involved. There's a lot involved. There's sentiment involved. There's logistics involved here that have to be handled. Logistics in terms of the number of people, the organization is in play. besides the sentiment of the people. All of these things are in play. You gotta have somebody that knows something about organization, something about planning, something about some people skills, and they picked out seven men. Seven men. These had to be some exceptional men. They didn't say, you know what, we're going to point some people into some positions of importance and I'd really appreciate it if we put my nephew Billy in there. That had nothing to do with it. They wanted people who could do the job and had the right spirit. And so that's why, when you look at Acts chapter 6, the apostles, really showing their wisdom here, said, therefore, brethren, look you out among you seven men of honest report. Now, their wisdom is shown right off the bat when they said, look you out among you. You're going to be included. in this whole deal. It's not just gonna be, hey, we're gonna come and tell you Wednesday night who I've chosen, who we've chosen. So they said, look ye out among you. A church needs to be made cognizant and aware of their own responsibility. They have to be made aware of that. I used to tell people, you know, you've got to take responsibility because I'm just a man. I could go crazy. Preachers have gone crazy. You say, somebody might say, I think I know something. Or a pastor can drop dead. A lot of things can happen. That explains some things, but it's kind of irrelevant because the Bible teaches that the church is the church. The church has the responsibility. The pastor's biggest job is to bring the people into it and up to speed so that the church can do the work of the church. The church has gifts. The church has fruit and all of that. The church has abilities that the church can do the work of the church. But God has given pastors to oversee and make sure that all of that gets done. See, when these seven men, they They weren't expected to get out there and just them and make sure all of these widows got fed. They had had responsibility delegated to them and they were chosen because the apostles knew they were wise enough to do some delegation on their own. One time years ago, and we used this program for about 20 years, I prepared it, called the Prayer and Care Ministry. And we had all of our deacons and their wives in it, they knew exactly what their duty was to do. And then we had some understudies, other people who were qualified to be deacons, but we didn't need that many at the time, but they were being prepared. They were in on that program and learning at the same time. to be ready when the time came that other deacons would be needed. But they had responsibilities. And they were doing the work of the church. They were getting out there and keeping track. I don't know if you even remember this program, Jed. You were pretty young at the time and busy on the bus and so on. So anyway, these men were wise enough to get the job done. They just got the job done and quelled all of this potential turmoil in the church. But here's why. Verse 3, they said, Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom. whom we may appoint over this business. We've got to have some wise people. We can't just have men going out there shooting from the lip and turning people off and making people mad and no social skills whatsoever. Your own, the only reason you're out there is because it was their turn to serve. How, how foolish. So here is real wisdom in play within the whole church. But now let's watch this. The Bible says, but we'll give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word and the saying, please the whole multitude. There are a lot of smart people in the multitude. And they appreciated the intelligence and the common sense that was being put into play by the apostles. They were all pleased with this. What were they doing? Acknowledging the wisdom behind all of this. Then, the Bible says, they chose these men, the multitude came, they said, here are the men that we have, and they brought them before the apostles, and the apostles laid hands on them. Now here there was no violence done to what we would call pastoral authority by letting the church be the church because they came, the overall oversight of the whole deal, the overall oversight was still vested in the pastor. But the pastors were wise enough to accept and appreciate and put into play the wisdom and things that were done by the multitude. So this is just a picture of wisdom. Let me show you when wisdom is at work here in the early church. The Bible says right after this in verse 7, And the Word of God increased and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. Some big, huge things began to happen within the context of the whole church doing the work of the church. All because of wisdom being in play. Anybody have a comment or question? Anything at all? All right? Now, when you look at, when you look at, and again, a church cannot have, can't have too many really wise people. Let me give you a quotation. One of the men who's written a lot on leadership said this, and this is secular leadership and leadership in general. He said, the most dangerous leadership myth that leaders are born. You ever heard this? He's a born leader. Sometimes it might appear that way, but he said, that's nonsense. Now this is a person who has studied it, researched it for decades. And by the way, every other person that writes on it agrees. He said, in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than being born. So, A pastor should not think, boy, I'll be glad when some born leaders come in here, when some born leaders get saved. But a pastor needs to be producing some, doing all he can to help people who aren't born leaders to be made into leaders, have the wisdom that's involved. And that's all these principles, and this one applies to parents. We don't want our children to be just little followers of everybody. We want them to be leaders. First and foremost, if there's any other kids in the family, you got a son or a daughter, you might down the road have another child and they're going to be the older brother or the older sister. They need to have some wisdom themselves. You want to be raising a bunch of little video playing children with no wisdom. What they grow up to be is what you see all over the country today. These, not just teenagers, beyond that, young adults living in their parents' basements. Out on the streets and all of that kind of stuff. All right, leadership and learning. Here's what John F. Kennedy said. Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. John F. Kennedy said that. Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. He showed leadership when he was in the military, showed leadership as a president, but he wasn't the best of leaders. And I'll tell you what I think hindered his leadership ability and his wisdom more than anything else in the world. And we remember he was a lost person. But the biggest killer, and I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but I'm kind of glad I am, the biggest killer of wisdom is immorality. You look in the Bible and you will see that everywhere. You see it in Solomon's case. You can be the wisest person in the world and slip into a prolonged stupidity spasm because of immorality. And there's so many other verses that, that support that. I have, uh, in my library, uh, several books on leadership. Several of them are like I have the West Point, um, guide for leadership for training officers. And so here's another one, a manual on military leadership. And here's what it says. It says, good leaders develop through a never-ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience. They develop through a never-ending study. It doesn't stop when they become 30 and they've been in the ministry 20 years or whatever. It doesn't stop when they're 75 or 80 or even 90 years old. It doesn't stop. It's a continual study. in this, in the matter of leadership. Now, who do you think of all people should really know something about, be wise people? Who would you think would be so important that they be wise people? Number one, who? Mom? Mom and dad, mostly dad. Mostly dad. But parents, can we agree on that Donna, parents? Parents, and after parents on planet Earth, who should be the wisest people on the planet? Pastors, exactly. Yes, pastors, first parents, then pastors. If you got children that don't have wise parents, you're in trouble. If you got a church that doesn't have a pastor with a degree of wisdom, if he's somewhere around a five or a four or a three, you are in deep weeds. And notice this, these men knew their limitations. These deacons, early deacons, I call them early deacons in Acts chapter six, they knew their limitations. They didn't say, well, if we can't do it, we don't want to do it because we're so insecure people think somebody else has got some control other than, they didn't do that. They knew their limitations and so therefore they had the wisdom to know their limitations and therefore they had scouted out people who could do the job. people full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom and so on. That's real wisdom, is to say, I don't know how to do it, but I know somebody who does. One time Henry Ford was, they put him on, he went to court and they had him in the, they were accusing him of something, you know, people were after him for something. And one of the questions, they were trying to make him sound like a dumbbell. And so imagine Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company. And the attorney said to him, do you know any other languages other than English? Ford said no. And then the attorney asked him, do you know, and do you know, and do you know? And Ford finally replied like this. He said, no, I don't know any foreign languages, and I don't know this, and I don't know that. And I don't have a degree in this or that or the other. I'm paraphrasing now, but he said I could snap my fingers and in five minutes have experts and people that have all of that doing what I need done. See, that's real wisdom. And this is what we see, Solomon gets it. He understands his limitations, he knows what he needs. You get some good people involved, and the rest is history. All right, appreciate each one's attendance.