Take our Bibles this evening. I'm going to ask you to do a book of Proverbs in Chapter 1. If you have, in fact, read Proverbs time and again, some people do it once a month. They take one proverb a day for a month and they go through it. You will find there are some themes that seem to keep, you know, jumping up and, oh, he's talking about usury. He's talking about debt. He's talking about these kind of things. And you'll see that. Well, this is especially true with Chapter 1. OK? I didn't know where to go, but I thought we live in a time where we need wisdom. I need wisdom. When I first started out in my faith, it was probably the book that I identified with more than any other. Probably because it kept saying my son and I was just a 16 year old kid. I needed some fathering, you know, in the sense of real sit me down and tell me how life works. And Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. And I remember the verse that pretty much sealed itself into my mind was the verse that says, the prudent man foresees the evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished. And it was an encouragement to me to continue to walk away from my old life, which was just young. You know, how much of it was really that much? I mean, when you're 16, you've only really been awake and aware for a few years, you know. But for those days, I had a lot of little hooks in my life. And that one kind of helped me get past that initial shock. And so I say to you that if you have something you're really good at, especially back when people were a little bit more tethered to their farm and their land, you'd like to maybe pass it on to your children. Football, like we were talking about here a little bit ago, some people like to pass that. Love for the football games or hunting, fishing, usually it's hobbies these days, but if you have a trade you're really good at or something you want to pass on, It's kind of nice. Well, here's Solomon. What was his forte, right? It was wisdom. So if we need wisdom, he's probably a good person to go ask. Interestingly enough, we know he might have been wise by God's grace, but man, he made some big stumbles, didn't he? So isn't it interesting, out of the gate, that we're listening to a man who has supernatural wisdom, and yet on the other hand, we know his story. How he stumbled. I remember years ago, a man got up to preach in our church in Pennsylvania. Had him in. He was from college. I'd known him. I called him. Hey, why don't you come my way? And he did. And he got up and he said, I'm going to talk to you about Solomon. He said when he came into his own, God said, what do you want me to do for you? And he said, I want you to make me wise. And he said he should have said, I want you to make me good, because that was a problem for Solomon as time went on, wasn't it? But God did amplify his wisdom for you and for me when he had the Queen of Sheba came and heard his wisdom and people come far and wide and so forth. So we do know that this man was supernaturally endowed with wisdom beyond anything we can imagine. Interestingly enough, he did have a beloved neighbor. You remember Hiram? Hiram was pretty much a disciple, you know. He kind of found a love for the Lord through his interactions with David. But what I want you to know is as we're looking at this chapter, it starts out with the Proverbs of Solomon, is what it says. As you read through the book, you do find there are some other places where a few Proverbs have been gathered in that might not have been his personally, but for the most part, this is Solomon's, Solomon's words. And it says the Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. And then he says to know what you see right out of the gate is he's going to amplify for us what his real understanding of wisdom is all about. And what you might expect to find at the bottom of this from a New Testament dispensation might be different than what you might have thought you were looking for in an Old Testament dispensation. Let me illustrate. He says these are the Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. He says to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity, to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man, knowledge and discretion. I'm going to stop right there because it's sort of a little thing that stands in its own, he's pretty much introducing what this book's about. He wants young men especially to draw near. He begins pretty early in the book by saying, my son, verse eight, and he says it over and over again. So as he prefaces his words, he starts to tell you what he wants to impart to you and me. He says, I want to use proverbs to impart wisdom to you. And when you think of the word proverb, I don't know what you think. I've got all these pithy things that knock around in my mind. You know, they talk about proverb is a short sentence drawn from long experience. You know, they got all these nice little pithy ways of putting things. But the reality is, is it's a parable. A proverb is sort of a condensed parable, to be sure, because usually one verse or two pretty much sums it up. But what we're seeing is it's like a parable. It's a byword. It's a simile. It's a poem sometimes. But it's something to impart wisdom. The Bible says that he wants, first of all, for us to be able to know wisdom, to know it. The word in the Hebrew is yadah. It's the same word used when Adam knew his wife Eve and they bore a son. It's intimate knowledge of wisdom. Now, a lot of people today, they have forgotten that there are rights and wrongs, goods and bads, right? We're untethered in such a large way. And sometimes I might say, everyone's doing this. Solomon kind of does that in this first chapter too, because he understands the nature of man. And so he tackles that in this chapter. And he wants to help us to know intimately wisdom. And wisdom is Sophia in the Greek is Sophia. And the idea of wisdom is something we understand is being something of an ability to see things from God's perspective. Now, there isn't a worldly wisdom that disregards God, but the world's wisdom is foolishness to God, as it is to you and I, when we know God's wisdom, we see how they try to make everything about themselves, first of all. It's all inverted. It's obvious once you know the Lord in a way like he's telling us he wants us to do. He says, to know intimately wisdom and instruction. See, a person who knows wisdom can't get enough. I want more. I want to hear more about wisdom. We remember those two prophets. I think it was John the Revelator and Ezekiel. But he said, I took the words and I ate them. And they were sweet on my tongue, but they were bitter in my belly. And that's kind of how wisdom is. Boy, you just can't get enough, even if it's going to give you a little heartburn. OK, you just want to eat some more. And so he says, I want you to be able to know intimately wisdom. I want you to know instruction as well. And this is the idea of being instructed, because this is the idea of chastening. So when you get wisdom, sometimes it's going to bite. True, right? Sometimes when God tells us something about ourselves, we sit back and we kind of nurse our wounds. And so what he's saying is, he says, I want you to know wisdom and instruction. I want you to be able to perceive the words of understanding. And he wants, he's telling us the perceiving word here. It has the idea of staying with something you don't understand. It has the idea of pondering it. He wants you to be able to perceive words of understanding. Now, that implies that there are some things worth giving your attention to. And there are. But in the world we live in today, it's hard to discern because people make edicts with no backstory. There's no science behind the science of our day, right? We've got science falsely so-called, and we're many times asked or solicited to, you know, join in the deception. Such is the case it's always been. You're going to find in the chapters, we move through it here a little bit, that even when you were a child, it was done. I'll get to that in a moment. But he says, I want you to know wisdom and instruction to perceive the words, the words of understanding. And that's a very important thing, because some people have no understanding of anything. They just go by the seat of their pants. Their feet never hit the ground. They go quietly to hell. They prosper, perhaps, because they've done everything the world's way. Maybe they've just had a special gift, special talent. They might have something that commends them to people and doors open easily for them. He says, I want you to receive the instruction of wisdom. And this is where he defines it. He says, to know wisdom and instruction, it's the same word. He brings it back around. He says, I want you to receive the instruction of wisdom. And if you would think about it and put it on the back of your mind, you could always think about coming back to this and putting a little colon in there because he explains what it is. He says, I want you to receive the instruction of wisdom. What is it? It's justice, judgment, and equity. That is the instruction of wisdom. When you really drill down into it, the word justice has the idea of righteousness. Right out of the gate, Proverbs, this is Solomon, the wisest man ever lived. He comes up with three things that he would say in essence embody real wisdom. And the first thing is righteousness or justice. They're one in the same. They're translated interchangeably in different places. Now we know that really what is this world about? It's a fallen world. It's a hurtful world. It's a world that is prone to always veering and twisting. always parrying away the truth and going in the wrong way. That's why the God of this world has such easy prey out there, because the nature of man is to respond to the worldly system. We have found ourselves a little bit baffled, because as believers we like to think of ourselves as not having loved the world, and yet we find that, yeah, it's been pretty comfortable You know, we didn't have to play by their rules, but yeah, there was a lot of things out there. You want to be honest about this. If you really want to be honest about it, look at the last couple of verses. Verse 32 says, For turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. What did it say? The prosperity of fools. Is there prosperity with the lost? Yes. It's a very deceiving thing, right? I have barns. I'm going to tear them down and we'll build bigger barns. He says, I want you to be able to receive the instruction, that discipline, that chastening of wisdom. What is it? Is to come into contact with the fact that righteousness is at the heart of it. Judgment. I don't know, now that I put you on the trajectory, maybe you're seeing what I'm seeing. I'm seeing in my mind the cross. I'm seeing hell looming. I'm seeing what is wisdom. It's to know about righteousness and judgment and equity. Think of that. There is that illustration we have in our minds of the cross. There you see holiness. There you see love. Equity says, I'm going to make this all balance out here. Only God could do that. And so he says to receive the I want you to receive the instruction of wisdom. What is that? It's justice and judgment and equity. He says, I want to give subtlety to the simple. Now he's talking about the person having an ability to look at his world and move in it wisely and be able to get under people because judgment, justice and equity is for you, but it's also for other people. He's saying not just to receive, but now he's saying to give it to somebody. Now, I don't know if you've ever really gone through this slowly, but for me, it's been an education to see how Solomon, the wisest man of all the world, he comes out and he points out all three things about the cross, judgment, justice, and equity. And then he says, I want to give the young man some subtlety, purpose. I want to give the young man a purpose. Isn't that what we all want? We want purpose. You don't have purpose if it's just going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home. I mean, that's a thing we have to do. But as somebody says, that's not our vocation, really. That's how we support our ministry. God wants us to be actively involved in this train wreck down here. He says in this verse to give subtlety to the simple and to the young man, knowledge and discretion. The word for discretion is indeed the word It's the first definition under many. Purpose. Let's give the young man purpose. We were all that kid in the school grounds. We were trying to fit in, maybe this crowd or that crowd, and didn't like this crowd or that crowd, or we found ourselves eating in the lunchroom and feeling a little bit pressured. How do you fit in? All you had was the paradigm that was put before you. You were born into a world that was already arranged. And you had to figure out how to have purpose. Wouldn't it be nice if we would have known at the earliest parts of our lives about Jesus and how good he is? We've seen the children who are, what do you call, homeschooled, you know, all their days. And boy, they're just they're eight, six, seven, eight years old. They're talking to you like an adult because they're just confident because somehow they've been given some standard or something, typically in a Christian's homeschool. paradigm, at least. It says he wants to give them knowledge and discretion to the young man. If you get started right, what is it? The old adage, well begun is half done. I remember it was, I think it was Billy Sunday. It might have been D.L. Moody. I'd rather throw a cradle at the devil than a crutch. Right. Let's get him young. Let's get young people to be saved early on. And we need to look at our own families as that place where we're going to fish first. Verse four says to give subtlety to the simple, simple, meaning they don't have much going on. And he qualifies him. I say this is a young man to give him knowledge and then let that knowledge give him the discretion he needs, a purpose in his world. There was a situation not long ago where our little grandson was in the back and Linda was up talking to somebody through the drive-thru window. I think she was going to get a burger for the kids in the back. And he said, are you going to give him a tract? Isn't that beautiful? I mean, go give him a tract. I'm like, what? I'm just like, wait a minute. That's what it's all about. And he picked it up. And it says he's got a purpose. He's got it right out of the early days. It says, a wise man will hear. and a wise man will increase learning. A man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels." Now, this doesn't mean he goes looking for them. It would say that. He would pursue them or he would seek them out. There is a place later in the book where he talks about a companion of fools, wise man, a man who walks with a wise man shall be wise. But what this means is this is saying, I want him not just to be a person who attains unto these things, but I want this I want you to know that if you'll do what I'm telling you to do and take hold of what I'm trying to put before you, you will attain unto the ability to give other people wise counsel. Now, put that back in equity, justice and judgment, and you begin to see he's saying subtlety, he's saying purpose, and he's saying being able to give counsel to others when they need it. Now, how many people do you know through your life that have come into your world that have been that kind of person? To be honest, we have to be real. When we look at the scriptures, it was usually only a few people that were exemplary in any given generation. In the times of the judges, you couldn't find one, right? It was hardly anybody out there till Samuel showed up. Elijah felt like he was alone. Sure, there were 7,000. They were all hiding. Timothy? Titus, Paul, it's usually ones, individuals, singular, and it's few, few there be that find it. Remnant is a word you hear a lot in the Bible. But it's up to us, isn't it? It's up to us to access this. And that's why he says in verse six, he says, to understand the proverb and the interpretation. And the words of the wise in their dark sentences. These are the things, this knowledge will stir around in your heart and stir you because there's real depth in people's hearts who know the Lord. And that depth is something that can be plumbed. It can go dive for it. You know, if you have an opportunity and you have some people that you can look at in your life that have been mentors, I think that's That's something that's very, very, very wonderful. And I think a person who has that is somebody who's very wealthy. But he says, these are the things that you're going to get. You're going to be able to attain unto wise counsels. You're going to be able to understand. This is like Daniel, right? He was able to understand dark sentences. Where did he get it? God gave it to him supernaturally. Sure, some things probably he understood intuitively because he was very wise himself. But some things God had to reveal to him, like the dream and then the interpretation. When the first second time he came around, the king told him what he saw. And he said, OK, he just knew right away. Right. He understood dark sentences. I want you to see this, because as he wraps this section up, he says this. The fear of the Lord. Is the beginning of wisdom. But fools despise wisdom and instruction. Now, we read that as if it stands alone, but it doesn't, because really what it could say is, the fear of the Lord is just the beginning of wisdom. Because he's just told us all the way through. He's told us about the simple and the young man and attaining to wise counsel. And now he says, just listen. And he says, the fear of the Lord is just the beginning. I want you to know the discipline of wisdom. I want you to know it. I want you to know what wisdom really is. It has to do with equity and judgment and justice. I want you to know that. Wisdom, the fear of the Lord, that's just the beginning. And fools hate anything they fear. People don't like things they don't understand. I remember years ago when we were bringing our kids along early on, my little girl wanted to play the piano. And we were like, honey, if you say you're going to play, we're going to get you in there. We'll make you stick to it because you're going to be in there. And there was a couple times where she just didn't want to play anymore. It was hard. It was difficult. And when a person gets started in the things of the Lord, what happens? Man, it's hard. I got to read that Bible. I got into Leviticus, and man, I was completely lost, right? The Bermuda Triangle of the Bible, they call it, because they're really reading along. It's cruising pretty good. In the book of Genesis, the next thing you know, it's like, ah, man, all these sacrifices. What's a cubit, you know? And all these genealogies. But it's hard. Just like playing a piano. Some of us could probably go up to the piano and pound out a couple of bars of chopsticks, you know. Probably not many, but a few. But you know, what would happen if we would have just stayed right in there? What joy we could bring to ourselves, to other people. Discipline. Well, that's all helpful and wonderful. But this, the Word of God? Nah. When you know it, it's like, whoa, that's... That gives you purpose. That gives you subtlety. That gives you something to give to other people. And those counsels will have all to do with righteousness, judgment, and equity. The fear of the Lord is just the beginning. Now, he gets down to it. He starts getting personal. He says, my son, hear the instruction of your father and forsake not the law of your mother. Well, I'll read the next one because these two go together. It says, for they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head and chains about thy neck. Now, what you're seeing here is he's saying, look at the shadow of what God wants you to understand about the fear of the Lord. Your parents love you. And they may want to discipline you when you're doing wrong, hopefully not very much, because if they do it properly and in a timely manner, You don't have to do it much. You know, there's a consequence. You don't do things as readily that are rebellious because it's not very pleasant. And that's the difficulty. The fear of the Lord is just the beginning. He's going to tell you about hell. He's going to tell you about eternity and sin. He's going to tell you about the implications and how it impacts other people. He's going to tell you. And that's going to be hard. But just like your parents allow you to bear the heat of the day in some sense, That's how God loves you. So he points us to a token, not only of how he is, but also the first tokens of his own provision. What did he do? He gave you a mom and a dad, gave you a parent who would help you and love you and who would do things for you because they had investment in you. He says, listen, there'll be ornament of grace on your head and chains about your neck. He says if you'll just listen to them because they are for you like nobody else will be naturally Now obviously there's exceptions to the rules, right? Sometimes people abandon their children This is a world now where we see so much so quickly that we feel like it's more often the bad than the good So it's it's sad we get jaded but the reality is is that most often a parent like the little The gals who go to the pregnancy center and they see that little ultrasound, is it? Yeah. And they change their mind because the moment they see that little child, most of the time, I think it's something like 80% of the time, they choose life if they see it. That's an amazing thing. There's a visceral kind of connection. The words here in verse nine where it says, for they shall be ornament of grace unto thy head and chains about thy neck. The word ornament is like an idea of a wreath. And chains, of course, are like necklaces. It's almost like he's referring us to the idea of some of the stuff you're going to learn is going to have to do with temporal and good things, but then other things are going to be more enduring. You have a mom, you have a dad, you have things that are going to be encouragements, you're going to have things that are going to be hard, but you're going to learn, and you're going to grow, and you're going to thrive. Because God has provided you with that first of all institutions, the home, the family. He says in verse 10, he says, my son, again, and this is the other side of the coin, right? If sinners entice thee. Now when you read this, don't you just remember reading this in the past and you're thinking, if sinners entice thee and they say, come, let us lay in wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause. It just felt like it was high school, man. You just felt like everybody in the world around you was like, hey, let's go get in some trouble. Let's go break into something. Let's go beat somebody up. Bullies, right? This is kind of that. Let's go be a bully. We all can picture it. We've seen it depicted in the little rascals, you know, Butch. Remember Butch in The Little Rascals? He's always wanting to beat somebody up. And then we have this depiction because it's like this in our world. We remember Jesus saying something along the line. He says, you're like children. This is what I like in this generation. You're like, I liken them to children on the streets. Say we piped you and you didn't dance. You know, and you're like, yeah, we all felt that somewhere. And it's funny because we all fell prey to it to some degree, at least for a minute. I went through my mind and thought of people I've known that have come up under me, behind me, and I've seen them in the woods for a minute and then not. You see, it's very powerful. The world wants to destroy us. He says, if they come and they say, let us wait for blood. He says, if they're enticing you to to go wait, lie in wait for blood and lurk privily for the innocent. These are these are words that are meaningful. You see, the world wants to destroy because we dance to the nature that's in us. We want to dominate somehow and overcome when we're coming up, we want to be able to push back. And kind of maintain face kind of dog eat dog. if we're in the wrong circumstance. I think years ago when they had a situation, the one-room schoolhouse kind of thing, right? You have the older kids teaching the younger ones. And that's a healthy thing, you know? He's got a little bit of responsibility, a little bit of self-gratification that I helped the littler one learn this. It was kind of healthy, but when you put everybody in a stratus, you know, a strata, kind of striated, I don't know what the word is, but stratified all of the people, all the fourth graders, all the fifth graders, you know, they're all together. It's kind of now, it's like who's stronger, who's bigger, who's, you know, richer, who's prettier, who's stronger, better athlete. It, you know, sets you up. Oh, he says, if they say, let's do this, let's pick on them, let's not sit with them, let's not eat with them. That's part of it. But this went further, didn't it? He talks about let us swallow them up alive as the grave. Because he's going right to the heart of the matter. If they ask you to do things that are contrary to justice, judgment and equity, don't go with them. If they ask you to do something that is contrary to what your mother and your father would tell you to do, don't go with them. You say, well, I, I got it. I got to get along, go along, get along. No, no, no. Discipline is standing alone, right? All those things we know are true. And so this is a continuation of the whole. He says, if they come to you and say these things and let's swallow them up alive, verse 12, whole is those that go down to the pit. Now, when you think about that, don't you think of, you know, they're kind of hinting, I know some people are going to go to hell. And we know that. And we would start dancing on the edge of that. and acting like it was cool that we could talk about it without flinching. Verse 13 says, they go on to say, we shall find all precious substance. We shall fill our houses with spoil, cast in the light with us. Let us all have one purse. What he's saying is he's saying these are people who are wanting to exploit other people, wants to shed their blood, wants to make them Weep and cry. I mean, I don't know if you remember, when I was a kid, we sometimes picked on kids that were a little slower. I remember feeling bad about it. I remember doing it though. Didn't do it a lot, but I did it a few times and it didn't feel good. It's hard to do because I just didn't like it. But it was what everybody else was doing. You see, if you fan the flame inside of you at a young age of evil, it will catch flame. It will. It will come up, it will kindle and you'll get pretty good at it. That's why it's important to get kids early, not later. He says all these things about swallowing them up and exploiting them and taking money and boy, we can turn this thing. We'll be really good at it and we'll be able to make money. And he says in verse 15, my son, walk not thou in the way with them. Don't even go with them. We came across a passage in Timothy where it talked about reject. And the word meant to excuse yourself, OK? It didn't mean to be mean to them. It just said, excuse me, I'm just going over here. Don't mean to be ugly. That's the subtlety, right? The subtlety of the young man is to say, I see that there's a lot of people out there like that. But just say, you know, I got things I got to do, man. It's good seeing you. I hope you guys are good. Catch you later. And you move on down the road. Get away. point the finger and do to them what they're trying to do to somebody else. Don't be holier than that. But the point is, is he saying, don't go in the way with them. I think of how the Bible tells us something. Excuse yourself. He says, my son walked on the way with them, refrain my foot from their path for their feet run to evil and make haste to shed blood. There's that word blood, blood, blood. It's in there again. These people are going to hurt people and they're going to make people despair. There's nothing nothing pretty about picking on. the weaker individual. Now, listen, go back to my thought that I tried to put out there a moment ago. I don't know if I did it or not. Well, but this is a fallen world. We got to start there. When a child comes into the world, when you came into the world, it was a fallen world. It was messed up and it was molded by sinful men. It was put into sort of a kind of a trapped, a way to trap us right out of the cage. How do I put it? We were all set up. The world was, as we always have said, no friend of grace. When a young man is helping a kid who's weaker, that is unusual, but it's out there. Some goodness, there's something that just resonates. I don't like seeing a kid being picked on, you know, and you kind of step in there and say, knock it off, guys. But the reality, it's a messed up world. It's a fallen world. And so when Solomon's talking about wisdom, he's saying, down to brass tacks, you have purpose. You arrived here. It's a mess. You're looking at a messed up world. And there's something you can do. You can understand wisdom. And wisdom will see things in a way that talks about righteousness, judgment, and equity. God alone can make that happen. God alone can make that happen. Oh, the Bible says they lay in wait for blood in verse 18. They look privily, listen, for their own lives. They lay in wait for their own blood. They look privily for their own lives. I missed this. I jumped one too far. Go back with me. He says their feet run to evil and they go to shed blood. And then in verse 17, he says, surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. We can all agree on that. Surely in vain. And then the Bible in the King James, it says, and they lay in wait for their own blood. Now, the New King James and several different translations have picked up on the reality here, because it's not what he's saying is, and, as if it's a continuation of the thought. No, he's saying, surely the snare is set in the sight of any bird, but these guys lie in wait for their own blood. These people, well, they lurk privily for their own lives. They think they're going after somebody else, and what are they doing? They're actually laying the net for themselves. They're actually catching themselves and squirming harder, as in the old idea of if you got in quicksand, the more you move, the quicker you go down. That's that's them. Read it with me again. Verse 17, it says, Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird, but they lay in wait for their own blood. They lurk frivolously for their own lives. Is that the person you want to go with? That's kind of stupid. And in a vernacular we don't use very often. That's foolish. It was the way the biblical narrative would put it. He says, so are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain. Verse 19. There it was. Greedy of gain. Everything is answered by money. Okay. Can't serve God and mammon. There's a lot of things you might serve, but the mammon of unrighteousness, right? It's in the contrast to God. They think money will get them everything they want. And most of the things they want are not worth wanting. Okay. Because they're trying to do it in a nefarious way. And they're greedy of gain. He says, so are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain, which taketh away the life of the owners thereof. Do you know you can demoralize people? If you're older, bigger, smarter, tougher, whatever, you can demoralize a kid. You can demoralize somebody by stealing something from them. We've all seen the children playing together, maybe, and they were all this really big, maybe it was built like a Lego, or maybe somebody's doing the cards, you know, making a house of cards, and some brother or sister comes over and knocks it all down. You know, the world falls apart. Well, sometimes that happens in our lives in a big way. Somebody robs us, somebody defrauds us, you know, the idea of steals. Big, big time. A kid, you know, maybe steals from their parents in a big way. It gets really out of hand sometimes and they may feel bad about it But some people just they just wired that way take advantage That's why he says he says so are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain Which take of the way the life of the owners thereof takes away their life or their livelihood, but their life it takes it demoralizes Proverbs 15 27 says he that is greedy of gain troubles his own house But he that hateth gifts or bribes shall live. It's a very important thing to have a good relationship with money, right? Make sure it's a good relationship, not a bad one. It's not money that's evil, it's the love of money. And so he says, so are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain. That's a powerful word. Now he turns the corner and he says, listen, it's not, this is not a mystery to those people who are out there. He says, wisdom cries in the streets. It says her voice is in the street. She cries in the cheap places, the concourses. She she cries at the gates of the city. She utters her words. How long, ye simple ones, will you love simplicity? When it talks about simple ones and simplicity, the idea is naivety. They love you. People say ignorance is bliss, right? They don't want to know. I don't want wisdom. I don't want to understand. I don't want to go to church. I don't want wisdom. That's the bunk. I'm going on my way. She cries, this answers in my heart to Romans one, where the Bible says that they are without excuse because God's revealed it to them. They've seen the kid who got beat up because he did bad things and got caught. They've seen the kid who got disciplined. They've seen the kid who was crying because he was demoralized and it hurt them, but then they neglected it. They've seen, and somebody wrote a book years ago. It said, Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Remember this title maybe? Don't Hit, Hurt, Hater. What are all those things? Don't do bad things. But you do in the streets. As a child, you come up, you see. And as you get older, this is stuff that galvanizes. We see it in adults who've allowed themselves to get there. If they don't know God, they just go after more and more, and they don't care who they hurt. And we're seeing a lot in our world today. And all the governments of the world are just on ropes, and they're all doing these crazy things in their countries. They're putting everybody under their thumb, and they're just putting things out there that just don't make much sense. Wisdom cries in the streets, she cries in those gates. And how long, what's she saying? She's saying, how long will you simple ones love simplicity? And you scorners delight in scorning. And fools, you fools, how long will you fools hate knowledge? He says, I want you to love knowledge. I want you to love wisdom. Know it. But the scorner is a person who brags. The scorner is somebody who has others in derision sometimes. He says, how long will this happen? He says, turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit upon you. OK, you know who this is, right? In the beginning was the Word. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The idea of Jesus being the embodiment of the Word This is a similar word he would say, I'll pour out my spirit upon you. The Bible says, turn ye at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you. I will make known my words unto you, my words unto you. That's the appeal. No matter where they are, they could be in their 40s, their 50s, their 30s, their 20s. They can always hear that word because it's always being Suggested in all the things they see in the world, you can turn, you can go. Listen, it says in verse 24, because I have called and you refused. I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded. Remember what I said? Everybody. What did Solomon just say? Did he just say no man regarded? That's that's powerful because that makes you realize how exclusive the group is, is wanting some wisdom. It's very few. I want wisdom. I used to pray about it all the time as a kid. And I tell you, that's a thing that I needed because I didn't have much. I'd go to school. I didn't even know how to study. I mean, I was kind of starting to hit a deficit in college. Because I frittered away some of those years, I could have learned how to study. Wisdom. It's a good thing. It's a settling thing. It's a calming thing. He says, because I've called and you've not answered, because no man regarded. He says, you said it not all my counsel, and you would have none of my reproof. It says in King James, you would none of my reproof. OK, we know what he's saying. You would have none of it. I'll have none of it. I don't want your reproof. Isn't it a crazy thing to think how insolent this is? God himself condescends to mankind and he leans in and he pulls to them, he tugs their heartstrings. Listen, they chose not to go the right way. They chose to disregard what is true. That's right. Yes, he came unto his own and his own received him not. He says, because in verse 24, you've done this. I will laugh in verse 26 at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh, when your fear cometh as a desolation and your death and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind and cometh upon you and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me. Then they will listen to this, but I will not Here. You know what that is, that's the instruction of knowledge. That's the hard thing to hear. We saw Daniel saying last week. You're a dreadful and merciful God. This is it right here, dreadful and merciful, right? He says, for they have hated knowledge. Listen, and they did not choose. The fear of the Lord. Well, Solomon, you just don't know. We're all elected. Nobody's got a choice. No, he's pretty smart. I think I'd rather go with him than any foolish man who'd put down and say we have no choice. Oh, those crazy times. They hated knowledge. And they did not choose the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is just the beginning. That's what he said. It's just the beginning. Look at your parents. Don't go with the fools. Look what I've done. I'll teach you things. You're going to be the guy who gives counsel." He says, they did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would have none of my counsel, verse 30. They despised all my reproof. Therefore, you can circle the words because in verse 24 and the word therefore in verse 31 if you're so prone, because these are Things that are consequential, okay? Because you did this and because that happened, therefore, shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, reaping what they sowed. They shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices. This is what happened in the book of Judges, right? They kept saying, we want to be like all the other nations. So what'd they do? They got all their gods and then they got the misery of their other, you know, the justice and the judgments and all the things that would come upon those other nations too came to them. He says, for the turning away of the simple shall slay them. So they didn't choose properly and they turned away on purpose. That's rebellion. It says in the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. Do you know what he just told you? If you go the wrong way, there's a good likelihood you could prosper. You can have a lot of stuff. Devil give you what you want. Come this way. Carnality and sin. All of it can be yours. Now, what he offered Jesus, all the glory of all the kingdoms, he just said out loud to the young man prosperity. It's it can be on that side of the fence. Oh, the devil is a wicked taskmaster. But in the end, he'll swallow you whole. Look at this, it says, but who so hearkeneth unto me? Shall do all safely. and shall be quiet from the fear of evil." Now understand that when he talks about this person shall dwell safely, he's talking about a person who has a knowledge that this is a twisted, broken world that we've been born into, that you are starting with a disadvantage. Your nature will resonate with the wickedness of your world. Your world will try to squeeze you into its mold. Be not conformed to this world, right? Be not poured into the mold. It's very natural. Be transformed by the word of God. Renewed by the transformed by the renewing of the mind within the word of God. You and I have these options, but we have to choose them, not despise them. He says, whosoever hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely. And the safety they have is not from viruses. It's not from sickness. It's not from adversity. It's safety from the eternal consequences of our choices. You will have safety even on the bed of affliction with Job. You could say, though he slayed me, yet will I trust in him. I know that my redeemer liveth and I shall see him in the latter day. And I shall see it with my own eyes and not those of another. What an awesome thing to have safety even in an adverse and messed up world. And he says, and shall be quiet from the fear. from fear of evil. What is the greatest evil of all? It's not the devil. It's not the demons. It's to fall into the hands of a living God. What an amazing passage to me. He tells us he wants us to know intimately. He gives us out of the gate justice, judgment, and equity. That's what it's all about. And I'll give you purpose. your end of the class.