All right. Well, let's see. We are in life under the sun. Which do you guys like the new sign out there? So when me and Ashley were driving up, it flicked to life under the sun. And she said, life under the sun. Because it is really right. But anyway. Yeah. All right. Well, tonight, we just kind of started this thing in Ecclesiastes, which is really cool. I think Ecclesiastes is a really cool book. So, tonight, we are talking about when wisdom, and it's in quotation marks, when wisdom is fiction, and we will finish out Chapter 1, Ecclesiastes 1, 12 through Speaking of wisdom, how many people now, I guess the younger you are, it's not quite a big deal, but the older you are, how many people thought Winnie the Pooh was pretty cool? Winnie the Pooh, no? Yes, that's cool. All right, the rest of you, I don't know what's wrong with you. Anyway, Winnie the Pooh had some cool things to say, some wisdom I guess, such as this one. I am not lost, for I know where I am. However, where I am may be lost. Yeah. And I'm sure some wives can say, my husband is just like that. But yeah. How about this one? One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries. That's cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And then there's every once in a while, Pooh comes up with something really nice. I'm getting tingles even as I say it. We didn't realize we were making memories. We just knew we were having fun. Don't y'all, does anybody, any parents say that's, yeah, that's exactly how I want it to be or how I want it, yes, yeah. So that's, I'm getting tingles right now just reading that, you know, so. All right, well, anyway, I don't think we want to go to Winnie the Pooh for our wisdom. I mean, it's pretty cool to read those, but probably don't want to base your life on that. We're in the book of Ecclesiastes. What is this book? So this book is not a book to go, as we've said before, to go and just rip quotes out of, you know, without looking at the context, and just quote them as what God says. Okay, I know it's God's Word. However, that doesn't mean everything else in there is what God spoke. You know, like when Satan speaks? Okay, that's not God. Alright? But it is inspired that he's saying, yes, but Satan spoke this. Okay? And so, we know that. And so, likewise, this right here, we are meant to read and learn from, but we do need to understand this book is different. Is it inspired? Yes. But is it to be read the same way that most of the rest of the Bible is? No. Okay, because you have to understand what's happening here. In Ecclesiastes, as we've said before, Solomon, he is going through, and he's not in the best period of his life, so he is going on a journey, and he is trying out everything. He's not doing that as a nice, God-following person at that time. He's not in the same kind of state of mind that he was when he wrote a bunch of proverbs, okay? So he's not. This is a different state. This is kind of later in life when he's, you know, had a lot of wives, a lot of wives and a lot of concubines and all that. And so this is what's happening. He's going through and he is doing a study. Now you say, well, why is this in the Bible? Oh, it's fantastic it's in the Bible. Because in any area of life, you can say, I'm pondering this. Solomon can say, yeah, I've been there and I got the t-shirt. I can tell you where that ends. And so, and for all of it, except one path, he says, it's vanity. It's meaningless. Yeah, and so it's a pretty cool book, but you have to have the understanding. And part of the thing you have to understand is this phrase, under the sun, this is a key that unlocks the understanding to the book. This under the sun means Solomon is viewing everything, not as an atheist, But he's viewing it at this level, okay? He's not viewing it as this level. He's viewing it like this. Does he think there's a God? Sure, he does, you know. But he's, you know, kind of the same way a lot of country singers do. You know, about that same level. All right, he's up there, but that's about it. Okay, that's kind of the way he's treating God at this moment. Now, he's going to edge closer as he goes through the book. But right now, he's looking through man's thinking a lot. We're just acknowledging that there's a God there. And before we go on, it's tempting to say, oh, well, this is kind of like a book for atheists to read. Well, I would love for every atheist to read this book. That would be really great. But I would tell you that all of us should be careful because maybe not in all of our life, but in at least some areas of our life, we may be viewing life the same way that Solomon is under the sun. if we're not careful. In other words, we could come to church and worship and love the Lord and cry and all of that and then go run our business under the sun. We could be pursuing our relationships under the sun. We could handle our money under the sun. You see what I'm saying? We could be doing this stuff, even though we do believe in God, we could be doing some things kind of like Solomon. So, this is something we need to keep in mind. Well, we're starting in Ecclesiastes 1.12. The pastor Josh left off on verse 11, so we go to number 12. And it's kind of like you're like, whoa, shouldn't this be at the beginning? I, the preacher, was king over Israel and Jerusalem. Okay, I think this is here, he's made to what he said here before, that Pastor Josh went over, and I think this is to say, hey, just in case you're wondering, who's this guy saying this stuff? Oh, it's Solomon. I, the preacher, was king over Israel and Jerusalem. I had access and means to tell you all the stuff I'm gonna tell you. Okay, and by the way, he can tell us about wisdom because he is known as one of the wisest men that ever lived. Okay, and so not that he acted that way all the time, but he was, you know, he at least was given that gift, whether he used it all the time is different. Derek Kidner in his commentary says, says, we may traditionally call this man the preacher, but he stands so close to his audience that his words might seem to them the embodiment of their most radical thoughts. What he differs from them is in following such trains of thought much further than they would care to take them. Path after path, wisdom, pleasure, work, whatever it may be, path after path will be relentlessly explored to the very point at which it comes to nothing. And in the end, only one way will be left. Okay, so there's your kind of spoiler there for the end of the book. John MacArthur says this, Solomon was writing probably in his latter years primarily to warn the young people of his kingdom, which he addresses in the last chapter, without omitting others. So all the rest of us get it as well. He warned them to avoid walking through life on the path of human wisdom. He exhorted them to live by the revealed wisdom of God. The only fulfilled life is one lived in proper recognition of God and service to him. Any other kind of life is frustrating and pointless. And so that sums up kind of the book pretty good, including getting us on the path of what we're talking about tonight. So in verse 13, we're gonna read through the rest of the passages, then we'll go back and talk about them. It says, and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven. This sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun. Behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight. That which is wanting cannot be numbered. I communed with my own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to a great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem. Yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge, and I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. So I got three points for you tonight and then some sub points on in there below that. But the first one is, it's a different wisdom, a different wisdom that he is looking at. So he's gonna be looking at different wisdom. Now we can put some quotation marks around there because there's only one kind of wisdom that comes from God, but it's a different wisdom and it's important that we realize there are some different wisdoms out there. Okay, and in our age when we have it's so easy to hear so much I mean you just need to whip out your phone or your computer whatever and you've got YouTube you got podcasts from whoever You know right away if they got one, they're an expert right? No, but anyway, they've all got wisdoms that they are giving you and And so it's all out there for us to access. And so Solomon, he's gonna go check out these wisdoms, okay, in his day. He says, and I gave my heart, in verse 13, to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven. Now this is the same thing pretty much as the under the sun. Okay, that's what he's going to do. H.C. Leopold says, by the way, isn't that cool? Nor people should be named Leopold. That is a really cool name. Anyway, H.C. Leopold says, since man is too strongly inclined to engage in an independent search after truth, look at that, an independent search after the truth, leaving out God and the higher elements that grow out of revelation, that's God's revelation, it's quite proper to show to watch as such a quest would lead. And that's what happens here with Solomon. Now the deal is, this is nothing new now or in Solomon's day. In fact, this thing of tapping into other wisdom began way back before that. It's in Genesis chapter three. Yeah. As the serpent comes to Eve, Satan, and says, tries to get her to, you know, to, to look at the fruit, to eat the fruit. Says this, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be open. See, you will have real wisdom. Your eyes will be open, you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Verse six, and when the woman saw the tree was good for food, And it was pleasant to the eyes, a tree to be desired to make one wise." Did she have wisdom already? Sure. She had the wisdom himself. She had the source of true wisdom, God. But she was looking for another wisdom. This wisdom looks nice. I want to follow this wisdom. Desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And they followed that course. Sin entered the world, and all the mess that followed that. So this thing of getting someone to follow you or me, a different source of wisdom, That goes all the way back to the beginning there in chapter 3 in Genesis. However, where do we get wisdom? Because there's all kind of voices saying they're wise and they're smart and we should listen to them. Proverbs 9, 10 says this, the fear of the Lord, the respect, the reverence of the Lord is the beginning. is the source of wisdom. You want wisdom? This is where you start. You want to go somewhere else? You're not getting it from the source. You're getting something else, but it's not true wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. That's where true wisdom comes. It's from God himself. That's where it comes from. That's where we, man, there's so many voices out there today. And there's a lot of folks in the church falling for stuff. I'll just name it, progressive Christianity. It sounds kind of, you know, hip and cool. I don't even know if people talk that way anymore. Here's what they do. They get rid of the deity of Christ. They allow all kinds of things that the Bible says is wrong. It's bad. Deconstructing your faith, that's another hot thing on the scene right now in Christianity and you'll hear some top Christians have deconstructed their faith. Now there's a good way to do it, I don't wanna go too far into this. There's kind of a good thing of going and searching, make sure everything you do is biblical. I get it, that's okay. Most of them, when they're talking about it, that's not what they're talking about. They're talking about looking at it and seeing if that really makes sense to them. Whose wisdom is that? That's man's wisdom. See, the source of wisdom is what many of you are holding in your laps right now. It's God's word, because that is God's word. That's the source of wisdom. Anything, even any type of Christianity that gets away from that is not wise. It's not wise. So back to Ecclesiastes. Once again, he says, I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven. And I don't know what kind of different wisdoms that Solomon had back then. I'm not really sure about that. The Greeks, I'm not sure that really on the scene yet, you know, and they have all kinds of wisdoms they came out with. You know, we have different things today. So here's the deal. I know that he looked at things and he wasn't taking like the Old Testament scriptures and saying, what does the Bible say about that? No, he was going through looking through very smart man and looking at those ways and yet he found they all fall short. So I wanted to do that tonight and kind of show you what he might have done if he was here today and look at three maybe wisdoms that are very prevalent at least for the past century or so in our society and kind of show you how this goes and how they fail as well. One of those would be humanism. One of those is humanism. It's also known in the older days as modernism. So if you read some older theology books, you'll hear some preachers talking about the modernists. And that's what they're talking about. They go kind of hand-in-hand a little bit, is this whole thing. The whole thing that came with humanism, it's nothing new. It actually started in the Garden of Eden. But it really, in the Enlightenment is where that began, where they talked about man is the measure. Now what they were getting Bashing back was this whole idea that we need to depend on God and all those see science was developing in the lightenment and all these things were Development and when that happens man says look what I can do. And so he did that so much He said this God thing is just done. We don't need any of that. That's just a crutch We have man and man has no limits man is the measure and And by depending on science and reason without God, humanity will improve and be able to solve the problems of the world. This is a current thinking in your society today, big time, especially in the education establishment. They believe this highly. If we can just educate them enough, if they can just teach them enough, we will change the world. Not with sinful hearts. But humanism doesn't recognize sin. In fact, if you want to watch this on display, I'm a nerd and I like Star Trek, but it is one of the most humanist shows you can ever watch. And they will say this a lot. This is their goal. And then while it doesn't always get rid of religion, you know, it's somewhat tolerant of it, it always looks down on religion. Okay, the ultimate goal is to really get away from that or make it a hobby. That is humanism, very prevalent in our society today and the source of thinking, of wisdom. for a lot of folks. Another one is postmodernism, which rejected modernism, which said that man through his science and all this and learning can do things. Postmodernism said, no, no, none of that works. It doesn't work. Look at all this stuff, bad things we do with our technology. So, it just rejects objective reality, reason. A metanarrative is just a story like our Bible tells, which is true. but it's where we get the basis for what we believe. That's what a meta-narrative is. It says, nah, those things don't exist. To each his own. I remember when I was on a college campus at ETSU, I remember some guy came up to me and he said that. To each his own, man. That's what he said. You know what that means? You're right, I'm right, we're all good. Where can I eat? That's pretty much, I mean, that's it. That's to each his own. It's relativism. Everybody can be right, and we're all good. That is dumb, that doesn't work. We'll get into that in just a moment. I'm sure Solomon would have said the same thing. Okay, and sometimes it might make love an absolute, but we'll get into that. The third one that is around today, big time and growing, is atheism. Especially in European countries, huge. Atheism, also known as materialism, which by the way is in the back of your science today. Okay, this is the reason that science doesn't consider if God is scientific. They kick him out before he's even thought of. Everything has to be matter or energy and we go from there. God's neither one, done. And that's pretty much what they do. That's materialism. They deny the existence of any deity. They deny anything immaterial, even the soul. And then they might try to have reasons, bases, plural basis. They might have some reason for their ethics, but really they shouldn't. We'll get to that. Okay. So here's like, I saw him was probably checking out some different things like that in his day and looking at them, just like we might look at these today. Here's the deal. Point number two, wisdom that fails. We're going to read through these verses here. 13 included again, and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all the things that are done in heaven. This sore travail hath God given the sons of man to be exercised therewith. It sounds like Psalm is saying, God, you gave us something evil. Now, right away we're going to say, well, Solomon's not quite right here. And you're exactly right. He's not. He's not completely right in what he's saying. He's got it kind of right, but he's perverting it here. And once again, this is a thing to where we need to understand this book where he's at. Now, as you get closer to the end of the book, he's more where he should be. We're in chapter one, okay, and so he's not quite got it right. He's not an atheist, but he's not got the right perspective, you know, as a God-following person right now. Did God give us this whole thing of learning and all of that? Was that something that we should have a yearning for? The answer is yes. If you go back to the cultural mandate, Genesis 128, God blessed them, God said to them, be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, and sit around for the rest of your life. Is that what he said? No. He said, subdue it. What does that mean? That means to cultivate it, to steward it. As he says, also have dominion over the fish of the sea. That doesn't just mean that man is worth more. I get it. It's more than that, man is the steward of the earth. He's to cultivate it, there is culture involved, learn about it, and all this brings glory to God in doing so. And with this, do you think that was supposed to be some kind of a horrible thing that man hated and was vexed with? No, he would have joy in doing that. Okay, so obviously Solomon is looking at this wrong. Is this something that's God-given? Yes, but his way of looking at it is wrong. Why? Because he is looking how things work without God in mind. That's the reason. So we go back to what he's saying. He says in verse 14, I've seen all the works that are done under the sun. Behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Now, I know this seems like this could apply in any part of the book, but here he's applying it to his search for wisdom, okay? So we continue on in verse 15, that which is crooked cannot be made straight. That which is wanting or lacking cannot be numbered. Here's what he's saying. I looked at all this wisdom stuff. We can't fix it. I've gone through and looked at everything. We can't fix it. All these wisdoms, they fail. And this is what he figured out. He's not going through and using. Now, me and you would obviously say, yes, we know, because the Bible says he's not necessarily going that path. But being honest about it, he's going through and look at these things and saying, no, this doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense. This doesn't work. No, that doesn't work either. And he's seeing it all fails. Every bit of it fails. So let's go back and look at our three. We looked at humanism. Man is the measure. Well, when it comes to morals, what's the basis to tell Hitler that he's wrong? If humanism, if man decides everything, then if another man, Hitler, decides to kill six million or more people, how am I, as just another man, to say you're wrong? Well, I can go to an outside source. No, that's not humanism. How do I tell him? I can't. Is he wrong? Sure. What's my basis? As a Christian, I can say, the Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says. I know the nature of God and he doesn't allow that. But as a humanist, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Any measures that you come up, man, as a measure, if they disagree, what do you do? While developing science has brought many benefits, it's also brought us a better ability to kill each other. Because science doesn't have morals. I can have as much science as I can learn, and it doesn't teach me one bit of how to use it. The same person that knows how to use explosives constructively to get rid of an old building so you can build a new one can also use those to kill a bunch of people. That's the same science. Humanism doesn't do any of that. And I'm sure Solomon would have figured that out. And as far as reason, hey, with sin involved, it turns into rationalizing. The smarter I get, the better I get at arguing for my sin. That's what happens. I'm not confessing, I'm just saying. That's true, you know what I'm talking about? All right, so let's look at postmodernism. Well, this one's easy. This is just relativism. Once again, it has no way to tell Hitler he's wrong because nobody's wrong. Everybody's right, okay? And the whole thing that, look, the statement that there's not absolute truth, there is no absolute truth. Well, is that true? If you say yes, you blew up your own statements. It's a silly belief. I'm sure Solomon would have figured that out. Let's jump on to atheism. Atheism denies the existence of the immaterial. Is there really no such thing as love? In fact, I've watched a testimony of an atheist that once she had a child, is no longer an atheist. Said, what I feel for this child cannot be chemicals. This is something more. I love this child, but my atheism doesn't support that. And so, yeah, it falls apart. Logic and you having a will doesn't even make sense under atheism. We're all robots. Doesn't make any sense. Let me skip ahead here for time sake. In other words, these systems of wisdom all fail. I'm sure this is the same thing as he would look at these and being much smarter than me would have noticed that today with these systems which are very prevalent in our society. He was looking back at his time and find the same thing. All of man's wisdom fails. Why? Because it neglects the source. Genesis 1.1 says, in the beginning, God created heaven and the earth. When you study any subject, when you study science, when you study math, what are you studying? You're studying what He created. All you're doing is learning about what He created. If you take Him out of the equation, now you messed it all up. Your education's messed up. And it's not wisdom anymore. Everything that we touch, feel, smell, any of that we learn about is from Him. That's wisdom. When we deny He exists, this stuff doesn't make sense anymore. That's why it goes from, you know, just whatever. It's just, anyway, silly. Let's go on to Colossians 1.16. For by Him, Jesus, were all things created. that are in heaven or they're in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him. But look at this, he is before all things and by him, all things consist. Which means not only did God, Jesus, create everything, at the beginning, he moment by moment, split second by split second, holds all things into being. And yet the world's wisdom says he doesn't exist. How do you make sense of science and everything else if you pull the source away? So any wisdom that goes apart from God is foolish. It makes no sense. Makes no sense. And look at as far as fixing things that are broken. Look at these verses in Romans 8. For I reckon the sufferings of this present time, sufferings, things that are broken and things that are happening to him, are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature or the creation, all of creation, these things that are broken, waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature or creation was made subject to vanity. It was made like cursed. not willingly, but by reason of him who have subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered, not broken anymore." He's saying everything's broken, it can't be fixed. Oh yes it can, because one day He is going to fix it, and He's the only one that can fix it. And not just people, all creation is groaning waiting for this to occur, shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption unto the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruit of the Spirit that are saved, Even we, ourselves, grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our body. And the older you get, the more you're looking forward to the redemption of your body. Yeah. Man, I used to be able to run around, do all kinds of things. My mind goes one way and my body stays put. I can't make it do that anymore. So yeah, Paul's looking forward to that. The broken stuff is broken and no man or wisdom can fix it apart from God because he will fix it. If we're looking for somebody to fix the problems, look to the one that can fix it. There's only one. There's only one. Wiersbe says this. When he, Jesus, was ministering here on earth, our Lord often straightened out that which was twisted and provided that which was lacking. Kind of like echoing what Solomon had just said, man cannot do this by his own wisdom or power, but with God, nothing shall be impossible. Solomon was looking at these problems from a vantage point under the sun. That's why they seemed insoluble. Jesus was giving us just a foretaste of what's gonna happen someday when everything is fixed. Where do we go from wisdom? To man? No, to the one that can fix everything. Let's look last of all at a wisdom that is hopeless. A wisdom that is hopeless. He says in verse 16, I commune with my own heart, I thought to myself, saying, lo, I am come to great estates and have gotten more wisdom, indeed he had, than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem. Yea, my heart had great experience, wisdom, and knowledge. In other words, this isn't some dummy that's talking here. Well, this wisdom of other people doesn't work. Okay, well, this isn't some uneducated whatever person. This is one of the wisest men that's ever lived making these statements. He says, I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. He knew how to distinguish between the two, to speak correctly about wisdom. And I perceive this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief. He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. Now, he is not saying ignorance is bliss. Okay, so just in case I know if you're like, you know, I've got some that are going to school tomorrow for the first time in a little while. They're not to go there as teachers to say, the Bible says I don't need to study and that's good. That's the road to happiness. No, that's not what he is saying. Although there is something there. And as I was studying, I found something from way back 1747 that goes beyond most of us, I think. And so it was the last stanza of a poem by Thomas Gray called Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eaton College, by the way, which isn't college like we think of it, more like high school, I think. And so across the sea. And here's the last stanza that he wrote. He's written as he's gone through, as he's watching these people that are going over there to school and they're having fun and they're looking forward to things. And he looks at them and talks about that, and then he starts saying, yes, one day they'll grow old. One day things will hurt. I'm kind of just paraphrasing. He says all that, and then he gets to this part as he talks about that. He says, to each his sufferings, all are men, condemned alike to groan. Tender for another's pain, the unfeeling for his own. Hey, you got pain either way. Yet, ah, why should they know their fate? These people that are, you know, they're in their youth enjoying life, looking ahead to life. He says, why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late and happiness too swiftly flies, thought would destroy their paradise no more. This is where that phrase comes from. Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise. He's saying kind of what Solomon's saying, and I don't think he was reading Ecclesiastes necessarily to find that. He's just saying the more you know, the harder it gets. I don't want to tell these kids over here what it's going to be like 30, 40, 50 years from now. They need to stay ignorant about that and they'll be happy. That's what he's saying. And it touches a little bit of what Solomon says in this last verse, for in much wisdom is much grief. The more I know, the more horrible it gets. Anybody here could say, I know some things that I wish I never knew? Yeah. And that's kind of the way it goes with a lot of it, isn't it? Under the sun, under the sun. He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. Looking at this as far as hope goes, the humanists, the postmodernists that we looked at, they're not the answer. If there is no God, as they say, They're still fairy tales. They have no answer in that, as we've already looked at. In fact, in fact, nihilism, which says nothing, that's pretty much the ism of nothing, is pretty much what that is. Nihilism would be correct, which says there is no God, therefore, there is no morals, there is no purpose to life. Do whatever you want to do, and it ends. That's pretty much what nihilism says. You want purpose, you can make one up, but there is no real purpose. That's the most honest thing if there really wasn't a God. As I was saying, the humanists and the postmodernists are just believing fairy tales. Because if there is no God, that is true. That's the honest thing, and that's a portion of what I think that Solomon is seeing under the sun. He's not keeping God in view, he's not denying him, but he's not keeping him in view, and in so doing, by searching man's ways, he's finding out how dismal it is, including this thing of wisdom. This is kind of dark, so let's let Wiersbe talk to us here. Wiersbe exclaims, what a relief to turn from these pessimistic views and hear Jesus Christ say, I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. Or to read Paul's majestic declaration, therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is nothingness. No, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Isn't that so much better? God is the source of wisdom. That's why Jesus said, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. I'm searching for truth. Look, let me make it really short. Solomon would tell you at the end, let me make it short for you. Don't even read the rest of that stuff. You wanna make an apologetics class, I get that, that's kinda cool. You can do it that way, but otherwise, you just wanna know the truth. Shortcut, God's word. God's word. It's right there. That's where you need to go. That's the truth. 2 Timothy 3, 16-17, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. Hey man, I want something I can live my life by. Okay. It's profitable for doctrine, teaching you truth. For proof, showing where you're wrong. For correction, showing you how to fix it. And for instruction in righteousness, showing you the way to go. That the man of God may be perfect, that means complete, mature, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Any wisdom that departs from God and his word is foolish. It's not wisdom. I don't care if somebody with a 200 IQ is talking about it on YouTube. They may be smart, but according to the Bible, they're a fool. True wisdom comes from God. True wisdom comes from God. God's wisdom brings truth, clarity, security, and purpose. Isn't that cool? There's no human wisdom that can truly give you that. Only through God and his word. And so looking back at this quote by MacArthur, I really like, I like this last part and I underlined it for you. Solomon, he warned them to avoid walking through life on the path of human wisdom. He exhorted them to live, he does at the end of the book, to live by the revealed wisdom of God. Thus the only fulfilled life is when lived in proper recognition of God and service to him. Any other kind of life is frustrating and pointless, vanity. So what you have a choice, whether you don't believe and you're here, that'd be awesome if you're here. Or whether it's your whole life, or maybe it's just portions. You literally have a choice, on one hand, you have a choice of just choosing, look, this is the reality. God's Word telling the truth. Or here's this thing where most of the world lives in. You'll feel included. You won't feel people give you much grief about it. They'll celebrate you for thinking that way. Nobody will shun you from their groups. You can believe that way. Or you can believe the truth. And we have a choice in which wisdom, this one has parentheses, this one doesn't, that we choose in every area of our life. When wisdom is fiction, you can remove the parentheses if you find it in God's word. Thank you, God, for this night. You're awesome. I praise you. Dear Lord, I pray that you would, dear God, help each of us, including me, to remember these words. And dear God, remember this path that Solomon took. And yeah, so we don't have to take the same path. He tells us how it ends. And we don't need to waste our time going down that road. He told us where the solution is. And I pray that all of us will follow that in each area of our life. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.