turn to the book of Proverbs chapter number 1. Proverbs chapter number 1. And we want to read as a text Proverbs 1, verse 1, 2, 3, and 4, these four verses. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 1 through 4. The Bible said 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. To give subtlety to the simple, to the young man, knowledge and discretion. This is the first sentence of Proverbs. Proverbs 1, verse 1 through verse number 4. I want to go, Lord, in a word of prayer, if you would. Our precious Father, I pray, Lord, today that you might help me, Lord, as I deliver this word your way, that I might say what you want me to say and nothing else. Lord, I know that our lives are in your hand. And Lord, I know, Lord, that you're the one with all wisdom. And Lord, I pray today that we might be able to expound these verses and be able to explain these things the way that you've explained them to us in our study. I pray, Lord, that you might just help today. Lord, rather than help, I ask you, Lord, that you would just do it. I pray, Lord, that you might just forgive us, watch over us, and keep us close to you. For it's in Jesus' name that I pray, amen. Now, keep your place in the book of Proverbs, chapter one. And if you would, look back in the book of James, chapter one. James, chapter one. This is a New Testament passage that also speaks about wisdom in the book of James, chapter 1, verse number 5, 6, and verse number 7. So we read Proverbs chapter 1, verse 1 through 4, speaking about what wisdom really is. But now we find this in James 1 verse 5, 6, and 7. If any of you lack wisdom, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth all men liberally. I like that. God says there in this place that he is well able to give all men liberally. And upbraideth not. He didn't get on to you about it. And it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith. If we need wisdom, we need to ask God for it. But we need to ask in faith. not nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. And so there is, it's very clear to me, I hope it is to you, that if any of us feel we don't have enough wisdom, the best thing we can do is ask God for it. That's the best thing. God gives his wisdom very liberally. He doesn't even upbraid us. He doesn't get onto us. He doesn't make fun of us because we're so unwise at all. Brother God loves us. But notice, if we don't ask God for wisdom, if we don't ask God for wisdom, We will never have it. If we do not ask God for wisdom, we will never have it. Wisdom from God doesn't come until we ask God for his wisdom. And you can ask. If you need wisdom, you need to ask God for wisdom. You must ask God for his kind of wisdom or you will never have it. I think I've said that a couple of times. You can ask privately, you can ask in secret, and God will give you his kind of wisdom. Not the kind of wisdom that this world possesses, but he can give you God's kind of wisdom, he can give you his kind of wisdom. What is wisdom? Godly wisdom is so much different than intelligence. It's so much different than just being smart. But God's wisdom means you have skill in using the word. A person with wisdom is an enterprising person, a person with understanding, he's able to instruct others. because they have a skill to teach. They may be slow to speak, but they still have wisdom. They have a sense of discretion when they perceive the needs of another. That's a very wise person. When you have a sense of discretion, not want to hurt anybody else's feelings. But look at this, in the book of Proverbs chapter number one, the Bible describes what wisdom is in these four verses. It describes how we can really have the kind of wisdom that God wants us to have. And every one of us need this. Every one of us, it doesn't make a difference how long you've been saved or how much Bible that you know. It doesn't make any difference at all because we're all individuals. We all need God's wisdom. We need it desperately to know how to go in and out and just to handle things correctly. In verse one through four, verse number four is the introduction to the entire book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is a very great book. So as we read verse one through verse number four, don't go and say, now let's go on to discover what wisdom is. In Proverbs one, verse one through four, whenever you've read those four verses, Don't go on then and say, I think it's time now that we understand what real wisdom is, that's not the time. The next thing we need to understand is what these various words of Proverbs chapter one, verse one through four really mean. There's four statements here. In Proverbs chapter one, verse one through four, four statements. Read these, verse number two is the first one. The first two are in verse number two. To know wisdom and instruction. That's number one. Number two, is to perceive the words of understanding. Number three is in verse number three. Receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity. And number four is in verse number four. To give subtlety to the simple, to the young man, knowledge and discretion. Now that's the way the book of Proverbs is laid out. That is the instructions that the book of Proverbs really gives. 1, 2, 3, 4. It first teaches us exactly what wisdom is, then it teaches us what it does. And then it goes on from there. before we can ever be wise we must know wisdom and instruction. The Bible said in verse number two to know that means we must perceive what God expects of us before we can ever do anything about it. We must know first of all what God expects. The word wisdom is the next part, to know. To know what wisdom is, what is wisdom? That is to understand the ethical parts of religion. To know what God expects of you, not necessarily what men expect of you. There is a difference in the two. And then there's the word instruction. Instruction speaks about chastisement or correction. That's what the word means. It means chastisement. It means correction. Right here are two very important points that every believer must understand. When you want God's wisdom, The very first thing you need to know is how different you are. If you really want to know and understand God's wisdom, you must understand right away that there's something lacking in you. And what's lacking is God's wisdom. We lost that at the fall. We became sinners. Away from God. We were cast away. So who was cast away? Everybody. I was and you are. That's it. We need God's wisdom. God is perfect, but we are full of sin and iniquity. We're so full of sin that we think we don't need wisdom. I'm going to say that again. Because it's true. We're so full of sin that we think we don't even need God's wisdom. We got enough wisdom on our own. We don't need the wisdom of God. We got enough wisdom on our own. That is wrong. You see, God doesn't think like we think. God's ways are greater than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And we need to get off this low level of sin that we're on, and we need to start thinking like God thinks. Have you listened to the radio broadcast about the last four or five Sundays? If you have, you know what the message is about, and there's more coming. It's on how God uses little things. God uses little things, not big things, not things that are renowned, but God uses little things. God can even use you, God can even use me. to bring to pass things that are not. God can do that. God's wisdom is a very hard pill for believers to swallow, but it is absolutely the truth. God wants believers to think as he thinks, not as we think. Before we can ever know God's wisdom, we must understand that He always chastens and corrects us. That's all part of it. That's all part of it. Have you ever been chastened? If you say that you have never been chastened, you're probably not even saved. But if you say you have been chastened, you know what that's doing? God is using that to bring you around to His way of thinking about things. That's what He wants us to think is His way of thinking and not ours. God's way of chastisement is a way of instructing us when we come to the place of understanding that He is greater than we are, that He's higher than we are, and that He loves us more than we love ourselves. Have you ever had a parent? I know you have had a parent. But did your parents ever chasing you? Yes. Why did they do that? Because they didn't like you? Because they would just leave you alone? Did you ever have parents that worried about you? That prayed about you? Did you ever have parents that wanted the best for you? That's what God is doing for us. When he chastens us, when he instructs us, that's what the word instruct means in verse number two. That's exactly what it means. Look in the book of Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. The Bible says in Hebrews 12, and let's read beginning in verse number one, I suppose, because that'll kind of set the groundwork here, a little bit of it. Hebrews 12, verse one. Wherefore, seeing we also are coming about with such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, And the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. So that's how we ought to live. seeing where it comes about with such a great kind of witnesses that watch us every day. And the Bible just stopped talking about, in the book of Hebrews chapter 11, the people of faith. They're watching, the Bible says. And we need to be more and more like Christ and less and less like us. And verse number three, for consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind. You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint without our rebuke of him. And so now he gets into chastening. Notice, after he speaks about faith in chapter 11, and all the trouble that the people of faith went through, it's in chapter 12 that he begins speaking about chastisement. That's the way it is. When God saves a sinner, when God redeems a person that is lost, they don't think right. And just because a person is saved doesn't mean they think right. It doesn't mean that at all. Sometimes saved people don't think right. Have you ever, since you've been saved, thought wrong? Constantly. Constantly. We can't stop it. It just comes along. What happens there? God then instructs us. He instructs us as to how to think and how to think right. In verse number five, he mentions chastisement first. But notice what it says in verse number six. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. Look at that. So don't say that you're not chastened. If you say you're not chastened, that's the same thing as saying the Lord don't love you. That's the same thing as saying the Lord has nothing at all to do with you. God has loved us. He loves me. He's chastened me. I say that my parents also loved me and they got on to me. They chastened me. Sometimes, sometimes they chastened me by talking to me. Sometimes they chastened me by taking a switch to me. I'll tell you, I'll tell you seriously. It was easier on me when they took a switch to me. It was easier on me when they took a switch to me because then it was done. But I hated it. I hated it especially when my daddy talked to me. Boy, I hated that. He made me think. that what I was doing was wrong. But you know why he did that? He didn't talk to me because I was worthless and he knew it. I knew I was worthless, but he didn't believe that. He thought I was worth something. He thought I was worth redeeming. And he talked to me. The Bible says in verse number six, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth, now there is the whipping, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. So there's those two things there in verse number six. There's the chastening, which is a teaching And then there's the scourging because we don't listen. It pays to listen. It pays to listen to what God is telling us. In verse number seven, if ye endure chastening, God deedeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. That verse number eight is absolutely the truth. Did you know there were times, and I'm thinking of a particular time right now, that we had a a boy visiting our, in our home. And he did something he wasn't supposed to do. But I, but my son, Jesse, my son, our son, he helped him. He knew it was wrong, but he helped him. Guess which one that I whipped? That I, not supposed to say whipped, today you're supposed to say spanked or dismal or whatever. Which one of the boys do you think that I took the belt to? My boy. My boy, not the other one. I sent the other one home. You know why I did that? Because that boy was not my boy. It's my responsibility to discipline my own children, not somebody else's. That's what I thought about it. I thought of this scripture. And that's the scripture that I used. But you see, in verse 7, If ye endure chastening, God deedeth with you as with sons. Remember, that chastening is not this way laying the fly out of somebody. That's not what chastening really is. Chasing is instructions. That's what the book of Proverbs says. That's what it is. But when a person doesn't listen, then it's time to get their attention. My parents knew how to do that. And you know somebody else? God knows how to do that too. He knows how to get our attention. Have you ever just floated along in a craziness land somewhere with your mind just blown away, you're thinking about something else stupid, and you don't even realize that what you're doing is wrong until finally you wake up when your daddy is whipping you? And you say, oh, I could have avoided the whipping if I would have listened to what Daddy was saying. God does us the same way. He instructs us, He wants us to learn what He's saying to us, but if we don't listen, He will take the belt out to us. He will do that. because that gets our attention. God has a way of taking care of all that. You see in verse 7, For if ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as his sons. For what son is he whom his father chasteth not? If ye be without chastisement, If you don't have any instructions at all from God, if you have none at all, then are you bastards and not sons. When your dad gets on to you, he wants you to listen. When I was a boy at home, that's the way it was. I'd rather my mother get on to me because she was always a little bit soft hearted. I could tell it. But I dreaded when daddy got on to me. But I remember some times that I won't get into right now. But when daddy got on to me, and it broke my heart, you know why it broke my heart? is because I disappointed my dad. That's when he instructed me. That's when he taught me and hurt me that I had done wrong. But God does us the same way. He instructs us But when we don't listen, then He has to take and do other things to us, to get our attention one way or the other. In verse number nine, He said, Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Yes, reverence is respect. Fathers of our flesh, When your dad corrected you, you gave him reverence, you respected him. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live? So when your father corrected you, earthly father corrected you and you respected them, respect God because He loves you. and he has died on the cross of Calvary for your sins, and he don't want you to sin anymore. He wants you to be right and true before him. In verse number 10, for they have verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. They made us mine because they wanted to show us off. as being a right individual. They wanted all their neighbors to see that they had a good child. Right? They chastened us for a few days after their own pleasure, but He for our profit. See that? It's different. an earthly dad chastens us for their own pleasure. But God doesn't do that. But he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness. And so what God has on his mind is not like an earthly dad chastens us. What God has on his mind is that he wants us to be like him. It's different. In verse number 11, now no tasting for the present seemeth to be joyous. That's the truth. But grievous, that's the truth. Nobody that I know likes a whipping. Nobody in their right mind likes a whipping. No tasting for the present seemeth to be joyous. but grievous, nevertheless afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. And so when we have chastisement, whatever our parents get on to us, it's not a happy thing. It's not happy at all. But when that's done, then we have a great peace and a great gentleness about it all. And that's what it's talking about in Proverbs chapter one and verse number two. Let's read Proverbs one and verse number two again. The Bible is here to know wisdom and instruction. That's what we need to learn. to know what God is doing. He's given to us His book of Proverbs. He wants us to understand and learn that His wisdom is the greatest there is. He wants us to understand His chastisement. It comes in two forms. One is when he simply instructs us, when he sets us down and he talks to us and he tells us. But the second is after we have not listened to his instructions, then he will do something to get our attention. It's a very serious matter. God will get your attention one way or the other. Either you will listen to what he's telling you or he will get your attention another way. He will show you one way or the other that you need to listen to what he's saying. I could give you some examples in my own life about how that God, when I didn't listen to him, got my attention another way. But I won't bore you with all that. There are examples that I have that I remember right now. But you have your own examples. Point number two, and we will get into this in just a little bit. Here is what God wants us to understand. In verse number two of Proverbs chapter one, he says, First of all, we need to know wisdom. That's what God wants us to understand. He wants us to pay attention. Then he uses the word perceive. To perceive the words of understanding. To perceive the words of understanding. That's point number two. The word perceive means you understand. How many times have, I'm talking to children right now, but how many times has you as a child, have you heard your parents say, do you understand what I'm saying? Have you ever heard your parents say that? Yeah. You know why they're saying that? They want to make sure that you get it. God does the same thing unto us. He wants us to understand the spiritual truths that He's teaching us. He wants us to understand and know what He's saying. There is more than just understanding the words that Jesus Christ is uttering. It's more than that. But it includes the reasoning behind the meaning. That's what he wants us to get, that's what he wants us to understand. Another way of saying this is understanding why Jesus Christ is saying what he's saying to you. What Christ is wanting to do. When he uses this term, perceive the words of understanding. He wants to draw you into thinking the way he thinks. That's what he wants you to do. He wants to instruct you, to teach you. This is how your mind is changed from being thoughtless, ignorant, fleshly person into being a spiritually minded person. You need to think as God thinks, not the way you think. There is a difference in the two. I know oftentimes we often think that what I think is right, but what I think is may not be what God is thinking. And all of us will be judged at the Great White Throne at the at the justices of Christ that are saved will be judged there. And God is going to judge us according to the way we lived, that we might always do what he wants us to do and never be true to that. You see, it's whenever we begin to see that our thinking is not right. When we begin to think that our thinking, our reasoning was not normal, it was not correct, that we begin to really see that God is right and God's way of thinking is the way He wants us to live. His way of doing things and reasoning things is the correct way. Be what God wants us to be, and be right and true before Him. Because of our time, we're going to stop right there. But we'll take up this tonight, the Lord willing. I intended to get a little further along than this today, but I didn't, so we'll going with it tonight. We'll start in Proverbs 2, Proverbs chapter 1 and verse number 2 tonight, and talk more about this perceiving the words of understanding and see what that really means. See that? When you see that phrase, to perceive the words of understanding, that means that we're getting lined up with what God thinks. We're seeing things the way God sees it. That is very important that we might do it just like that. Okay? If you're here today and you're lost, we've not preached exactly to the lost. We preached about how that our minds ought to be changed and how they ought to be. We pray that you might understand the things we've said that might be true to you. If you're lost, that you might understand that God has the best wisdom in the world. He has the best. And you might think, I'm doing all right the way I am. Until the day you die, you might think that. But just about two seconds after you die, when you're in hell, it'll be too late. It'll be too late to change anything. Because your eternity is inset. Today is a day when you need to wake up. When you hear what God is saying to you, and listen to what God is saying. If you're lost, you need to be saved. You need to be eternally redeemed by His own grace. You can't do that. It's what God does for you. It's His gift unto you. He gave His life on the cross of Calvary that you might have eternal life. He died that you might live. The only way you can ever be saved is when you recognize before God that you need to start thinking the way He's thinking. You need to be the way He wants you to be. You need to be right and true before Him. He will forgive you. He will. That's His promise to you. He will forgive you. All He wants you to do is to admit before God that you're lost. Would you just tell God you're lost? You can't save yourself. He can save your soul. He can make a new person out of you. We'll go to the Lord in a word of prayer if you would. Our precious Father, I thank you, Lord, for the day. I pray, Lord, that you might accept our thanks, Lord, for the way you've dealt with this message. Lord, I pray, Lord, that you might use whatever needs to be used, that you might convince sinners that they need to come to you. I pray, Lord, that you might just forgive us for our sins, watch over us. Lord, keep us close to you. For it's in Jesus' name that I pray, amen. Our brother, if you'd come please, we'll sing this song.