Alright, we're going to start today, and I ask you to read Proverbs 1-9, but we're not obviously going to get that far. My intention in dealing with this subject is to encourage us all to be students of the Word of God, but also to begin to show us how to be students of the Word of God. as Heather has shared with us, wisdom and knowledge, as she said here, go hand in hand. She said we see that couple throughout the scripture, and that is exactly right. So the idea then is that if we have knowledge, will we automatically be wise? Or can we be wise without knowledge? And that's something we're going to explore today. And there's no greater book than the book of Proverbs that most of the Proverbs are attributed to the wisest man, Solomon. So we look here. in Proverbs chapter 1 and what we're going to do is kind of hit the highlights in 1 through 9. We won't cover everything. We certainly won't answer every question, but I want to encourage you to study on your own, to study these things that we're going to mention. And on your handout, what I tried to do was kind of just go in order with my notes so that You can take notes, go back and refer to them, things that we don't have time to cover, you can look them up in your private study. And I'll warn you, I do not know Hebrew, so whatever I quote to you, don't take it to the bank that that's how it's pronounced. So that's my caveat. I'm going to pronounce it like it's pronounced in Georgia. Alright, when we start out with the book of Proverbs, when we start out to study anything, and let me just say this before we get started. When I first became a Christian, when the Lord first saved me, I had not been brought up in a Christian home. And the Lord saved me and I was going to leave a state college and go to a Christian college, I didn't even have a Bible, really. And I remember when I first became a Christian, before I left to go to a Christian college, my mother had given me her S&H Green Stamps. And that was the first Bible I had. It had nothing in it. I thought it was great because it had maps in it. And I was as clueless about it as I could have read it upside down either way. It didn't make any difference which way I looked at it. And I remember going away to Bible college. getting in New Testament survey class and he began to lay out these things and of course they were dissensational which we're not but I didn't know one thing from another but he had all his charts up there and I remember thinking I will never know all that stuff I will never learn all of that I was so overwhelmed as a young adult I was clueless about the Word of God And I remember then, after I got married, we had less money than I had before I got married, which was zero. And I didn't have all the books that we have now. We didn't own those books. My husband had a Strong's Concordance, and he had an extra Bible that he loaned to me that had study helps in it. what cross references and I remember reading as Heather just did James 1 5 I remember reading there and wondering what in the world all those words meant and I have notes in this Bible I have now I didn't get until my last child was born and I have Greek written in the margins I didn't know Greek but I wanted to know what a word really meant when I found out that the New Testament was written in Greek And so I would go to Strong's Concordance. And then we eventually were able to get an inner linear. You remember when we studied faith, I told you to get your inner linear. And I would pick out those words and go, I didn't have anything else. But I had a question. And that's what makes a good student. So when you read your Bible don't just take for granted the words that are on the page because as we saw this morning in the message the root words of another language can have multiple different meanings that give those nuances to the verse that our English doesn't deal with. And I think one of the greatest chapters that caught my attention, that piqued my curiosity early on as a young Christian, was there in John, when the Lord said to Peter, Lovest thou me? And we're going to deal with that, God willing. But he kept saying, Lovest thou me? Lovest thou me? But if you read it in the Greek, it's agapeo and phileo. Those are different meanings. Why would the Lord do that? But it makes it richer. Yes, you can be in love with the Lord. You can follow the Lord. You can come to Christ and only have this Bible. But how much richer if you have the opportunity to study it deeper that you might straightly cut it, as Paul said to Timothy. So I encourage you by this study to dig. And study is work. It's work to study, it's work to dig it out, and it's self-discipline. If I don't have a paper due, my thought is, why should I write one? Right? I mean, Diane and I don't want to do papers if we don't have to. But if you're going to study the Word of God, it's going to require diligence and hard work. and digging it out and finding out what those real nuances are. How much richer is the Word of God when you know what it was saying in the original text. And so dig. We have all kinds of study helps now. We can get all kinds of things online that we weren't able to get in times past. You all have reference Bibles. They're all tied to Strong's and Strong's is online. They're tied to other things that are online. So it's very easy to get those helps, even if you don't, if you can't read the languages, you can still get those helps. So I encourage you. And so that's how we're going to kind of approach this topic here, the Lady Wisdom. In the book of Proverbs, we find that the first nine chapters of Proverbs deal over and over again with wisdom and folly. And there are a lot of terms, as Heather brought to our attention again, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, folly. What are all these words? What do they mean? What is a proverb? So we look here at first at defining a proverb. What is a proverb in the Hebrew mind? Well the word there in Hebrew is a short pithy saying. It is defined as a skill for living by making a choice. So what Solomon was writing here was a statement of wisdom to give us a skill for living. Now, the proverbs, as we're going to see, are always in the context of making a choice, a contrast. They're actually what we call antithetical parallelisms. A parallelism or a parallel construction, if you've ever taught literature or you've had English lit, it's a balance when you put a phrase and balance it against this phrase or a clause or a sentence. This thought and this thought go together. They're parallel. But an antithetical parallelism, as he is opposed to or against, This part is different from this part. It's completely opposite. It's antithetical to this part. So the Proverbs in are what my professor called adversative verse sets. The whole verse can be divided into two verse sets that are adverse to one another. The statements of opposition. And they're joined together by the conjunction but. And a good example is Proverbs 10.1. The first verse said, A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. So we see here that as we open the book in the first chapter, Solomon has said these are the proverbs, and he identifies himself, of Solomon the son of David, the king of Israel. to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity, to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion, a wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels. to understand the proverb and the interpretation the words of the wise and their dark sayings so what Solomon is saying here is basically it doesn't do you any good to read it you need to know the interpretation and we think about our Lord he taught in parables but the parables he explained to his disciples So what we want to do is look at the book of Proverbs, not just read through it, but understand it, interpret it, understand the interpretation and then be able to apply it. We see then if we read on, he said in verse 7 of chapter 1, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother. So he tells us the purpose of this. The purpose is he's a father instructing his son. You could say, in the strictest sense of the word, that this book of Proverbs is a catechism of parental instruction. And it's full of practical and instructional wisdom. Now, I'm going to give you a question to ponder. This is page one of my notes. Maybe we'll get to talk about it by the end of the class. But it's food for thought. If you think about 1 Kings, David died and we studied David the last time and Bathsheba David died and he left Solomon the son of Bathsheba as king and Solomon prayed as a young king probably in his 20s for wisdom But then Solomon's son Rehoboam was a fool Now how do you reconcile that? that's a question to ponder Solomon prayed for wisdom he was considered in all that whole world at that time he was considered the wisest man but he had a son who was a fool and Rehoboam was the instrument by which the kingdom was divided Now this book is laid out as a warning. It's a warning concerning the enticement of sinners. And we see here that he says, Hear my son, in verse 8, hear the instruction. Now that idea of the word hear is not like you're hearing me right now. But the Hebrew understanding of the word hear is to obey it. Hear the word of the Lord. Obey it. Hear your father's instruction. Do not forsake your mother's teaching. And this opposes the reinforcement of the mother and the father. It's very difficult to have a home in which parents are opposed in their ideology. believer and one is an unbeliever and you can see those of you who grapple with this you can see the admonition of Paul in the New Testament to be not unequally yoked but when you come to Christ late when you when you're as an adult the Lord saves one of in a covenant and not in the other in a then it's very difficult for the children to see that joint effort of both a mother and a father giving this wise counsel. We see in an overview of chapters 1-9 there's a focus on wisdom and a forsaking, a counsel to forsake folly. A warning and an instruction concerning the two types or groups of people who might entice his son to follow and deflect him from the way of wisdom to the way of folly. The way of wisdom is life. We see all through the book, the way of folly is death. That's what he's putting out for his son. Pay attention, he's saying, hear my instruction. Now we see here in chapter 1, a list of twos. Why should we read this book? And Solomon is saying, to know wisdom and instruction, to know to discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction in wise behavior and righteousness and justice and equity, to give prudence to the naive. What's prudence? Prudence is to be able to have foresight. That's a part of leadership, to see a problem and to see its remedy. But to be naive is to be simple-minded. It's also to give knowledge and discretion to the youth. A wise man, not a fool, but a wise man will hear and increase his learning. A man of understanding will require wise counsel and deeper understanding. He's never satisfied. He wants to go on deeper. To understand a proverb is like to understand a brain teaser. Figure this out. Know the interpretation, Solomon said. And then to understand the words of other wise men and their riddles. And Heather brought out that the Greek word there for wisdom is Sophia. And a philosopher, phileo-sophia, two Greek words, to love, wisdom. And there have been men of all ages who loved wisdom, but they didn't have the wisdom of God. They had earthly wisdom, but they pursued after it. They saw the importance of it. That was what we're wanting to do here is to hear the words of the wise, but not the Greek wise, the Greek philosophers, Socrates and Plato, but the wise of the scriptures, the word of God, the living word. There are no graduates from the school of wisdom. One's never going to be finished learning. There's never a time when you're never going to need counsel. But a wise person will hear instructions. The study of the scriptures over a lifetime will cause us to see... Now this is interesting. This is an idea that my professor brought out and it is interesting because I thought about it myself. When I was a young Christian, I saw the Word of God and I made application in my understanding of it at that point in my life. But I'm older now and I look at the same scripture And it applies to me in a different way, in a new light. I see it, it has an application and I see it in a different way. And that is that growth and that wisdom and all of us, all of us will do that as we grow in grace, as we're sanctified. We'll contextualize the scripture differently because of our life experiences. Matthew Henry said that even wise men must hear and not think themselves too wise to learn. A wise man is sensible of his own defects. As long as we live we should strive to increase in all useful learning. And so if we had to give a crux, the backbone of this book, The whole reason why this book is important, the claim that Solomon is making, we see it in Proverbs 1.7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But, you see that verse there at 1? But, fools despise wisdom and instruction. Now let's very quickly go through our word study here. Let's take the words that Solomon is using and find out what they are. What root words are there? The word for Proverbs comes from Mashal. And it is, as I said, a short, pithy saying. It's a comparison of two things or two opinions. But this is interesting. Of all these words here that we're going to study today, it's the only masculine noun. Wisdom, the reason we've titled this Lady Wisdom, Wisdom comes from the Hebrew word Chokmah, or that's how I think we're going to call it. Chokmah or Chokmah, you have that on your study guide. It's feminine. It's defined as the skill of an artifice, one who works with his hands, understanding how to put things together, comprehension. It also goes on that same route, piety towards God, and a greater and more eminent sense of God. It's personified as she, and interestingly, Sophia is also feminine in Greek. So the word for wisdom in Hebrew and Greek is feminine. And always is personified as a woman. It's personified here in Hebrew in Solomon's writing as she. The Greeks personified wisdom as a woman. You'll find that they had statues and so forth and it was women that personified that idea of wisdom. Alright, what about understanding? We're supposed to get knowledge, to get understanding, to get wisdom. Understanding comes from a word, there are two words for understanding and I take that back. Tabron is used some and it's a masculine noun. But the one that we look at is bina. and it's a feminine noun, and it's defined as understanding, discernment, and skill. Now the other one, Tyrone, is used in Proverbs 2-3, and it's defined as understanding or insight. It also comes from the verb form bene, which means to separate, to observe, to mark, to give heed to, to distinguish, or to consider. to distinguish from the unreal, real from the unreal, true from the false. And there we see that again, that verset, wisdom but folly. It's also translated in Proverbs 2.3 as knowledge. Well, knowledge, the word knowledge, It can be both masculine and feminine if you use da'af which is defined as knowledge, perception, or skill. But also we have yadaa, the verb, to know, to learn, but it's also to discriminate. There's our understanding. To distinguish, to discriminate. How do you know the difference between foolishness and wisdom? Discretion. Mesomot is a feminine noun. It's also rendered counsel or prudence. And what about folly? Well, folly is verath, and that is a feminine noun. Foolishness. The preeminent power. A fountain of foolish actions. Now when we look at these words, we can go back as we read these texts and if you have a Hebrew interlinear you could read through there if you have to the internet you can also go on and do a Strongs online or any help online it will give you the numbers on the words that correspond to the root in that Hebrew so you can go and check these definitions but for the most part these are the ones that are used all through Proverbs 1 through 9. What I wanted to do also is I wanted to Take a look here. I wanted to give you some quotes from some men, but I'm going to hold off. I think I'm going to skip on down in your notes there to just looking at the highlights of Proverbs 1 through 9 very quickly. And then if we have time, we'll come back and get some of these quotes. I want to encourage you to read commentators. Read them. Read the Puritans. They had great insight. There was a time period there after the Reformation that he poured out his spirit of knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures. Read it. Understand it. But don't forsake the Word of God. Those of you whose husbands are preachers and you may be called on in the ministry, you need to know your Bible. Don't use a commentary in place of your Bible. You need to be familiar with your Bible. You need to be able to shut your Bible and walk away and talk about it for an hour or more and never look at it, quote, quote, quote, quote. And you say, well, I can't do that. Then you need to read it. Front to back, cover to cover, all the time, over and over again. It must be that familiar. I told you about visiting with Dr. Edamier some years ago. She had macular degeneration and she didn't read her Bible. It was difficult because the magnifying thing that she used would magnify. It was very difficult for her to read it. So before she had lost her eyesight she committed just volume, lots of verses, whole sections, chapters. And when we discussed the days that I spent with her, when we were talking back and forth, she wouldn't let me open my Bible. She would make me quote what I was talking about. And the wonderful thing was, I was telling John, she would sit there and her eyes would be back in her head because she couldn't focus very well, but she would be doing her finger like she was scrolling down a page. Because she could remember, when she could see her Bible, what page it was on, where she saw it. And you need to get that familiar with your Bible. You might forget the reference, but you know the verse. When I'm in the jail, many times I don't have time to look up verses. I'm limited. I just quote them. And that's what you need to do. You need to be able to take in your mind, and you need to go from Genesis to Revelation in chronological order, and you need to be able to go through there. If you were called upon, could you teach it from Genesis to Revelation? Maybe not exhaustively, obviously, but could you do it? What's the importance of it? It's a book that's joined together. It's not disjointed. It speaks of Christ from the beginning to the end. And you need to be able to tell about Christ from the beginning to the end. So get familiar with it. What Solomon is saying here in Proverbs 1 and 2, let's just group these two chapters together because obviously the chapter divisions weren't in Solomon's writing. He's warning his son about two particular groups of people who can deflect him from the way of wisdom to folly. First he said group one are the young men who call on him to cast in their lot with him to disregard justice and judgment. And the second group he names as one person, the adulterous woman. He says that there's two general rules to be observed in these two chapters and Matthew Henry convinced it. Fear God and honor your parents. If we fear God, Mr. Henry said, then this is the most necessary and useful knowledge. We're not qualified, he said, to profit by the instructions that are given to us unless our minds be possessed with the holy reverence of God, and every thought within us be brought into obedience. And if any man will do this, then he shall know his doctrine." John 7, 17. Solomon told his son, if sinners entice, they do not consent. These sinners entice the son to robbery and violence, to deprive someone of their property. That goes against biblical morality. It's like taking someone's life to deprive them of their property. And in verse 16 of chapter 1, we see that parental pleading. In verse 2, we see that parental pleading. Don't do this. Don't do this. In verse 20, let me see here in chapter 1. Wisdom crieth out. Here we come back into wisdom. Wisdom crieth out. She uttereth her voice in the streets. She crieth in the chief place of concourse. Solomon is breaking in here. Here's what these bad men will do. But look where wisdom is. She's crying in the street. The commentators that I consulted agree that the word here is feminine, but it's plural. Wisdoms. Wisdoms. And Matthew Poole considered it He said, to understand the wisdom or counsel of God revealed to the sons of men by his word, either to note the excellency of this wisdom beyond all other, or because it consists of a multitude of wise precepts, or because it has been delivered at different times and different manners by different persons and prophets, And then, by the Son of God, who is the wisdom? So, in this particular case, Solomon is using the plural of wisdom, as Mr. Poole said, possibly to refer back to all the ways in which God has given us his wisdom. Dr. Henry said that there is an infinite wisdom of God in God, but there is a manifold wisdom of God. Ephesians 3.10. He gave us two aspects of wisdom, the human understanding that we have by the light and law of nature, the faculty of our reason and our conscience. But then we have divine revelation by the written word, the law of Moses and Christ himself. So we see here that idea of wisdom in the plural, for in him, Colossians 2.3 said, are hidden all the treasures. of wisdom and knowledge. Dr. Drew says the person instructing throughout this whole book of Proverbs is the Lord Jesus Christ, who may be called wisdoms in the plural number because of the consummate and perfect wisdom that is in him. And then we see in verses 20 to 23, and then again in 33, wisdom is pleading. She's saying, listen to me, live securely and be at ease in the midst of evil. And this is the wisdom that's given from the Lord. It's both natural and spiritual. It's an understanding that the only way of salvation is Christ. But then we see if it's rejected and refused, if you choose a path of folly, then you will have calamity. And wisdom will be vindicated. As we see here at the end of the chapter. Now, for your outline there, we won't have time to go through it, but chapters 2, 5, and 7 Solomon brings in the adulterous woman and he is more specific in dealing with the sin that could befall or the choice that a young man makes. He says that righteousness and justice are not always manifest. He said in chapter 2 verses 4 and 5 and 11 and 12 If you seek after wisdom, then you'll understand the fear of the Lord. For the Lord giveth wisdom, he said. Out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. It's not always manifest. What's the right thing to do? It's not always clear. Sometimes the right answer seems to be contrary to what we think intuitively. But don't we pray in the Lord's Prayer, deliver us from evil? But then the promise of wisdom is that if we'll seek after it, we'll be able to decide what's right, and then we'll be able to do it. Then thou shalt understand righteousness and judgment. We see in verse 9. This is the fruit of the gospel, Dr. Gill said, that besides the knowledge of God and how to behave with reverence towards him, it leads men into a notion of doing that which is right and just. This is not a worldly wisdom. Verses 10-11 of chapter 2. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant to thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee. This is a wisdom that is not worldly wisdom. It's real piety. And it keeps us from the snares of the world and prepares us for the world to come. But what if, what if, We shun wisdom. Then what? We see here that Solomon warns his son of the immoral woman. Some commentators spiritualize this adulterous woman to be false doctrine, idolatry, and everything that is contrary to true wisdom. The interesting thing about an adulterous woman in the Hebrew context is that they were usually married women. They were covenant breakers. And it's interesting here too, and we'll close here with this, but I want to leave you with this. It says in verse 16 of chapter 2. Well, let's just go back and look at. First, let's start with verse. 16 To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words, which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. 17 And her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go into her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. It's interesting here, isn't it? It doesn't say she's beautiful. It doesn't say that she entices him with money. It says she flatters with her words. She seduces by her words. Now, can you think of an antithetical parallelism there? So is Christ. The Word of God. If we run after, if we do spiritualize the adulterous woman, and she is idolatry, then we're brought away by her slaughtering words. But, here's the other part. Wisdom focuses on the word of God that preserves us from the words of the adulterer. If you remember in Genesis 2 and 3, what was it that seduced Eve? The words of Satan. He had a conversation with her. And then it tells us that none go away from her. They go down to the grave. It's the way of death. What does Romans tell us? For the wages of sin is death. So the wicked who forsake wisdom will be uprooted out of the earth. But we were told in 10 and 11 of this chapter that wisdom will preserve us and keep us and give us understanding. And then if we look at wisdom, she keeps us Verse 20-22, that thou mayest walk in the way of good men, if we follow wisdom, and keep the path of the righteous. For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect remain in it. Wisdom is our sister. If we look at Proverbs 7, 4-5, we won't have time to do that today. She's our sister, as opposed to the harlot of chapter 2. And just as a way of a good stopping place, let me give you Proverbs 3, just a few notes on that and then we'll stop for today. That's a good stopping place and I hope that it will help you to go ahead and study on through to chapter 9. In Proverbs chapter 3, we've all memorized these verses. But Solomon to start out said, My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments for length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck. Write them upon the table of thine heart. Soon shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Now as I keep reading, I want you to see if you see a theme here. I want you to begin to root this out, and I'm going to give you a hint. In chapter 2, the adulterous woman took a swear to the grave and death. Now, let's see what about chapter 3. This is the antithetical. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes. Fear the Lord, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. There's an opposite of death. Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. And we're going to find out if you read 5 and 7, 2, 5 and 7 talks about the adulterous woman. You'll find out that she takes all your substance, the men who go into her. But look what we get if we go with wisdom. Verse 11, My son despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction for whom the Lord loveth. He correcteth even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is every one that retaineth her. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath he established the heavens. Do not forget my teaching, Solomon said. Do not forget. The opposite of do not forget is forgetting. What's another word for do not forget? Remember! And in the Hebrew mind, remember means to obey. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. It doesn't say, remember, oh that's the first day of the week. It means to obey, keeping the Sabbath. To forget then is to walk in the pattern of deliberate disobedience. So to forget the law of God is not a mental lapse, it's a moral lapse. But look at what wisdom gives us. Her way is pleasant, her paths are peace, and she has a tree of life. In verse 24, When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid, yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken. You remember what David said in Psalm 48, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep. For thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. Wisdom makes us lie down and sleep with a sweet peace and an undefiled conscience. We're not afraid of unexpected wickedness. It will come, but we don't have to fear it. Because wisdom is the fear of God, not of evil. And then he says in verse 35, well, let's go back and do 34. That's our antithesis. Surely he scorneth the scorners and giveth grace unto the lowly. The Lord does this. The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the promotion of fools. Wisdom is the principal thing. The conclusion of the whole matter. The wise shall inherit the proper award or reward and the rejection of wisdom will be shown to be without question folly. Now, let me show you one thing as we close this chapter. We want to answer the question, who is wisdom? It's Christ. How do we know? Solomon is showing us here in this chapter. She is a tree of life. A tree of life. Who was a tree of life? The Garden of Eden. And we will have a tree of life again, won't we? Revelation. Christ is the tree of life. So the way of the harlot is death. The wages of sin is death. But the way of wisdom is eternal life. So who is eternal life? Christ. Christ is wisdom. He's all the wisdom. And you look here, Heather's got verses here as well. They're in Colossians 2, 3 and so forth. Wisdom is the principle thing. Therefore, Get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding. True wisdom consists in the knowledge and love of God, Matthew Henry said, and an entire conformity to all the intentions of his truth, providences, and laws. And that's what we seek after. Is that not seeking Christ? Christ is our wisdom. Well, God willing, the next time we'll take up, but as you have time, go back and study 1 through 3 and do some cross-referencing there with those various words. But the one thing, let me leave you with just a couple of these and then we'll pick back up and do a couple more of these Puritan quotes. Richard Sibbes said, in the works of Richard Sibbes, wherever true wisdom and judgment is, there Christ has set up his government. Because where wisdom is, it directs us not only to understand, but to order our ways, our rights. Richard Charnock in The Existence and Attributes of God, Wisdom consists in willing and acting according to the right reason, according to a right judgment of things. We can never count a willful man a wise man. Knowledge is an understanding of the general rules and wisdom is a drawing of conclusions from those rules in order to particular cases. A man may have the knowledge of the whole scripture and have all learning in the treasure of his memory and yet be destitute of the skill to make use of them upon particular occasions by a ready application of those rules. Knowledge is the foundation of wisdom and the antecedent to it. Wisdom is the superstructure upon knowledge. Men may have knowledge without wisdom, but not wisdom without knowledge. Knowledge is the apprehension of a thing, and wisdom is the appointing and ordering of things. And we will see then how that wisdom is Christ in creation and redemption. And I trust that I trust that I have heard in you questions that you'll go home and study, and God willing, we'll pick back up here and dig a little deeper as we go on through to Proverbs chapter 9 the next time, God willing.