Again, good to be with you. Sort of three topics, and we're on our third topic. The first one was joy. The second one was forgiveness. And the third one here is wise, and we'll look at the book of Proverbs. Hence, as we look at the Bible now, to encourage us to interact wisely with our spouses to be wise people and interact wisely with the spouses so that we have a happy spouse, which will be a happy house. And the book of Proverbs is a little less heavy, relatively speaking, to the other books of the Bible. And so we'll be looking at that. And we'll look at the book of Proverbs for guidance in our marriages. Two angles, the first one that we'll look at as we go through the book of Proverbs is to encourage us to think about being a wise person. As we'll see, God gives everybody wisdom, but we're encouraged to get more about it. We'll talk about what does wisdom mean, and then we'll look at a whole bunch, maybe about 20 separate little Proverbs and make a few comments about them. So first, I'll start with sort of an overview of the Book of Proverbs, since we'll be looking at so many. Proverbs, what we call in the scholarship one of the wisdom books. Other wisdom books might be Job, Ecclesiastes, some Psalms, Book of James a little bit. And if you look at the Book of Proverbs, it's 31 chapters. But if you were outlining, the first nine chapters are kind of a unit, which are longer poems with the whole point saying, try to be wise, be a wiser person. It's going to conclude in chapter nine. We'll look at chapter nine. So one through nine, the point is, hey, be a wiser person. Think about wisdom. It's a good thing to think about. Be a wiser person. Then chapter 10 through 31 is primarily all the little short what you think of as proverbs, and there's a few longer proverbs at the end in the famous ending with the proverb of the woman in chapter 31. So 1 through 9, The point is, you are to care about being a wise person, longer poems, then 10 through 31, a whole bunch of examples of which most of them are short little proverbs and a few longer ones at the end. Now, in the one through nine get you to be a wiser person, many places it uses personification, this word you've memorized in eighth grade, in eighth grade literature, where you take an object and you make it like a person, personification. And here it's sort of backwards personification, because it takes people and it makes them like concepts. So there's these two concepts, wisdom, that's good, folly, That's bad. And it makes them like humans. So the wisdom is a proper wonderful woman. Folly is an improper prostitute woman. So you have these two personified characters in more or less in the first nine chapters. And of course, you're supposed to follow lady wisdom and not follow lady Folly is the part. So let's look at chapter 9 the final kind of gets you to be hey thinking about a wise person and Chapter 9 is nicely. It's 18 verses long and it's split up into three sections each being six And I'll read them in a second. The first six is lady wisdom and she's saying come over to my house Come over to my house The final six verses of chapter 9 is Lady Folly. And she's saying, no, no, come over to my house. Don't go to Lady Wisdom's house. And then the middle six verses, he'll sort of have a point. You'll see when we read it. OK. The written word of God, Proverbs 9. I'll read all 18 verses. But again, we're splitting them up into six sections. Verse 1. Wisdom, and that's lady wisdom, has built her house. She has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her beasts. She has mixed her wine. She has set her table. She has sent out to her young women to call from the highest places in the town, whoever is simple, let him turn in here, meaning to her house. To him who lacks sense, she says, come, eat my bread. Drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and live, and walk in the way of insight. Okay, now he comes out of the personification and he has this middle section of six verses. Verse seven, whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse. He who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer or he'll hate you. And now here's a key verse. Reprove or correct a wise man and he'll love you. Get instruction to a wise man and he'll be wiser still. Teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning. And then verse 10, kind of the dead center. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And knowledge of the Holy One is insight. For by me, your days will be multiplied, your years will be added to your life. If you are wise, you are wise for yourself. If you scoff, you alone will bear it. And now the final six verses, which is Lady Folly. The woman Folly is loud. She is seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house. She takes a seat in the highest places of town. She calls to those who pass by, who are going straight on the way, whoever is simple, let him turn in here. And to him who lacks sense, she says, stolen water is sweet. Bread eaten in secret is pleasant, but he does not know that the dead are there in her house and her guests are in the depths of Sheol. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, teach us from the book of Proverbs and have us apply it to our marriages. I pray this in Christ's name, amen. Look at verse 10. 10 is kind of the dead center of the first nine chapters. The fear of Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is insight. So the whole book of Proverbs, at its sort of core, is saying that one needs to know Christ to have any sense of true wisdom. And if you go back to the beginning of Proverbs chapter 1, a very similar verse, 1-7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. And so there's many places in the Bible, the book of Job does this too, that the beginning of wisdom is to know the Lord. So from a biblical perspective, to be wise in the biblical use of the term, one must be a believer. One must be a Christian. to have true wisdom, knowing about Christ and about his salvation. That's sort of the starting point. But what else is wisdom? Wisdom's a lot more than that. Wisdom starts with God, but as Proverbs will show, and elsewhere in the Bible, it has many, many, many aspects. In fact, if you read through these Proverbs, you'll find wisdom is things like craftsmanship, general knowledge, Sometimes it's not sinning is a type of wisdom. Being able to read people is called wisdom. What we call common sense is sometimes called wisdom. Controlling your tongue, your abilities in training children. Not being lazy is called wisdom, a whole bunch of sluggard passages, et cetera, et cetera. Sometimes wisdom in the Bible and in Proverbs is the difference between sinning and not sinning, gossiping. versus not gossiping. So that's sin versus not sin. But other times in the Bible, wisdom isn't the difference between sinning and not sinning, it's just abilities some humans have been given. The craftsmen to make, in Exodus 31, the craftsmen to make aspects of the temple were given a special wisdom. So if you're not good at craftsmanship, it's not like you're sinning, just some people had more wisdom in that. So sometimes wisdom is sinning versus not sinning, other times it's just certain abilities some of us have and others don't have those abilities, like musical abilities and so forth and so on. One way to look at wisdom is interacting with all of God's world. It's centered on the person and work of Christ, but it's interacting with all of God's world and looking through kind of a God perspective everything. And many times, and John Calvin in the 1500s used the analogy of eyeglasses, that you look out at the world, it can be confusing, you put on your eyeglasses, which like understanding of the Bible, and it comes into a clearer picture. You understand the world better. Now I kind of have the analogy of of say a hunk of jewel that we got out of the ground and it's not cut and perfected yet. You put this jewel sitting on a pedestal. If you're a believer, you have the pedestal and you've been given the jewel of wisdom. But everybody has sort of our jewel, it's kind of a hunk, it's not, but some of us, some spots on that jewel, we've polished up and we've put in some facets on it. So different people have different facets on their hunk of jewel. Some of us have more abilities, some of us just sin less than the next guy. So we all have wisdom, we all have a hunk of jewel, but it's a different kind of jewel for each person. The book of proverbs wants you to add facets to the jewel that you have been given Now non-christians at some surface level can have what we call wisdom. They can have know something about craftsmanship but as the bible uses the word, you know if Somebody's working with wood or something. He doesn't ultimate a non-christian doesn't ultimately know who made the wood the ultimate Motivations for loving God and loving neighbor so non-christians could have surface level of wisdom. Okay, we understand that and that could be very useful But in the Bible sense it wants you to have to have a deeper sense of wisdom. It's got to be connected to God, okay enough sort of a theology of wisdom. Back to our text 7 through 9, and here again the center was verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but 7 through 9 he gives one example, one little facet on the jewel. Again, the book of Proverbs is going to have a whole zillion of them, but this one in this big chapter 9, sort of the go get them tiger, be wise chapter, He has one example of what a wise person should be. Again, rereading, and it's going to be the second half of verse 8 that's sort of the key one to hold on to. Verse 7 and the first half of 8 give a negative. Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse. Whoever reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you. So in other words, correcting someone that's not interested in wisdom is a waste of time. Okay, that's seven in the first half eight. Now he changes over to second half of eight and nine. Second half of eight, reprove or correct a wise man or wise woman, and he, the person corrected, he will love you. A wise person likes to be corrected. He will love you. Then verse nine, give instruction to a wise man, he'll be wiser still. Teach a righteous man, he'll increase in learning. A wise man wants to get wiser. So if you correct them, and it was true what you said, and they got wiser, they'll love you. Again, 8B, correct a wise man and he will love you. Assume you're at work. Or assume another scenario. Your sister-in-law calls you about the kids. Assume you're rebuked by your boss. Assume your sister-in-law tells you you're doing wrongly in how you're raising your children. Assume neither is a Christian. And maybe they're not exactly right. Maybe they have bad motives. But still a wise man or woman using this verse here, let's say maybe there's an element of truth. Couldn't you at least say that? Maybe there's an element of truth in what they're saying. At some level, accept criticism and metaphorically love them for criticizing. Oh, thank you for yelling at me about how I'm raising my kids. Now my own, as I said before, there were two verses that really affected me in Proverbs, and this is the number one verse here. I quote this to myself umpteen thousand times. Correct a wise man and he'll love you. You get corrected or given ideas of how to do things differently. Okay, I may be getting smarter. I may be increasing in learning, and that may, in my job of trying to help people in the school, I may be able to help people. I should love the person, even if they had a bad attitude, even if they had a wrong reason for correcting me. Sort of metaphorically speaking, love them. A part of my kind of mind runs always to advantages, disadvantages. A lot of the things we're doing at the seminary and sort of, especially in my, I'm the academic dean at the whole set, multiple campuses, and so I get a lot of requests and proposals and shouldn't we do this differently kind of thing. And most of them are not just outright sin, okay. So, you know, but there's advantages and disadvantages, you know, to many things in life. And so this is a nice polite way to say, okay. In the end, I may not agree with what you're saying, but I see there's some advantages, there's some disadvantages. It's a nice way to argue with your spouse. Oh, okay, yeah, I see what you're saying. There's some advantages to that, some disadvantages. View the rebuke that you got through a God perspective and maybe learn something. And if you did get wiser in the end, appreciate it. One way God had you to get wiser was to be rebuked. And again, it's one of these things that's logically obvious, it's just due to sin we don't like it. You think we want to get smarter, we want to get wiser. And when I say smarter, I don't mean in the sense of book learning, of course that's fine, but in the general how to interact in life as a Christian. Don't we want to be better at that? That's obvious. If one way to be better is to be rebuked, you think we'd like it, but we don't due to sin. We got to get past that a little bit. Rebuke a wise person and they'll love you. Now we'll see later, there's some Proverbs about talking too much and annoying people, but we're not there. We're on rebuke a wise man and he'll love you. Assume your spouse says to you, say you have small children or big children, and the one parent disciplines the child or makes some decisions or temporal consequences about the child, and then the other parent sort of overhears it and says, you know, you shouldn't have disciplined Johnny that way. OK. Depends on sort of how your spouse said it to you. Your spouse may be right. You know, receive the rebuke, advantages, disadvantages, but if you're going to get wiser in how you discipline your children, you don't love the person that rebuked you. It's just another way of saying be teachable. Are you teachable? And that makes sense in the Book of Proverbs. Why, of all the facets he could have chosen, did he choose one about being teachable? Because that's the point of the chapter is, hey, think about wisdom. Think about the world. interact with the world, be self-conscious about things, and make some good decisions. So, as it says there in verse 9, give instruction to a wise man and he'll be wiser still, or to use my analogy, adding more facets to your jewel. Now, back to chapter 9. Again, the first six verses, Lady Wisdom calling you, The last six verses, Lady Folly, if you contrast their two houses, Lady Wisdom does a whole bunch of things to prepare the food and works at it. Lady Folly just steals it, steals the food and gives it to you. So she's perceived as lazy. But the key thing is, if you look at 9, chapter 9, verse 4, And if you look at chapter 9, verse 16, verse 4 is Lady Wisdom talking, verse 16 is Lady Folly, and it's the exact same words. They both call out using the exact same words to the person going by in the street. And so 4 or 16, it doesn't matter. Both women say, whoever is simple, Let him turn in here, she says to him, who lacks sense. And the point the writer is making is, people that are foolish and not wise and scoffers at God, they don't say, I'm stupid, come into my house. They both say, hey, do the right thing in life, be smart in life, come over to my house. At some level, that's stating the obvious, especially a lot of, so many things, think of just watching TV, things that wouldn't be said on TV 25 years ago, you know, are just blatant, special sin kind of stuff, just blatant on TV. It's just saying, hey, this is the way to be, come over to my house. So, and the obvious answer is, you listen to Lady Wisdom, not to lady folly. And so again, the chapter is asking us, are we committed to trying to be wiser? For whatever reason, right now you have some kind of jewel with some facets on it. Are you committed to having more facets? Are you committed to acting more wisely with your spouse? Just committed to that. That's what chapter 9's saying. Be committed to acting more wisely. Now, let's turn to more specific proverbs. At first, let me give some tips for interpreting proverbs, and then we'll get into a whole bunch of them. Tips for interpreting individual proverbs. There was original readers. They were young men, as it happened to be, and I'll say a little bit about that later. And they understood that this was wisdom literature. This was proverbs. What are proverbs? They're general truths, generally true. There's many exceptions to things. They understood this. So the readers of proverbs and the writer of proverbs understood these are proverbs. It's a proverb. They're general truths, not absolutes. And in fact, if you look at the Greek and the Hebrew, The word proverb and the word parable and the word riddle are all the same word. It's just in English we have different words for this. So normally you think of proverb as a short thing. Stitch in time saves nine or something. And you think of parable as a longer thing Jesus said, correct? And that's good English, that's proper English. But realize the Bible writers are using the same word for short thing, long thing. And they're just kind of, you know, interesting sayings. A lot of times, two levels of saying is sort of what it means. You can have two levels of meaning in a short thing, two levels of meaning in a long thing. I mean, imagine, you know, Jesus is giving the Good Samaritan parable, and there's two guys in the back listening to the parable. And Jesus said, you know, And he's going through the parable, and the one guy says to the other guy, well, what's the good Samaritan's name? Well, what street was he on? And the other guy goes, it's a parable. What are you doing? And so it's like a proverb. You read these proverbs, it's a proverb. It's a generality. It's true in many situations. It's true as a proverb. And as I'll say, ask, how is this proverb generally true? And what can I learn from it? And I want to pound this away a little further here. If you will, turn to Proverbs, this is a very famous one, 26, four and five. And I'm pounding in that they're Proverbs. They're not truths that apply in every single situation. And this is a very famous one. So I'm at Proverbs 26, four and five. And you'll see, these are the exact opposites. So look at 26.4, answer not or do not answer a fool according to his folly. Don't answer a fool according to his folly. If he asks you a trick question, asks you this, he's just making a spectacle of himself, don't answer him. But look at the next verse, verse five. a fool according to his folly. Some situations you got to put him in his place, it's good publicly to shut him down, and you're supposed to figure out the situation as you read those two Proverbs. Oh, there's some situations I do answer him, there's some situations I don't answer him. And think of the New Testament, don't put your pearls before swine, but there's other situations. Answer truth in love, you know, so you have both kind of situations The point is the and that at the word level these are the exact opposite with the word, you know in English not Stuck in there another and let me give us one more examples of these are proverbs It has to do with prosperity There's many situations where it says you work hard, you get prosperity. But then there's other situations where you work hard and someone steals it. You don't get prosperity. It realizes both situations exist in life. And if we could just look at a few, say 16-8, if you want to run there, 16-8. And this is, okay, I'll read 16.8. Better is a little, and this is talking about material stuff, better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice. There it's realizing in some situations you can cheat, lie, and steal, and you will get more money. So it's admitting that. But other situations, 13.21, if you run over there, 13.21. Disaster or evil, something like that. Disaster pursues sinners, but the righteous are rewarded with good. And sometimes, you're an honest businessman, it works out in the long run for you, as opposed to... Okay, so point is, there are proverbs. I probably overdid this, but I want to get that across. Again, when we say we take the Bible literally, means we take it as the literature intended. And this is intended as Proverbs, just like Jesus is intended as parables. You know, he's not telling, usually, a historical story, Jesus when he gives a parable. You'll also notice in many of the Proverbs, there's parallelism. Sometimes it'll say, blah, blah, blah, A, and then it'll sort of repeat it. Blah, blah, blah, in a different way, but the same point, A. Or sometimes it'll have blah, blah, blah, A, and then it'll give a little more information on the second line. A and a little more. Or sometimes it'll say blah, blah, blah, good, A, and then it'll have the reverse, the negative. That's not like blah, blah, bad B, you know, so it'll be A but not B. So you'll see this parallelism is a kind of genre literature way that they wrote proverbs. And you'll notice that as we read through. Another thing you'll notice is that some proverbs are intentionally funny. You are supposed to laugh when you read them. Some are striking, which can be funny or not funny. So some of the proverbs are goofy on purpose. One helps you remember them better. So don't think it's wrong to chuckle when we read a few of these. Many times the themes are repeated. There's a whole bunch about your tongue, but they're not all one location. They're sort of sprinkled out. Sluggard comments are sprinkled out. So you'll notice there's sort of themes are just spread out through the Proverbs. Also, the book was written to young men or marrying age men, something like that. So therefore, he'll talk about mothers and fathers, because men have mothers and fathers and listen to your mother and father. But now when he's talking about getting a spouse, of course, the spouse is going to be a woman in this case. So you're going to find a lot of just wonderful, wonderful comments about women. And there'll be a few negative comments about women. Now, logically, those would all apply to men, except it's written to men who aren't looking for a husband. So they're looking. So don't be offended by that. There's lots of making fun of men in the book. It's just not your spouse of a man, just because it was written, happened to be, to men. So just to explain that. So when we read some that are making fun of women, there's going to be the balancing great statements, just some phenomenal statements about your wives. And we don't have any phenomenal statements about the husbands, just because, again, it was written to men who are looking for wives or already have a wife and how to interact with her. Again, as we go through a whole bunch of these, how is this proverb generally true? and what can I learn from it? How is this proverb true, and what can I learn from it? Okay, so we're just gonna run through a whole bunch of them and just make a few comments, and I'm gonna go in order, so to speak. So let's go to chapter one, verse eight. Again, this is part of this longer section, but there's some smaller proverbs. And just to get, so I'm just gonna run through here. 1.8, hear my son, your father's instruction and forsake not your mother's teaching. Again, the son, he has a father and a mother. And here reminding the young lad, reminding us that there is the fifth commandment, honor your parents. Interestingly, your mother and father here is about rebuking you, love them. A wise person, if you rebuke a wise person, he'll love you. Let's go to three, three and four. And there's several of these about loyalty. And a lot of times it centers on loyalty to God, then affects loyalty in many of your personal interactions. Loyalty to God then relates to loyalty in your interactions. So I'm at three and I'll read three and four. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Again, loyalty to God and then all the connections on a human level. Bind them, your loyalty, around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart so you'll find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. A wise person is a loyal, in the best sense of the word, person. loyal person that obviously relates to marriage a Loyalty in marriage whether you divorced or not. Okay, you now have that spouse keep that spouse Loyalty in marriage be loyal to your spouse loyal to your God and because of that be loyal in all aspects of life, but especially your spouse let's go over to 334 and And this one is a theme over and over in Proverbs and in the whole Bible, 334. Toward the scorners, this is God, toward the scorners, he is scornful, but to the humble, he gives favor or mercy. A wise person is a humble person. In fact, that verse is quoted in James and 1 Peter, word for word, the second half of it. God to the humble gives favor. I mean, how often in the Bible does it talk about humility? One, because you're a human and there's God. You're not God, let alone you're a sinful human and what Christ has done for you. And now Christ has changed you. You didn't change yourself, Christ changed you. Therefore, all of these things add up to Christians should be humble in the best sense of the word. So, and there's several passages about unity in the church, and it brings up humility, and it makes sense. You're gonna have more unity if you're less proud, humble. And again, it's hard to fake humble at home. By God's grace, you'll be better at it. Five, three, and four. And you can imagine for young men, there's several comments about adultery and prostitution traps. And I'll just read one here. Five, three, and four. For the lips of the forbidden woman drip with honey. Her speech is smoother than oil. But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Yes, it's true on the surface, the other woman may look better than your wife. She may sound better than your wife. You know, all these things at some surface level may initially be true. You know, so it's not denying that. But in the end, that other woman is wormwood and a two-edged sword. and obviously relates to women committing adultery outside of marriage, the opposite. So a serious point there. Okay, 5, 18, and 19. There's actually little about lovemaking in the whole book, and I think this may be really the only one. And my personality, I'm not interested in any tips for lovemaking, if you know my personality, and you don't want to hear them anyway. But if we're having a marriage to Animar and it's in Proverbs, I guess I gotta read it. Okay, 5, 18, 19, and it's actually the second half of 18 is a wonderful verse, but 5, 18, and 19. Let your fountain, and here he's using an analogy of water as in a cistern, if you make a hole, it comes flowing out. So I'm at 518. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight and be intoxicated always in her love. But the second half of 18, or the middle of 18, rejoice in the wife of your youth. Whatever wife you started with, keep her and rejoice in her. Rejoice in the husband of your youth. Now, many of you haven't been married as long, and we have a few of us into our 30s and 47? What was it? 47. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. Now, in the context there, it's kind of a lovemaking kind of situation. OK, enough talk about that. Move on. Yeah, that's right. Read Derek's book for that stuff. I covered it. OK, 6-6. This is one of these. striking ones. Go to the ant, oh sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. A whole bunch of ones about being lazy. A wise Christian is not lazy. Go to the ant, oh sluggard, and the ants are moving around and getting stuff done. Okay, 10.1. Chapter 10, again, is starting the more normal what you think of Proverbs. 10.1. And here it depends if you're the son or the father, or the mother. A wise son or wise child makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother. And again, a lot of these, they just have the father, mother kind of parallelism. This is just admitting the truth, especially as your children get older, they make bad decisions in life. This can be emotionally torture on the parents. emotionally torture, and that's just admitting that truth. And then the opposite direction. They make reasonably good choices in life, the main one being about Christ. It makes the parents glad. You know, so that's, realize when you talk to some couples, especially if they have older children, the decisions their children have made are killing them inside. killing them, and that's the truth of that one. And that affects the marriage. Try not to, you gotta have joy in the Lord, but that's gonna be there in some marriages. Let's go to 10-12. And here's a nice one that other verses in the Bible say similar. Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. In a certain sense, it's obvious, but love covers all offenses. Love covers all offenses. Just in my kind of personality, if I have to correct the student, I notice about myself, again, Tons of students have been teaching there 21 years. You can't know every student equally well. Some I know better, some come to the church that I attend. For whatever reason, I know some students better than I know others. It's just my personality. It's easier for me to correct a student that I know well. Other people have the opposite. It's easier for them to correct people they don't know well. It's just something about, just in my personality, hey buddy, OK, we need to quit overdoing whatever the make fun of USC jokes in the pulpit or something like that. Just being silly. Because in my mind, I know that guy loves me, that student. He knows that we know we have a good relationship. In that case, love covers all offenses. But there's sometimes you have to rebuke people you don't know that well, or there's difficulties, okay? But here, love covers all offenses. And shouldn't that be so true in marriage? Due to sin, it's not always, but it should be. Okay, how about 1019? This is one of the many ones about words, and I didn't bother bringing all of these in, but just one here. When words are many, transgression is not lacking. Whoever restrains his lips is prudent. Of course, there's certain times you need to talk, but it's, you know. Some people can annoy other people by talking and talking and talking. You know who you are. And of course, there's the other side, a good conversationalist and so forth and so on. So there are situations that too much talking is a problem. And sometimes it can result going into gossip and things you just shouldn't say. You know, there's another angle to it here. 1122. Okay, don't look down. Don't look down at this one. It's a little trick one. Like a gold ring, which is very pretty, in a pig's snout. Don't look down. What is like something very pretty, a gold ring, in an ugly pig's nose? Something pretty attached to something ugly. Answer, now you can look down, verse 22. It is like a beautiful woman without discretion. See, she's beautiful on the outside, but she acts like a goof. Okay, you're supposed to laugh at this one, right? I got a little bit of laugh. Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion. If you're not married, that's telling you, OK, she looks good on the outside, but that's not the big picture. If you are married, that's saying, hey, discretion is important. It's not just my looks. OK. Or if you're thinking of a husband, salary is not everything, right, as you're in college looking for the proverbial medical doctor or whatever it would be. 12-4. This is a positive and negative one. An excellent wife is the crown of her husband. And of course, that would be the opposite too, but it's speaking to me. But look at the second one. But she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones. Again, the spouse affects the other, the house. An excellent wife or an excellent husband It's the crown of her spouse. But the spouse who brings shame is rottenness in his bones. Yes, as we've said now a hundred times, your actions and attitudes affects the happiness of your spouse. Not the core, but the happiness. 1215. The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a man listens to advice. Now, there's some Proverbs about don't listen to fools giving bad advice, but there's other ones about in a group, you should listen to advice. A fool wants to do it on his own. The wise man listens to advice. So, of course, the husband and wife should consult each other as a general rule. And of course, there's exceptions. If my wife has a cooking question, the last person she asks is me. You know, on the newlywed game, my answer would have been, what can you make? Cereal. That's about it. I know in Raisin Bran about how much milk I need to put in, and that's the extent of my cooking abilities. You know, so certain things in our household, like even buying a car, which is my personality, I sort of set the price. My wife adds 2,000, 3,000 to that. And I let her buy whatever she wants, fine with me. It's just the way I work. You know, so there are certain things that, OK, one spouse or the other is really going to do it. But there's a whole thousand other things that you need to consult each other. And it's just stating the obvious there. Husband and wife should consult each other. OK, 15-1. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Of course, it's fairly, everyone knows that. Yes, there's such a thing as righteous anger, that's in the Bible, but that's, okay, the vast majority of situations, that is not the vast majority of situations. Right, so a soft answer turns away wrath. Yeah, of course, when couples disagree and one starts raising your voice, you know, due to sin, unless it's righteous anger, okay, we're assuming it's not, you know, the conversation degenerates after that, right? A soft answer turns away wrath. A soft answer. Well, honey, yes, there are advantages and disadvantages to what you said. A soft answer turns away wrath. Okay, 15, 13, and also read 15, 15. So 13 and 15. And this is back to the joy thing. A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but sorrow of heart, the spirit is crushed. Down to 15. All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast, as if he's always at a feast. Okay? Joy is a good thing, it's stating there. The more joyous you are, the more happy are those around you. 1517, better a dinner of herbs, which is not very much, not very much food, better a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox killed and eaten, and hatred with it. Better a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox where hate is. This is telling the reader, telling us, households with no money but love are better than lots of money and no love. Again, love covers all offenses. 1632. There's several of these with the slow to anger or patience wording. 1632, whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit than he who can take a city. If you can control your spirit or sense of anger bursting out of you, you're stronger than the military guy. That's what the point is. Realizing it's hard to do that. Sometimes hard not to raise your voice in reaction to something your spouse says. But being slow to anger, and there's a lot of verses about God is slow to anger, hence we should be slow to anger. 17.1. This is similar to a previous one. Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. Again, it's just making the point, a wonderful marriage is one of the best things in the world. That's what it's trying to say. It's better than money. It's better than this. It's better than that. It's better than false honor. A wonderful marriage. It's one of the best things in life. That's what the text is trying to say. 17.6. Okay, how many here have grandchildren? We had one with great-grandchildren. Anyone besides them with great grandchildren? Oh, we had another one. Two great grandchildren? Oh, I'm sorry. One great grandchildren, that's it? Okay. 17.6. Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers. And my grandchildren, or two of my three grandchildren, are going to be coming here, and we're going to go out to lunch with my daughter. And my son is with my son-in-law and another grandchild hiking, I think, wherever they are. And my grandchildren, most of you don't have them yet, but they are pretty nice. As the old joke goes, especially when they leave, you know. Because you've got to clean up or whatever, you know. 1710. This is similar to a rebuke, rebuking a wise person. Rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding or a wise man. A rebuke goes deeper into him, meaning more understands it, than a hundred blows to a fool. So the idea is I got to get the rebuke down into the guy. If I just one blow to a wise man, he gets it. The fool, I got to hit him a hundred times before he'll figure it out. Again, a wise person takes the rebuke. Is there a kernel of truth in this? And even appreciates the person rebuking them, even if they have the wrong motive, because they may get wiser in the situation. Let's see, we've got to move on here. What time are we ending? We're ending at 1230, right? Is that right? Okay, I'll have to skip some. Okay, let's go to 21.9. Well, let's go to 21.19. It makes the same point, and it's a little funnier. It is better to live in a desert land. What is so bad you'd rather be in the desert? Second half, then they'll live with a quarrelsome and fretful woman. Again, this is not making fun of women because it's just written to guys, and so it's the reverse. If you're quarrelsome and fretful, it's reminding you how annoying this is to your spouse. Let's try and reduce that. 2714 Whoever blesses his neighbor which is a good thing whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice rising early in the morning Will be counted as cursing In other words, there's a right time and a wrong time to say things. Don't go very early in the morning, you know, hey, you're great, Joe. Well, OK, they're trying to say, it'll be taken as cursing. Get this guy out of here. The point being, a right time and a wrong time to say things. You can't just use the excuse, oh, I'm just telling the truth. Are you telling the truth at the right time? And if we had time, we could go through a bunch of angles there. Let's go to 3015. This is actually in sort of, we're out of the very short ones. They're a little like paragraph level now, but 3015, and I'll just read this. The leech and the leech is perceived as a bad thing It's perceived as something that has insatiable desire. It just keeps sucking the blood sucking the blood. It doesn't stop so people that just insatiable desire and whatever the situation is the leech has two daughters and their names are give and give and They cry. Three things are never satisfied. Four, never say enough. Okay, what that's trying to say, it's supposed to be funny or striking, maybe. And there are people in life, maybe your spouse, maybe you, that you have a desire for something, but it's just way out of bounds. In and of itself, it's not bad, but it's just way out of bounds in the amount of time or energy or money or whatever you spend on that. So the leech has two daughters and what are their names? Give and give. Meaning they just don't stop. 3120. Again, if you look at 3110 to 31, that's about the wonderful woman in Proverbs. But 3110, I'll read that. An excellent wife. Who can find? And again, same thing if it was written to a woman, an excellent husband, who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. An excellent wife, who can find? She is far more excellent than jewels. And how about we'll end on 31, same poem. It's actually a poem here, a big long poem. at 28 and 29, talking about the woman here with children. Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her. Now, verse 29 is a quote of what the husband says about the wife. So 29 is a quote, but the husband says about the wife, and we'll end on this. Many women have done excellently, honey, But you surpass them all. And in God's providence, he's giving you your spouse. And for you, he or she surpasses them all. Be wise in how you interact with your spouse. That'll make your spouse happier. That'll make your house happier. So we've thought about being more joyful, more forgiving, and more wise, and may that benefit your marriage to God's glory and the benefit of your spouse. Let us pray. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we thank you for the book of Proverbs. We thank you for the jokes in it, the truth, how sometimes it convicts us. We thank you for that wonderful poem about the wonderful woman at the end of Proverbs. And may we here in our marriages say wonderful things about our spouses, that they exceed them all. And we're thankful for God's providence of giving us our spouses. Pray this in the name of Christ, who is everything and gave meaning to our marriages. Amen and amen.