And now let us open to Proverbs chapter 13 to look into the Word of God. Proverbs chapter 13. My special message, my message, not special this evening from the Word of God is based on verse 10. I am bringing this message to you because I was doing a study on this particular verse to give a report to some organization who asked for it, based on the Hebrew version of it. So let me read verse 10, and we can see few things from this word of God. Verse 10, only by pride comes contention, but with the well-advised is wisdom. As you see, this is very, very amazing work. And this Proverbs, you can see this chapter has several verses, as my brother Pastor read it, up to verse 25. There are some verses which are presented as a contrast. For example, if you see verse one, It says, a wise son hears his father's instruction, but a contrast, a scorner hears not rebuke. So there are some of them which are presented as a contrast. Of course, when you see the Hebrew writing, in Hebrew writing there is a common thing known as parallelism. So Hebrew is rich in parallelism. writing and some of the parallels are positive parallels. One is explaining the second line is explaining the first line but some of them have a contrast. The second line is contrasting the first line in the idea that is written in the first line. So here in verse 10 you can see Only by pride comes contention, but with the well advised is wisdom. So two lines are set aside by the inspiration of our God in order for the second line is contrasting the first line because there is but. This Hebrew parallelism is a special way of writing the word of God only designed by himself, by God himself. It's not human wisdom, it is the wisdom of God and God is communicating his messages and his word in this way of contrasting ideas and parallel ideas and so on. So my text, my subject or my title for this evening message because of this study is Source and Remedy of Contention. So there is a source and remedy of contention from this particular verse. If people understood this verse, And if we really understand what God is designing through the use of this particular verse, we can be really spared from so many human relationships in our society and in the entire world. person-to-person relationship and human relationship is affected by so many things, but the cause, the cause, the source of that contention is mentioned here as designed by God. So you can see in verse 10, only by pride the word of God says comes contention. So pride is mentioned and pride is dangerous and pride is the source of contention and so many evil things in the entire history of human society. So we have to understand what evil things is coming from pride. So let me first describe what pride means. I'm sure you know the meaning of pride, but from the Hebrew perspective I want to explain what pride means. Pride can be described or is actually described in the Hebrew word meaning by two important aspects of the meaning of this word. One is physical. Physical. When something is boiling in a boiling pan or in a boiling pot, the word that is described for boiling up is this pride word. For example, you may recall when Esau was visiting his brother Jacob, Jacob was boiling up that lentil sauce. And that particular boiling up, making a lentil sauce, is mentioned by this particular word. So physically it means boiling up. or burning down or simmering up in a kind of instrument that you are using for boiling some things. But morally, it has a different meaning with respect to people. It means to act proudly. To act presumptuously, it means presumption and acting presumptuously. And also it means to act rebelliously. So if people are acting against each other rebelliously or presumptuously or proudly, this is the word that is used in the Bible. So proud and being pride is being rebellious. And being proud is being presumptuous. And being proud is actually acting proudly. So these are the root meaning from which we can understand this particular word. But there are always three words which are attached whenever it is translated into English. The first one, as I have said, presumption. And the second one, insolence. And the third one, overconfidence. When people are overconfident by themselves, disregarding that God is the source of life and everything, that they are acting proudly. So overconfidence, insolence, and presumption is closely the deep and root meaning of this particular word, pride. But all of them are deep-rooted in an improper view of ourselves. So whenever we are viewing ourselves improperly, you know, people are viewing themselves properly according to the revealed truth, and there are so many people that are viewing themselves improperly against the revealed truth that is found in the Bible. So this improper view of self is deeply rooted from the beginning of sin. When Adam and Eve were sinning, have sinned, they were acting improperly against the authority that is delegated to them. The authority delegated to them was to not eat that particular fruit of the particular tree, but they presumptuously go forward and they act against delegation, delegated to them by the design of God. So whenever anyone is acting against the design of God, he is acting out of pride. and out of presumption, out of insolence, really, and is in rebellious nature. So the desire that is against the desire of God or the design of God is deeply rooted in the life of proud people. So if you are proud, you are in danger. If there is something pride in you, in whatever way, you are in danger. There is a danger in pride because the Bible tells us clearly, without fear of anyone and anybody, it says only by pride comes contention. So pride is dangerous. It brings something, the Bible says. It brings and it has a result. So the result of this particular word, pride, if you clearly see it, is contention. Whenever there is contention, in the heart of people, in the family of people, or in the workplace, wherever there is contention, always there is something behind that is described by our gracious God, and which is clearly seen, pride. If there is a contention between husband and wife, if there is a contention between son and father, if there is a contention between mother and daughter, The reason behind this, pride. This is clearly described here. So the gracious God says, only by pride comes contention. So if contention is there, it is only because of what? Because of pride. So we have to be really careful in our life. So this pride, by being self-focused, by being presumptuous, by being rebellious, resulted in contention. So when you study the history of this world or the history of humanity, all fight and all enmity, all hatred comes from pride. There are fightings in many parts of the world. And there is a fighting in my country of birth. There has been a fighting for two, almost over two years. And the killing of people and the hatred and the cruelty of people is amazing. This is all comes from pride. the enemy of humanity, the enemy of our soul, the enemy of our fellowship, and the enemy of our love, this pride. If there is contention, it is always being fueled by pride. So pride is the fuel of contention. One godly man said like this. He said, contention is God's sign. He said, God's design. in order to single out or to signal, if you like, there is something in the heart of the people that are in the midst of contention. If people are in contention, God is singling out or signaling out to us that this is all by pride. So there is someone who is acting by pride. If there is contention, there is someone who is acting by pride. So it is a warning really. Contention can be a signal for us to review our behavior and to examine our heart and our action. and to come back to the presence of the Lord, asking forgiveness and get rid of this deeply rooted pride because of the sinful nature of humanity. This pride, which resulted in contention, also comes from inaccurate evaluation of ourselves. When people inaccurately evaluate themselves, they always put themselves on a higher level than the others. Then that brings a difference between them and others, and then resulted in contention, in disagreement, and in fighting. and in so many things. So let me go to my next point in this particular paint. But why? What is the reason? should be asked, what is the reason to have pride that brings contention? The only outcome and the only result of pride is contention and fighting and disagreement. You can continue adding so many things, but why? I want to mention about four things about this. The first one is our sinful nature. that we got from Adam and Eve. And the second one is ignorance. When we are in ignorance of the revealed truth, the revealed truth is in the Bible, and the revealed truth has never been hidden from humanity. But when we disregard the revealed truth and when we are acting in ignorance, We are going to the way of pride, and we will miss the mark of righteousness. And of course, we are always entangled in it, unless we are saved by the grace of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the other point about the reason of prideful life is putting self-image higher than God. You know, this may not be about each one of us here, but in general, humanity in general is putting or going in order to bring self-image above any other, and even to the extent of above God, when we are thinking our self-image higher than God. and higher than others. We are always in danger of pride and we are actually in pride. And the result of pride would come along the way when we are like that. And the last one I would mention about why is this? Lack of interest to the solution. There is one solution for pride. There is one clear-cut solution. That is salvation. If we come and repent our sins of pride, and if we trust the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, there is no doubt that we can be free of doubt, and we will receive a humble life, meekness. As the Lord Jesus Christ said, if you come to him, you can get patience and meekness of life. He said, I am patience. patient inside of me and there is meekness in me, you can take that meekness and patient life from the Lord Jesus Christ. But when you are in lack of this interest, seeking Him, and following what He said, and coming to Him, repenting and trusting Him, and visited by the power of the Holy Spirit, you will remain on your salvus, on your previous nature, that is Adamic, sinful nature, and you will be always living in that difficult and enemy of souls situation and life style. So this particular verse is really amazing and we need to study it privately and also learn from it in order to get rid of this dangerous thing that can be in the life of anyone so the lord said by only by pride comes contention the contrast when i come to the next point i want to mention contrasting parallel message this contrasting parallel message as you see started by Bert. This is known as an adversative contrast, very, very strong contrast. But with the well-advised is wisdom. So let me show you how the parallel is set according to the Word of God. The first one, only by pride comes contention. And you can put Bert in the middle of it. Then, by well-advised, is wisdom. So by pride, pride is contrasted with well-advised and contention is contrasted with wisdom. So this is the way that God designed this particular parallel, and I found it very, very amazing and instructive. So with the well-advised, what does it mean, well-advised? It's wonderful to be well-advised. Well-advised is the idea or the message is for those who are instructed from the word of God. And God's instruction, teaching, learning from the Word of God is mentioned by the well-advised. These well-advised are those who are eager to listen, eager to hear, and always wanting to learn from the pastor, from the church, from whosoever the Lord puts on the pulpit. So if you are eager to learn, you are well advised people. You want to learn, you want to be instructed, you want to be taught, you want to be guided, and this is amazing. But the thing that is mentioned here is, with the well-advised, we need to understand the grammatical construction here. The well-advised are some people who are passively indicated here. It is a passive voice, it is not an active voice. They are not teaching themselves by themselves. Of course we can teach ourselves by ourselves, but here these are some people who are taught by some other teachers. God designed to have teachers, pastors, and instructors in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. From the time of the apostles and from the time of the old time, you can mention, Ezra, the priest and a scribe, and Nehemia and prophets were appointed by the Lord to teach. and to instruct people to come back from their rebellious nature and rebellious life. So this is how it is presented here. With the well-advised with those who are hearing instruction from their fathers at home, and from their pastors at church, and from their Sunday school teachers at church, and you can continue like that. These well-advised are well instructed. They are eager, according to the design of God, to learn and to be instructed, to be guided by God's appointed way. These are different people. They are not pride. They are not proud people. The proud people never want to learn. You can see many people, they don't want to learn. They may come to church and they can just distract themselves by so many ways. Proud people are not keen to be instructed. And because of presumption, They say, we know it all. We know it. And we don't want somebody to teach us. We don't want somebody to preach to us. We don't want somebody to guide us, instruct us, is the motive of pride people. That is the danger. But these well-advised people are ready to listen, to be instructed, and to hear the word of God. Even in secret, they pray, Lord, Teach me when I'm going to church. Use pastor to teach me, to instruct me in their prayer when they come to church. You see them when they come to church, just bowing down their head in order to pray before the Lord for themselves and for others. This is the well-advised people. Passive voice. and they are eager here to learn and to study the Word of God. What is the end result? You see, in the parallel presentation of this particular verse, by pride comes contention, but with the well-advised, with those people who want us to learn, to study, and to be instructed, there is something that is wisdom. They will get wisdom. I think this is my second time when I'm talking about wisdom. Last time, I think I preached from Daniel chapter two. Here, I think Daniel chapter two, verse 20, when Daniel declared that wisdom and power belongs to God. This wisdom and power, belong to God and he can give it to those who are praying for wisdom and power. Because Daniel said, we prayed to you and you gave me wisdom and power. So wisdom and power can be given. So I'm not overemphasizing the importance of wisdom. It should never be very much emphasized, but we need wisdom. Here, the Word of God is saying, with the well-advised, there is something. coming to happen in their life. That is wisdom. They got understanding. They can discern between things and they cannot be fooled by the world. They cannot be misguided by so many misguiding teachings and ideas that is surrounding our life and our area, or this entire world. So, by way of advice, by those who seek instruction and learning and teaching from the Word of God, there is a wonderful thing happening in them. That is, they are going to have wisdom. The wisdom that is from Abbas. When the second half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, James, the second pastor of the Jerusalem church, wrote his message, he said, wisdom from Abbas is wonderful. And there is wisdom from down earth, wisdom of this world, and wisdom of the devil, and wisdom of self. But wisdom from Abba is quite different. It comes from God, and it guides us. It gives us discernment, and it matures us in our life, and it makes us to follow the footsteps of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And it makes us to be instruments of the Lord as we live in this world. So dear brothers and sisters this evening, from this particular word, I would encourage and exhort you, for some of you who lack wisdom, you need to be people who love instruction. You need to come to church always to be instructed by the power of the Holy Spirit. and to be instructed here from the pastor. And you need to be well-advised people. This well-advised is in the Hebrew. If you see, it is enduring activity. This is not just a one-time activity. It is an enduring, lifelong lifestyle that should be in the life of the people of God. Always the people of God wants to learn. to be instructed, to be taught by the Lord in his house of prayer and in his house of instruction. So I would encourage everyone here to do North Miss Church services. And I want to challenge some people here. Is there pride in your heart and in your mind? Pride can be in so many ways. Some people are proud of their education. Some people are proud of their race. And some people are proud of even their danger, their gender, I mean their gender. And some people are proud of their cultural background. Some people are proud of, there are so many things people are being proud. But if you really and truly see yourselves that you are created by a supreme creator, the Lord our God, there is nothing to be proud of. There is nothing. in this entire universe to be proud of. Everything belongs to God, and we are also of God. Whether we are believers or not, we are created by God. We do not put ourselves into being, so God is the one who brought us to live. So if we come before the Lord, and if we repent our sins of pride, and the Lord will lift up that sin of pride, and will give us free grace. And he will remove that dangerous thing that can bring contention. You may be tired of contention. You may be tired of fighting with other people because of pride. So you will be relieved if you come back to the Lord and if you repent the sins of pride. So I would love to leave these two important things before you. Only by pride comes contention. So as that man, godly man said, contention can be a signal for somebody is acting proudfully. It is a signal, a sign. So we need to repent. We need to trust God for everything that comes to our life. And if we are well advised, continuously taught and instructed from the word of God, Oh, brothers and sisters, there is so many blessing which is coming to you, wisdom, discernment, understanding, and following the footstep of God, which is wonderful and peaceful and full of joy in the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord bless you. And we hope me and my wife to see you in future and to Again, see you. My wife is really, was eager to come and to meet you all, so she is here. And my dear brothers and sisters also visiting from America here, and we are really happy. Thank you, Pastor, for this time. And let us close in prayer, and I'll pass it to Pastor. Let us pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank you and we praise you for your great kindness and mercy And we thank you for the word we opened this evening, your word and your design for the life of your people. Pride is dangerous, is not good for humanity. And by pride, there comes only contention, fighting, disagreement. Many people are affected even without knowing that they are in the life of pride. Oh Lord our God, help us to examine our heart and our mind and our souls and help us to search for this evil thing from our heart and help us to repent it and to receive forgiveness by your grace and from your grace and from your kindness and have peaceful, joyous and harmonious life and relationship that is designed by you for us. Oh our God, we also ask you to be well-advised people according to your gracious design that is presented before us. We need wisdom, but wisdom comes from being well-advised and help us to respect others, teachers, our pastors and our Sunday school teachers, our parents who are desiring always to instruct us according to your great purpose and kindness and help each one of us to take in what you are giving us and help us to grow in it and to grow in discernment and peace and joy. May you bless this church, increase his instrumentality in this area, bringing yet again many, many to be converted here, to be instructed, and to be baptized by your great kindness and wonderful work of grace. Bless pastor and leaders, bless each one of us, and O Lord we pray, help us to meet up again before your presence. We ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for his glory, Amen.