and then we'll continue on. Father, we just thank you for today. We thank you for your love, your mercy, and your grace that you've lavished upon us in your son, Jesus Christ. We just ask that as we look into your word, your spirit would be moving, and as your spirit's moving, we would become more and more like your son, Jesus Christ. We ask that you would work in our lives in such a way that would be evident to everyone who observes us. We just thank you so very much for Jesus. We thank you so very much for your word. We thank you in your son's name, amen. So I am often intrigued by the last words of people. Some of the things that people say right before they pass, or their last words, are not necessarily the most interesting to me, but they might be interesting especially to loved ones. But there are some that you just go, oh, that's, That's interesting for your last words on earth. So for example, Marie Antoinette, right before she was being led to her execution, accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot. And these are her recorded last words. I didn't mean to do that on purpose. Or Winston Churchill's last words were, I am bored with it all. This is his last words. My favorite, it's ironic, but it's favorite is Karl Marx. His last words were, get out of here. Last words are for fools who haven't said enough. That's really ironic last words to say, I think. Normally, when we talk about last words, we talk about those things which are the most important to a person. It's the final message, the final thing that you want people to know, final piece of advice you wanna deliver to somebody. It's the thing that you leave as you depart. And this morning, we're gonna be in Solomon's final words. Not that these were the last words that he wrote before he died. We don't know if he was on his deathbed, but in the book of Proverbs, These final verses are the final verses of Solomon in the Book of Proverbs. Now, there's a section later on where somebody goes, well, Solomon's using a pseudonym and it's really him. But as far as we know, literally for sure, these are the last words in the Book of Proverbs from Solomon. So think about all that we've learned from Solomon in the past years as we've studied the Book of Proverbs, as we've gone verse by verse through the Book of Proverbs. This is something that's not normally done. This is not normally how people learn about the Book of Proverbs, the way we're doing it. But I found it to be incredibly helpful for me, incredibly maturing for me. And so here we have the last words, and it's very fitting. It's very fitting that these are the last words, and these are the last things that he says in the book, specifically when you consider the things that he said first in the opening of the book. So before we get to Proverbs chapter 29, let's go all the way back to Proverbs chapter one, and remember what he said at the beginning. Proverbs 1-1, the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction. So, as we've been going through these 29 chapters, Solomon wants us to know wisdom. He wants us to know instruction. He wants to teach us. He wants to teach us this God-given wisdom. That's what he's been doing. That's what all these Proverbs have been about. To understand words of insight, right? So that as we look at these words, we can figure out a wise life. And what does a wise life look like? What does a well-lived life look like? And that's what Solomon's been teaching us. Verse three, to receive instruction and wise dealing and righteousness, justice, and equity. That's what we've been doing. We've been receiving instruction on how do you apply biblical truth to one's life, right? That's what we've been spending all this time. The book of Proverbs is a master's class in application of God's truth to everyday situations. to show that what God says in his word and the principles that he gives are the best in every circumstance. So how we can be wise in all of our dealings, how we can be righteous, live a righteous life, how we can have a true sense of justice and fairness. This one, to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth. So this book is to help young people learn how to grow, young people how to learn how to move from immaturity to maturity, to give them a sense of discernment as they go through life. And hasn't the book done that as we've gone through these 29 chapters of all of these things? Then notice the next thing that he says. He says, let the wise hear and increase in learning. So, let's say you've already been a Christian for a long time, and you go, well, some of this stuff is pretty basic. Yeah, but as you go through the book of Proverbs, you realize it's actually not that basic. This is kind of the brilliant thing, right? Solomon is able to write in such a way that somebody who doesn't know anything is able to learn, and people who know a lot of things are still also able to learn and apply. and the one who has understanding to obtain guidance. To understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles, so we're able to look at some of these things and work through them. And then here is then the purpose of the book, the theme of the book, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and fools despise wisdom and instruction. This has been throughout Solomon's writing of this animosity between the righteous, the wise, and the fools. speaking about the importance of taking God seriously, of having this extreme reverence for God, this correct perspective of God and this right perspective of God and his word and his principles help us in our life. And that's the very beginning of knowing God and of knowing the right kind of life that we're supposed to have. That's the base, that should be the presupposition. So as we look at these last couple proverbs in this section in chapter 29, we're going to learn three things of Solomon's final words, right? The first final thing we're going to see is a final warning. the final warning of the consequences of folly. And he's gonna highlight a couple things that he highlighted from the very beginning. And so it's his final warning of be careful because there's folly out there and we all get twitterpated by it. That's gonna be in verses 22 through 24. In verses 25 through 26, we're gonna see Solomon's final encouragement to be wise, so it's the encouragement for wisdom, and the excellency of wisdom. It's gonna be in 25, 26, and then finally in verse 27, Solomon is gonna remind us of the animosity between folly and wisdom, and how There are things that when you fear the Lord, and you see around you, that becomes an abomination. It just does, because you love the Lord, and you love the things that the Lord loves, and you hate the things that the Lord hates. But there's the other side, and guess what? They think that what we're doing is an abomination. So there's this animosity. So that's the final reminder. So let's look at this first point. Verse 22, of the final warning of the consequences of folly, and notice in verse 22, it says, a man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression. This is pretty similar to some of the things we've already seen Solomon say. Remember, the word here for wrath is somebody who's hot, heat, and it has the idea of nostrils, right? So it's the idea of hot air coming out of someone's nostrils. Every time we think of this, I can't help but think of Looney Tunes, and whenever somebody gets angry, their head turns red, and steam comes out of their nostrils. That is the image here, right? So a man of wrath, a man of anger. This is talking about somebody who is quick, quick to be angry. This talks about somebody who's quick to be vindictive. This talks about somebody who's incredibly selfish and incredibly gets irritated and annoyed at the drop of a hat and just goes from zero to 11 like this, right? That's the idea. Somebody who's hot-headed. They're always angry. They're always upset. There's always something wrong. There's always somebody that's offended them. They're easily offended. And what does this one do? When this guy is venting all of his anger, what does he do? It's kind of an interesting image, right? So it's this idea of hot air coming out of his nose, and as the hot air's coming out of his nose, you got this idea of the stuff underneath it starting to whirl around. Think of a helicopter, right? When a helicopter goes off, what happens to all the stuff underneath the helicopter? Blowing everywhere, right? So you have this idea of this guy, he's about ready to go off. And when this guy goes off, what does he do? He stirs up what? Good feelings? Unity? Joy? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness? He brings people together? Everybody sings kumbaya? Is that what happens? No. He stirs up strife. This word for strife, remember, it's the idea of legal lawsuits, fighting, infighting, broken families, broken relationships. I don't know about you, but if you've ever been around a person who's incredibly angry, you know how this is true. You just know that they're always fighting with somebody. They have enemies, and they're always fighting, and you might not be the object of that anger right now, but just wait, you will be, and they'll do something, they'll say something, and then you'll react appropriately, and they'll get angry. They'll get angry. They get angry at everything. They get angry when you don't act right. They get angry when you do act right. They're just angry. As a believer, this should never be named amongst us. We shouldn't be known as angry people. It's unfortunate, I think, in the modern world, when people think of us as fundamentalists, because that's what we are. We believe in the fundamental truths of God's word, and we take them true, right? The image of fundamentalism is this, hot-headed people yelling at cars going too fast down the road. That's the image, right? Shaking our fist at everybody, and anytime somebody does anything wrong, we pounce on them hard, right? Because we have no self-control and we're angry. Now, some of that is probably not true. As we're going to see, some of that's probably not true. But I guarantee you this, Some of it, and a lot of it, is true. We get angry, we sin. And every time I think of this idea of anger, I'm reminded of James chapter three. Let's go to the book of James. James chapter three. Think of this. We'll start in verse 13, how about that? It says, who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct, let him show his works in meekness and wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy, selfish ambition in your heart, do not boast to be false of the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, on spiritual demonic. For where jealousy, selfish ambition exist, there is disorder in every vile practice. But the wisdom that comes from above is pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, good fruits, impartial and sincere. You see that? You see the wisdom that comes down from God is one that's peaceable, one that's gentle, one that's full of mercy. The other one you have is this one of chaos, disorder, destruction, strife. James puts this really eloquently when he says earthly wisdom opposed to heavenly wisdom, but this is basically Solomon's breakup, right? Folly, wisdom. We would say the wisdom from this earth is folly and it's full of jealousy and selfish ambition and anger and fighting. So when we act in anger, we are not acting according to God's wisdom, we're not acting according to the Holy Spirit or yielding to the Holy Spirit, we're acting in accordance to what? Earthly wisdom, right? Earthly, base, demonic, unnatural desires. But then notice what he says next. Not only does this guy stir up strife, but one who's given to anger causes much transgression. So here's the other truth. If you're given to anger, and we all have some level of anger, some of us more than others, some of us are more willing to throw our appliances out the windows and our laptops out the windows when they don't act right, probably than other people. When you get angry, You go, man. You just do you and you go full vent, right? You full vent your anger. And every time I've ever been angry and then I've calmed down, I look back at the things I said and the things I've done. the holes in the walls that I punched, and the tools I've thrown into the forest, and all the other things that happened with anger, and I go, well, that was dumb. That was stupid. I can't take that back. I think about some of the hurt relationships when I said something out of anger, opposed to being yield to the Holy Spirit, and go. Well there you go, that's what happens when you get angry, right? When you give in to that. So notice this final warning. The final warning is don't be given to anger. The only way that you and I can fight anger, and this type of anger which we're talking about here, is by yielding to the power of the Holy Spirit, right? Being loving, joyful, peaceful. Remember, love is patient and love is kind. Love has a long fuse, and it's kind while that long fuse is going. Now, some of you may be saying, well, Caleb, isn't there a time for us to be angry? Isn't there a time for us to be upset? One, I would say this, there's probably very few things in this world that actually are offensive to us or that we should take offense to, because there's a lot of things that happen that actually are an offense to God, not to us, so we shouldn't necessarily be offended on his behalf. But there are things that happen that, yes, we are very concerned about, and yes, we look at and we say, that is wrong. And we're very strong on those things. but not given to anger, not given to wrath, right? I think of some of the things that our culture does and how they're hurting children, of course there's a sense of, that's not right. And there's a sense of outrage, it's not right. But that doesn't give us the right to become wrathful, that doesn't give us the right to give full vent to our anger, that doesn't lead two good things. Remember, the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Doesn't do it. You might think it does, but it doesn't. It's always better to be biblical. So this is a big warning. All right, ready for the second warning? Here's the second warning. Second warning is, one's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will attain honor. Once again, here's this warning of arrogance. So we have the warning of anger, now we have the warning of arrogance. One's pride will bring him low. Pride comes before a fall. Haven't we talked a lot about pride? Hasn't Solomon talked a lot about arrogance? This one of thinking I'm better than you because I just am. I don't need a reason, I'm better. And this thing of, look at my accomplishments. My accomplishments are better than your accomplishments, therefore I'm better. That is against, that's against God, that's against the way we're supposed to think, the perspective we're supposed to have as Christians. As Christians, we're supposed to realize that every good gift that's given to us comes from God. Right? And every ability that I have is God-given, and it's meant to be a stewardship. So if I take something that God gives me, and says, well, this is an innate equality to myself, that I myself have developed and learned, and done and the strength I have is my own strength and the ability and the accomplishments I've done are my own accomplishments without recognizing the fact that we've been given the ability and the strength to do those things from God and we take credit for them when there is no credit for us. You can imagine how this is a terrible, terrible offense to God. God's the one who graciously gives it, and we don't give him credit for the things that he gives us to use for his glory. We're taking those things and doing it for our own glory. Not to mention the fact that if one is proud, one is arrogant, they don't see their shortcomings, they don't see the need to repent or change or be teachable, it is inevitable that they will fall. It's inevitable that those shortcomings that they don't address will come back and get them, and so they will be brought what? Brought low. This brought low, by the way, is not an individual brought low. It's not just something that happens to an individual in his own individuality, this is something that is public. So the public will see him be brought low. They will see him low, they will bring him low. But then you then have this interesting twist. It says, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor. This idea of being lowly in spirit is not self-hatred. The Bible never teaches self-hatred. We're supposed to see ourselves as being a creature of God's, right? And we shouldn't hate that which God loves. But it is a correct viewing of oneself, saying, I know who I am. I know who I am in Christ. I know what I've been given by Christ. I also know all those bad things that I do that are not like Christ. I see it all, and I have a pretty good, honest view of myself. And it's one that says, because I have this honest view of myself, an honest view of God's word, honest view of what Christ has given, I can't take credit for the good things that are happening. I can't. I can't. He's the one that receives the credit, right? Not only will this person do this, but then when it comes time in society, you're not seeking for credit and glory for yourself. You're not trying to accumulate titles for yourself. You're going to give credit where credit's due. This person has done this. They should receive the honor. They should receive honor. And people, when they see the honesty of you and see the honesty of saying, no, this is the actual person that deserves credit, you will be, There's a certain honor to that. We can trust him. He's not out for his own glory. Notice the next one in verse 24. Still thinking of these warnings here. So it's anger, arrogance, and notice this next one. It's association. The partner of a thief hates his own life. He hears the curse but discloses nothing. The first part's pretty, we can understand pretty easily. The second part of the parallelism is a little problematic. But here's most likely what's happening. Here, Solomon is talking about someone who is associating, bringing themselves along with a thief. The idea is that this person is either in the know in the planning, or an accomplice to, but actually didn't commit the theft, right? So we're talking about that guy in the know, right? We're talking about, you know what's going on. You might have even helped plan it. You know, because you guys are in cahoots, right? You're in cahoots. Now you didn't actually take the thing. You didn't actually go and do the heist, per se. But you know. Right? And then there's then this next thing where it says he hates his own life. Now, this doesn't mean that the moment that somebody becomes an accomplice to a theft, all of a sudden just starts hating themselves. The idea is the actions, the outcome of the actions looks like self-hatred. Because he's putting himself in a situation where there's going to be guilt, there's going to be curse, there's going to be over, you're going to be looking over his back because of a guilty conscience. Right? And so he's putting himself in a situation where there's going to be all these problems and you go, why are you putting yourself through all of this? It looks like you hate yourself because you're putting yourself in all these situations. And notice what it says next. It says he hears the curse. Likely what this is referring to, this is referring to a part of the Jewish law where if there was a crime, there would be a curse to anyone who was associated, and there would be this sense of, if you are a part of this, you have to testify in a court of law. So it's the idea that they hear that there's an indictment, right, there's a crime that's been committed, and there's a punishment to that crime. This person is in cahoots, but knows what it says, and says, but discloses nothing, meaning they know, they were in cahoots, They can easily identify people that did it. Morally, ethically, biblically, they are obligated to talk about that. Because they are involved, but if they talk about it, guess what? They then become, they could be prosecuted for being part of the crime. So because of fear of that, they say nothing. They say nothing. They do nothing. Because they're so associated with the evil person, right? They're so associated. Man, if you get involved in that deep into an evil association, where you're part of illegal stuff, and you're, well, I'm not gonna say a thing. You don't say a thing. I'm not gonna say a thing. I'm not gonna say a thing. That's not what God wants. That's not a, that's not a, attitude or a behavior that a believer should have. One, you would question somebody's wisdom in associating with people like this. First of all, that would be the first thing that you would have to say. Why would you associate with a thief? Second of all, why would you try to stop a theft knowing that it's wrong and goes against God's law? Why wouldn't you try to stop it? And then you then have this other thing of, oh man, now everybody could be in trouble, and I'm obligated to speak, but this person doesn't speak. This is bad. This is bad. This goes back to the first two chapters of Proverbs. Solomon warns, don't go in with thieves who say, let us wait for someone's blood, and we can kill them, and then we can take their stuff, and nobody's, nobody can catch us, right? Nobody's gonna be able to catch us, because there's no witnesses, except for us. What a bad deal, what a bad deal. Solomon says, you don't know that you're actually setting a trap for yourself. You're setting something for yourself. So those are the final warnings. Now we go to the final encouragements. Now, like in similar fashion, there's going to be a positive and a negative, right? It's going to be separated by the word but, so there's going to be this antithetical parallelism, but it's really this focus on the most important thing. It's on the fear of the Lord. That's really the final encouragement, fear the Lord. And notice how he describes this. First, in verse 25, it says, the fear of man lays a snare. So think of this, if you have such a strong, overwhelming terror and dread of man, and what man thinks, and man's opinion, and man's idea of you, that can become a snare and a trap. And the more you're fearful, the more you get stuck. And the more fearful you are, the more you get stuck. Now, let me just say a couple things. First of all, the word fear of man, the word for fear is a different Hebrew word than the word for fear of God, right? Fear of God speaks of reverence, speaks of trust, speaks of taking God seriously. speaks of having this awesome perspective, right, that God is awesome and you're seeing him in the right light. This word for fear is a lot like what we would have like phobia. It's a phobia. It's something that is so, it's so irrational. It's an irrational fear that's wrong and it's this fear of public opinion. Our culture right now, If we would take a poll of what we think is some of the most detrimental things to our culture right now, I guarantee you that on a list, if we were to poll it, would say social media. But social media isn't the problem. It's what happens on social media that's the problem. And what happens on social media? You have likes. And you have dislikes. And you have people competing for likes. And if you don't get likes, there are people who think that their life is worthless. And if their life is worthless, then why live? There's a growing suicidal rate amongst young people on social media because of this simple thumbs up or thumbs down. It happens. People's lives are all about how many likes do I get? How many likes do I have? It's all about this public opinion. This is the culture that we've been a part of, right? Our culture is so much part of this, right? We're part of what? Cancel culture. If somebody says negative things, well, we gotta submit or not submit and this whole thing. This is a snare. But there's a greater theological implication here. Other than just the culture. Believers in the United States suffer from the fear of man. It's been happening in the church for a long time. There's lots of names that I could list off that they started things simply because they wanted to become recognized by secular institutions that we weren't stupid and we weren't backwaters and we wanted to become reputable in the eyes of civilized Americans. What has that done to the church? What has that led to in the church? Lots of bad. It's a snare, it's difficult, and the more you push, the more you get stuck in this. Jesus speaks about this with the disciples when he says, do not be fearful of man, but be fearful of God, right? The one who has the power over the soul. This idea of public opinion weighs heavy even on us. Even as adults, we would normally think of this as a teenager problem. It's not. This is an adult problem. This is an us problem. This is a right now problem. And it's a snare. So what's the contrast between this? Notice, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. So the contrast is the snare and the safety, right? One is a snare, one you get caught, the other one you're safe from that. And what is he suggesting? He's suggesting that those who are wise say, I don't care necessarily about the opinions of man, but I really do trust in the Lord and care what he thinks about me, right? I really trust in the Lord. It's kind of like what Paul says in 1 Corinthians where he says, it's a small thing to be judged by you. I don't even judge myself, for it's the Lord who's my judge. So when he says that, what he's talking about is he's talking about how do I determine what's right and wrong? And he says it's a small thing. So there's some implication of I should care what, you say, you might say something that, catch something that I can't see about myself. And so I should be, I should listen and go, okay, well maybe that's a true thing. Maybe there's some merit to that. But I shouldn't trust my own judgment of myself because, let's be honest, I love Caleb more than anybody else loves Caleb. And I'm willing to give Caleb the out on almost every single sin. So if I'm sitting here as my judge, the worst judge, I'm the worst judge of myself. But the Lord is the ultimate judge. I need to trust him and his judgments. That's the idea, trust the Lord. In spite of what man and popular opinion says. That's a trap. And the only safety is to trust in the Lord. Now we look at this and we go, well Caleb, what about those passages which say, all those who desire to live godly will suffer persecution. That doesn't seem like safety. Yeah, if you only think of life as being the short time you're here right now. Yeah, then it might not be safe. But if you consider the fact that we're gonna live forever, and we're gonna live forever with Jesus, and there's this uncomfortable moment that's going to pale in comparison of the glory that's coming next, Yeah, no, we're safe. Yeah, the worst thing they're gonna do is what? Send me to heaven? Oh, yeah, I can think of worse alternatives, right? That's the sense. To trust in the Lord is to trust Him and His promise and say, here's His promises. They are true, they are right, I'm basing my life off of them. Come what may. That's the idea of the wise. I'm gonna trust the Lord. I'm not gonna trust man and man-shifting opinions. Notice the next thing. It says, many seek the face of a ruler, but it is from the Lord that a man gets justice. Makes sense, right? I want justice in this life. Who do I go to? The guy in charge. I go to the guy in charge. I go to the government. I go to the mayor. I go to the governor. I go to the president. I go to the Supreme Court, right? They'll help with justice. I don't think Solomon is saying that's a wrong thing here. I don't think he's saying that. I think what he's pointing out is the, and what he's encouraging us to do is see the limitation of human government. It's limited, friends. You could put a lot of hope in it, and you're gonna be really disappointed. You could put a lot of hope in government and politicians and this right politician and that right politician, but what does this verse say? But it's from the Lord that a man gets justice. Who cares what the government does, right? My ultimate justice, my sense of justice and the justice that I receive comes from the Lord. Now some of you go, well that's not right because we've seen lots of injustices happen. Once again, if you have a limited perspective that your time here on Earth is all that existence is, then you're probably right. Some things don't look just. But if your perspective is we're gonna live forever, and those who are the Lord's will live in eternal conscious bliss, and those who have not obeyed the gospel of Jesus Christ, who have not placed their faith in the person and work of Jesus, they will live in eternal conscious punishment. When you forget the fact that Jesus paid for sins, when you forget the fact that there is going to be this final judgment of those who've done wrong, yeah, there is going to be justice. There's gonna be real justice. Perfect justice. But if my perspective is so limited to right now, it's easy to go, yeah, maybe God's not just, but if your perspective is bigger, of course. So the encouragement then is to trust the Lord, to fear the Lord. This is his final encouragement. It's the Lord, trust the Lord, seek the Lord. Where is your safety found? It's found in the Lord. It's not found with man, it's not found with man's ideas, it's not found in your government, it's not found in the ability of one person to rally other people to a cause. It is solely based on our trust in the Lord and his ability to keep us safe and protect us. Now, we're gonna be left off with a final reminder. Notice verse 27. Non-just man is an abomination to the righteous, but the one whose way is straight is an abomination to the wicked. Yup. That's pretty self-explanatory, right? I mean, we've seen that. I mean... That's what we've been talking about for years. We've been talking about this for years, about how the one hates the other, and what the one does, the other one goes, nope, don't like that. You see what he's doing? Because we as humans try to find a middle road between godliness and folly. We try to find that middle road. We try to find that road which is, Yeah, I still like to keep a little bit of my folly, but I like to be mostly godly. There's that middle road, and we try to find that. And Solomon says this, there is no middle road. You're either on one or the other. That's it. And they're both opposite of each other. They're diametrically opposed. There is no middle road. You're either on the one or you're on the other. And when you're on the one, you hate the other one. It doesn't matter what it does, you hate it. Vice versa. So, for us, when we look at this, and we see that an unjust man is an abomination to the righteous, yep, that's true. There are things that people do that don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, that don't have the Spirit, and when we look at the things that they do, we say, that's wrong. That's wrong, it's wrong. There are things in our culture that are wrong. There are things that our neighbors do that's wrong. It's wrong and it's abomination to God. And we who are biblical, we see some of those acts and go, that is wrong, I don't care, it's wrong. It's an abomination. Not because we have such a strong moral compass, but because we spend time with Jesus and we love the things that he loves and we hate the things he hates. But then notice this, the opposite is true. The one whose way is straight is an abomination to the Lord. Do you think that if you start to walk in wisdom that you won't find opposition? Do you think that somehow because we're American we can skirt that? Do you think that somehow because we live here and we come to this church, that we walk and we do what's right, that there will be no opposition, no animosity in our community? There absolutely will be. Because they hate everything we stand for. So then, that leaves you with the question of, well then why waver? They're gonna hate you. Embrace it. Be biblical. What do you have to lose? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. But I think Solomon knows we like to find that middle ground. There is no middle ground. That's the final reminder. These are his final words. You know, it's kind of interesting, Voltaire, his last words, Voltaire's not a really great guy, but it was kind of interesting. They asked him, they said, on his final words, on his deathbed, will you renounce Satan, all the works of Satan? And Voltaire said, oh, I don't have time to make new enemies. It's an interesting, provoking thought, isn't it? I don't have time to make enemies? Yeah, you're on your deathbed. That's the time where you should seek the Lord, right? Especially him. Seek the Lord, brother. Seek the Lord while the time is now. And his response is, well, I don't have any time to make new enemies. Unlike Voltaire, Solomon here gives us solid advice of things that we're supposed to stay away from, things we're supposed to do. This final reminder. Let me just say this as we close out with Solomon. I find Solomon to be one of the most intriguing humans on the face of the planet. I find him intriguing because he asked for the Lord to give him wisdom, and the Lord gave him wisdom, to the point that the Lord Jesus said, he's one of the wisest people that's ever lived. And you would think, wow, that's pretty high praise coming from our Lord. And yet, we look at how epically he failed. Here's this one of the wisest, and he failed. He didn't listen to his own advice. I just find that really intriguing. The reason I find that really intriguing is because of the shock of fear that comes in my mind of if Solomon had trouble following his own advice, except for the grace of God, I have no hope, right? No hope, but. We do believe in a gracious God, a kind God, a forgiving God, a God who, out of his great love, sent Jesus Christ to come and die on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day. We believe in a God who's so gracious that he then gives us his Holy Spirit that indwells us and helps us be obedient, helps us live a life of wisdom, a life of wisdom that is honoring to God, that's out of trust, and yes, we waver, but He who began a good work is faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. And it is true that if we walk in wisdom, the people around us may not see what we do as wise. Our responsibility is to be provoked of saying how sad that is, how hurtful that is, but our responsibility is one of praying for them and sharing the gospel with them. That's the solution. It's the gospel. It was a solution in my life. It was a solution in your life. It's the solution in their life. Now we're gonna have this incredible opportunity right now to...