Well, today is potluck day, which is exciting. I know that we all this morning were praying that people would bring bacon and piles of bacon, because nothing spells potluck like bacon. I like bacon. I feel like I've made this point evidently clear during my five years here. I don't think a week has gone by that I haven't at least mentioned bacon 20 times. I like Bacon so much that I even like people who have the name Bacon. There's one theologian, his name is Francis Bacon. We refer to him as Frankie Bakey in the Hilbert household. He once said this thing that was really kind of interesting. He said that God has two books, and when we neglect both of them, or one of them, we can go into air. Now, what he was talking about was he was talking first, there's the book of God's word, the thing that gives us God's character, his will, it teaches us about Jesus, and so this is the first book, and we shouldn't neglect this book. The second book that he was talking about was the book of nature, that we should study God's nature, and nature, he says, and I think he's right, it talks about God's power, we can see God's creativity, God's wisdom, There's one thing that we're going to see in Proverbs 30 this morning that Frankie Bakey didn't really point out in his statements, was that seeing God's creation should cause us to feel really small. really insignificant, should cause us to walk away with a sense of wonder and awe of the Creator, and that this thing should drive us to worship. And when we don't learn that lesson, it's very easy that we walk into folly and sin and foolishness and pride. And so this morning, we're going to, Lord willing, be in Proverbs 30, verses 18 through 33, and we're going to see this. We're going to see this idea of marveling at God's divine order, marveling at God's creation, and avoiding foolishness, avoiding pride. As we've studied this section, Proverbs 30, we've learned a couple things. And Agor does this really interesting thing as he talks. So he'll address an issue. He'll address an issue of the smallness of man and the bigness of God. He will then point out This is the advice based off of what I've just told you. This is what you should do. And then he gives a warning, right? So there's three parts. There's the teaching part of this is what I want you to learn. There's then this next part which includes that this is the advice that you need to have. And then there's a warning. in these three sections of if you don't do this, that's bad. So remember the first section in verses one through six of chapter 30, remember it was man is small and has great limitations. Very small. Man doesn't know anything apart from what God tells him. And so what should we focus on? We should trust God and trust his word. And if we don't, and we add something to his word, well, that's bad, right? You get rebuked, right? Verse six, you get rebuked and you'll be found a liar. Last week, we looked from seven to 17, and the idea was that God causes us to grow, right? Sanctification, despite our independence. And so, all the things were kind of geared towards independence of man and the selfishness of man, but God, but through prayer and through trusting God and trusting in his word and trusting in Christ, we can have the sanctification and growing, and if you don't, remember 17, there was this really bad thing that would happen, vultures come and pick out your eyes, right? Serious divine consequences. Well, this morning, we're gonna look at This idea that we need to submit despite our own folly. And we're gonna see three things in this text this morning. In verses 18 through 23, we're gonna see and we're gonna be encouraged to marvel at God's creation even though there's gonna be a part where we're gonna see where people don't do that and they act against what God has designed. Then we're going to see in verses 24 through 31 of this idea of observing God's impressive creation. So we're gonna see how impressive his creation is. And then the advice in verse 23 through 30 is to cover your mouth. It's a sign of repentance, a sign of awe, a sign of I'm gonna let you speak, a sign of I'm taking you serious. And if you don't, and you continue to act foolishly, devise plans, and elevate yourself, there's going to be some bad stuff that happens. Some bad fruit comes out of that. So let's first look at this marveling of God's creation in verse 18. through 23, and notice what he does here. He says, three things are too wonderful for me. Three things are so astonishing, extraordinary, beyond what I can comprehend, right? There's three things. So here the author, once again, is saying, look, there are some things that when I see it, I sit back and go, wow, wow, that's amazing. That's amazing. Now, you might look at some of these things and you might have a great scientific mind and you might say, well, we know how these things do these things, but you still look at it and go, wow. I know scientifically how this might happen, but still, somebody had to engineer it, the creator God, and wow, what an engineer. And then notice what he says next. For, I do not understand. It's beyond what I can comprehend. Looking at it and observing and studying, I'm still left with a sense of wow, right? So notice the four things. Here are the four things that he marvels at. of God's creation, the way of an eagle in the sky. You ever seen a bird fly? Isn't that amazing? Isn't that incredible? You look up and you watch and you just go, wow, how do they do that? You ever seen just an eagle not flap its wings and stay airborne? How does it do that? Now, there might be somebody who has scientific answers and you might say, well, there's this and there's that and there's this and there's that, but somebody had to design it. And when we look at this bird that stays in the air and flies in the air, it should cause us to go, wow. Wow, I can't do that. I can't create something that does that. God created that, right? There's another thing, the way of a serpent on a rock. It's kind of interesting. We went to the Tillamook Fair on Friday, and there was a guy who brought a snake, so I thought, I'm preaching on this. Let's go look at the snakes. I don't like snakes. I think the best snake is a dead snake, to be honest. I was thinking about this text and watching how those things move. It's remarkable. Now, I know that it has something to do with the scales and the muscles and contracting and I watch how it moves, but you still went back and went, That's amazing, that thing doesn't have any arms or legs and it still moves, right? It caused me, as I was thinking about this, to go, wow, what an incredible creator we have, what an incredible engineer. Notice the next thing. The way of a ship on a high sea. God is the creator of science, he's the creator of this universe, and the universe follows the set rules that he has implemented, and because of that, Ships float. That's amazing. I mean, I know we get on boats quite a bit out here, but it still is pretty amazing that some of those big boats that weigh a lot of pounds can stay on top of the water. I've tried plenty of things to try to float plenty of things, and they don't float. But a boat floats. That's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing that God created a universe that things are so predictable because he created it this way, that we can do something like a boat and have it float. Unless you're like a Hilbert, we drill holes in the bottom of our boats to put wheels on it, because we're smart, and it goes to the bottom, and then we sit there wondering, why did our boat sink? Other than a Hilbert that does that with boats, most of the time, it's super amazing to watch a boat float. It's because of the way things, and then here's this other one, and then it says, and the way of a man with a virgin, Now, this is speaking about mom and dad time. And if you need to know what mom and dad time is, you can ask one of your older ladies in the church, or go home and call your mom. And I'm sure that she'll be able to explain all of the birds and bees to you. But I think we all are adults and understand This, we all understand what Agor is saying. He's talking about how beautiful and sacred and how glorious it is when you watch two young people fall in love. Or you watch two people fall in love and this romantic feeling and this intimacy that grows. Right? And that moment at a wedding where you have the bride and groom looking at each other, right? In the United States we have the veil, right? That first time that the groom gets to see his bride. We all get choked up and we just think, how beautiful and how sacred and how magical. Modern science would tell us this is just nothing more than a chemical reaction. Friends, this is something that God's engineered inside of us to love and have the capacity to love. This is all beautiful and marvelous. And when we see these things, we should look back and say, wow, what an incredible creator we have. The problem is that we forget the creator in the midst of life, and we get arrogant. we get foolish, and we act sinfully, and when that happens, and we act according to God's revealed will, things start to get wonky. That's what he talks about next is this wonkiness, of this folly, of this arrogance, of this devising of evil plans. And notice the evil plans that he talks about. So the first is this, verse 20. This is the way of the adulterous. So this is opposite from the man with the virgin. This is beautiful and pure. This is speaking of that wedding night and that incredible intimacy that we can have as human beings as God's created us to. to have this marriage. But here's this way of the adulteress. This is somebody that doesn't honor that, that goes opposite of that. There are these, there's this marriage that God has instituted, one man, one woman for life, right? That's what he's instituted. The way of the adulteress is the opposite of that. So here's the way of the adulteress, and notice what it says. It says, she eats and wipes her mouth. That's speaking of the acts that the adulteress does. And then it says, And she says, I have done no wrong. There's two ways of looking at this. Either one, she's partaking in the act, and then as she's wiping her mouth, it's to hide the evidence of the act, so I didn't do anything. It's to cover it up. There's another, and this seems to be a little bit more what the verbiage of the Hebrew indicates, of she does it and doesn't care. I don't care. To her, this act is nothing more than taking a bite out of an apple. I didn't do anything wrong. It's so foreign to what God has instituted. This is bad, right? This is what man does. This is what sinfulness does. This is what happens with a mind that's focused on the flesh. And then notice, he even bears down even more, verse 21. Under three things, the earth trembles, starts to shake. Under four things, it cannot bear it. It's so devastating. It causes things to go so out of whack. It shakes the earth. And notice these four things. By the way, these are not good things. These are bad things. These are normally, these instances that we're going to see involve some nefarious planning and somebody taking something that's not theirs, outside of God's will, outside of God's timing. So notice the first one. When a slave becomes a king, most likely he becomes a king because he is, he's overthrown the king, right? The slave becomes a king because he overthrows the king. That's bad. The next one, when a fool, a fool when he is filled with food. Now this isn't against fools eating and being satisfied, it's the idea of a fool and the reason that he is so satisfied, because he's probably a glutton, is that he's been stealing food from other people. Selfishness. Notice verse 23, an unloved woman when she gets a husband. Most likely what this unloved woman is, is this is a woman who is not a person of character, She's that type of lady that you wouldn't want to bring home to mama, right? She is probably very foolish, very brash. She's probably that woman that Solomon warned us about, right? Says it's better for a guy to live on the roof of a house than be in the house with a contentious woman. Most likely it's this contentious woman. And here you have this contentious woman who, she finally bags a husband. She finds a guy who, is willing to put up with that. And guess what happens when she finds her new boo? It's bad. Everybody suffers, right, because she's contentious. She wants to fight. This is bad, right? This is bad. By the way, one of the things that we should think about this is we should be very careful about who we marry and be very careful that we're not looking at compatibility, which seems to be the buzzword today. I want to find somebody that I'm compatible with. I would say it's far more important that we find people that are holy and Christ-like, and that's the person that you should pursue. somebody that's Christ-like. That's going to be far better for a marriage than, are we compatible? Because I guarantee you this, when the flesh comes in, no one's compatible, right? That's the whole point of what the flesh does. Then notice the next thing it says, when a maidservant, when she displaces her mistress, most likely what's happened is the husband falls in love with his wife's servant, and he then chooses the servant over the wife. That's bad, right? That's going outside of God's bounds. This is going outside of God's will. So God has created this universe and it's marvelous and we can look at it and we can see his power and he's revealed his will. Things start to break down when we say, no, I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm not going to follow God's word. I'm not going to sit here and marvel at the creator and his incredible genius. No, I'm going to go my own way. I'm going to do my thing. I'm going to be me. I'm going to live my truth. I'm going to follow my flesh. And it's in that that the world starts to go wonky. Things start to go wonky. Things start to go bad. Now, Agor is wanting to cause us to marvel at God's creation, because this is really what I think his solution is. It's to marvel at the greatness of God, and that's what causes people to repent, is when they see the marvelous nature of God and the character of God. And so notice what he demonstrates as he begins to really do some body punches to the human ego. So notice, four things. on earth are small. Now there's lots of small things but Agger is going to point out four. But notice what they are. But they are exceedingly wise. So think of this. Think of the examples above of these people who are acting They're striving for something great. They think that I'm going to strive for something great. I'm going to do things in folly and it causes the world to go wonky. Here are four things in God's creation that are small and wise and they do things greater than what we can do. And we should sit back and be impressed at God as the creator. So notice the first one. The ants are a people. Not strong. Now, this doesn't mean that ants are little people, like they're humans. This isn't to think of reincarnation. This is to say that they are a politic. They are a group of things that organize and do stuff. And they're not strong, right? We can step on ants, right? They're not strong. We can kill ants pretty easy, right? Raid can. They're done. But notice what it says, yet they provide their food in the summer. They prepare their food. They don't have a leader. Nobody's sitting there telling them orders, you gotta do this, you gotta do this. There's nobody out there with a whip driving them to collect food, but they collect food so that when times are tough, they have food and they can survive. Who's telling them to do that? None of them. And they're sitting there and they're constantly working and working and working and they provide for themselves. Now, we as humans, we do this too, right? We have freezers, and we pickle, and we do all sorts of things. My wife has started to pickle and can stuff, and so we're learning about this preserving process, and we're doing that, and that's hard work, right? And we pat ourselves on the back, look at us, we're so great, we're so smart, we're planning for the future. We're planning for when things get tough. We're gonna have vinegars, cucumbers. The ants do that. They're better at it. That's impressive, right? Ants doing this is impressive. We're supposed to look at this and go, that's impressive. Notice the next one. The rock badger. Stupid little gopher, right? A rock badger are a people, not mighty. Yet, they make their homes in the cliff. They do this so that they don't get eaten, right, by some of the wild animals. Now think of this. There's some people in this room that have built their own houses. That's impressive. Could you build it on the cliff? Little gopher did. That's impressive. That's impressive that this little, this little, little. Rodent is able to climb build a house on the cliffs to protect themselves who taught him that that's something that the Lord has Engineered them to do notice the next thing the locusts have no king yet. They all march in rank Isn't that amazing how they all move together who taught him that? Who drives them? This is all because of God's design and then think of this The lizard you can take in your hand When I was down in Texas, this is what we used to do. We used to catch those little geckos. They were on the wall. It's kind of funny. You would catch them, and their mouth would open. You would put them, and they would hook onto your ear, and you'd walk around with geckos hanging off your ear. It didn't hurt, but it looked cool, right? As kids, we thought this was cool. You could grab these suckers, and you could grab them, and you could hold them in your hands, right? They have very little defenses. Maybe they could scurry away really fast, right? Very small. But notice where they get to live. Yet it is in king's palaces. Where do you live? Do you live in a palace? Do you live in the seats of government? A gecko can. He can walk in. He gets to live there. You don't. In one sense, he gets it easier than you do, right? Isn't that amazing? Isn't that impressive about God's creation? These are the things that we pat ourselves on the back going, wow, look how great I am. And here are these small things that are wise, able, they're wise because God instructed them, right? God has created them to be this, and they're able to do things that we're able to do. Now notice the next thing. Three things are stately in their tread, meaning in the way that they walk. They're stately in their stride, so when you see them, there's a sense of awe, there's a sense of respect that's given, there's a sense of, wow, look at that. So notice these four things. The lion, which is the mightiest among beasts, and does not turn back before any. Lion doesn't back down. I guarantee you this, if there was a mountain lion in the parking lot, a lot of us would be staying inside of the church until that mountain lion moved away, right? We ain't wrestling that with our bare hands. Maybe somebody might. Good on you. I'm not. I'm staying inside, right? I'm locking the doors or I'm running like a girl, right? That's what I'm doing. I ain't goofing with no lion. Did you goof with a lion? Nope. We don't wanna goof with lions. Just think about when a lion walks. Even at a zoo, when there's glass protecting you, there's just something about when it walks. It ain't scared of anything. It's the king. Nothing, nothing scares it. Stately, right? Notice the next thing. Have a little bit of an issue with this one. The strutting rooster, okay, I think more of a peacock, I remember when I was pastoring in Nebraska, we would drive and there would be those, not peacock, pheasants, I'm sorry, pheasants. And I remember we were driving and there would be pheasants that would chase our car because it's a pheasant and it's gonna fight and it's proud and it's strong and it sits there and it's all glorious and it puffs up its chest and you can't, it's not scared of anything. A pheasant's not scared of a thing. And then notice what it says next, it says a he goat. We also saw goats at the fair. Watched a couple goats walk. Some of those goats, they were big boss, they were big dog, you were little dog. That's it. I own this and the way it walked was just so, what are you gonna do? And then notice a king whose army is with him. All of these things are grand, right? All these things are grand and we look at these things and they're grand and notice that a lot of these are grand because of their design, and it's impressive. A lion's impressive, a rooster's impressive, a goat's impressive, a king with his army is impressive. We strive to be that impressive. Many of us will never be that impressive, but they're impressive, and we're supposed to sit back and marvel at his creation. So notice Agar's advice here now in verse 32. We're supposed to marvel. We're supposed to be impressed. We're supposed to look at God's design and just be, wow. But something happens in the midst of this. And this is part of the fall. This is part of our fleshly nature. This is why the gospel is so important. This is why Jesus came. He came to redeem us. He came to make us like himself. And as we place our faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone, we're in dwelt with the Holy Spirit so that we can walk by the power of the Spirit. If we're not walking by the power of the Spirit, we're walking by the flesh. And notice what he says, verse 32. If you have been foolish, the implication is you have been. This isn't an if, like maybe it might happen, maybe not, I don't know, need to meet the person. Every single person in this room this morning acted foolishly. You acted in a way that was sinful, with a sinful attitude. We all do, we all have. We are constantly sinful, we are constantly foolish. So when we read this, we should go, yeah, I've been foolish. And notice what he says, exalting yourself, trying to be like those things that are impressive and stately, exalting ourself. Look what I can do. I can build a house. So can a stupid little gopher. I can provide food for myself. So can a little ant. Look how grand my house is. Guess what? A lizard gets to live in the palace, and he didn't even build it. Do you want to keep on going on about how impressive you are? That's the whole point of exalting ourselves, because this is part of the foolishness, right? We forget about the bigness of God, the character of God, the creativity of God. We forget about that. We forget about our Savior. We forget about those things. And we think of ourselves as being the pinnacle. So we exalt ourselves. And notice what else we do. We have devised evil. We've thought and planned to do something that goes against God's character or his word. We've thought about it and we've done it and we devised it. And we said, I'm gonna do this. So in the backdrop of thinking of God's creation, of thinking about how marvelous it is, and awe-inspiring it is, and how impressive this is, and how impressive God is, and how great and big he is, and how transcendent he is, and holy, in the backdrop of all of this, we exalt ourselves. And so what's the result of looking at creation and being impressed by it? This is a device. Put your hand on your mouth. Be quiet. Stop it. Don't exalt yourself. Stop devising plans. Stop trying to talk yourself up. Stop it. Confess your sins. Stop it. You're not as big as you think you are. Stop it. Put your hands over your mouth. Recognize who you are. Realize who God is. Realize the greatness of God. And just stop talking. Stop. And all of our devising and evil and exalting, stop it. That's great advice. This kind of reminds me of Job. Remember in Job where God asked Job all those questions? Isn't it interesting how God asks all these questions and Job doesn't have a single answer? But you know what his response is at the end? He puts his hand on his mouth and says, oh man, what did I do? I am just a man and you are God. That's the response. David had this response. Be still, stop your striving and realize that he is God. Put yourself in proper perspective here. That's Agar's advice. Stop it. Realize who you are. You're not as big as you think you are. Now, this doesn't diminish humanity. Rather, when we understand the perspective as we're supposed to biblically, this actually exalts humanity because it's who we are. We are created in the image of God. And we are supposed to be dependent upon our creator. It is our own arrogance that trips us up. It is only when we get this humility that we can understand who we are, identify ourselves correctly, and then follow and trust the Lord. It has to be this. Now, I know us. I know me. I think I'm awesome. We devise plans. So here's the warning. It is a very interesting way that he stops. So notice how he closes out chapter 30. For pressing milk produces curds, pressing the nose produces blood, and pressing anger produces strife. You see what he's saying? There's this drive that we have of keep on pushing, pushing, pushing. And what happens with that pushing? Things happen, right? You push one thing, this happens. You push this, this happens. You push on somebody's nose, guess what happens? Blood comes out. You keep on going in anger and selfishness, what happens? Strife. Strife with who? Everybody. When you go with devising evil and arrogance, what happens when you press hard, hard, hard? And you're not putting your hand over your mouth, but you're pursuing. What happens? Bad things happen. Bad things happen. Consequences happen, like blood. Consequences happen like strife. Be careful. Be careful. Be careful not to be arrogant. Be careful to realize who you are in Jesus. Be careful not to think too highly of yourself and your will and your intellect and your ability to say no to temptations. you do realize that the only reason that we can say no to what is wrong and say yes to what is right is because the Holy Spirit empowers us. And the only reason that the Holy Spirit empowers us is because of the work of Christ upon our heart. That's it. It is the grace of God. But we're so prone to arrogance. We're so prone to thinking of ourselves really highly. And when we are arrogant and think of ourselves highly, what's the grace of God to an arrogant person? Nothing's about grace. It's all about merit and look what I've done and look what I can accomplish and look what I can do. Humility and the fear of the Lord and the trusting of God and taking God serious. is so vital, so vital in the mind of the Christian, because that's the only way that we can then fully trust him as we walk and go through life's difficult times. Difficult times are coming. We need humility. That's what we need. We need a proper perspective of God and his character. We need a proper perspective of Jesus. We need a proper perspective of grace. But if I'm too caught up on myself, I'm acting like a stupid pheasant, That's bad, that's bad, and it leads to bad things. It leads to devastating effects in my life, in the life of my family, it leads to devastating effects inside of the church, my walk with the Lord. So my encouragement is, put your hand on your mouth, realize who you are in Christ. Realize his grace and his mercy that's lavished upon you and realize how great God is and marvel at the greatness of our God. Marvel at his attributes. Be in complete awe of him. Strive and continue to know him and to know him in a real and meaningful way. May the Lord give us both the will and the ability to do all that we heard today. Let's go ahead and let's pray. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for your grace. We thank you for your love. We thank you for everything you blessed us with. We just ask that as we go downstairs for a fellowship, that the fellowship would be sweet, that we would make much of your son, that we would encourage one another to live for Jesus in these difficult times, that we would keep our eyes on Jesus. And Father, we just pray that the food that we eat would give us the strength to enjoy you and to live for you. Just thank you for my brothers and sisters who are here. Thank you for every single one of them. I thank you for the encouragement that they are to me and to my family. And Father, I pray that we would seek to be humble, that we would seek to submit ourselves to you, submit ourselves to your word, and that we would live a life that's Christ-like. We thank you and love you for everything you've given us. In your son's name, amen.