Bible Survey - Proverbs

We're going to barely scratch the surface on a book that is really full of all kinds of material. In fact, we went over the Psalms last week, or my dad taught through that, and I have to say that that's a tough book to teach through because it's 150 chapters, has the shortest and longest chapters in all the Bible, and it has all kinds of material And I thought, well, at least I'll have the Proverbs. But the Proverbs, while being much shorter as a book, still just a massive amount of material. So as we go through this, know that we're just barely, as we take a look at some of these Proverbs, we're just barely scratching the surface.

So if you have questions or things that you are curious about, we can try to look at it. But I promise you this will be much more rewarding for you if you just are intentional about reading through the Proverbs over the coming week or if you have not done so this this last week. There's a lot of material in there. So let's get started here.

The book of Proverbs is primarily focused on the writings of Solomon. So Solomon being the primary author of the Proverbs. Someone else appears to have compiled it as best as we can tell. It has some other writings that are in there, and I've got that listed there. Some material that Hezekiah told his scribes to collect from Solomon, Augur, and then King Lemuel, who wrote about the Proverbs 31 woman. So, with that in mind, I wanted to draw attention to something I think is kind of interesting.

This is the wisdom from Solomon, but there are some key things that Solomon did that actually just disobeyed the very wisdom that he wrote about in the book. Let's take a look at this short list of things. Yeah, yeah, number one there, he offered incense on the mountaintops.

1 Kings 3.3 said that Solomon loved the Lord and he obeyed God's commands except he liked to burn incense on the mountaintop there. He disobeyed the law in regards to marrying outside of Israel.

1 Kings 3.1 says he married into Pharaoh's household for political reasons. I mean, it's not masking anything. It's just like, yep, that seemed expedient, so he did it. Bit of a bummer, but that's important.

And he had a thousand wives and concubines, which turned his heart and mind away from the Lord. 1 Kings 11, 3-10 talks about the consequences of that. God took the kingdom away from his lineage as a consequence of his being well, at least perverse, and could be any number of other things. Those women drew his heart away from God. The writings in the book of Proverbs warn against pretty much all of that. And yet in his life he did not live up to the wisdom that he had learned.

Let's take a quick minute to ask the question, what is wisdom? And I'm apparently missing the word is, which seems like an important word in the heading there, so I'm proud of myself for missing is. As the former President Clinton said, what is, is, right? So, what is wisdom? Any stab at it, Al?

You're right on my sermon time. Okay, awesome. It's not the same as knowledge and understanding. Okay. Because you get knowledge, so you have information. If you connect the dots, so you see how it links up, that's understanding. But if it causes you to think about making good choices, then it's wisdom. Okay. So wisdom should cause you to make good choices. That's a good... process of making hopefully good choices, otherwise it's not worth it.

Very early in the Proverbs it talks about the fool and the simple and the wise man in contrast. The sworn fool, the simple and the fool reject God for different reasons, but the wise man seeks to know and understand God and learns more. So I've put together my working definition for wisdom, and that is that wisdom is knowledge applied. That's as short a sentence as I could think of that gives us a definition of wisdom.

Sound judgment from experience and learning being applied to action. For example, maturity is in part an honest evaluation of your situation and then to respond honestly with wisdom. If you're not honest about what situation God has put you in, then you're not going to respond to it honestly, and you're not going to apply wisdom.

For me, at different times in my life, it means when I've gotten myself into a crummy situation. I've had the very unfortunate side effect of sometimes covering my eyes and pretending it's not going on for a little longer. It's like, maybe this will blow over. Maybe this won't be a problem.

Of course, that's not wisdom, and that's not mature as well. So wisdom is knowledge applied. The other thing I wanted to draw attention to is much of this book is about principles. Concepts that are true or have truth in specific situations. It's not laws necessarily. Let's make sure that that's an understood thing here because when we read some of these there's some very strong wording and strong statements that are in there that if you were to be legalistic about them you might have some pretty different outcomes than observing the principles that Solomon was talking about. Could you say that when you get legalistic about it, you start getting judgmental as you look at other people and say, well, you're not living up to this.

Oh, sure. Absolutely. Whereas if you're living up to the principle, then you're applying it to yourself and saying, this is something I should think about. Yeah, definitely. The other thing that's important about principles is they can be applied broadly, whereas in laws they're often very narrow. So that matters a lot.

Stan? All wisdom comes from God. Solomon did. Solomon did, or all knowledge comes from God, as Solomon says. And we're going to take a look at that as one of our first verses. I would answer that in the affirmative, and we'll take a look at that in more detail in a minute. Yeah, and we're going to take a look at that first.

You guys are ahead of me, which is awesome. That's the best, worst place to be as a teacher, is to have everybody ahead of you, because you know at least everybody wants to know what you're going to say. Morgan? Yeah. Dad, what's your definition of principle? Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. All right.

So here's a brief outline. I definitely did not make the, I guess historically I have made some really lengthy outlines and there is so much curvature through different topics that it was going to be really long and hard to go through the way that we have on some of the other books. So this is a short outline. And because it's a short, terse outline, we're not going to go through it like I have in the past with some of the lessons. So we'll actually just let you have that for reference. I know, I shouldn't change up my teaching style like that, but we're going to do it anyways.

Alright, so let's take a look at some highlights from Proverbs. So let's start with the statement the statement of purpose and uh... that's not one seven but but we're gonna take a look at at uh... the chapter one starting in verse one the proverbs of solomon the son of david king of israel to know wisdom and instruction to discern the sayings of understanding to receive instruction in wise behavior righteousness justice and equity to give prudence to the naive to the youth, knowledge, and discretion.

A wise man will hear an increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel, to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles." And then verse seven, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. So we have a purpose statement right here in the first seven verses. So Solomon wants the reader to know wisdom and instruction. He wants the reader to understand and have discernment. He wants them to understand righteousness, justice, and equity. He wants them to not be naive. So he's going through, and I won't reread those verses, just for the sake of reading them, but we have a purpose statement here that's really important, because the rest of the book falls out of that That purpose.

What is the difficulty for us today, in our world, for making wise choices? If we're going to talk about wisdom versus foolishness. What is the world trying to do? Stan? Okay. So we need to be politically correct. Some people would say it's wise to be politically correct. Yeah, some would. Increasingly, our culture is becoming secular.

It's not fundamentally atheist, per se. And although surveys show that the majority of Americans believe in God, the reality is that God is not relevant to most people's lives. Yeah. They've kind of separated the parts of their lives into different categories and they don't let people... they never do those categories intertwine.

I'm spiritual here on Sundays. so that I can keep God off my back or whatever my purpose for being spiritual is and then on Monday I'm doing my work thing and on Tuesday I'm doing my work thing and maybe some other, you know, Boy Scouts or whatever else and we divide up our sections of our lives and it's not the whole person. Al? One of the problems we face particularly in America is we want things quick and easy. Our idea of reality is reality TV, which is all staged. It's a serious problem.

People go with their emotional knee-jerk reaction. That's what marketing counts on. Flash a pretty car, a pretty girl, an appetizing plate of food, whatever. They appeal to the I want it and I want it now type of attitude. And to stop and think about what you're doing to make anything beyond a short range immediate response is something that happens less and less. Our culture encourages us to act now. Act now. Call now. Operators are standing by. Your opportunity is disappearing. Don't worry about paying off the plastic. Just use it. You'll sure be happier if you do. Right? Happier if you spend now.

It's not scripture, but in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series, he has the Ents, and Treebeard is talking to Merry and Pippin, and the Ent talks about how hasty Everybody is and as there's readings of the book. It's fiction. It's fiction. It's fun There's little things here and there and I get to that one section.

I thought man Tolkien really actually laid it out really well about how hasty we are and Well wisdom wisdom definitely requires not being hasty and and thinking about the consequences my my daughters are tired of hearing me say think before you act and I say that to them over and over and over. Think before you act.

So let's dive into Proverbs 1.7 here.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. So what is knowledge without God? Arrogance. That's actually a really good answer and really important. Stan? necessary in the physical world. Knowledge is what helps us to understand physical laws and relationships and things that we can see, touch, and feel. So one of the things I think is important about God being the beginning of knowledge is that we, as human beings, are stuck on this planet at the present.

We've been to the moon, right? We have an International Space Station. But we really don't know much. If we're honest, we have telescopes. They see out far, far, far into the universe. But we don't see everything out far, far, far into the universe. We just see this tiny fraction.

So, if you're the omnipotent, omniscient all-knowing God of the universe, you can make a declarative statement and it actually can apply to the universe. If you're a man or a woman walking around on this planet, there's not a lot of stuff that you can be super declarative about in the grand scheme of the universe.

I can be like, I'm wearing a blue shirt! And you're like, he's right! He's wearing a blue shirt! Unless you're colorblind. Then you might say, he's wearing a dark shirt. The certainty level that we have just gets really small. Al, you look like you were going to say something. I'm sorry. Don't be sorry. I'm full of thoughts of things. Sure.

When we get to Proverbs 2, 6. For the Lord gives wisdom, from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. Yeah. We only know what God has allowed us to see, so to speak. Yeah. And the great men of science past and science present all knew that they were just seeing the tip of the iceberg. They never made the claim that, oh now we understand the human genome, now we understand the metaphysics, now we understand how the universe operates. They always, always pointed to a designer behind it, whether they had the God of the Bible exactly right or not, they knew there was and that what they were seeing was just a revelation, whether they called it divine revelation or not. The way the universe works is complicated.

And it's hard to get cocky about the little that we know. So knowledge comes from God. So let's ask a few questions here. Why do our sins compound? Whoops, I jumped ahead. Why do we need knowledge compared to just rolling with the punches and just going?

Isn't it easier if you don't worry about the facts? You've got no sense of purpose or direction or hope. You don't have those kinds of things. You have information, but it's just stuff. It's information and it's... Morgan, what was the word you used? I'm sorry. Arrogance. Yeah, the arrogance of what you think that you know and being brash about what that means. It's really quite interesting. how that plays out. So the second half of that couple of thoughts there is fools despise wisdom and instruction. So, despising wisdom.

How many times have you in your own life, and don't raise your hand, but in your own life have you found that you've been wrong about something or you need to be corrected on something and your first reaction is to just get angry? For me, that's happened hopefully less often as I've grown and matured, but the truth of the matter is that I can remember being a kid, being caught in my sin and just being really angry.

My brother and I had a friend down the street whose dad used to always say, oh, you want to do that the long hard way. He'd find us doing something, or probably me more than Ed, but he would find us doing something the long hard way. And so he would say it, and then his son would say it, which made it hard to sometimes spend time with him as a friend.

He's like, ah, you know everything. But the idea is that a fool despises that wisdom. A fool despises the instruction. So for us as believers, obviously we need to be intentional about seeking wisdom and instruction, because we know it comes from the Lord. We know it's in God's Word. When someone despises God's Word, when they despise God's wisdom, then the opposite of this statement is that they're fools. The opposite way to say the same thing.

So when someone comes to you hating God's Word, It's really easy to not embrace what they're saying after that. You hate God. Whatever you're going to say after this is probably not going to line up with God's word and not line up with what I know is right for my life.

So that's 1-7. Boy, it's the tip of the iceberg, but it's good stuff there. Let's skip ahead. I handpicked verses here and I apologize if we skip over your favorite Proverbs as we go through this. I just try to look at some different topics as they were laid out.

Proverbs 5, 21-23, For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he watches all his paths. His own iniquities will capture the wicked, and he will be held with the cords of his sin. He will die for lack of instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray." So the section right before that is actually talking about an adulteress and falling into the snare of an adulteress. So that definitely applies in context for this. But the simplicity of what is here is, "...for the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he watches all his paths." Well, they'll draw in, they'll snare the wicked and bring the wicked in. We'll talk about that more in just a second.

I know that when I realize I'm not abiding, so I'm going to make this very personal for me, maybe you'll identify with this. When I realize that I'm not abiding and I'm walking in the flesh and I've been sinning in some capacity, I realize that for a second I fooled myself into thinking, God's not paying attention to me.

He's not going to notice this. He's not concerned about this. That's often one of the things that's subversively going through the back of my mind when I'm pursuing sin. This isn't that big of a deal to God. Solomon pursued all kinds of stupid things. This isn't going to be a big deal to God. You're just the king of the nation. You're just the example to all the people. You're just the one that God said, I'm going to give all wisdom to. and then ignore it. But God knows exactly what we're thinking and we're not hiding anything from the Lord.

Verse 22, and this is actually something that Stan asked the question, what does this mean? Let's take a look at Romans chapter 1. When we look at Romans chapter 1 and we see the pattern of sin, in the life of human beings. And Solomon was definitely not mincing who he was talking about. He was talking about regular, everyday old sinners. Actually, Raymond, instead of just the pattern of sin, that would be the pattern of the sin. Yeah.

So, Romans 1.32. the last verse there, Paul writes these long run-on sentences and we're gonna just jump right in the middle of one of them and he says, and although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death they not only do the same but they also give hearty approval to those who practice them. When you're sinning and you're walking in your sin and you like your sin you kinda like it that other people are doing it with you You know, as we've heard various times as illustrations in surveys, and my dad was aware of one at his college campus, people feel like they're above average morally. Right? Everybody feels above average. Most people think they're good. Right?

But I'm no worse than everybody else is sometimes our definition of good. So come do the sin with me. Let's do it together. If there's a lot of us doing it, maybe we'll get in less trouble, or at least we'll be in trouble collectively. Lower cost, right? Will that dollar cost average our sin?

But Paul writes about this very same principle. It's ensnaring, and the wicked kind of collect, and we get entangled, and we do it together. Then the last part of that stanza, he will die for lack of instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray. So what are your earnings? What's your hourly wage for sin? Death. The wages of sin are death. Paul wrote it one way, Solomon wrote it another, but the principle still carries. When we walk in sin and we're not walking in wisdom, then we fall short of that. So why do our sins compound if we don't turn away from them? Why are they like a snare that they would grab us, and they would be like chords? Not guitar chords, that's spelled differently. Stan?

Paul says not to let your flesh master you. And I think that's the point you're making here. It's the fact that it's habits and it's patterns and before long you don't even recognize that it's a problem because it's become part of it. You've embraced it and it's become part of the way that you're thinking through things sometimes. Some day, one day, some person came up to me and they said, they took my back cigarettes and said, okay. Didn't do it. Yeah. Guess what? I didn't even know. Yeah. Yeah.

It's kind of like our television and our movies and stuff, they have introduced more and more and more and more, and it just is. You get to be pretty intentional about what you are or are not watching. Because the material that gets put on there, they keep pushing the envelope.

So for us, the takeaway on this little stanza here is that God is watching us, and if we continue to walk in sin, He's not oblivious to it, and it's going to be an ensnaring problem for us. And we can, especially as believers, abiding and being directed by the Holy Spirit, avoid those things. So that's good. You can flip it around the other way and go to 1 John and say, If we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. We have a fellowship with God. We don't lose our salvation, but we lose that relationship, that closeness, that fellowship that keeps us from getting hardened in our...

It's the life and hope way to say that, which is obviously really the more encouraging way, if nothing else. The next one I've got here is Proverbs 6 verses 1 and 5. 6, 1 through 5 are actually a much longer statement of the same thing, but I wanted to just focus on 1 and 5 because it was shorter. I was being an editor, and you'll forgive me for that. You can read the in-between if you'd like. But 1 and 5 says, My son, if you have become surety for your neighbor, have given a pledge for a stranger, deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hunter's hand and like a bird from the hand of the fowler." So this debt situation, he says, get out of it as quick as you can.

That doesn't work really well in today's modern world. Let's look at things on a global governmental scale and not a personal household scale, but just on a government level. How much of Europe is impacted by this idea of we'll just borrow our way to happiness? I have a co-worker that this last week got back from Spain and he went to the resort towns and he had a great time and it was really beautiful.

I have a business contact from my last job who was saying there's 25% unemployment and they're maxed out in debt so they can't borrow their way out of this unemployment situation. There you go, yeah, just fake your way through that problem, right? We'll borrow our way through it, it'll be okay.

But the wisdom that is conveyed here has to do with financial responsibility. When you think about wealthy people, how many of those people do you think of as being massively in debt? The principle of wealth is that you're not in debt. I heard a story once, and I reference Oprah Winfrey almost never, but this is actually a useful illustration. I don't believe in any of the nonsense she talks about most of the time.

When she got her first job as a news reporter back in Chicago years and years ago, she was making $22,000 a year. And her dad said, wow, that is a lot of money. Save half of that so that if you ever get fired, which is really likely in that industry, you have some money to live on. And her intentional decision And since she got that first job as a news reporter was to save half of her income across the board at least. Well, she's a billionaire. And part of that is because she was making wise business moves, but part of it is that she didn't spend it. She didn't borrow half of what she was earning. She saved half of what she was earning.

That's a modern day illustration that kind of emphasizes the point with extremes. But what is there? On the opposite side of that, today the world actually does not promote accountability. If you don't charge up your credit cards, you can go to a place and you can get half of it written off. The banks and stuff, when you get severe debt, you bail them out, just like general mortgages. You can look at this principle of the world, and it's constantly working against the accountability that people are supposed to have with their finances. It's frustrating. We use the word knowledge, and to find knowledge is the fundamental assumption, and that's true. Yes. That there is truth. Because the distinction between truth and falsehood is huge. Yeah. So the question I've got for this section is, what is the job of the person who sells debt? What are they asking you to do? What's their job to get you to sign up for? That that's an asset. That you have an asset?

It's directly countering scripture. So there's that. Stan? It's also the fact that once you borrow a little, you end up borrowing much. Yeah, it's very easy. And I'm aware of one situation where a person is an unemployed homemaker And they were offered tens of thousands of dollars in credit lines as an unemployed homemaker that has literally no way to pay off that money. But they're like, here, have some debt.

We'll lend you everything, and then we'll want your soul back. Al? Current news. That's the city in Ukraine that I went to four times to teach English. Don't ask. I always said the city nobody's ever heard of from the center of the moon. Yeah. And I don't want to get into too much, but others over there that I know have been emailing me and what's behind. The root of the problem is not all the territorial and the war, but it's economics. It's the billions of dollars that Ukraine owes Russia.

So, like you were saying, just another example. on a global scale, how much we produce in regards to accountability, balancing budget, etc. Moving on to the next one, I've jumped ahead to Proverbs 11.22. This one is great just because it's a really visual proverb. He writes, As a ring of gold in a swine's snout, so is the beautiful woman who lacks discretion.

As I was meditating on this particular verse, it kind of stuck out to me that as human beings created in God's image, one of the things that we tend to do is visually evaluate things all the time. Or auditorily. As a musician, you can listen to it. Basically, we take on... We're instinctively evaluating things for attractiveness. Art. That's why it's subjective. Music. And all of creation. We can look at God's creation and say, wow, look what the Lord has made. But in our culture today, we're really, really inundated with things like physical attractiveness.

When I went with a group of 6th graders about a month ago to Estes Park, I went with my daughter's 6th grade class and Abe was there with me. The boys were talking about the 6th grade girls saying, oh they're hot or they're sexy and I thought, they're 6th grade girls, they're neither of those things. They're girls. Just stop thinking that way. But the culture has just surrounded them with that. Oh, girls, they've got to be hot or sexy. Well, Solomon, I think this is really clever. So let's take a look at this.

As a ring of gold in a swine's snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion. So, where is the beauty in the pig, in the analogy? The beauty is in the nose. The ring is the beauty. So, the woman's beauty is the ring. What's the woman? The pig. Yeah, the pig is really, really foul. So, here's this proverb of a ring of gold is what the beauty is equivalent to and the woman is a pig. and you're distracted by the outward beauty, but the truth is that this person lacks discretion, and that's why she's a pig. It's not that all women are pigs, that's not what he's saying.

Stan? What's the owner of the lake? I can't remember his name. Sterling, yeah. I don't know, he's got this supposedly beautiful woman. Yeah. And she certainly lacks discretion. Yeah. I mean, she was the ring and the big and look where he's at. Yeah. And as was mentioned earlier, we're sold things with beauty or sexuality all the time in our culture.

But as this points out, it's shallow. It doesn't reflect any of her internal qualities or his internal qualities, depending on who's selling what when. But the principle carries that that's the wrong priority. We may skip ahead to hit 31 to make sure we cover that.

Proverbs 12.15. We're going to jump over 12.1. Well, no, let's look at 12.1. We can't skip 12.1. It's too good.

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid. We tell our kids, don't use the word, don't tell, don't call your friends stupid, don't call your sister stupid, don't, don't, no, no. Solomon, stupid. Solomon's not meant in words. They're stupid.

How many times in your life when discipline or instruction comes, does it sting? Sometimes it comes a lot. As a kid I know that Every time I got disciplined, I didn't like it, I didn't like it, I didn't like it. But what's the result of consistent discipline in the life of, we're going to say, a believer in this case?

Okay, maturity. Hopefully you're not going to continue to walk in sin, right? You're going to go, oh, okay, that's not the path I should go on. Let's go on the other one. The righteous path, the path that God desires for us. I just like the difference between what people think of as freedom and what freedom really is. Freedom is not being able to do anything I feel like. Freedom is to be able to do all those things that work for the good of others. You're free to make wise decisions. You're free to make good decisions.

So reproof and discipline is hard, but it brings with it knowledge. When you hate that reproof, that's stupidity. That's foolishness. In my own life, when I am corrected, and I have to say that that correction doesn't always feel awesome, I don't like cheer and shout and go, Yay! I got corrected!

But when I get corrected, I know that it's because the Lord is doing something. In the main service, we're talking about Hebrews 12 and discipline, and that's already a major piece of the The lesson is that God is doing an intentional correcting thing here because He loves us. Because He wants to see us grow and walk in fellowship. So that discipline is important. Ignoring it is stupid. Any other thoughts on that? Because I want to keep going. Proverbs 12, 15, the way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.

I haven't watched a movie that doesn't say follow your passion, right? That's the best, worst job advice you can give somebody, or career advice, is to tell them to follow their passion. I really love doing this thing that doesn't make any money whatsoever, but I'm going to do it and hope that I get to make a living doing it. Don't follow your passion. Don't do what's wise in your own eyes. Seek good counsel. Because we're running out of time, we're going to skip 2210. Let's look at 2918.

Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law. Okay, so as is common in many of these couplets is there's a rhyming idea, but they definitely say two different things, but the ideas are related. So let's take a look at that. Why is it important for there to be vision for a people? According to this. No focus point and no order.

I'm going to mention American politics or US politics. I hope that this doesn't mean a rabbit trail discussing Glenn Beck or Limbaugh or those people. But instead, can we say that our current leadership in the United States, and I'm saying that across the board, provides a clear and concise, followable vision that unifies the nation? Lip-reading doesn't work on the recording for the internet, so you've got to say it out loud.

Al is mouthing, no, no. And the thing is that historically, when presidents have come into adversities and hard times, it's their ability to unify the nation towards one goal that has allowed them to successfully move things forward. And without that unity, without a clear vision, the people are all over the place. And there's division, and it makes it a lot harder for the nation to move forward. And especially if they're morally ambiguous, that gets really difficult. You were going to say something, Dan. Yeah?

Vision assumes that things ought to be different than they are. A lack of vision means the way things are is just fine. So vision says we're going somewhere and here is where we're going. And to recognize that where we're at is not where we need to be. It requires perspective. You have to have context and perspective. And so vision says, I can see things where they are. They're not right. And here's what progress looks like to get us towards the right place. As you've already alluded, if you have no focus point, if you have no vision, then you either have chaos, everything going Like one definition of a fanatic jumping on a horse and riding off in all directions at once.

You either have that or you have a complacency. But we won't worry about it. The government will print more money in and they'll take care of it. Oh man, what a relief. So the second half of the couplet is that we realize without vision people will be unrestrained or there will be chaos. And the second half is, but happy is he who keeps the law.

Now in this case, let's take a look at this on a national level and we're not talking about the Mosaic Law. If you have vision and you have clear direction, and the law is clear and easy for people to follow, then they can go ahead and do it. What you can do to really ruin that is to create more laws, which we're really good at in this nation. The only nation that I think has done it worse, but in an impressive way, is the UK, where in England they have not actually redacted any laws, and they've just got huge massive books of law after law after law that is hundreds of years old, but still technically available to be exercised.

So let's jump ahead. That's our five minute warning. So we're going to jump ahead to the Proverbs 31 woman because it would be foolhardy for me to get to Proverbs and not go over the Proverbs 31 woman. But I want to talk about the Proverbs 31 woman in light of something kind of different here. I'm going to start in 3110.

An excellent wife who can find, for her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. And she looks for wool and flax and works with her hands in delight. And he keeps going and he's expounding this awesome, awesome woman.

And I have to tell you that I am so relieved that there is no Proverbs 32 man. Because as I was you know, you read through this you're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing Martha Stewart is half this woman You know, and she's the American icon of present modern-day, you know uber capable woman She she is our symbol for that in our culture But she's not even half this woman she's just really insufficient in comparison to this person is but the truth of the matter is that I we really really carefully as believers need to ask or ponder the question is the Proverbs 31 woman good enough compared to an abiding woman in Christ today? I don't mean to belittle this description but I think we get a little far off when we obsess over this woman rather than encouraging abiding. Al?

One thing I really enjoyed about this church, since I've been privileged to fellowship with you, is that the emphasis isn't on what we're doing. The emphasis is on who we're becoming. Yeah. And that's the root. It's not the activities of the woman or the man. It's who they are in Christ.

And that will drive what they do and how they talk and what they think about it. An abiding, growing believer who's being transformed in the image of Christ is better than a Proverbs 31 woman or a Proverbs 32 man. Or maybe we should say Proverbs 1-30 man. Maybe like manhood is described in all of 31-30 and then 31 is for the women. I don't know how we break that up.

Abiding is the key walking in fellowship with the Lord. These things are amazing when you look at at 31 30 the author says charm is beaut is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord she shall be praised and I have to say as a husband that when my wife is abiding in and walking in the spirit the things she does in my household bring me just a tremendous joy and And it's not just that she's physically attractive, it's not just that she can bake or cook, or that she can program websites, or that I could list off things that make my wife amazing to me. But it's that she loves the Lord.

We got married in nine months. After we got married, we moved to Texas and went to seminary. Then I discovered that the spiritual side of my wife and the mind of my wife were really, really, really cooler than I'd ever imagined. And I thought she was pretty cool. I married her.

But the fact that she loves the Lord and the fact that she has a passion to raise our children to love the Lord. Man, that is really cool. I want to sing the praises of my God and the praises of my wife because of that fact. That's a detail that matters. All this other stuff is cool. Yes, I certainly don't merit that. But it is a cool thing that a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. And that's really cool. That's the thing I aspire to teach my daughters, having two of them. I've told them my job and your mom's job is to raise you up to be a godly woman, hopefully like your mom. That's the standard, a godly woman. So, it's a pretty big deal.

Any questions, thoughts? I mean, we've blitzed through Proverbs and we've only hit just a tiny, tiny fraction. Stan? Well, this is King Lemuel, so we don't know he He may have some different insights or exposures compared to Solomon's So yeah, but it's a pretty big deal there All right. Let's close in prayer. There's folks waiting to get in here Heavenly Father.

Thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you for your the wisdom that you reveal to us. Thank you that we have knowledge and wisdom from you. Thank you that Christ is our wisdom and we have the mind of Christ. We just lift up the prayer request to you again. We do pray for those people that are being held captive, that you would liberate them. Lord, let us be lights for you with your wisdom standing out in a dark world around us. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.