Or, if you would like to open your Bibles, Proverbs chapter 24, a passage of Scripture that tells us about the benefits of wisdom over folly. And we'll be reading verses 1 through 20 today. Let me begin reading in verse 1. Do not envy wicked men. and do not desire their company, for their hearts plot violence and their lips talk about making trouble. By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established. Through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures. A wise man has great power, and a man of knowledge increases strength. For waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisors. Wisdom is too high for a fool. In the assembly at the gate he has nothing to say. He who plots evil will be known as a schemer. The schemes of folly are sin, and men detest a mocker. If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength? Rescue those being led away to death. Hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, but we knew nothing about this. Does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done? Eat honey, my son, for it is good. Honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. Know also that wisdom is sweet to your soul. If you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off. Do not lie in wait like an outlaw against a righteous man's house. Do not raid his dwelling place. For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again. But the wicked are brought down by calamity. Do not gloat when your enemy falls. When he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, for the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him. Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future hope and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out. I think there's been a time probably in every one of our lives where we have been surprised by another person. And maybe we surprise other people, and I mean in a good way, too. Sometimes when we get to know people, we feel like we we know their personality really well sometimes. And we often know that first impressions are usually pretty wrong. Right. But we may establish an understanding or perception of a person, and we think we know them really well, and then they go and do something that really surprises us. Maybe you thought a friend of yours was not funny at all, didn't have a single funny bone in their body, couldn't say anything funny if they tried, even if they wanted to, and then they go and say something that is really, really funny. Or maybe you thought your friend was shy, and then they go and they turn out to be very sociable in a public setting. Oftentimes, we can surprise one another in these ways. And this is the reality of getting to know a person. Those of you who are married, I'm sure you're still learning lots of things about that person that you're married to. You're always, even if it's been for many years, there's always something new to learn about your spouse. Well, I think Proverbs, the book of Proverbs, is kind of like a quiet friend that's full of surprises. The more time we spend with this book and the more time we come to it and study it, the more it surprises us and the greater our appreciation for this book becomes. Book of Proverbs is more than just a book of moral sayings or moral principles. But the wisdom literature in the Bible is persuading us and prompting us and directing us and trying to convince us of a particular worldview that's different than what our hearts tell us we should view the world with. It's persuading us of a biblical worldview, of a wise worldview, of God's perspective on life. And today in the passage, in these verses that we're looking at, chapter 24, we're told that we shouldn't envy wicked men. Or some translations say we shouldn't envy evil people, evil men. And oftentimes when we read through the book of Proverbs, we may come away with the perspective that if we do this and we don't do that and we apply these principles, that we're going to have a good and prosperous and happy life. And that all we need to do is just apply these principles in the right way, and then these things will have a guaranteed outcome in our life. But when we reflect on the Book of Proverbs as a whole, we find that there are times where we see instances that remind us that we don't know what tomorrow holds. We can't predict tomorrow. And that things, even if we feel that we are living a life that's pleasing to God, Sometimes it'll get flipped completely upside down and when we reflect on other books in the Bible, other wisdom books such as Job and Ecclesiastes, we're reminded that life is unpredictable and we don't know what tomorrow holds. And sometimes the believer will be living their life trying to please God and trust in his his plan of salvation. And our lives get flipped upside down and we get troubled with adversity. And we enter into very trying situations and we look around in the world and we see people who don't seem to be showing any interest in the Lord. And their lives seem to be going pretty well. And we can be tempted to be envious. And to be jealous and wonder if maybe we don't need to be trusting in the Lord after all, and that we should be abandoning our Christian faith and pursuing our former lifestyles. Well, we're told in Proverbs chapter 24 that we shouldn't be envious of evil or of folly. Because wisdom is better. Wisdom is better. And we're going to see many ways that wisdom is better in this chapter today in this very wonderful and beautiful passage of scripture. Well, it begins again with this command or this exhortation that we wouldn't be envious of wicked people and that we wouldn't desire their company for their hearts plot violence and their lips talk about making trouble. Then we're told in verse seven that wisdom is too high for a fool. Wisdom is high. Wisdom is elevated. Wisdom is in a place that we cannot find through our own earthly efforts. We cannot attain it. We cannot get a hold of it through our own efforts under the sun. And we see here a picture of wisdom in verses three through six. We're told that a house is built through wisdom and it's established through wisdom and through knowledge. Its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures. So we could picture the construction of a house and it takes knowledge. You have to know how to do it. And if you go and try to build a house and you don't know what you're doing, it'll take you a long time and it may not be a very great house to live in. But wisdom and knowledge is necessary to do that, to establish its foundation. We can think even to the creation of the world. When God created the heavens and the earth, it was through his wisdom that he established the earth and created it and filled the earth with everything that he created. We're even told in Proverbs, chapter eight, that wisdom was present with God when he created heavens and the earth. Proverbs 8, verse 27, I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its foundry so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth. Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence. Rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind. Wisdom is necessary to accomplish these things. And so we have a picture here of a wise person who has knowledge and knows how to do these things, can build a house, can fill the house. He also has great power. He has knowledge and he can wage war. He knows how to do these things. Verse six. But then we see a contrast between this wise man and the person who is described as evil following the ways of folly. Verse nine, schemes of folly are sin and men detest a mocker. And verse eight, he who plots evil will be known as a schemer. The one who is not following wisdom's ways is once the fruit that wisdom has. And so he plots. And he schemes because he doesn't have the knowledge that's necessary to get the fruit that he wants. And so he plots and he schemes and he breaks into a house, he raids the house so that he can get the things that he wants that are in the house because he doesn't have the knowledge to get those things that he wants. Because wisdom is too high. He can't achieve it. He can't reach it. He wants what wisdom produces. So he tries to find it in the world and in other ways and tries to scheme and plot and steal to get it. But in order to get what wisdom can produce, and we're talking more than about building a house and furnishing it with things. If we want to get what wisdom can produce, we have to know that it is that it comes from above. And that is above us and that it is high and that it is elevated. So, first of all, we see that wisdom is better than folly because it's elevated, it's higher, and those following the ways of folly cannot attain it. They can't get a hold of it. Now, notice, secondly, that not only is wisdom high and elevated, that wisdom is very sweet. And this is a beautiful picture that we see in verses 13 and 14. We're told in verse 13, eat honey, my son, for it is good and honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. There's many things in the world that are sweet. and pleasing and wonderful to experience. And honey is one of those things. It's very sweet to the taste, especially honey from the comb. I was recently in California and I brought back several different types of honey. I brought back some avocado honey. I brought back some wildflower honey. I didn't know there were so many different types of honey, but any kind of flower that a bee can pollinate can produce a particular type of honeycomb that tastes kind of like, well, it doesn't taste like avocado, It has kind of a darker flavor. But honey is a wonderful thing. And it's sweet and we enjoy it. It's a wonderful thing to taste. And there are many things like that in the world. But the problem is once we eat it, once we taste it, eventually we're hungry again and we want to try to get some more honey. We have to find it. It doesn't satisfy, satisfies our hunger for a period of time. But it doesn't satisfy our hunger forever. and it doesn't satisfy our souls. But he draws a parallel in verse 14 when he says, Know also that wisdom is sweet to your soul, and if you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off. Our souls are hungry. There's a void. It's a hunger. There's a thirst for something. And we can try to fill that hunger with things that are in the world, but those things never satisfy. They don't last. We can try to get the fruits that God's wisdom produces by by stealing and scheming and trying to find it in the world. And yet we're told that that path of life following the ways of Wally, Folly, not Wally, folly causes one to stumble and fall and be brought down into calamity. But if we can find this wisdom that we're being told about here, that's more than just knowledge about how to build something or how to lay a foundation, but that is a kind of wisdom. But if we can find the wisdom that comes from above, that's too high to reach on our own, if we can find it, Its sweetness to our soul. It satisfies our soul. It satisfies that hunger. And it generates for us a future hope. And your hope will not be cut off. It's an everlasting hope. that comes from accessing this wisdom, and this is not found in anything here in the world. It only comes from above. And you think about that. Does that sound familiar with any of the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament? I think about John, chapter four, when Jesus is with the Samaritan woman at the well. He asked her for a drink of water. And he tells her about a water that she could drink of, that he could give her, that she would never thirst again after she partook of it. And also in John, chapter six, when Jesus talks and describes himself as the bread of life, he has this crowd of people that comes up to him that were there when he fed the five thousand at the Sea of Galilee. And they're trying to find Jesus. And Jesus says, you're looking for me because you ate bread and you had your fill. But he says, I'm the bread of life. I can give you something that when you eat of it, you will never be hungry again. Through trusting in Jesus Christ, we find that satisfaction for our souls. We find rest for our souls. We find redemption. And we find a promise and a hope that secures for us the promise of everlasting life through the work of Jesus and what he did on the cross, what he did in his perfect life, what he accomplished through rising from the dead. All of that gets applied to us when we simply trust and have faith and rest in him, and we have an eternal promise that though this world is fading and passing away and though things can be flipped upside down, we know that This hope that we have in Jesus can never be taken away from us. It can never be cut off. And it is in the future for us. It isn't found in anything here below. And that's the temptation that I think every person faces that we as we go through life, even as believers, we can be tempted to if we're distressed and troubled to try to satisfy our longings and the things that are here in the world. But this satisfaction for our soul is not found in other people. It's not found in laziness or in pleasure. It's not found in thievery or in schemes. It's not found in any of these things here under the sun in this world. But if we try to find them in those things, even in other people, It will always disappoint us, always come up short, always come up lacking. This wisdom, this hope, this sweet hope to our soul can only come from above and it can only be given to us. Now, notice also a third point. Wisdom is higher than than folly. It is sweeter than folly. These are reasons why we shouldn't be envious of the wicked or of evil in the world, even if our lives aren't going too well and everyone else seems to be going great. We're told, third, that wisdom is also brighter, has a brighter future. And when we read verses 19 and 20, we see some very sad verses. Do not fret because of evil men, or be envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future hope. And the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out. The candle of the wicked will be put out. Even though they try to attain to what the wise man has. They'll fall, they'll stumble, they'll be brought down and eventually their lamp will be put out. But if you find this wisdom that he talks about in verse 14, there is a future hope for you. And your hope will not be cut off. It won't be snuffed out. It's a very bright future. It's an everlasting hope that we have. And though in the present we at times may be tempted to envy those who do not believe, and we may be tempted to wonder why it is that we face so many trials and sufferings. Truth is that our future is very bright if we have found this wisdom that comes from above. And this brightness shines light on how we are to live in the present. We see some urges and exhortations to be compassionate, verses 11 through 12, to rescue those who are being led away to death, to hold back those who are staggering, and to not have any excuses to say, I didn't know about it because The Lord knows about it and he knows if we're lying to him. And then also we see in verse 17 an exhortation not to gloat when our enemy falls, when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice. It's very interesting in the Old Testament, there's a great illustration of this in the book of Obadiah. When the nation of Israel finally is brought to their end and the city of Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians, the nation of Edom, the Edomites, who are actually the descendants of Esau, gloated in glory over the fall of their enemy, the descendants of Jacob. And it's a very interesting letter because the Lord comes to the Edomites, to the prophet Obadiah, and Says you were gloating and glorying over the fall of your brother. And because Jacob, his descendants were known as the nation of Israel and the descendants of Esau were known as the Edomites and Jacob and Esau were brothers. But there we see in the story of Obadiah that the Lord was also going to bring judgment on the Edomites because they gloried on that day. So we can see here an urge to be compassionate and to live life differently and to be influenced in this different life by the future hope that is possessed through this wisdom. This wisdom that is sweet to our souls and is high and elevated and provides us with a very bright future. Well, How do we attain this wisdom? And where do we find it? It's really interesting in 1 Corinthians 1 and Colossians 2 that Jesus himself is described as the wisdom and the power of God. We know that it's through Jesus that a way has been opened to us and where God has allowed us to find salvation and redemption for ourselves, our souls, through faith in Jesus. And he brought Jesus into the world. If we were left on our own, that righteousness that we would need to be righteous in God's sight would be so high and elevated that we could never attain it. We could never find it. We would be like the fool described in verse seven that can't reach and find this wisdom. But God brings it down to us. He gives it to us. And if we will trust and if we will accept what he shows us, what he gives to us, he gives us life everlasting through his son, Jesus Christ. And there's really two levels at work here in this in this chapter. If you look at verse 21, we didn't read this when we began, but a concluding statement where he says, fear the Lord. And the king, my son. And oftentimes wisdom literature is written as a father talking to his son, giving him wisdom for life. But he says, fear the Lord and the king. Because if you follow the ways of this wicked man and try to break into houses and try to get these things and steal them and try to get, get, get, get. You have to remember that there's a king over you and you're subject to the laws of the land if you break those laws. But even more than that, The Lord is over us. And there's an expectation to fear the Lord and to not join with the rebellious. And the one who is pictured here as the wicked is really the one who is rebellious towards God and does not want to accept what God has what he has given us and would rather try to find the solution and fill that void that they have in all the things that are created in this world. And in the New Testament, when we are confronted with the gospel of Jesus Christ and we're told that this is the path for finding rest for our souls and everlasting life, people can still be rebellious to that message and say, that sounds like foolishness and I don't want anything to do with it. But if we want to have this future hope, We have to arrive at that wisdom that is higher than us, but can be brought down to our level. And that is sweeter than anything under the sun, anything in this world. And provides us with a very, very bright future. Apostle Paul says in Philippians, chapter two. That through Christ Jesus, we shine like stars in the universe. As we live in this dark and dying world, we have an opportunity to shine as a light to other people and to share this wisdom, to share this message with other people so that they might come to know and trust and experience this. And so we're told again that we should not be envious of the wicked. And even if our lives come to a point where we feel like Job, I was talking with somebody this summer who was telling me that they felt like the person they related to the most in the Bible at that point in their life was Job. They were experiencing trials and a lot of pain and they felt like Job. Or we can experience the message of Ecclesiastes, where we're going through life and it seems like something just gets flipped upside down, that life is twisted, it's bent, it's unpredictable. We don't know what tomorrow holds and we can be tempted to be envious of those who have not trusted in the Lord. But we all arrive at the same place in this life. The grave is waiting for every person. And we cannot take anything with us that we amass in this life beyond the grave. We could try to be buried in our favorite car, as people often are, but that car is not going to rise from the grave on the day of resurrection. It's going to stay in the ground and rust away. This world is passing, it is fleeting, and we have to constantly keep our eyes fixed and focused on that future hope that is before us, that is higher and sweeter and brighter than anything that we could ever find in this fading and fleeting and dying world. And may thanks be to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, We thank you for these wonderful words of wisdom. We're told and encouraged not just to work hard and learn how to do things ourself in this life and to prize knowledge, but we're told to prize the knowledge that provides us with salvation for our souls. And we know that that comes only through faith and trust in your Son, Jesus Christ. And we ask today that you would help us to trust more and more in Him as we continue to live out the days of our life here on the earth. And we pray all of these things in Jesus' name. Amen.