We will go ahead and get started. So let's go ahead and open up with a word of prayer. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for how good you are to us, for what you give us. We thank you for this last week with the cold weather and the snow, for something different, or to see your creation at work and your power on display. I thank you for the safety you granted us during that time. I pray this morning that as we look at Proverbs a little bit more that you would Help this time to glorify you, edify you, help us to see all the wisdom in this book that we can take from it, apply it to our lives, and live in the light of it. We pray for all of this in your name. Amen. Well, welcome to week number three of the six-week adult discipleship class on the wisdom books. And what I want to do this morning is just take a couple of minutes to review, and then I'll kind of set out what we want to look at today as we continue on in Proverbs. So by way of review, we've been looking at the wisdom books. Does anyone just want to shout out what the three wisdom books are? He got the first one. What else we got? Anyone remember? Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes and one more. Joe, nice. Those are the three that universally are the wisdom books. Everyone's going to say that. Outside of that, there's a little bit of division where, you know, some people have different parts of scripture in this wisdom genre. We actually looked at Psalms to kick off our study. Part of the reason we did that was because of Psalms' extensive use of Hebrew poetry. It's a good introduction to lay a foundation as we get into these other books. And there are many psalms that would be considered wisdom psalms. They kind of tackle these big questions of life. How do we live life well? What kind of things should we pursue? What kind of things should we stay away from? You know, why do good things happen or why do bad things happen to good people? Those kind of things, wisdom literature. deals with and helps us out. And I don't know if you're like me, I'm really not a poetry person. I'm not gonna, you know, spend my weekends reading poetry or that kind of thing. And so when I get to that part of scripture, a lot of Hebrew poetry, sometimes I struggle with it. I have a hard time. And so I'm hoping that going over some of these different literary devices, it helps me out, understand the structure, trying to grapple with the text, understand the text, and hopefully apply the text to our lives. in a more meaningful way. And last week, we kind of jumped into Proverbs. And the big takeaway that I would want us to see is that when we read Proverbs, we read about patterns, that this world was made by a creator who very purposefully, very intentionally designed the world. And because of that, There are these cause and effect relationships everywhere. If I came in with a two liter and just shook it up for a minute straight and handed it to you, what would you expect to happen if you opened it? It would explode everywhere. If I had a carton of eggs and I just started dropping eggs, you would expect that they would all break. Here's one I'll let you all answer if you can discern the pattern in this. But if CBC were to do a fellowship, you know, an event on a nice day and pastor was in charge and he was going to put some food on the grill, what would he put? Hot dogs. Yeah, there's some things that just there's a cause and effect. We know it's going to happen and that's what Proverbs speaks to. Last week, Pastor Joel preached on Romans 12, 9 through 13. And as he was preaching, I couldn't help but think, man, it sounds an awful lot like Proverbs to me that we talked about wisdom and this definition that wisdom is the skill and the art of godly living, that wisdom is godliness in action. And all of this that Pastor Joel went through last week, to me, was putting that godliness in action. That when we look around at people and we look around at wisdom, You know, I think some people have more wisdom than others. Some of that, you know, is God-given, but we all can work on it. Wisdom, this word chokmah in the Hebrew scriptures, is a broad word that speaks to skill and ability, and it's something we can grow in. It's something we can work at and become wiser. And, you know, part of wisdom is just doing these things, and you will grow in wisdom. And so that is most of our review. Last week, if you remember this slide, we really talked about chapters 1 through 9 of Proverbs. We touched on a little bit, 30 and 31, and you can see these on this slide. For the most part, you know, is written in this Hebrew poetry. We really didn't get into the middle section. We'll talk about that a little bit more today, starting with chapter 10. And this is where we get into those short sayings, those short, pithy proverbs that, that's what at least comes to my mind when I think of proverbs. We really didn't talk about them last week. We'll get into it this week. And what I want to talk about this morning, a couple of things. We'll talk about you know, some hermeneutical challenges of Proverbs. When we try to interpret it, what kind of things do we want to keep in mind? And then broadly, we'll look at some of the big theological themes. What are some of the topics we see Proverbs visit over and over and over again? And maybe look at one or two of those examples in more detail. But Before we do that, I am pleased to present to you guys a guest speaker to share with us. And really one of my goals through the course of this series is to have, you know, different people come up and share about wisdom, maybe from their perspective, based on some of these books we're going through. And I've picked people at different stages in life. So this morning we'll have a young man come share with us. Next week we'll have a couple, I won't say they're old because they're not old, but they have more life experience. They've got young children and then they'll talk a little bit about Ecclesiastes and then we'll have a couple talk to us about Job who has children that are now young adults and kind of see these different stages of life and some wisdom based on these books. So, this guest speaker is a recent new member at Charleston Bible Church. You may have heard him, if you were here a few weeks ago, share his testimony with us. Did a great job communicating God's truth, and so I will invite Mr. Clayton Hawk up here to share for a few minutes. I'll move this out of the way, and we'll get you this mic, and I'll get your stuff kind of set up for you. Honestly, if you were here when he shared his testimony, Did a really good job. Made me a little nervous because I made it into his test when I was honored, but he talked about me and he said, and I quote, Zach, this short white kid. And that's what's going on. So we'll see what he has to say. But thank you, Clayton, for sharing with us. Well, good morning. Chances are if you're looking at my title, you're probably a little confused, but I promise it will make sense in time here. Let's start off. I want to go way back to the very beginning. If you'll travel with me all the way back to the Garden of Eden. And here we'll find Adam. In Genesis, the beginning of Genesis, we hear the creation account and the creation of man. And we're told that Adam walked and talked with God, and I find that so amazing what that would be like to hear the audible voice of God, and that he lived in perfect unity. He lived in a sinless creation, free from sin and shame. And we're told that he was a garden keeper, and he carried out those tasks in the garden, whatever they might have been, without toil, without pain. He joyfully and he obediently worked in the garden and we're told that he named all the animals. I'm like, what a responsibility, how cool that would have been. We're told that he had dominion over all the creatures of the garden. But despite all this perfection, in chapter 3, we're told that Adam betrays the perfection of God for a mirage, for a lie, for a fleeting shadow that would prove to be fatal to mankind, the consequences of which we still deal with today. 14 generations later, who we know as King David, he bursts onto the scene for the first time. And what starts off as this young, meek, shepherd boy quickly becomes this larger-than-life hero. We all know the story. We see him defeat Goliath, this Philistine who is mocking the name of his God. And he goes out with a slingshot and takes him down. And the people of Israel herald him. He becomes this national icon. You know, he was said to be called a man after God's own heart. What a name, something that I know that we would all desire, but I find that so amazing. And David would go on to produce some of the most beloved psalms and even literature, you know, ever written in scripture and outside of that. You know, David would go on to walk with the Lord through, you know, thick and thin. We see him running for his life in deserts and caves and caverns. And we even see him in the high points of life as king, and the Lord led him there. But yet, in 2 Samuel chapter 11, we see David make a mockery of God's name, and in one fell swoop, brazenly commits gross sexual sin and murder all at the same time. Then not long after him, in 1 Kings, we read of a young man named Solomon, who of course would be David's son. We're told, you know, it's pretty evident from early on that he had a heart for God. So early on in his life, we're told that in 1 Kings 3.3, it says that Solomon loved the Lord and followed the decrees of his father. And we all know this story, too. Accordingly, God comes to him and literally, in an open-ended question, says, what do you want? I'm like, if Lord would say that to me, I don't think I would have responded the same way, ashamedly. But he comes, and Solomon wisely says, I want your wisdom, I want your guidance, I want your knowledge. And of course, the Lord grants him that and so much more. And soon Solomon finds himself with more wisdom, wealth, and prosperity than the world had ever seen. We are told that people come from miles and miles around just to see his splendor and hear of his wisdom. And like his father, David, Solomon would go on to compile and write these practical wisdom literature that we see in Proverbs and elsewhere. But Solomon, too, gets to the end of his life, and in 1 Kings 11, we find Solomon entrenched in sin, trading the glorious wisdom of God for foreign women and their foreign gods. And this would prove to be the beginning of the end for Solomon. And ultimately, we see the splendorous king go on to age as just a miserable old man. And so I know you're probably thinking, what does this have to do with wisdom literature? I don't know about you, but I want to know where these men went wrong. These are these Mount Rushmore heroes of the faith, these just monumental, righteous, renowned men of God, not just falling into sin, but jumping into sin. And so when I look at Proverbs 2, specifically the verses 1 through 8, this is where I kind of find the answer. And it says, my child, listen to what I say and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver and seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord and you will gain knowledge of God. For the Lord grants wisdom from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He's a shield to those who walk with integrity. He guards the path of the just and protects those who are faithful to him. You know, when I read this verse, you know, action just flows out of it to me. And I firmly believe that all three of these men had wisdom and knowledge of the Lord in their hearts and in their minds. But I'll submit to you, when the fire of temptation burned its hottest in their lives, it was at that moment that they did not act with action in their wisdom, which is a key part of wisdom. They didn't act with action in their wisdom. And specifically, the action wasn't motivated by the fear of the Lord. So I wanted to go through and just look at some of these action phrases. I liked how the NLT put it. So for some of these, we're going to use that. So I went through and just highlighted some of these. I want to go through these words. And really, we're just going to concentrate on the first five verses here. And you can just see how much meaning these words have. I think so often we see stuff like this, and we just assume it's figurative language. And you know, sometimes in the Bible, it might be. But I truly mean that these words are there for a reason. So the first one you see there is listen. You know, these are all pretty simple words, but I like cut and dry definitions. So a lot of times you'll hear me just use dictionary definitions just to lay it out perfect so we have a good understanding of it. I think we all know listening is an active process, right? Often it's an exhausting process. And it's vital to learning. It requires a tremendous amount of tension, a tremendous amount of self-control, and a tremendous amount of discipline. And without those things, it will quickly become just mindless hearing. And trust me, I would know. I was a biology major in school. And there was times I had back-to-back labs. And I had one that was a parasitology lab and a comparative vertebrate anatomy lab back-to-back. And it was as exciting as it sounds. And so about an hour through the first one, there was not a whole lot of listening going on. And there was just a lot of hearing going on. But we're told we need to listen to listen to what he says. Next, we hear this. We're told to treasure my commands. To treasure is to hold, to keep as precious, to cherish. Chances are you have countless images that come into your mind, right? We have so many examples of this that you can think of. You know, my mind went to Matthew 6, 21, where it says, there your treasure is, there your heart will be also. For you Lord of the Ring fans, you probably, if Michael Mott was here, I know his mind goes exactly to Smeagol and this ring, and he obsesses over it. It's his everything. He can't stand to lose it, which is actually probably good imagery for what we're supposed to do with the commands of the Lord. We're called to treasure these commands. Next, we see here this word tune, to tune your ears to wisdom. When I hear the word tune, my mind goes to music. I don't have a musical bone in my body, but I understand somewhat how it works. In music, it's defined as to adjust, to correct, to a uniform pitch. And in the same way, this is easily applicable. In the same way, we need to tune our ears, tune our hearts, and ultimately tune our lives to the wisdom, to the word of God. Next, we have this word concentrate, to concentrate on our understanding. This is defined as to focus one's attention or mental effort. And we know focusing on our day and age is no easy task, right? We have so many things waiting for our attention. so many futile things waiting for our attention. You know, it matters what we concentrate on. My mom went to Philippians 4.8. You know, it says, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is good report, there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. So we're called to concentrate our understanding. Next, we're gonna combine these two to cry out and to ask. You know, John MacArthur says it like this, this shows the passionate pleading of one who is desperate to know and apply the truth of God. You know, in Matthew in the Beatitudes, we kind of see this resonate there, where it says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. So we need to hunger and thirst, we need to cry out, we need to ask for the things of God in our lives. And then these next two, to search and to seek, it kind of goes hand in hand with treasuring. I think the proper response to something you treasure is that you do everything you can to pursue it, everything you can to find it, everything you can to chase it. I think of the lost coin, we hear that, we've all heard of that parable, right? She has one coin and she loses it and she flips her house upside down to look for this lone coin. And when she finds it, there's great rejoicing. And I think in the same way, we need to be that concentrated on searching and seeking for the wisdom of God. So next we have this huge phrase down here at the bottom in verse 5, then you'll understand what it means to fear the Lord. And I know we've all heard this. This topic of fearing the Lord comes up a lot in the book of Proverbs. I think it's over a dozen times it's listed in the book of Proverbs. And I think y'all probably be the same way. When I was younger, I think I was told this means to have this reverence, to have this honor, to have this respect for God. But the older I get, the more I've come to understand fear is fear. It's much more than just a healthy respect, but as a revelation that we serve in an infinitely perfect, powerful, all-knowing, timeless, holy God. And I find myself struggling to even know what holy truly even means. It's one definition that I feel like the dictionary is no help with. And I feel like that's what the importance of the Old Testament is. The Old Testament offers us a living definition of what holiness is. So we serve the same God as the Old Testament. You know, the same God of Nadab and Abihu. who, you know, they had these strict specifications set out of how they would offer incense, how they would offer sacrifices to the Lord. And Nadab and Abihu strayed from that. And we're told that they offered strange fire, and in an instant, they were incinerated. And it's like, whoa, Lord, these people, these guys served you, and they messed up, and then they're gone. They're the same God of Uzzah, and in 2 Samuel, we see him walking beside the Ark of the Covenant. We know they weren't supposed to be transporting the Ark that way, but the oxen stumbles, he goes to stabilize it, and in an instant, he's zapped. And we see David go to struggle greatly with this, oh my God, he's trying to save your holy ark from touching the miry ground. But he's sinned. This is the same God of Moses who we read in Numbers 12, this great man of God, another one of these quote unquote Mount Rushmore figures, who faithfully served the Lord, who safely led the children of Israel for years and years, and they're complaining, and he about loses his mind, but he continues to do it. And then in a moment of weakness, He strikes the rock instead of speaking to it. And God says, you're not entering the promised land. And I think still often, the things that we see as harsh, God says, is actually God's holiness. You know, we have a hard time calling sin, sin. So, some application to this. You know, action must accompany knowledge. You know, this is kind of my whole theme. You know, knowledge and learning is great, but action and application must accompany it. I've heard it put this way, you know, it's not what you know, but it's what you do with what you know. This past year, Jonathan White went through the book of James. And, you know, this, the book of James is just chock full, this whole idea of faith and works and action. So I wanted to read this, James 1, 22 through 25. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror, for he looks at himself and goes away at once and forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres, being no here who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. We're called to a life of not just action, but continual action. And so often it's a day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, and even a second by second life of action. A life of listening, a life of treasuring, a life of concentrating, a life of tuning, of crying out, of asking, of searching and seeking. Seeking the things of God, whether it be by reading, whether it be by listening, whether it be by singing, whether it be fellowshipping with the people of God. The Bible calls us to a life of action, and that inherently means you're not going to have a life of ease. You know, there's a reason the Bible is just full of this imagery of wartime and of an athlete preparing for the games and stuff. You know, in Ephesians 6, we're told to put on the whole armor of God. You don't put on armor of God for day-to-day. You don't just put on armor for day-to-day activities. You put on armor when you're going into war. And every day, we're going into a spiritual warfare. In 2nd Timothy, it speaks of Christians as athletes and soldiers. You know, Paul really loves this analogy. 1st Timothy 1, Timothy is encouraged to wage the good warfare. Then, of course, in 1st Timothy 6, we're told to fight the good fight, and we could go on and on with these kind of analogies. And speaking of Paul, I kind of wanted to just wrap it up with encouragement because that's what Paul would do. You know, sanctification is a gradual process and the older I get, the more I'm learning that, you know, it feels hypocritical even for me to be up here. Because I had struggled so much getting my heart to do what my head knows is true. And I've sinned greatly, but I know I have a greater Savior. And it's such an encouragement to me, the people the Lord chooses to use. He uses imperfect people for His perfect plan. You know, we see, though Adam sinned greatly, God got the glory by being able to conquer, by conquering sin. You know, though David sinned greatly, God would get the glory by using Bathsheba to bring about King Solomon. And though Solomon sinned greatly, God would get the glory by using him to write these great books of wisdom and literature and ultimately pass on the line from which Jesus would come. Who is our greatest example of a life in action? So back to this, we must have action at the center of wisdom. And this is kind of going back to one of Zach's little puzzles. But without action, if wisdom simply stays in our heads and stays in our hearts without action, we will waste our lives. Cool to have someone in the audience just mic'd up the whole time. That'd be cool. Yeah, thank you, Clayton, for sharing. Man, I think you said it well. Wisdom and action go together. Think of the people who are wise that you know. They are people that have lived a life of faithfulness. And it's not just this philosopher sitting on a hill that knows everything. It's people living. in the light of the fear of the Lord. So thank you for sharing that, Clayton. I'm excited for people to share kind of along the way from their perspective and rooted in these different wisdom books. So we have a few minutes left. I wish we could just stop right there. That was so good, but we will continue on looking at a few different things. We're going to start with some hermeneutical challenges. We kind of teased some of this out a little bit last week, but how are we to interpret Proverbs? One of the challenges that we run into is this challenge of context. We talked about it with the Psalms too, but a lot of these short pithy sayings are just quick hit after quick hit after quick hit, and it's hard to Kind of find your bearings. Here's a good example in Proverbs chapter 20. We start off in verse 1 reading, wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise. The terror of the king is like the growling of a lion. Whoever provokes him to anger forfeits his life. It's an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling. The sluggard does not plow in the autumn. He will seek at harvest and have nothing. And this is not just, you know, a Proverbs 20 thing, but we see it's jumping from wine to a king, to quarreling, to the sluggard, and it's kind of all over the place. It's probably why most of us have never sat under someone expositionally preaching verse by verse through Proverbs. Most people tend to go topical when they come to this book because it is seemingly all over the place. I think, you know, if we were to look at these different collections, we would see some through lines and some themes, but it is a little more challenging to understand. Some of Proverbs can seemingly seem secular, seem almost like karma. We talked about this last week too. These first two challenges, I think, get taken care of when we take into account the whole book of Proverbs. We looked at the introduction, the preamble, we looked at the conclusion. Clayton talked a lot about this, the fear of the Lord that permeates this whole book and that helps us get our bearings, helps us understand some context. So we'll spend a little bit more time talking about this last challenge. You know, are Proverbs promises? How am I to read this book? And so we'll go through some of these Proverbs that I think some have struggled with. Proverbs 10.22 says, And he adds no sorrow with it. A few verses later in verse 27, it reads, And Proverbs 12.21 says, But the wicked are filled with trouble. And so you can read Proverbs like these and many, many others. And some people run with it and say, well, if you're righteous, you're going to have the blessing of the Lord. You're going to be rich. You're going to have no sorrow. You're going to have a long life. No ill will befall you. And then the flip side as well, if you're wicked, you're going to live a short life. your days will be filled with trouble, you know, and by implication, the wicked will have sorrow. They won't be rich. They will run into all sorts of different problems. Now, you can either, you know, run with this in one way, in the wrong direction, and you kind of run into that health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. And then, you know, for most of us, we look up at life And we can see people that don't love the Lord. They're not living in the fear of the Lord, but it seems like they are prospering. We read those Psalms, the Psalmist was wrestling with that in Psalm 49 and Psalm 73. So how do we make sense of some of these Proverbs? Are they universal, absolute promises? And so I wanna look at a couple of modern day Proverbs to maybe illustrate how we should think of these. So the first proverb, maybe you've heard this before, haste makes waste. And then we have this other proverb, he who hesitates is lost. This first one, Don't get in a hurry. You might run into trouble. You might make some mistakes. I don't know if anyone else was like this. In elementary school, I was always the person who tried to get done with their work the fastest. And I was the fastest a lot of times. But I made mistakes along the way. It was not good. I was too hasty. Many of us can probably relate to that. Then the second one, he who hesitates is lost. You know, sometimes opportunity presents itself and you need to jump on it. You can't just wait around forever or what's here today might be gone tomorrow. So my question for you is which one of these would you say is true? Probably both, right? It depends on the specific context, the specific life situation where maybe there's some situations you should kind of take your time and others you know you need to act on quickly. So let's keep that in mind and we'll look at Proverbs 26, a proverb that I think has perplexed a lot of people over the years. Verse 4 says, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. The very next verse, verse 5, "...answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes." So are we to not answer a fool? Are we to answer a fool? What are we supposed to do? It seems like it's saying opposite things. I think there's a few ways you can interpret this, but I think most of us would say there's different situations in life. There's a time where you probably shouldn't answer the fool, Because, you know, this person is very stubborn or obstinate. You're not going to make a lot of progress. Maybe if you engage with this person, you will deteriorate into saying things you wish you wouldn't say. You would act foolishly and, you know, get into name-calling and losing your temper or these kind of things. So it's best don't even engage this person. But there's probably other situations where you feel compelled, like you need to speak up. Maybe other people are around, you kind of need to set the record straight. Or maybe you know this person, and you know that if you can show them from scripture, or you have this relationship with them, maybe you can show them what is right with the key point being A lot of these proverbs depend on the specific life situation, and that's part of wisdom too, right? When to apply things, when not to apply things, or what situations to apply these specific principle. And one other thing I want to briefly point out along these lines. And what I'm hoping is accomplished in this class, we get a little bit of a better idea of the structure of Proverbs, the way it flows. We looked a lot at chapters 1 through 9 last week, and then when you hit chapter 10, you start getting into those short pithy sayings. And I think chapters 10 through 15, for the most part, it might not be an absolute rule, but you see a lot of these antithetical proverbs. These proverbs that have stark contrasts that, you know, the wicked, I mean, we read a few of these earlier, you know, the righteous are going to have a lot less problems. The wicked have more problems. It's more black and white. Then you start getting into places like Proverbs 16 through 22, and you'll notice the Proverbs get a little bit more nuanced. They're not as black and white. You run into some Proverbs that some people call the better than Proverbs, and they kind of give maybe more realistic life situations. This one, verse 8 of chapter 16 says, better is a little with righteousness. then great revenues with injustice." So you can see it's not a blanket statement. If you're righteous, you're rich. If you're wicked, you're poor and have all these problems. But it's actually better to be righteous and not have everything in the world than being someone who does not live in the fear of the Lord and have everything you could need. So there is a little bit of nuance as we progress through this book. And then I think what we want to keep in mind too is that Proverbs is all about the long run, not the short run, and I think we can read in several places the author looking at life after death. You know, a lot of people will disagree with that. A lot of people say you don't read about the resurrection really until Daniel, but I think there's a lot of places where the author's got the long run where the wicked will receive their due, the righteous in Christ will be successful and prosper and have peace. So a little bit of the hermeneutical issues we run into. And then in our last 10 minutes, we might look at a couple of these big theological themes. We talked about this a little bit last week, so I'm going to skip over this. And I wanted to point out a couple of resources that I think are helpful. I mentioned this guy, well, I mentioned this First one, this is probably my favorite commentary on Proverbs. It's written by a guy named Derek Kidner, and I like it because it is concise, it's written for the layperson, maybe in the 60s or 70s or something like that, and he does a really good job of organizing the Proverbs into different themes. He has a short commentary too, but it's very accessible. I can read this and I can, you know, learn something right away and apply it. Bruce Waltke talked about him a couple weeks ago. He is like the man who knows everything. He sometimes it's like a little bit too much where I can't keep up. with him. I grabbed his commentary. This is like on the first half of Proverbs, and it's really good. But it's like, I'm going to spend a year in Proverbs. I'll probably pick this up. But it's almost like, I don't know what he's talking about half the time. But he's got really good videos that does break it down. And it is really, really good. It's just, you know, buckle up. Because he's got a lot of stuff. This Kidner one, It's just easy to read. You can go through this for devotions and that kind of thing without too much trouble. And so I'm stealing this next little bit straight from his commentary. And we probably could have structured this whole class to go through one of these each week or a few of these. But we'll have time today. We'll talk about one of these themes. And I decided maybe we would talk about, what does Proverbs have to say about how we use our words? And Kidner, he's gonna point to Proverbs chapter six, this familiar text that we've probably heard a hundred times about the six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him. And as I read these, just think in your mind how many of these have to do with the words we say, because a lot of them do. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste, to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. And so we see in the seven things that are an abomination to the Lord, we have a lying tongue, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord. Proverbs has a lot to say about what we say, the words that we use. And what Kidner does well is he'll develop, he'll put, you know, every passage of Proverbs into these categories. I only picked, you know, a verse or two. But he looks at the power of words, that they can cut both ways, they can destroy, they can build up. Proverbs 11 says, with his mouth, the godless man would destroy his neighbor. That you can really destroy someone, totally tear them down with your words. There is one whose rash words are like sword thrust, kind of the same idea in Proverbs 12, but it gives that antithetical view at the end that the tongue of the wise brings healing. Not only can our words tear down or heal, but they can magnify, they can spread. information at a rapid pace. Proverbs 16 says, a worthless man's speech is like a scorching fire. A dishonest man spreads strife. That you can ruin someone's reputation. You can really hurt someone with the words you said. And then the converse is true as well. The mouth of the righteous is like a fountain of life. You can really bring life with the words that you say. And just really, even though words are powerful, they can't do everything. They're not everything. There's a weakness to our words where they can't replace actually doing something. It can't replace that true wisdom, which is godliness and action. In all toil there's profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. Proverbs 14, 23. And then words by itself, without this spirit of God, you can't change everyone's heart. You can't totally turn around foolish thinking and a foolish person. A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool. And then if we're thinking about words, you know, when are words at their best? When are words truly wise? This kind of thing helps me out to think through my words. Do they reflect these? Or where am I missing the mark? That words are good, when they're honest. Whoever rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than he who flatters with his tongue." Don't lie to someone just to flatter them. It's better to be honest. But that doesn't mean we just tell everyone every honest thought that pops into your mind. You could get into trouble that way. And our words should be few. that whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent. There's a good time and place to be silent. Whoever goes about slandering reveals secret, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered. That we, most of us, not all of us could probably do well to, you know, the more I talk, usually that's the more I run into problems. When we talk, when we use words, It's good to have a cool spirit to be calm. Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. When we talk and we're fired up and angry, bad things generally happen. Words that are timely, those are wise words. Those are the kind of words we want to speak. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. Proverbs 25 says that apt words are wise words. Wise words that you think about, that you don't just, you know, spew out. Those are wise words, words that you have pondered. The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things. And then lastly, you know, wise words really just don't happen. They come out of someone with godly character, that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, is what Jesus would say. And Proverbs says in Proverbs 14, a faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies. And you could probably look back up at all of these Proverbs, and you see people who are trustworthy, and you see people who is a man of understanding, and you see these things, and it goes back to someone's character really dictates what's going to come out of their mouth. So I really recommend this commentary by Kidner because he does this basically for every single topic and you can just go through it, use it as devotions, and really get what's the collective of proverb have to say about these different different topics. The other book that I've been using a lot, I think I mentioned it at the beginning, I like this whole series. This book's called Finding Favor in the Sight of God, and it's part of this New Studies in Biblical Theology series that's edited by D.A. Carson. And this one just goes over wisdom of literature, gives us the structure and some really good insights. And at the same time, it's, you know, it's not this giant commentary. It's a relatively accessible book. It's not super superficial, but it's not overly academic where it's helped me out a lot. And then if you're just driving around, I think the Bible Project's got some good stuff on ancient Near East literature and wisdom literature and just, you know, I don't think they nail everything, but I think they nail a lot of things to get me thinking along the right lines. So those are some resources I would recommend. Just listen to that, get familiar with some of this Hebrew poetry and that kind of thing. And so with that, we will start to wrap it up this morning and end our time in Proverbs. I would really encourage you, take some time this week and go through portions or through all of it, Proverbs 10 through 29, and really think about this. I think, you know, reading a proverb a day is a really good practice. I know a lot of people do that. I think that's great. Maybe consider doing a topical approach, too. Sometimes, you know, you get all these quick-hitting things. It's hard to take in everything even one proverb has to say. Maybe look at these different topics and read all the proverbs about one topic. Remember the flow of proverbs. To me, that helps me understand where the author is going, that there is this preamble and introduction all about wisdom, that the book concludes with wisdom. It concludes with these two non-Jewish individuals that basically say, I looked everywhere for wisdom and couldn't find it apart from the holy one. This poem about the excellent wife, that's really the embodiment of wisdom. And then we've got all those short sayings packaged in between. And then my encouragement would be reflect on the main themes, things like the fool, the sluggard words. family, work, all these different things. I'm sure there's areas you probably feel like you're doing pretty good in. And then there's areas you might identify as those where you could do better and use Proverbs to show you how to put this godliness into action. And so we spent the last two weeks in Proverbs. It's really not long enough to look at things very exhaustively or comprehensively, but I hope that we've kind of just got a better lay of the land, we understand the structure a little bit better, how the book opens up and unfolds. What I would want us to take away, and each week we'll kind of talk about, or each book we'll talk about different themes, because all these books in wisdom literature They all talk about wisdom, but they each have their own emphasis, and that's on purpose. You know, Proverbs lays down, it might be simplistic to say it's idealistic, but it kind of shows you how the world is supposed to work. You know, Ecclesiastes and Job is kind of over there saying, I've tried these Proverbs, and that's not how it worked out for me, and that's on purpose. We're supposed to see all of these books together, and I'd hope for Proverbs we would see these patterns. that maybe they're not universal absolute promises, but they're generally true. There are exceptions to the rule, but that's what makes them the rule. We have a creator. He's designed the universe. And if we submit ourselves to his word, we can see these patterns at play. and live a successful, prosperous life, whether it's now or whether it's in the new heavens and the new earth. And I'll close out with this quote from Derek Kidner. I didn't write it down, but in his commentary, going along with this theme of godliness and action, he says that Proverbs puts godliness into working clothes. that a truly wise person is someone who is actively living out their faith versus just sitting on the sidelines. So that's it for Proverbs. Next week, Ecclesiastes. I'll go ahead and close us out in a word of prayer. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the book of Proverbs. Thank you for wisdom and this encouragement to live life, not to stay on the sidelines, but to put this into practice. We thank you for New Testament wisdom, literature like James that Clayton pointed out. that there are so many ways we demonstrate our faith. That's not what saves us, not these actions or works, but a true faith does produce a transformed, sanctified individual. And I know we all probably think to ourselves that we've missed the mark in many ways, and that is true, but we have grace in your son. And we call out for your spirit to be active. Use us in our weakness. Use us in our fallen state to be people who reflect you. And when we do mess up, We kind of own that. We point people to you, but strive to live a life that brings you honor and brings you glory. I pray as we transition to our worship service, Lord, that you would be preparing our hearts and minds, that we would give this time to you. We would worship you with our whole being and give you praise and glory. I pray for all this in your name. Amen.