All right, well, good morning. Happy Resurrection Sunday to everybody. So we're going to be in Proverbs chapter 2 today. So Proverbs 2, and I'm going to read the first eight verses to get us started. And the last time I talked up here, we talked about the fear of the Lord. And again, we're going to talk about this understanding the fear of the Lord today. So if you want to turn to Proverbs chapter 2, I'll begin with our reading here. So verse 1, My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to meet together today. Today we can think about the resurrection of Jesus, all that was accomplished on the cross, and hopefully just look at you and have a relationship with you in a right manner, understanding the fear of you, where wisdom comes from, how to approach it, how to seek it out. So help me to speak clearly this morning, and just bless this time and the rest of our time in worship today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So the last time I was up here, we looked in Proverbs chapter 1, and we talked about this fear of the Lord as well, how it's the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. Starting there, that's the starting place. It's important not to miss that. And I was just thinking about my life. any wisdom or knowledge that I have, it didn't start at my preschool, it didn't start at Sierra Elementary where I went to elementary school, or Oberon Middle School, or Dakota Ridge, or Howard University, University of Colorado Denver, all these places I went to school, it's not where wisdom and knowledge originates, comes from, it's not where we get it from, but there's this pursuit of knowledge that we can take in a worldly sense and miss out on the source of true wisdom, which is God. We know and we've experienced the role that fear can play in motivating to do things. Sometimes it's just the fear of failure will motivate you to prepare for something. I know personally in my sports career, some of the reason that I trained hard was just because I didn't want to lose. I didn't want someone to beat me. I was afraid of losing. afraid of someone being better or preparing more, and that would motivate me. There's this aspect of fear and motivation. And then, we also understand that, especially in the Christian walk, fear acknowledges the authority of the one providing instruction. The authority to discipline, the authority to correct, to punish, and also the authority to reward at the same time. With God, these two are present. There's discipline, There's correction. There's also rewards. There's benefits. And we're still looking at this and thinking about this as motivation, how fear plays this role in our life, motivating us, driving us forward. And we want to understand that there's a positive role here. And there's also negative aspects as well. But it's a good thing, especially when you have a right understanding of the fear of the Lord. So we're going to talk about that. But when we look at Proverbs chapter 2, the second Proverbs here, it's a couple interesting things. We have this whole chapter. And in the original Hebrew, this is actually one long sentence. And it's one of those alphabetical poems, so it has one verse for each letter in the Hebrew alphabet. You know, in the English we see the different breaks and the sentences, but this is just one long sentence in the original language. So I thought that was interesting here. But we have this fear that it talks about. It starts here, it talks about this pursuit of wisdom, this pursuit of understanding, calling out for it. With this, you understand the fear of the Lord, and we understand that true wisdom and true knowledge starts with the fear of the Lord. I was just thinking about this as I was pondering fear. I was just thinking about, just for one example in my life, and maybe you've experienced this too, Have you ever been pulled over by a police officer? You've broken the law and you've been pulled over. What's one of the first emotions you feel? Is it fear? Like, what did I do? What did they see me do? What did they catch me doing in this? There's this fear, this apprehension that comes in that. This authority figure that's pulling you over to correct you for bad behavior. And even if you think about, just think of the worst case scenario. If you're pulled over, and not only were you doing something wrong, but if you have some kind of corrupt police officer. How much more so would you fear? And I think in a lot of respects, we're guarded from this in our society. But look, there's plenty of societies around the world where if you get pulled over, a bribe will be expected of you. Otherwise, your day or your life could get very difficult in a hurry. I know I've heard stories about this from my grandmother. She spent time growing up in Nigeria where she got pulled over for something she didn't even know what she did. And the cop made her life very difficult because she didn't have the money to pay the bribe. Then they sent her to court and the same thing. She was at the court waiting to stand before the judge and the lawyer was saying, why don't you just pay the bribe? They're expecting a bribe from you. And she didn't have the money to do it. So, there was this fear there, like, they wanted something from her, this authority figure, and in this case, a negative, a bad authority figure, which is taking advantage of someone, is fear. There's fear there. Bad authority figures can take advantage of you. Can make your life difficult. So, what do you do? You adopt behaviors to protect you, to avoid these certain situations. I'm just thinking about this. I also had a player on my team in college from Nigeria, and he was telling a story about one time he was walking with his buddies, little kids, they were just maybe 12, 13, and they came across a police officer, and the police officer just started beating them just because they were little kids and they crossed his path, started hitting them, and they had to run away. And it was normal. It was like a normal situation. Just because these little kids ended up crossing the path of the wrong police officer. The police officer, I guess, training them to fear them in some kind of way. And there's even more than this, not just the police officers. I was thinking about this as well. Look, sometimes we experience fear in sporadic spur of the moment type of situations. If I tell my children to turn the light off in the basement, all the lights, they're afraid. Sometimes there's a light switch that's in the back corner, they have to turn it off, and if they don't plan it right, it'll be dark and they have to come across the basement, and they'll be afraid of the dark in our basement. There's nothing in the basement that's going to hurt them, except maybe stubbing a toe, but they're afraid. Spur of the moment type of fear. It's a normal type of rational fear that happens at times. Something happens that makes you uncomfortable and you fear. These situations come up and they should change behavior in the future. If you're afraid of turning off the lights in the basement, you should turn them off in order or in such a manner that the lights Start at the back, you turn that one off, and then you go to the next one, and you work your way so you always have lights so you can get up the stairs. That would be a rational thing that you would learn from turning off the lights in the basement. If you were afraid, and you had to do it time after time, you would learn from that. That fear would motivate you to learn and change your behavior. It's a rational type of fear. So we're thinking about this, and we think about The fear of the Lord is not merely a fear of being punished or a fear of this uncertainty, but there's a fear of this authority figure that we have in our life. Authority figure that can punish true evil. The fear of the Lord includes this. There's this fear that it stands in awe before God. Not just because He's an authority figure and that's the only reason, but because He deserves this awe, this respect, this love that comes from a good God who hates evil. This good, kind God, and at the same time, He's powerful. He has a hatred for that which is wrong. And if you have a right relationship with this God, Your love actually grows because you fear, because you recognize the very risk that's associated with sinning against this God, disobeying this God, or being on the right side of this God, the joy that comes in that. Look, we think about that today, this weekend. We think about God's wrath being poured out against His enemies on His very Son in our place. There's something fearful about that. if you're the one under the wrath of God. There's something fearful about that. So we have this here, and the flow of these verses in Proverbs, how it starts, if you look at this, starts in verse 1. We just think about that. And we have these conditional statements. We have these statements that says, if you do this, my son, if you receive my words, if you treasure up My commandments, the Father talking to the Son here. Treasure up the commandments. What does that mean when you treasure something? If you're valuing these things, they're of much value, great worth. These things are worth your attention, your listening, your consideration. They're worth you storing them up, putting them in a place where they can be held safely, visited again and again. How might you do this with words, receiving words, treasuring up commandments? What's someplace safe to do this? In your mind, memorizing, keeping them with you. We have this, receiving the words, treasuring up the commandments, not just acknowledging that they're good and storing them away for something else, but actually spending the time to understand, to consider. And we have this in verse 2, where you make your ear attentive to wisdom, inclining your heart to understanding. Have you ever made your ear attentive to something? Inclined your heart towards something? Have you ever been eager to hear something? Had a desire to truly understand? Make time for. This isn't just some passing, hearing, this passive attention that hears, acknowledges something's good and then moves on to something else. When you make your ear attentive to wisdom, when you incline your heart to understanding, there's something more there. Drawing you to it, desiring it, wanting to spend time with it. And we see these type of situations in life. Find something that you like to do in your life. Look, for example, I like to barbecue food or smoke food sometimes. If you find out a new way to cook something, you make your ear attentive. You incline your heart to it. You figure out ways. What are they doing? How are they doing it? What's the best way to get this done? You spend time researching it, memorizing it, so you can do it yourself. I guarantee everybody in this room has something like that in their life, where they're drawn towards something and they spend time memorizing, investing in. Just examine yourself. What is that for you? We all have stuff like that in our lives. It's stuff we eat, stuff we drink, stuff we spend our time with recreation about, or vehicles, whatever it is. We all have something like this that we incline ourselves towards, our ears attentive when we hear something like that. I'm sure each one of us in this room, if you hear a certain type of conversation, it'll just spark your interest and you'll want to be involved in that. There's something like that that draws us towards that. How is this in respect to the wisdom that comes from God? Is our ear attentive to this wisdom? Do we incline our heart to this understanding? And we look at this progression here through these verses. We have the first verse, it says, My son, if you receive My words, so receiving something that you treasure up, you have your ear that's attentive to wisdom, your ear receives these sounds, you're inclining your heart to understanding. Yes, if you do these things, you look at the progression here. We receive something, in these verses, and now in verse 3 it says, Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding. Now it's not just this passive receiving, but this active pursuit of, calling out for, raising your voice for. If you're doing these things, we see this progression. You've recognized, you've received something, you've recognized it was good, and now you're calling out for it. Something has changed, something has grown within you. You see the progression in life, and this is the progression that we see really in the walk of the Christian. You receive, you hear, you make yourself, you're attentive to, you incline your heart toward, and then you start calling out for, raising your voice for understanding. Because there's, this is normal, there's times that if you don't raise your voice, you won't receive the thing that you want. There's a restaurant I like to go to with my wife. Maybe once a year we go to this restaurant and some of you have probably been there. I'll just describe it. I won't name the name, but you'll recognize it. You go to the restaurant and they give you this card. There's a green sign and a red sign. If you put the green side down on the table, they start bringing meat your way. And they just cut slices and they'll just keep coming and keep bringing it until you flip the card over and it's red. But every time I go there, there's always one thing that, for whatever reason, doesn't come to the table. And look, they grill pineapple. I think it's really good. I like the grilled pineapple. But they never bring it. I don't know why, right? Every time I have to call out for the pineapple, otherwise they won't bring it. That happens every single time. I have to call out for it. The first time I went there, I didn't even know about it. I had no idea about the grilled pineapple until someone came. They just happened to come, I got the pineapple, and the next time I went, they didn't bring the pineapple. I had to call out for it, right? There's this progression of this pursuit of something that you desire, right? This is a restaurant example or whatever it is, but how much more so in our pursuit of the Word of God? Calling out for insight and understanding. Seeking after this thing as you would for hidden treasure. Silver. Something valuable that you want more of. You have to get your hands on it. Something important there. Something essential there. In this pursuit of wisdom. It made me think about the parable of the lost coin. In Luke 15, we read, starting in verse 8, I was just thinking about this woman. She had something that was valuable, these silver coins. And one was lost. But then she diligently sought after it. She knew there was a treasure that was important. She diligently sought after this treasure until she found it. And of course, this is relating to the sinners who repent. But there's this treasure that's important, of great value, that you pursue, that you want to find. You're going to diligently seek after it until you find it. We have this here, this same type of desire in calling out for insight, raising your voice for understanding. You're not just sitting and waiting, hoping that the right thing comes around, the right sermon, the right motivational speaker. You're raising your voice for the understanding. You're seeking it out. You're calling out for the insight. This is you. This is important. Something that you have to do as an individual with your relationship with the Lord. Calling out for insight. Seeking after it as for hidden treasures. There's something of great value offered here in the Word of God. Something that can be found. Something that's worth looking for. And look, we see these things. The father teaching the son, the parent teaching the child with these words of wisdom, these commandments, these commandments even of God. Then the child receiving them, understanding, hearing that they're good, and then all of a sudden the child calling out for them, desiring them, raising the voice for this understanding, because they recognize there's something valuable here. worth your time and effort seeking after. And all these things are conditional statements. If you do this, if you do this, if you do this, what do we have now? Then you will understand the fear of the Lord. In verse 5, you will understand the fear of the Lord. If you're doing these things and you will find the knowledge of God, consequence of these statements. If you understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. You receive wisdom after seeking out for it. This wisdom comes, but you must seek, you must call out. You don't passively sit and wait. this wisdom comes, you're seeking your parents or those who are working with you, speaking with you, you hear it, it's good, you taste and see that it's good, then from this you see, you understand the fear of the Lord, you find the knowledge of God. Is that a good thing? Is it a good thing to find the knowledge of God? Is it a good thing to understand the fear of the Lord? That's a good thing. It's worthwhile to pursue. You hear wisdom. You listen to it. You receive it. Next, you seek it out. You pursue it. You understand that there's value in it. And then you encounter God. You understand why He is to be feared. You begin to have this relationship with God, this knowledge of Him. You begin to know God through His words, through His wisdom, through the knowledge that comes from Him. hearing His Word, receiving His Word, and seeking it out, treasuring it. And look, there's a good example of this as well. If you just consider the lives of the apostles, there's a good example of this. And I was going to read in Mark chapter 4 here, just to think about this a little bit. So Mark chapter 4, and starting in verse 35, It reads, On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, Let us go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was, and other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? If you think, like we read this passage, and if you think about the lives of the disciples, how did this play out in their lives? Just think about Peter for one, right? Peter hearing about the Lord. First he heard about it, he wanted to go see what was going on, and then all of a sudden, he started to seek after it more and more. Left everything behind to pursue the Lord. And they're pursuing the Lord, and a situation like this arises. They think they're going to die. They're in a situation, skilled sailors, it's so treacherous that they're sure they're going to die. And they see their Lord rebuke the wind, speaking to the sea, telling it to be still, and the wind ceases, and there's a great calm. And what's their response? Is it not understanding the fear of the Lord? What are they to be afraid of? Are they afraid of the wind and the sea? That would be scary, to be in a boat, and you're sure you're going to die. If there's a way that I don't want to die, I don't want to drown in the ocean. There's different ways you can die. Just imagine being on the Titanic or something, and you go down, and you're going to freeze to death in the cold water, or you drown. That is not appealing at all. Just think of other ways that are just quick. This is not one of those ways where you drown in the water. We all know that. Go into the pool and suck in some water. It's not pleasant at all. We've all experienced that, right? There's nothing pleasant about that. Especially if you're this skilled sailor and it's so scary that you're sure you're going to die. There's something frightening about that. In this situation, the authority of Jesus here, seeing His authority over the very creation, their responses, what happens to them is they understand the fear of the Lord. They were filled with great fear after it was calm. Everything was calm. The thing that they were afraid of was no longer there. The wind, the seas, that's what they were afraid of, right? That was over. It was calm. But then they were filled with great fear. A fear of the Lord. We think about this. Understanding the fear of the Lord. When you have this, you find the knowledge of God. This is important in the Christian walk. We see this in their lives. And they have these situations that come up in the disciples' and the apostles' lives where there are situations that are scary. There's things that are against them, opposing them. And after they go through these situations, there's more fear of the Lord in them than for these temporal things. Because they're understanding the fear of the Lord. They're finding the knowledge of God. This is what we need, even in our lives. And as you go on, you see this, the source of this wisdom, the source of this knowledge. Verse 6 in Proverbs chapter 2, From His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of His saints." This is the source. The source of this wisdom is the Lord. The Lord gives the wisdom. That's important. In all your hearing, in all your seeking of this wisdom, of this knowledge, it's important to understand the ultimate source. has nothing to do with your ability to reason things out logically. It's not how smart you are. Rather, it's related to how the Lord gives this wisdom. From His very mouth comes the understanding. Where are you going for wisdom? Where are you going for understanding? Do you recognize the true source? The value in it? God provides the wisdom. God provides the protection, it even says, for those who hear and obey the wisdom. He guards their paths. He watches their way. His wisdom. Knowing Him. Understanding the fear of Him. Fearing Him has a purpose. And look, if you continue reading through this chapter, you'll see this purpose that The fear of Him, the wisdom that comes from Him, the understanding that comes from Him, has a purpose in delivering you from the ways of darkness. Delivering you from those who rejoice in doing evil. The wisdom from God does this. It delivers you from these things. These traps, these snares, these hazards in life. He doesn't give His wisdom, His knowledge for no reason, no purpose. It's not idle facts to be stored away as interesting bits of information, like something you'd find on Wheel of Fortune. It's not what we're talking about here. He's giving us this wisdom, this knowledge that's to be meditated upon, memorized, taken with you, so it can be actively understood and applied. We have this wisdom, and remember, there's this progression of the father teaching the son, then the child actively pursuing it, understanding that it's good, coming to this understanding of the fear of the Lord, this knowledge of God, and this recognition that the Lord is the one who gives the wisdom. It's from Him that knowledge and understanding comes. It's where it resides. That's where it started, with the Lord. Are we making our ear attentive, inclining our heart in such a way that we're storing up this valuable treasure within us? And then, especially for those of us who are parents here, How are we nurturing this relationship with our children? You see how this relationship works? First, the father is teaching the son. We do that, parents. We teach our children. But the relationship grows in such a way that the child is now actively pursuing this wisdom knowledge that's coming from the parents. They've seen, they've heard the wisdom that comes from the parents. They've seen it. They've recognized that it's good, now they want more of it. You see how that relationship grows? It's not just, they're taking it, they're hearing it, now they're, okay, I'm good, I'm going to go off on my own now. It's not what we're talking about. Now we're talking about this relationship that grows into a pursuit. Now the child's actively seeking, I want more, I need more. Are we having this relationship with our children? Those we're discipling, those in our lives. Is this relationship there where they're coming for more? They want more, they want more. Is that there? Or has that ever even been you going for more to one who's giving this wisdom, this knowledge that comes from the Lord, recognizing that it's good? I think it's important to foster those relationships where you can give this wisdom, provide these instructions, and then it grows to something more where that person is now actively seeking it out, wanting more of it from you. And I was talking about this yesterday. We have this thing that we do in America where, look, once you're 18, they're out of the house and they go figure it out in college. There's not this continuation of this relationship where you keep them. They're going for more wisdom, more instruction, more understanding as they grow. It's like, how soon can we get them out so we can finally have our alone time and they can go figure it out on their own? And maybe someday they'll mature and come back and we can have a relationship, right? People do that in America all the time. But do we have this relationship that continues to grow in this way, where they're continuing to come for more instruction, more wisdom? Because when you have this wisdom that comes from the Lord, I would just encourage you to read the rest of the chapter today. There's this whole idea of the wisdom from God that delivers you from evil, from darkness, from devious ways. from crooked paths. There's all these horrible things out there that are seeking to lead us astray. The wisdom of God is opposed to those things. It protects you from those things. It keeps you on the straight path. That's true for our children. They need this wisdom. If they don't have this wisdom that comes from the Lord, they're going to be on these paths. They won't be protected from the darkness. They won't be in the light. There's people out there that are persuasive in convincing you to do bad things, right? Look, I think we all understand this in this room. We're all in agreement with this. It's a horrible thing to kill a baby in his mommy's womb. It's horrible. You can listen to people and they'll come up with these arguments about the scenarios about which the baby came about. That's what they do, right? Oh, this little girl and she was raped and this is horrible situation. And they'll use one sin to justify another, right? But they'll convince people of this argument. People are convinced of this argument. I've heard people use this argument. That's what they default to. What about this little person who was raped? Trying to take you to this crooked path that because of one evil, we should accept another evil. The Lord protects us, protects our children from these type of crooked ways. This darkness. I know we've all heard that. You've heard people, look, this is just how languages work. People can be so persuasive about things that are wrong. How you can use words, it's amazing. There's people who are really skilled using words, and if you just listen to them, it's like, man, that sounds really good. And in the end, it's just something horrible, but it sounds really good getting there. And look, this happens with the most horrible things that you can hear. And if you're not actively filling your mind, your children's mind, your friends' minds, with the wisdom that comes from above, those persuasive arguments, they'll just grab you and you'll be down some dark path before you know it. We've seen people do this. It's probably, it's happened to us. It's happened to us where something happened to you just next thing you know you're like, what was I doing? How did I end up here? What's our treasure in this, in seeking out of wisdom and understanding? Going to the Lord. Seeking Him out for understanding. And it would be really nice if we weren't so stubborn and difficult when it came to a lot of these things, right? I was just thinking about this. Have you ever had a really bad experience at a dentist before? Like, I've had a really bad experience at a dentist. Once upon a time when I was playing soccer, I got forearmed in the face right here, and one of my teeth got shoved through my lips, went through my lip right here. And eventually, years later, that ended up in an infection that ate away some bone right here. And I had to get this bone graft on my face. It was the worst dental experience I ever had. This dentist, it was painful. It was uncomfortable. Like, it was a new dentist, and it was horrible. And what happened was, as soon as I could go to a different dentist, I went to a different dentist. Because the experience was so bad. And the other dentist was like, yeah, they did a bad job. But we're going to do what we can to fix it. And we're going to try to make you comfortable. And from that point on, it was a lot better experience. But this is kind of what it's like when we have a bad experience in the world. And then we go to another part of the world to correct the first bad experience. You're going from bad to worse. When you're not having this experience in the world and then running to the Lord, getting back on the straight path, avoiding the darkness. Look, when you have a bad dentist, you run away from the bad dentist and go to a good dentist. Mouth pain is some of the worst pain. These little teeth can destroy your day, your month, your year, this pain. How much more so when we're talking about spiritual things? Not running to the world. after being disappointed and led astray by the world, running to the true source. We have verses like these when we talk about, look, we all know this, I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear Him who after He has killed has authority to cast you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him. We think about this. There's things in this world, you can be afraid of people that can kill your body. There's something, there's someone greater that we should be more afraid of. The Lord. The one with the authority, not only over our body, but also our soul. And that's what we're talking about. This is who we're going to for wisdom. The one, look, the world is not concerned with the condition of our soul. It's not. The Lord is concerned with our soul. The soul is important. Who are we going to for wisdom? What are we going to? And like you think about this, we're warned who to fear. We're to fear the Lord. He has the authority. And it's not this type of fear. We've all seen this situation, we've probably even been in it, when something scary happens and you're paralyzed. Have you ever seen that? A really bad situation happens and someone just freezes. That's like the standard scary movie thing. Some, look, when I was a kid, they would let me watch these movies that were insane. Like, I would watch these alien movies when I was like Ezra's age, right? And always in these situations, something happens where someone's in some room, and next thing you know, an alien's right in front of them, and they just freeze. They give up. They're done. They're paralyzed with fear, right? Has that ever happened to you? Look, sometimes that even happens. Like, you get in a bad situation driving, and you just freeze, and stuff like that happens, right? This isn't the type of fear we have with the Lord. We're not paralyzed because it's not all punishment with the Lord. Look, the threat of punishment is very real. But we have this, we're talking about this knowledge of Him, knowing the Lord, having a relationship with the Lord. And if we filled our minds with His Word, like we're thinking about this weekend. Look, it's a scary thing to think about God was willing to crush His Son on the cross. His Son. He's more valuable than me. He was willing to crush Him because of sin. Because of my sin. That's scary. That should be scary. But if I'm thinking about the wisdom, the knowledge that comes from the Lord, I'm also understanding that He did this, He made Jesus to be sin so that I could become the righteousness of God. I'm afraid of God and His anger toward sin, His hatred of it, but I love Him and I want to be near Him because of the gift that He gives me because of the cross. Guaranteed in the resurrection. I love Him because of that and I'm also afraid of Him. I don't like being disciplined. It's not fun. But if it comes from the Lord and I know that it's for my good so He can keep me on the straight path, the path in the light, not in the darkness, I want that. That's what I want in my life. I don't want the other thing. I want the thing that comes from the Lord. Even the discipline that at the moment it's difficult, it's trying, it's hard. It's not pleasant when you're being disciplined. But when you have this relationship with the Lord where you recognize that He's doing it for your good, it's a whole different type of discipline. He's not just satisfying His wrath on me because I'm some wicked sinner, but He loves me and He wants to correct me. He's protecting me from the ways of darkness. He's protecting me from the people who rejoice in doing evil, delight in evil, crooked paths, devious in their ways. All these things are in the second half of this chapter. Delivered from these things. Delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words. Look, there's all these persuasive things, smooth words. They're designed to get you off the straight path. But if we're inclining our ears, being attentive, calling out for it, raising your voice for this understanding, seeking after it, will come to the understanding of the fear of the Lord. Find the knowledge of God. Recognize that it comes from the Lord. Knowledge and understanding coming from the Lord. And we think about this. We had this recital at our house yesterday with the kiddos and Ezra did this verse. I should have him do it again today right now, but I won't do that. But there's this idea in John chapter 15, I was just thinking about that verse in relationship to this wisdom and understanding. Do you think if you cry out for these things to the Lord, He's going to give it to you? If you're asking for these things, is He going to give it to you? Yeah. What are we crying out for? Are you crying out for things that you never receive? Or are you crying out for things like this? The things that come from Him that He wants you to have? If you ask for it, He's going to give it to you? I think that's important. How we approach our Father in Heaven. How we approach what we're asking for from Him. He'll give it to us. If we ask, we're seeking like the sun in this chapter. Asking for insight. Asking for understanding. Seeking after the ways of God. The most valuable treasure in the world. Ask for that. And see if God gives it to you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I just ask that You would renew our hearts and minds. Help us to seek after the things that come from above, from You, the wisdom, the knowledge, understanding that come from You, that would keep us on the straight path, in the light, out of the darkness, So our minds would be ready to combat the persuasive arguments that would lead us away from you, astray into the darkness. So help us to do these things, Lord, and just be with us the rest of our service, and bless this time, I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.