So this is week three. This is the way that I've broken it up. Of course, I've appealed to a few sources in doing this, so I didn't make this up on my own. But the important thing to see here is that right away, ground or the underpinnings of all of this wisdom that these different folks have collected comes from Solomon. I think that's pretty clear by the way that all of those statements fit together. But where we're at today in chapter 1 verse 8 through chapter 9 verse 18, the reason we see that that first part The first seven verses accord a little bit more closely with the style and structure of 1.8 through 9.18. That's why the hypothesis is that that first collector put that title on top of the first or the older collection before the men of Hezekiah added on to it a couple hundred years later. And again, as I have said, and I do want you to remember this, I just gave you about the strength of those arguments. There's no hidden Hebrew key that will tell you definitively, without a doubt, the answer to how this all rolls out. These are hypotheses. You heard me say it, and I'll say it again for clarity. The argument about the style and structure of verses one through seven as it accords to the style and structure of the first nine chapters versus the second 12 chapters, I mean, just think for a moment how strong that argument is. I mean, you know, you change your style and structure when you write to different audiences for different purposes. So that argument is about as strong as I just said it. And so we try to organize these things in order to not let the overall context, or so that the overall context can keep us from going a wrong direction when we look at a paragraph or a verse. And so this exercise is helpful. But I don't want anybody to say, you know, no way did Solomon write the first seven verses. Well, you wouldn't have any real grounds to say that. There's no way that Solomon didn't put pen to paper for chapter 1, verse 8 through 9, 18. That's not the strength of these kinds of arguments. What we do know is that the question is raised how many people had their hands on the version that we're looking at because of what's there in 25.1 and 22.17, and the fact that somebody decided to put a title in chapter one, verse one, and then again in chapter 10, verse one. So we do have to wrestle with these questions, but where we land is provisional. So we're going to get to the first nine chapters today. And I hope I'm going to go faster because I did not plan on spending three minutes on that slide. Last week, this was one of the big takeaways. We looked at the covenants. And again, these categories are my categories. So take them with the rightful grain of salt that you should take everything I say. But I put the covenantal similarities into these four categories for the purpose of providing us some context again so that we don't take a proverb and go the wrong way with it. And so what we concluded, and if you weren't here or didn't hear that, you can listen to that at some point and you'll hear my argument at least, that the covenants are about the Lord condescending to relate to his people, to be near to his people as a father rather than simply a creator. All of his covenants have an aspect of promise of life, blessing, and purpose. Of course, the Lord created all people, but in his covenants he has dealt with a particular people, and all of the covenants with which he's dealt with those people include an intent to bless them, make them fruitful and multiple like he created everybody to be. We talked about how the Lord has had a plan to deal with righteousness throughout His covenants, not just in the New Covenant. Of course, being New Covenant people, we have a particularly clear look about how He has done that in the past, but we did run through some evidence to show that that was not a new thing with the New Covenant. A supply to righteousness has been there since the time of Abraham, even the time of Adam, if you want to point to the sacrifice there of the first animal for their clothing. And then all the covenants have an expectation of obedience. And this is particularly poignant for Proverbs, because as we'll see, Proverbs is going to talk about obedience unto life, disobedience unto death. But because of the first one, we see that this obedience is part of the blessing. not necessarily an instrument of justice. And so we have to take these covenantal aspects into account so again we don't take a proverb and go the wrong way with it. Now, I probably said most of this already. The bolded stuff here are the things that I altered a little bit since the last time you saw this slide. But all of this covenantal context, all of what we talked about a couple weeks ago with Solomon, his story, his understanding of the Davidic covenant, the nearness of the Lord. Remember, the glory of the Lord showed up in the temple as Solomon was dedicating it. All of that context helps us when we sit down and try to go through these proverbs to distinguish wisdom from law, meaning that these proverbs are from a judge to a rightful subordinate rather than a father. Also a promise, meaning that because it says that this is generally true in proverbs does not mean that you are promised the right outcome or the outcome that's there in the text because Proverbs are not laws, and Proverbs are not promises. And then we made a bigger deal out of this, so this is one you probably remember. Proverbs are not self-help maxims. This is not 10 ways to a better business model, 31 ways to a better life, that sort of thing. That's just not what proverbs are. We will be able to use this context to distinguish discipline from punishment. So discipline being from a father, punishment being from a judge. Also, we'll understand the sense of urgency. As you remember, Solomon asked for wisdom and we talked about the hope. of Solomon bringing the kingdom that the Lord had promised to the seed of David. And it was very hopeful for a long time, and it looked very promising for a long time. And then almost, well, more quickly than it was built, it diminished. And so the sense of urgency we'll hear in the Proverbs comes from that context, and without it, it will be difficult to see what all the urgency is about. Okay, and then this one kind of goes with the discipline and punishment theme. To see obedience as something that brings about blessing rather than something that obligates the Lord to bless. That would be more like the lawgiver, lawkeeper kind of relationship, which these covenants are not. And then finally, and this is a big one, I think, to understand provision, all of that, blessing, wisdom, and even correction from a father as something that we are to steward. So these are blessings that the Lord intends us to go out with and fulfill our purpose. Now again, these are my conclusions, and I'm going to talk to this a couple times again this morning. There is very, it's very difficult to organize the book of Proverbs. I mean, you saw me labor on that first slide, which was that organization slide, or the general outline slide. There's not a whole lot of data that says this is the flow of an argument, or this section is talking about this thing, and this section is talking about this thing. All of those conclusions are simply that. They are the interpreter's conclusions. So, like these that came from me, when you read a normal commentary or your study bible and they say this section is about adultery, well, how did that person come about the idea that this section, where the section began and ended even? There's very little data. I just want you all to understand, when I'm making conclusions here about organization, structure, theme, and all that, those are my decisions. I won't give you shady ones without pointing out that I'm not real confident about it. That idea or that situation leads us to where here for the next 35 minutes or so we're going to go through the data and I'm going to show you kind of how I came to some of these conclusions so that you can, if you see something that I didn't or vice versa, you can make your own conclusions as well. And so we'll kind of race through this. I'll go as slowly as I can and try to keep us on track for time. And then we'll stop two places, one's in the middle and one's in the end, to try to regroup or bring what we've been seeing on these slides together and try to come up with some themes, some conclusions that we can take away for our own lives this morning. So as we have been talking about for the last two weeks, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. That's Proverbs 1 verse 7. and then we're off on this first collection where a father, a fatherly figure, and again it's pretty hard to pinpoint who that is, you'll see here he says my son and then do I have any in the title? Later on we'll see that he changes what wisdom ends up speaking as a parent as well, the personified wisdom. And then in and throughout here you'll see my son, my son a lot, but you'll also see my children, my children. So even that difference lends itself to a question of is this the same father talking to the same audience or have we witnessed a shift that we're we're trying to deal with. So here we go. Actually, one more thing. So how did I come up with these? What are there? 18 of them there? How did I make these decisions? This is the most firm. way I can find to come up with at least the beginning of a Well, it's Hebrew. Okay, yeah, so even if you could speak Greek, it wouldn't help you a whole lot right here. So this is the Aleppo Codex, written, transcribed in about 900 A.D. This here is the Leningrad Codex, about 1000 A.D. Both of these manuscripts were confirmed with their accuracy when we found the Dead Sea Scrolls. The reason I bring this to you is not to impress you because I can't read it much better than you can read it, I'll be honest. But at least a little bit here you see Mishle, which is the Proverbs. You see Shlomo, which is Solomon's son. Ben David of David, Melech king of Israel. So here we are at Proverbs 1. So you can see here the writer or the transcriber of the Aleppo Codex put a space right there at the end of verse 7. That's as good as it gets, right there, as far as a section. In the Leningrad Codex, the authors, this is not Proverbs. I don't know what it is because, like I said, I can't read that any better than you can probably. This little thing right here is a paragraph marker. And most of the time, those little paragraph markers in the Leningrad Codex line up with those line spaces in the Alevepo Codex. And so when you get to a modern computer version, uh-oh, hold on. The authors of the digital version have put those in there so that you know where the paragraphs begin and end. And the reason I show you that is, again, not to impress you, but to lay upon you that that is about as good as it gets if you're looking for where does this section begin, where does this section end, that sort of thing. So these here are those little paragraph markers. And like I said, I'm going to take you through the data so that any conclusions that we make, again, once in the middle and once at the end, we'll do that. You can know that those are my conclusions, but the raw data is here before you. Any questions on that, since that was a pretty technical section of this briefing? OK, great. If you learn Hebrew, then you can explain it to me. All right, so here we go. Chapter 1, verse 8. We see a couple things here right away. We see the fatherly tone there, my son, my son, my son, three times. Now, this is a good point since we just talked about this. In some of our English translations, in fact, many of our English translations, the translators will make paragraph breaks at the my son, and the my son, and the my son. That makes sense, right? He's saying it again. He's starting a new idea, perhaps. But as we just saw, the original transcriber, well, not the original, the transcriber that happened 1,000 years ago, the guy who knew Hebrew, presumably, did not break those into three paragraphs. He kept them as one. So here we are. We got some work to do. But what we do see here is the beginning of the two ways motif or way of thinking about it. We have the way of the wise and we have the way of the foolish. And of course, the father to the son is saying, go the right way. Do not walk in the way of them. Keep your foot from their path. And then here, this is the irony of this opening paragraph here, that the foolish, even though they are out to get greedy for gain here, What they are doing when they plot to go get gain that is not built upon the fear of the Lord, but is built upon their own desires, what they're actually doing is spreading a net for themselves. Like he says, even a bird knows better than to hang around when somebody is spreading a net for a bird. But the fools, they lie in wait for their own blood. So they're spreading a net to capture and plunder other people in their wickedness, thinking that they are going to get the gain that they are greedy for. And in fact, they are spreading a net for themselves. And this is the way that the author starts out and says, son, do not go that way. Go the way of wisdom instead. Moving on here, we see the first evidence of personified wisdom. And this theme will be predominant, is the word I'm looking for. Predominant throughout the first nine chapters. And I can't remember if any of the other collectors readdress wisdom as a person. She's a female. She raises her voice, she cries out in the chief concourses, she speaks her words, she draws the simple to herself and she says, follow me, follow my way, do not go the way of sinners, do not go the way of scorners or fools, listen to me, turn at my rebuke, if you do, I will pour out my spirit upon you, I will make you understand my words, you see? And she says, personified wisdom says, the fools, When their plots and their schemes and their greedy gain finally comes crashing down, it will come quickly like a whirlwind. It will be distressful, there will be anguish, and they will call But just like they ignored me, I will not answer, she says. They will then, when the game comes crashing down on their heads, they will seek me diligently. But at that point, they will not find me. And here you also see an equation between parental wisdom and Wisdom personified so you know before my son do this my son go this way my son go this way Or go don't go that way and now we equate that to the personified wisdom here in the second paragraph So we're building on our, just as a note, if you're trying to put this together, and I hope I'm not the only one that has the urge or the sense to do that, like try to figure out what goes where and who and when and why. As I was trying to organize it in my own mind, the only way that I could do it was actually to come up with another analogy But this thing is filled with analogies. So I, about Thursday, decided that that was not a wise thing to do, was make another analogy that explains all the analogies that the Lord and these authors have given us. So I might try it later, just by way of explanation. But again, that's my doing. That's not what's actually in the text. So the fools, of course, are on the way of destructions. They hated the knowledge. They did not choose the fear of the Lord, which is the grounding basis of all of this. They would not listen to counsel or rebuke. They shall eat the fruit of their own way, their own fancy. So the roots of the foolish way are our own desires, our own fancies. The roots of the wise way is the fear of the Lord. Whereas we've already seen that the destruction is coming to those who follow the way of the fool, here in verse 33 we see whoever listens to wisdom will dwell safely, will be secure, and will not have reason to fear evil. The wise or the foolish way is a dangerous path. The wise way is a safe path. Again, the Father speaks. If you listen, if you incline your ear to wisdom, you will understand how this is all built, grounded in the fear of the Lord. You will understand that, remember we defined the fear of the Lord as that reverent submission. A reverent submission grounds the wisdom and the understanding of that wisdom that the Lord gives. And to those who are following the safe path, the way of the wise, he stores up sound wisdom. He is a shield. He guards that path. He preserves that way. He will give understanding, it will be pleasant when you understand, and the discretion and the understanding will preserve you to deliver you from the way of evil from the man who speaks perverse things. As opposed to Oh, did I skip one? Let me make sure I don't skip one. Yeah, as opposed to those who leave the paths of uprightness and walk in the ways of darkness, the seductress, she's introduced here. She'll be called Lady Folly. She'll be called the adulteress. She'll be called the immoral woman, but here she's introduced as the seductress. I don't think right now that this author is speaking about the explicit or physical or literal, even though I can't stand that word, the literal act of adultery in this section. The seductress here, at the beginning at least, is seducing the young man, the son, to go her way. to disregard the way of the wise and to follow the way of the fool. and of course the father is still pleading with his son not to go that way he says for her house leads down to death her path to the dead none who go to her return nor do they gain paths of life. So you may walk in the way of goodness and keep the paths of rightness. The upright will dwell on the land, the blameless will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the earth and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it. Of course, we go back on the other hand, the safe path leads to blessing. Don't forget my law. Keep my commands. The end of the way of the wise is length of days, long life, peace. Don't let mercy and truth forsake you. Remember them, bind them, right them, and so find favor and high esteem in the sight of both God and man. Trust in the Lord. You probably all know this one, right? Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. It's worth talking or stopping here just to chew on this for a little bit. because we probably, most of us, could have ended the back half of that quotation there. This is one of the extended metaphors that does come to mind, even though I'm afraid to put another metaphor on top of it all. Even when we know what is right to want and to go seek after, It's not just that the Lord, like, there's, I'm gonna mess up the famous saying, like, you know, the journey is as valuable as the destination or something like that, right? Like, that's partially what's going on here. It's not just that I know something is right to go after and get, and it's error to go get it my own way rather than the Lord's way, that is error, but also that the, The grounding is not that the Lord wants to give you a different experience than you would have come up with yourself. What the Lord wants is to trust Him and follow his path because there's more to it than just the end and just the path. The trust is the more to it. So not only do we trust the Lord to define the right ends, we ought to trust the Lord to define the right means, and we ought to trust the Lord to define the right path to get there and all along the way. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord. Depart from evil. It will be health and flesh to you, strength to your bones. Honor the Lord. And here's the blessing motif. Again, not a law. The Lord does not owe this to you. Not a promise. Even when you follow, this does not always happen. But as a father to a son, he says, when you trust in the Lord, when you forsake your own wisdom and fear the Lord, when you honor the Lord, your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. That is what the Lord is doing, even if it doesn't seem to happen every particular time and every particular situation. One more thing here. Here's where I see the stewardship motif. Again, I'm being honest and telling you that those are my conclusions. But here's what I mean. Whether the Lord gives you a lot or a little, or whether the Lord lays it upon your heart to go a certain way or to go after a certain thing, If along the way you stop and think, man, this is really difficult, or better said, Lord, this is really difficult, it does not seem like you are giving me the tools that I need to get to the place where I think you want me to go. And just as the Lord has the right to define where you ought to go and how you ought to get there, the Lord has the right to define what stuff he gives you in order to get there. And again, not quite the journey is just as valuable as the destination kind of idea, but that's part of it. Rather, along the way, I should be content in what the Lord has given me, even though it might seem like he's making it difficult for me to get where he wants me to go. And so stewardship, not only of the overflow of blessings, but the lack of blessings, not only the law or the promises that he's made in a covenant, but things that he has not given to me, stewardship of those things as well. even the Lord's correction. is a blessing. Again, he's still speaking, this author, my son is a father to the son. Happy is the man who finds wisdom and gains understanding. Wisdom's proceeds are better than silver, better than gold, more precious than rubies, and all the things that you may desire cannot compare with her. And again, this reminds me of the hope we had in Solomon, because when the Lord said, I will give you what you want, Solomon answered with, pretty much verse 15. Length of days is in her sight and her left hand which is an honor. Her ways are pleasant, her paths are peace. Here she is a tree of life and happiness to all who retain her. We've seen this one before, so this is a common theme. Wisdom is safety. Do not let instructions depart from you. Keep them. They will be life to your soul, grace to your neck. You will walk safely. Your foot will not stumble. And then down here, the Lord is your confidence. And he'll keep you from your foot being caught up. This is a little bit of an odd placement here, just in case you missed it. These two are the same section, but it seems like such a distinct break between the safety motif and how we treat others that I put it into two different slides, and most translations will put it into at least two different paragraphs. But in the same Hebrew paragraph, as I showed you before, we have the content about the safe path. And now here we turn to clearly more practical dealing with others kinds of issues. Oh, hold on. Do not withhold good from whom it is due when it's in your power to do so. Do not say to your neighbor, go and come back. I'll give you what I owe you tomorrow, especially if you have it with you. Do not devise evil against the neighbor who thinks that he's safe dwelling next to you. Don't strive with someone you don't have a cause. Do not envy your oppressor. So these are clearly more practical Proverbs and these are the kinds of things that we're going to hear next week in chapter 10 through chapter 22 where Spoiler alert that whole section is one of those Hebrew paragraphs and So 12 chapters of two-line Proverbs And in the Hebrew, it's just one paragraph. So it has really left us to try to divide those out, categorize them if we choose, and try to figure out the whole of what the Lord would have us to know. But here, dealing with others, he concludes this semi-section here. The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the just. He scorns the scornful, gives grace to the humble. That's picked up. later on in the New Testament, of course. And the wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be on the legacy of fools. Again we're back to the theme of a safe path or wisdom that provides safety. I mentioned before there now we're not talking father to a son but father to multiple children or just parental advice in general. I don't think this section I Well, it does say, when I was my father's son. So I guess we can assume we're still listening to the same father. But he's talking to more than just one of his sons at this moment. And again, there's not much more to go on than that to decide whether or not we're changing audiences, changing themes, any of that. We have to come up with these kinds of things on our own. So the theme, however, is pretty similar to what we've already heard. Don't forsake my law. Don't turn away from the words of my mouth. Keep my commands and live. Don't forsake wisdom. She will preserve you. Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom. And in all you're getting, get understanding. So not just understand what how the Lord has set up His world and set up His relationship to His covenant people, but also understand how that works itself out. And of course, this is a main part of Proverbs where We're all looking at proverbs just even the way we use the word proverb today. You know, if you say there's a Chinese proverb or an old Indian proverb or something like that, we mean by that how the root of wisdom works itself out in daily life, right? That's kind of what we mean. when we think about what a proverb is. And so here we are. Wisdom is knowing how the Lord has set up his relationship. And then, of course, the father is appealing to his children, not only to gather it up and keep it, but also to understand it so that we understand how it works itself out in real life. Exalt wisdom. She'll promote you. She'll bring you honor. She'll place on your head an ornament of grace and a crown of glory. Now this is an interesting section, turn your whole body away from the seductress, the foolish way, the way of the fool, the immoral woman, and as you see here we have Don't let the right way depart from your eyes. Keep the commandments in your heart. Keep your heart with diligence. Put away a deceitful mouth and perverse lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead and your eyelids ponder the path of your feet. You see here the father is appealing to the son that the seductress or the immoral woman will entice you with Every part of who you are and so with every part of you who you are Turn away turn your whole self away and Again, here's here's something. I mean we've seen it before but her feet go down to death her steps lay hold of hell that seems maybe a little bit more urgent than is warranted by the advice, son, go the right way. Son, don't go the wrong way. I mean, for those of you who have children or those of you who used to be a kid, how many times did your parents or whoever was taking care of you say, go the right way, don't go the wrong way? and probably all of those times you didn't think it was the urgency of if you go the wrong way you are going towards death and hell and if you are going the right way you are going the way of life and goodness and so it's it might be easy to think that he's just overselling what he's talking about here but he's talking about the whole of what the Lord has communicated to us about how to relate to him and about how he intends to bless his covenant people toward meeting the purpose of his covenant people. And so we don't want to miss the urgency and pawn it off as, or just disregard it as some sort of poetic device or something like that. The author here is talking about going the right way in life, like not messing up life. Do not waste your life by following the way of the seductress, the immoral woman, the way of folly. This is a big deal to him, and so we don't want to miss that. Chasing after what's not yours will make you lose what is yours. This kind of hits on the stewardship theme again. I think this is one of the more clear sections about that. Again, the father speaking to his children. He says, lest you give your honor to others and your years to the cruel one, lest aliens be filled with your wealth and labors go to the house of a foreigner and you mourn at last when your flesh and your body are consumed. And I mean, we know this to be true in a lot of other ways that are more explicit. But when we follow the way of the fool, the way of the seductress, the way of the immoral woman, what ends up happening is we lose everything that we seek to gain. And if we don't lose it immediately, or even in this life, we know that we will lose it in the end. Because the righteous and gracious father is also the judge, and all of those covenantal dealings with righteousness will come due. And so it's not just that you can separate out the gracious father from the righteous judge, but we must understand that they are one and the same. Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, the Lord has given you what he has given you. And if you take it and enjoy it and use it for his purposes, ground it in the fear of the Lord, it will be what he intends to do with you. But if you take it and you scheme to go after the greedy gain and get what he has not given you, it will all come crashing down on you. at some point. And he summarizes, at least in this section, for the ways of men are before the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord ponders all the men's paths. His own iniquities, the man's own iniquities, trap him, and he's caught in the cords of his sin. He shall die for lack of instruction, and in the greatness of his folly, he shall go astray. And this is the first time where we see kind of the source of the problem is not folly, the source of the problem is right here and lady folly and the seductress and the adulteress and the immoral woman is simply making an appeal to what is already broken and sinful in us. So that's one of the more explicit places where this author points to the problem being in the son rather than in the lady folly. Now, this is another practical section. And again, it's not very clear. There's not a clear transition. It doesn't say, OK, now that we've got the doctrine figured out, kind of like Paul does, this author does not say, now that we've got the doctrine figured out, let's talk about how that works itself out in life. There's no transition. He just keeps on talking. Maybe all of my talking actually gets in the way like I did even ponder just like reading it to you. But I thought, well, why am I doing Sunday school if I'm just going to read what you could read? But anyway, because there is a certain weight, gravity to it if you just read it all through and you Don't get interrupted by this guy yapping at you. But here we see another practical application. And the way that I'm looking at this is that the author is saying you can build, you can go after that greedy gain on a false foundation. but you should be going after that gain on the foundation of the fear of the Lord. What is built on the fear of the Lord is solid and sturdy and real. What is built on false words and scheming is going to come crashing down at some point. If you become surety for your friend, meaning you become the collateral for a promise or a loan, like you co-sign a mortgage. That would be what he's speaking out here. If you have shaken hands and pledged for a stranger, you're snared by the words of your mouth. So you've made a promise based on something that is not real, is the idea here. You're taken by the words of your mouth. Do this, my son, and deliver yourself. For you've come into the hand of your friend. Go and humble yourself. Plead with your friend, presumably to get out of the agreement that you made. Don't sleep. Don't slumber. Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hand of a hunter and like a bird from the hand of a follower. Moving on, and this is how I got here, the next verse is, go and look at the ant. The ant does not make promises with his words. When the ant wants to prepare for the future, the ant goes and harvests and prepares for the future by getting real. preparation accomplished. Consider the ant's ways, having no cap'n, no overseer, provides her supplies in the slumber. Summer gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, oh slugger? How long will you, or when will you rise? A little sleep, slumber, folding of the hands to sleep. Your poverty will come upon you like a prowler, and your need like an armed man." Whether you're the guy providing collateral or the guy asking for collateral, neither of those are based on real preparation. Those are just based on promises. And when poverty comes, those promises are not going to be helpful. Going on, we see actually what I would say is a continuation of this theme. A worthless person, a wicked man, he walks with a perverse mouth. He winks with his eyes. He's shifty. He shuffles his feet. He's sneaking around, right? He points with his fingers. He's building surety on things that are not real. They are not built upon the fear of the Lord. Perversity is in his heart. He devises evil continually. He goes out to get what he wants based on false premises, whereas the wise way is to build wealth on the fear of the Lord. And as we've seen many times before, therefore his calamity shall come suddenly and he will be broken without remedy. Again, I don't have a way to say like this is... Who knows what a chiasm is? Chiasm? Chiasm? Chiasm? Yeah. So, a chiasm or chiasm is a Hebrew poem that The top line and the bottom line, like a sandwich, have a similar idea. And then the next line down and the next line up have a similar idea, and then the next line. And then the middle line is actually the topic of the whole thing. That's a chiasm. Now, I wish that I could say, that chapter 1, 8, verse 9, 18 are a chiasm that ends up right here at this idea. Because I think this idea is like the biggest one of this section. But again, that's why I laid out my cards at the beginning. I don't have that. Those are my ideas. So take it, chew on it, think about it, pray about it. And the Lord has put it out there for us to meditate on. But because I think this is a good climax here, at least in the first section, I think this is a good time to stop and think about how all of this fits together as best as we can. So real collateral is real security versus everything else, which will not stand. calamity. Real collateral grounded in the fear of the Lord. Everything else grounded in our own desires. Real collateral follows the wisdom and instruction of parents. The thing that will crumble is something that we just follow what we want. We have the distinction between wisdom and the immoral woman or the seductress or lady folly. We have the way of the righteous versus the way of sinners. The right way, the wise way, cherishes both the wisdom and the correction back to wisdom, whereas the foolish way despises both the wisdom and the correction. The wise way seeks the Lord's provision and uses it to build real wealth, to build real health, to meet the purposes for which we were made and brought into covenant with the Lord. And the foolish way takes what the Lord has given and tries to go after even more with it. And in the ironic way, it loses the very thing that the Lord had given. The wise way is secure and safe. The foolish way is wrought with instability and fear. And of course, the wise way leads to blessing in life, and the foolish way leads to death. So I didn't intentionally throw those contextual clues out there in the last two weeks to make this point. But I do think the evidence corroborates Solomon's life, Solomon's experience, what the Lord had done with the covenants all throughout history to the time that Solomon was thinking about these things. All of that make this make sense. And again, these are my conclusions, but I think this is what the wisdom of Solomon in these first nine chapters is after. Okay, we're a little bit behind, so I'm gonna go quickly here. You'll remember this one, the six things that the Lord hates. You see, the things that the Lord hates are the things that build wealth on something that is not sure and certain, rather than the fear of the Lord. Adultery, now I think he's actually turning to the literal act of adultery. He's using it as an example of the way of the fool, not just as a picture of following the seductress the wrong way, but he talks extensively about the adulteress and how the man is seduced to adultery and how in that seduction he is reduced to a crust of bread. He continues, this is a big deal for him. A father to a son, of course, a warning against adultery. That makes a lot of sense that that would be prominent on his mind. The seductress is really good at seduction and she is persistent. On the other hand, come to wisdom. Do not let your heart turn aside. Her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death." Again, he appeals, follow the way of wisdom. Wickedness is an abomination to wisdom's lips. And here we see the outcomes, enduring riches in righteousness, paths of justice, inheritance of wealth. And this is the way, down there in verse 15, this is the way that kings reign, rulers decree, princes rule, all the judges of the earth, the wise ones fear the Lord, as you see there in verse 13. Wisdom was with the Lord in the beginning. Of course, we're speaking of a personified wisdom. And we can get technical here and start maybe to confuse ourselves. Wisdom is literally one of the Lord's attributes. The author puts wisdom into a personified poetic device and says wisdom was with the Lord in the beginning. Now wisdom herself speaks as a parent. Now therefore listen to me, my children. I suppose you could make an argument that the father is still speaking, but I don't think the outcome would be much different. He who sins against me, meaning against wisdom, wrongs his own soul. All who hate wisdom love death. Now before we close, and we will close here in about two minutes, here's that chart again that we met in the middle there, the wise way and the foolish way. I think those, I mean, I didn't put like chapter and verse next to all of those. Maybe I'll do that at some point if I can find the time so that we have a clear picture about where we get these ideas. But I think you can see them. I don't think too many of them are controversial. But I think this is the right way to read at least the summarization of this first section right here. and the urgency. Wisdom has built her house. Wisdom has made and prepared a feast to call the man to the right way, to the wise way. She's sent out the invitation. She's said, come and eat, come and drink. And then, The Father to the Son makes it clear that it's His choice, that He needs to make the right choice. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For by Me, wisdom, your days will be multiplied, and years of life will be added to you. If you are wise, you are wise for yourself. If you scoff, you will bear it alone. This is the choice the Son has to make. The foolish woman is clamorous, she's loud, she's simple, she knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house on a seat by the highest places of the city to call those who pass by, who go straight on their way, and she says, whoever's simple, turn in here. And as for him who lacks understanding, she says, you know what? Stolen water is sweet. And bread eaten in secret, meaning gained the wrong way, is pleasant. And the son does not know. The way that she puts it makes it shady. And the one listening, the son, does not get it by her words that the dead are there, that her guests go in, but they never come out. That's all I have. Yes. Are there any questions or comments? I'm sorry I ran you out of time, so ask quickly or comment quickly. Can I get at least a nod or a wag? Was it helpful to go through all of it? Or next time, would you prefer I give you the high points and not go through all of it? Okay, I'll have to decide on my own. All right. Let's thank the Lord, and then we'll move on to further worship. Lord, thank you for this wisdom. Thank you for the way that you've organized it, even when it is difficult for us to see how you have organized it. Lord, particularly today, help us to understand the urgency about the choice that we make a thousand times a day to go the wise way, the way that is grounded and founded on the fear, the reverent submission to you, and the foolish way, which is our way of going after our own gain, our own ideas, and our own ways and methods. Lord, you have given us much more wisdom than even even Solomon concerning your son. Thank you for making it clear that he is the one who has purchased our righteousness and that our righteousness is by faith. And let that free our hearts to go after the wise way with complete trust that you have our best interests in mind. You have our ultimate purpose in mind. And of course, you have your own glory in mind. Amen.