All right, good morning. We'll go ahead and get started. Actually, I think this one will be a little bit shorter than the last couple. But we'll get started on time anyway, just in case. So if you haven't been with us, I think this is number four. I think it's number four. We did two kind of building the context of Solomon, building the context of the covenants, and then last week we talked about the first nine chapters. And now we're going to dig into the first major section of what most people would argue actually came from the pen of Solomon at some point. If you're just joining us, this is a review of the structure we're postulating for how the book is broken out. I say this every time because I don't want you to get the impression that I don't think Solomon wrote this stuff, but there are questions that need to be answered, particularly when right there in chapter 10, verse 1, it reintroduces the next section as the Proverbs of Solomon, which raises the question about, well, what was the first nine chapters? Because they also said that it was the Proverbs of Solomon. And especially when in 25, 1, it said, these are also, so you would have thought that if The guy who wrote chapter 10 verse 1 thought this was another section of Solomonic proverbs that he would have said also as well. Those are technical questions. I think ultimately we can rest assured that all of this wisdom in one way or the other came from Solomon and we can go forth and take his context and his situation in life, especially toward the end when we assume that he wrote it. It looks pretty old there. So we can kind of use that as our guardrails and our contextual clues to help us take these Proverbs and go where the Lord intends us to go with them and not elsewhere. We also, you'll remember this chart, we also talked about the covenants and we made some conclusions or some summary statements about the covenants as a group. Nearness, meaning the consuming fire God who has to be careful and is shown to be careful throughout the scriptures as he gets near to his people, has made a way in his covenants to do just that. You'll remember that he is described as a consuming fire, and then at some point you get the idea that how does a people of God get close to this consuming fire and live? Also, His promise continually throughout each covenant of life and blessing and purpose from the Creator to the creation that we see that His intent through His covenants is to make us fruitful and multiple, which is the command and the commission that He gave us at creation. He has a plan for righteousness, and we reviewed how all of those plans of righteousness are a supplied righteousness through faith in a future sacrifice, a future atonement, a future act of justice whereby the Lord can be just and merciful to his people at the same time. And then, of course, the one that sticks out very clearly, especially in the earlier covenants, that there is an expectation of obedience, but we married that up with the sense of Proverbs where it is not do this because I told you so, do this because I told you so, which is the tenor of Exodus and Deuteronomy, right? But the tenor of Proverbs is do this because I mean for it to be a blessing to you. Even the instruction and the discipline and the correction itself are meant to be a means of blessing rather than a means of justice, which of course lines up with the previous bullet, that justice has been satisfied in a supplied righteousness, even if it's in the future. And so now the Lord God who created everyone and is the judge of everything can relate to his people like a father rather than a judge. So all of that was a summary of two weeks ago, I believe. And so we conclude as we move forward here. that this context helps us to do a few things, a few ditches that we want to avoid on either side of each proverb. These are not laws. This is not do this because I told you so. This is not do this with the threat of justice. Those kinds of statements that we read in the Ten Commandments and God's law elsewhere, this is not normally that sort of thing when we look at Proverbs. Nor are they promises, meaning in every case, if you do this, this will be the result. And we all sense this because, well, we've read some of these Proverbs like we've talked about. Some of them we wish were true every time, and they just aren't. So we have to factor that in and create a picture that's worthy of the whole. And, of course, the other ditch is just to take this as great advice that you can take it or leave it. It'll work out better if you use it. It won't work out as well if you don't. And turn what the Lord has said into, well, This will help, but take it with a grain of salt kind of thing. This is not, if you remember, the frame of mind of whoever wrote the first nine chapters of the Book of Proverbs. He was not a, here's a lot of great ideas, take it or leave it. That was not his perspective. He had urgency. He used terms like life versus death, the right way versus the wrong way, of course, but the way of blessing versus the way of greedy gain, the way of instruction versus the way of folly, those sorts of contrasts. He was not just saying this is a bunch of great ideas, you should consider them. And then, of course, we want to make sure that we don't go into the ditch of seeing We can obligate the Lord to bless us because he said this is the way of the blessing. That is not how wisdom works rather. Yeah, so obedience does bring about blessing, but it does not. We cannot obligate the Lord and then. I would argue that. And I don't know because I don't really excuse me. I don't really. go back and review what I said in the last few weeks, but I don't know if I've made the case that this stewardship idea is big and overarching in Proverbs. If I haven't, I think I want you to know that I am making that case, and you'll see it in and throughout. So you can evaluate my assertion there that stewardship is a good way to take the big picture look about what's going on. Not only stewardship of material things, but stewardship of wisdom, stewardship of parental advice, stewardship of the ability to talk, as we'll see in one example today. I think the idea of stewardship lines a lot of the confusing proverbs up in a way that makes a lot of sense. So we're now in chapter 10 and we're going to go all the way through chapter 22 verse 17 or 16 today. We're not going to go line by line like we did last week. 22.17 is where the writer introduces the sayings of the wise, wherein our hypothesis, that's a new section. So today, chapter 10 through chapter 22, verse 16, Now I came up with this, so this is something you should take with a grain of salt. Evaluate it, chew on it the next 40 minutes or so. Here's, I think as far as I can tell, and I'll actually at the end if we have time I'll give you a chance to pick a proverb and we'll run it through this grid and we'll see if it works, but I think this process will help us get to the meat of what the Lord would have for us and we'll run a few of the big ones through this process so that you can see how it works and ask questions how it works and like I said if there's time maybe we'll throw a few through chances for me to be publicly humiliated out there, and we'll see if the grid works. But I think you'll see both the stability in this process, meaning we don't want to go farther than what the Lord has said, but also this process will help us see the big ideas that the Lord has for us as well. So here we go. We'll start in the very first one. A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the grief of his mother. So the first thing we're going to do here is we're going to see that. Most of the proverbs in this section are contrasts. There are some restatements, there are some even that you could argue connect to the verse above or the verse below, or even a handful of verses above or below. But most of them in chapter 10 through 22 are two lines with a contrast. So there's the kind there. Now, the word but in English is a great word to identify that. But in Hebrew, It's a letter that looks like this, and it means and, and it means but, and you have to decide. So it doesn't really help us there. The English translators for the NKJV chose but in this case. I think that was a great choice. As you can see, the writer is making a contrast between the top line there and the bottom line. Now, this is the important part right here, the hinge. You could call it the hinge, the connection. It is the thing in the two lines that is the same. So we're going to take the thing that is the same, and then we're going to vary the input over here. And we're going to see the varied output over here. So in this case, the sun is the thing that is the same. The variable here is the son in the bottom line is a foolish son, and a foolish son makes a grieving mother, whereas in contrast, a wise son has the good outcome of a glad father. It is important to stop and think about this for a second, because why did I change it from father to parents, or mother to parents, or from father to parents? This is the way that most of these lines, or most of these contrasts, are put together. So this is the beauty of the poetry of it, right? So he doesn't just restate it. I mean, if he were going to be very explicit, very clear, very plain, he would try to make the words line up except for the distinction that he was trying to communicate, right? but that's not how Hebrew poetry works. And so we get a little bit of a, we know we're not talking about just a father and a wise son. We know we're not talking about just a mother and a foolish son. We're talking about a wise son's effect on both of his parents, and we're talking about a foolish son's effect on both of his parents because of the variation there in the output. So this is just how these proverbs work, and that's why it's, It's worth noticing that so that we gain all of that meat there. Or maybe those are some of the side dishes, but you get my point. So now, again, these are two questions that I propose will help us get to what we want. What is the wisdom or the instruction? Remember, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. So what is the thing that we are being, that the Lord's people, that Solomon is instructing us to do? And then, of course, the second question, how is the fear of the Lord the beginning of that wisdom or instruction. So these are all just my words but it's just it's the process that I think will be helpful here. You should be a blessing to your parents. Everyone's like I got up early for this. Yes. Yes you did. Right. So. And how is the fear of the Lord the beginning of this instruction to be a blessing of your parents now. Think carefully here. This might be, or it might seem like I'm stretching it a little bit. So just think about it. It might seem like all of that is not in there. All right, so I'm saying the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the command or the instruction to be a blessing to your parents by the fact that obedience is right. Okay, we know that, that's the fifth commandment, that's Exodus chapter 20. And as Paul reiterates in Ephesians, that it is the commandment with a promise. It is a means of blessing. We have affirmation of that elsewhere. We see in Deuteronomy 6 that parental responsibility is the means whereby the wisdom of the Lord that has been passed to his people is supposed to be continually passed through generations to come. And so you might be thinking, that's not all in there, Jesse. So how do I know whether that's really in there or that's not really in there? And I will point you back to what we've been doing the last few weeks. The context, these bigger ideas, the reason we did that is so that they can be guardrails, so we don't take one of these proverbs off to where It was never meant to be, and particularly in this section here where we saw that the wise way cherishes wisdom and correction, so not only knowing what the right way is, but a correction back to the right way, whereas the fool despises both the instruction and the correction. We see in there, in those first nine chapters, and just throughout how the Lord has dealt with his people and their children, that obedience is right. The Lord could have said, because I told you so, and he did in Exodus 20, but he also attached a promise to it. And the Lord could have just said, teach your children, and he did. But he didn't just leave it at the rationale is because I said so. He left it as the right way is the way of wisdom. The right way is the way of instruction. The right way will lead to provision, wealth, health, security, safety, blessing, life, all of these things that we reviewed last week in chapters one through nine. help us to see the meat of what the Lord would have for us there in that first proverb. that we looked at. So, additionally, another handful of verses, and I didn't go through exhaustively and find all of the other proverbs in this section that dealt with this topic, but we see this sort of thing reiterated, and of course these reiterations are gonna have slight variations that'll help us get to the bottom of it. A wise son heeds his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. A wise son makes a father glad. A foolish man despises his mother. That one's pretty close. A foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to her who bore him. And cease listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. So these handful of proverbs also corroborate the conclusions that we made through our process there. Let me go back. This is a good point if you want to ask questions. Does that all make sense how I got there? Yes, sir. OK. OK. Sure. Yeah, the term we decided on was reverent submission. So let's just look at the bottom question here, because that's a good way to make sure we don't go off into a place we don't belong. How is the reverent submission, how is the healthy respect of the Lord the grounding or the foundation of this instruction, right? Because are we to be a blessing to our parents because The Lord has promised us health and wealth. Well, yeah, but let's be careful not to go into that ditch of the law, meaning I can, if I'm a blessing to my parents, the Lord owes me something. That would diminish this idea of healthy respect or reverent submission. So you see how the wisdom or the instruction is built on the fear of the Lord or that reverent submission that is what I think he means when he says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the wisdom or instruction. So that's a good point, because if we don't understand this, then we could take this somewhere where it was never meant to be taken. Does that make sense? All right, great. Any other questions? Yes, ma'am. Sure. Leave it to these were back in the 50s, those people were talking. They didn't really say anything about it. I don't know. I don't really understand what a computer board is. It's not, it's a reverent condition, you know. Yeah, I do. So there's a couple of ditches there too, right? An incomplete fear of the Lord could be like, I'm running around hiding behind all the trees and under the rocks because I'm afraid of the Lord and I should rightfully be so afraid. Another incomplete view is I say that I fear the Lord, but he's all right with all of my wickedness, right? The real fear of the Lord is both of those, meaning one, the Lord is a consuming fire, and he has every right to destroy wickedness on the spot at any moment. through his covenants has made a way to dwell safely with his people and be the father rather than the judge. Right. So an incomplete view on both sides will get you to an error. Right. Sure. Right. He doesn't do it in chapter 10 verse 22. That's why I didn't do it here. But you're right. I think you could safely do that. There's just no reference to daughters. There is in chapters 1 through 9, remember, he changes to hear my sons and hear my children a couple of times. Right. Uh-oh. Not to worry. These will come back. OK, moving on. I just picked this one because this is a recurring theme throughout this section. The mouth of the righteous is a well of life, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked. So first of all, it's pretty easy to see that this is a contrast. We got the righteous, we got the wicked, that's a very standard contrast. The word but there is placed by the interpreter or the translators for you. I say the hinge is the mouth, that is the thing that is the same on both lines. The wrong way is the mouth of the wicked, and it leads to concealing or covering violence. And the right way is the mouth of the righteous, which as we see there is a well of life. Now it does, because I know you guys are sharp and there's coffee out there so you're on your game. This here is a little bit of a tough one because this is the only English translation that makes violence the subject of that second line. The Hebrew and most other translations, the subject is right there, meaning it's more of a parallel. The mouth of the wicked covers violence or conceals violence. And I think if you chew on it a little bit, you'll see that that makes a lot more sense. So again, I know about this much Hebrew, and the men who translated it that way know a lot more, but there are other men who know that much as well, and I'm convinced that this is the subject and this is the object, which corresponds to the top line there and the basic Hebrew structure as well. So the point here is that what comes out of the mouth of the righteous is a blessing to everybody around, and what comes out of the mouth of the wicked conceals the violence that he intends to do. So he speaks his words, he builds up his his ability to gain, his ability to take what he wants by covering his actual plan with his mouth. I think that's the point here. And so, looking at the instruction part, you should carefully steward your, or we should carefully steward our ability to speak. How does the fear of the Lord ground that? And again, you might think I'm speeding a little bit, but I'll continue to encourage you to chew on this. Stewardship of our ability to communicate is part of the Lord's blessing, and the wicked take that provision and they use it for their own purposes rather than the Lord's purposes. So they take their ability to communicate and take it down the foolish way rather than the wise way. Yes, sir? Well, there were at least some of them that put the subject in the order that I proposed. Let me see if I can find one here. It does indeed. Yeah, so the ESV translates it that way. That's right. The NNS translates it that way. From what I mean, I didn't do an exhaustive search here. What I could tell, it's not a textual issue. It's not like there's some Hebrew manuscript somewhere that has a different word order in the Hebrew. It is just simply an interpretation issue. So again, I think I've made it clear you all can be comfortable disagreeing with me at any point. What I want you to do is chew on it. So chew on it. If this gets under your nose a little bit, think about it this afternoon and try to see what happens if you make violence the subject there. Is there a parallel if violence is the subject? I would say that The parallel is more strained, because the mouth of the is the thing that is similar in both lines. And in the top, the mouth is the subject, and in the bottom, if that's what the author's doing, is switching that, then we have to say something else is the same thing, and those other things are the variables, you see. So again, this is a little bit technical. I hope as we get down to the bottom here, again, these are my conclusions. But what we see in the rest of this section about this topic, I think corroborates that our process is legit. So the hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor, thorough knowledge, but through knowledge the righteous will be delivered. By the blessing of the upright, a city is exalted, but is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. So we see the mouth in the hands of the wise one will take it the Lord's way to blessing and life. The mouth in the hands of the wicked one will take it the foolish way to destruction and death. The words of the wicked are, let's lie and wait for blood, but the mouth of the upright delivers them. Man shall eat well by the fruit of his mouth, but the soul of the unfaithful feeds on violence. He who guards his mouth preserves his life, but he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction. And just like so many of these concepts, and bringing in the overarching idea of stewardship here, What the fool, what the wicked, what the scoffer does with his words is he builds a world. He builds his riches. He builds his wealth. He builds his trust. He builds his hope. He builds his way of gain on false things. He makes these happen with his words and with his schemes and with his wickedness. And that gain as we learned last week, will all come crashing down at some point. And this is one of the things that we all wish it would come crashing down immediately. Every time, we all wish that this was a promise. If you build a false gain on your wicked words, the Lord will destroy it. We all wish that that would just happen right away. This is not how it works. It will happen. Death and destruction will come to all of the gain that the wicked and the foolish construct by way of their evil words. But we have to be patient because the Lord is doing that on his schedule rather than ours. The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly, but the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness. The word of a man's mouth are deep waters, and the wellspring of wisdom is a flowing brook. We'll get to a comparison or a restatement, but you'll notice that this one is not a contrast. We'll get to that here in a second. This is another major theme here in 10 through 22, laziness. He who has a slack hand becomes poor, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. So we see, again, it is a contrast. The translators helped us out with the word but there. I think the hinge is the worker. Now, you'll notice this one's a little bit trickier, right? Because the hinge is actually just that guy. And he doesn't even show up, just his hand shows up down at the bottom. So you've got to go searching sometimes. It's not as explicit as you wish it were to be. The wrong way, the slack hand. The bad outcome, poor or poverty. The right way, the diligent hand. And the right outcome, riches. We take it, what should we do with that? You should be a diligent worker. And again, you're thinking I got up early for this, right? Yes, yes, you should be a diligent worker. That is very important to the Lord. How does the fear of the Lord ground this instruction? How is it the beginning of this wisdom? Even work is a gift. of provision that we are to steward towards the Lord's intent that we flourish. The Lord has made covenants to come dwell with us. He has made promises to bless us. The way that he works this out is that he gives us provision and he tells us to go steward that provision to life and riches and wealth and health and every blessing. And if you're not convinced yet, here's a few verses that I think say similar things and corroborate the conclusion we just came to. He who has a sly can't, oh, that's the same one, nevermind. Oh, even the next verse. Now this is a good to stop and think about for a second because those two are next to each other. So you could run the same process through the connection between both of those and say, are these a contrast with one another? Are these a restatement or a comparison to one another? You could run the same process through that couple of verses because they happen to be right next to each other, there's a probability at least that they have to do with the same sort of thing. But you could use this process and get to what the author might be doing with a set of two lines rather than a one line proverb. 1026, a vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes is the lazy man to those who send him. The hand of the diligent will rule, but the lazy man will be put to forced labor. So the ruler-servant relationship or outcome there. A lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting, but diligence is man's precious possession. This one in particular kind of lends to the idea of provision. The Lord has given it, but he requires us to steward it. to what he intends or how he intends to bless us. The soul of a lazy man desires and has nothing but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich. The way of the lazy man is like a hedge of thorns, but the way of the upright is a highway, so it's easier for the one who does it the Lord's way. Even though the lazy man thinks he's saving work, his way will be harder in the end. That's so true in many ways. and what I think he's getting at there in chapter 15. This one is more of a sarcastic approach. A lazy man buries his hand to the bowl and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again. That's how lazy he is. Even when the Lord gives, sometimes we are too lazy even just to accept it. I have two more examples. Yes, ma'am. Okay. It's right there. I hear you, yeah. Right, okay. Yeah, so two more examples here, and then I'll give you a chance to dig one out if you'd like, or we'll draw some conclusions. When a wicked man dies, his expectation will perish, and the hope of the unjust perishes. Does anybody notice the difference right off the bat? It's not a contrast. That's right. I would call it a restatement. You could call it a comparison. I'm going to determine that's not the important part. The important part is that we don't have two different, we don't have a variable. onto the hinge that comes out in two different outcomes, we have a one statement that is restated for clarity or for broadening or for, yeah, just a little bit of extra explanation there. Now, again, in this instance, the translators helped you out by putting an and there, but again, they could have put and in the other ones that were contrasts and been technically correct. They're helping you out by saying we think that this is not a contrast but rather an additional statement about the same thing. So I see here, again, the hinge is a little bit harder to identify because it's not the thing that, well, it is the thing that remains the same in both lines, but since it's a restatement, a lot of the things are gonna remain the same in both lines. So it's a little bit harder, but here's what I came up with. The wicked man or the unjust man is the thing that we're evaluating, and we put the input in there twice, hope in the wrong thing, comes out in the outcome of perishing. Now. Again, take my conclusions, chew on them, because what I'm saying here is that down here, or sorry, that the expectation, it's similar to the hope, and well, the perishing is pretty clear that that's the same thing. So I'm equating by my interpretation here that the wicked man's expectation And the wicked man's hope, or the unjust's hope, are the similar thing there. I don't think that there's a whole lot of room to argue otherwise in this one, but there are some that are a little bit harder to get to that. Be careful and be diligent and I think you can get there. So what is the thing? What is the instruction? I would phrase it like this. Let's make sure that our hope is in the right thing because hope, expectation in the wrong thing is what perishes, right? And then how does the fear of the Lord ground this wisdom? The Lord, as we have seen in the last three weeks especially, sets himself, his way, his provision, his expectations as the only thing that is sturdy ground, the only thing in which to hope. All other is sinking sand, is the way that I would put that. I only have one other example for you on this one, but I think it's pretty profound here. The hope of the righteous will be gladness. The expectation of the wicked will perish. Oh, sorry. Who sent him is not a part of that one. Pretend that doesn't exist. So this one is a contrast, right? So now we say the hope of the righteous will be gladness or will come to gladness or will end in gladness because the hope of the righteous is the correct hope, the hope founded on the correct thing, which the Lord has established. On the other hand, the expectation of the wicked, all of the things that he put his hope in will perish. And here we see the ideas that we've been chewing on all morning so far. What the wicked, what the foolish, what the scoffer, what the unjust constructs, what he goes after in his own desire for gain is all built on a bad foundation. It is not built on the reverent submission or, how did Ray put it, the healthy fear a healthy respect of the Lord. It is not built on that. It is built on the Lord has provided, but I don't like his schedule, or I don't like his quantities, or I don't like how he's set this up. So I'm going to construct a way to get to the gain that I want on my schedule, on my timeline, in my way. And the Proverbs are telling us that hope in that, rest, security, safety, life, blessing, on that construct will come and perish. And that perishing, that calamity, as we looked at last week, will come quickly. And wisdom will be the one scoffing at the fool who ignored her instruction, as the writer put it in the stuff that we looked at last week. I think this is the last example. Again, it's a contrast. This is another tactic you're going to have to evaluate, because it will happen frequently in these problems, is the second line. in a Hebrew poetic proverb sometimes leaves out the subject and assumes that you'll just drop it down like that, okay? So again, be careful with that, but I think in this case, that's exactly what the author is after. Treasures of the wickedness profit nothing. Treasures of righteousness, or of the righteous, and really, so if you don't put that in there, the thing that's the same as the ness, Right? So treasures of wickedness, treasures of righteousness, make some sense out of this. But you have to do the work of supplying the subject there. The wrong way is the treasures by wickedness or in accordance with wickedness. And of course, the outcome of that is nothing. We've been talking about that already this morning. And then of the righteousness, the outcome there is deliverance from death. What should we do, or what should the Lord's people do, is perhaps a clearer way to put that. We should seek the treasures of, or treasures in accordance with righteousness. And how is the, oh. I forgot, I had another. Let's go back to this chart for a second here. Because, and I guess I probably just preempted myself on the last slide here. Because not only does the, not only does the Lord promise good life, wealth, health for the wise and promise perishing for the wicked, but it is this idea that this is one that the idea of what The way that the Lord constructs it is as important as what the Lord is constructing. The Lord has promised all of those good things, but the way he gets us there is as important as the as the end that he achieves, because the foolish are trying to go get those things, but going about it without grounding it on the fear of the Lord is the thing that is the foolish, and the thing that marks their, what they build as something that will perish in the future. Last week we went through these first nine chapters and we saw clearly that that was what the author was warning against. was going your own way, seeking greedy gain, despising wisdom and correction to go back or to understand the right way to that wealth, that prosperity, that life. And of course, on the right path, there is real security, real safety, real blessing, real life, and everything else is just a mirage. if it's not grounded on the fear of the Lord. So the way that I would put it there, treasures gained outside of the Lord's ordination have no value. Righteous treasure seeking has value in and of itself. And this one, in the next verse, it helps us understand if we've done that process correctly. Because it says something about the same topic. The Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish. And we say, man, but that's not always true. Right? Like, there are righteous people everywhere in dire situations. But this is the thing. The way. I think I said it a couple weeks ago. I almost want to make another analogy to slap on top of all of the proverbial analogies, but it makes me nervous, because one, it's mine, and two, it's got enough analogies already. But think about it. The big analogy in the book of Proverbs is the way, right? The way is the important thing. The ends are at the end of the wise way and the foolish way. And there's plenty of data about what is at the end of each way. But the way is the important thing. So the way the Lord will not allow the righteous to famish is as important as the fact that he's not going to allow the righteous to famish. And we say, I wish the righteous would never have to famish. But the Lord's way says, I won't let them stay that way. Even on my schedule, even though you don't understand my schedule, I will not let the righteous vanish, or the righteous soul vanish. And of course, again, we say, why doesn't the wicked get what they deserve immediately, the way I want it to happen? But the Lord's way, does cast away the desire of the wicked, but on his turn, on his way, by his processes. And the way is the big analogy in the book of Proverbs. Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like foliage. By humility and fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life. And so we put all that back into the chart that we're familiar with here. I beefed up this section because I think this is at the heart. If we want to try to smoosh them together, see big ideas, overarching themes, that sort of thing, I think it's right there. Successful stewardship endures forever. The selfish gain on one's own schedule, the foolish way going after the similar things, but in your own way constructs a facade of riches. Somebody help me out. That doesn't look like I spelled that correctly. Yeah, I'm not sure. Is it right? All right, great. So the foolish way builds riches that are a facade of riches that will eventually evaporate. And of course, there's no reason to feel stable or to feel secure on a facade of riches rather than on the real thing. So again, in conclusion, and I will, we got a couple minutes, maybe one or two, if somebody wants to pull one out and we can test it. This is mine, so don't let the same format mislead you that this is Proverbs 32 verse 15 or something like that. There is no such thing. This is a summary. If I were building a proverb to summarize all the ones that we talked about today and all the ones in this section, I would do it something like this. The way of the Lord leads to eternal riches, but the fool's castle falls in the storm. And I'm not very poetic. I'm not a very good a creative kind of writer, but I tried anyway. So the thing, it's a first-line contrast, the hinge is the way, the path. That's what I think is the main analogy in this section. The wrong way, the fool's way, comes to temporal wealth, and the right way, the Lord's way, comes out as eternal wealth. But because I was trying to write a Hebrew proverb, I made the second line a little bit more flowery. This is how they normally go. So this is my point. you can distill some of that out by the process that we've gone through a couple times this morning. What is the wisdom? We should build our wealth the Lord's way, that is real wealth, that is wealth that will last, that is wealth that he means us to have, and we can be safe and secure and rejoice in it. And how is that built on the fear of the Lord? The Lord gives this kind of eternal wealth to those who steward his provision according to his ways. The wealth attained by fools will not last. It will fall. Even that castle will fall in the storm because it is a facade of a castle, not a real one. Yes. All right. So I'll let you take one or two maybe. Does anybody have one that they would like to try? If not, that's no big deal. We don't have to do it, but we do have one or two more minutes. Yeah. 12.3. A man is not established by wickedness. But the root of the righteous cannot be moved. OK, so I don't see it right away, so we'll have to go through this process. Let's do this. Is it a contrast, do you think? You think it's a restatement? I can see that because of the knot. So what is the hinge? What is the same in both lines there? I would say the establishment and the root. is the thing that's the same, right? So we're talking about putting a plant in the ground or establishing a plant and its root system. So a man is not grounded or a man is not rooted by wickedness, but the root of the righteous cannot be moved. So the hinge is the grounding, the rooting, and the Wrong way would be to try to ground it in wickedness. Maybe there's a contrast. And the right way is to ground it in righteous things. And if you are grounded in righteous things, then you have that safety and security that we read about elsewhere. What do you think? Okay, I feel happy about it, so I don't know about everybody else, all right then. Yeah, so I think, so let's answer these questions. You should ground yourself, establish yourself in righteousness. Of course, you didn't get up early to hear that, you already knew that. How is the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom? Well, let's, get to my chart here, because if you're grounded in righteousness, security, safety, blessing, life, wealth, health, those are real things, real things that cannot be moved because those come from the Lord. If you are grounded in wickedness, it might look like that plan is well grounded. But when you pull on it, or it rains a lot, or it rains too little, we'll see that that's instability, fear, death. It looks like it's a healthy plant. It looks like it's something valuable. But it is not, because it is not grounded in righteousness. It's established in wickedness. I think that's about all the time that we have. So let me conclude with this. I do intend on talking about how this works out in later sessions here. I did a number of times this week. You might get to the point where you're thinking, alright, so how does the Lord Christ fit into all of this? Does He like show up and change the whole equation? I'll put this out there. I'm still chewing on this one. Is Christ the wise son? Is this all just a picture of Christ? That's one way to look at it. I would say at least this much right now, and then we'll close here. The Lord gives eternal wealth to those who steward his provision according to his ways. If nothing else, without thinking about it further, since I just brought the topic up, we have been given and we have seen and we have heard, to put it in terms of 1 John, we have seen the provision of righteousness. It is not out in the future. We have seen the thing that makes the consuming fire able to dwell with us, and we are not burned. We have seen, and we have touched it with our hands, and we have heard with our ears, we've seen with our eyes that justice has been satisfied, the Lord dwells among us, and he has given us these ways of life to build sturdy foundations that will not be moved. So the promise of the new covenant is part of the provision. And if you remember that, then it doesn't stir us up to think that there's some sort of big change between Solomon's time and where we sit. But again, we'll get to more of that in the coming weeks. Let me close by praying for us. Lord, thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for this time together, and chew on it and consider it. Lord, help our hearts to go the wise way, to avoid the foolish way. Lord, help our hearts to accept wisdom and correction back to the wise way. And Lord, as always, we thank you for Christ, who has made it possible for you, the consuming fire, to dwell amongst us and within us, and we are not burned. Help us cherish that in a way that leads to obedience and the expectation of the safety and security of the hope that you intend to build among us. Amen.