Proverbs chapter 3 verses 13-18, these are God's words. Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding. For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver, and her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is in her right hand, in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are all who retain her. So far the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. At the beginning and end of this section, we have little bookends that sort of highlight to us that it's one thought, one unit from verse 13 through 18, and that is, happy is the man who, at the beginning of verse 13, and then at the end of verse 18, happy are all who, and so happiness, blessedness, joy for us comes, of course, in God himself, but God has given us means. He's given us his word, and because The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord to reverence Him rightly, while reverencing Him rightly recognizes that He's communicated Himself to us by way of His Word. And so a proper fear of the Lord will then find wisdom, will seek and search, like we've been hearing throughout Proverbs so far, will make whatever use it can of the Word of God in order In order to have him by his own means and so you have the the two things At the beginning you have happy as a man who finds that is that we should not just find and gain wisdom and understanding like we were thinking about in the first part of chapter two, verse two, incline your ear to wisdom. But then in the second part of chapter two, verse two, we had apply your heart to understanding, and that's similar to the idea in the end of this little section, happy are all who retain her, and really it's who grasp, who cling to her with their hands. And so happiness, blessedness in your life comes from God himself and in God himself. Do not think that there is a technique or an activity that in and of itself or by itself will make you happy. But the way that God has given you for having him as your happiness, the means by which God gives himself to you to be your happiness is to find His Word, to incline yourself to His Word, listen to His Word, and then to grasp, to hold it. As our English translation, our English version has here, verse 18, to retain it. If you would have a happy life, then you must know and fear the Lord. And if you are to know and fear the Lord, you may, the only way to do it is the way that he has given, which means finding, receiving, obtaining, gaining his word, and hanging on to, clinging to, living by his word. And so that's how to be blessed. And then in the middle part, then, we have the possessions that wisdom gives us, and then the pleasantness that wisdom gives us. That which wisdom gives us is better than any of the possessions that you can get by the wealth of this world. Silver, the first part of verse 14, gold, second part of verse 14, rubies, first part of verse 15. They could buy much in that culture at that time. They can still buy a fair amount today, silver, gold, and rubies. But can silver, gold, and rubies buy length of days? Can silver, gold, and rubies buy real honor, not just being honored by others, but actually being weighty in the grand scheme of things? No. The man who appears to others to be the most weighty, but does not have the knowledge of God, he gets thrown on the trash heap of history. Out of the hundreds of billions that there have been, there are maybe a handful whose names are even remembered by men. But how honorable, how weighty, how great are those who have lived in the knowledge of the Lord and died in the knowledge of the Lord and will rise again. in the knowledge of the Lord. And so in her profits and her proceeds, length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand, riches and honor. These are the true riches, not just a long life in this world, which can, instrumentally come by following God's Word, by following His wisdom and in the way He has created His world to work in the ordinary working of His providence. Things like being wise and not self-indulgent and working hard and generous and all of the the mental and emotional benefits of knowing the Lord and walking, all those things can contribute to long life. Or you may be cut down in the flower of youth, but if you know the Lord, if you have true wisdom, and of course, knowing the Lord is only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, by hope in Him, then your length of days is infinite. And same then with the honor, new heavens and a new earth in which We reign as kings forever, having been restored to our, not just to our original kingship in Christ, but brought into a greater kingship in the last Adam than that, which the first Adam lost. So the possessions that wisdom gets us, yes, in this life, but how much greater and fuller when we think of it in the whole of what the Lord teaches us in his word. And then the second thing that not only does wisdom get us things, but it is itself pleasant. So the wise way leads to great things, but the wise way itself is a reward. Her ways are ways of pleasantness. All her paths are peace. And so living wisely, living in fellowship with God according to his word is pleasant already. You might lack much creaturely pleasantness. There might be physical discomfort and relational opposition from others. In a creation that is bound to corruption and decay, you might toil hard and then something happens that wipes it all out, or you leave it to a child who ends up being a fool and destroys it. All of that, the things that Ecclesiastes noted might happen that would make it vanity. But if you're not living merely under the sun, but in the knowledge of him who sits above the sun, as it were, then you have in him a pleasantness that is not providentially dependent. It's not dependent on what you have. It is not dependent on what happens. It is not dependent on other people and what they think of you. And you have a pleasantness that cannot be taken from you. Her ways are ways of pleasantness. You have a peace, a shalom that cannot be disrupted by what is happening. Although you may grieve as Jesus did, over the consequences of unbelief and the continuing effects of the fall. Yet his own peace was not disrupted by those things. Even in his humanity, the only disruption of his peace and his shalom came as he suffered by way of his humanity for our sins. But Jesus says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So that we may know that he, our God who died for us, never leaves or forsakes us, even to the end of the age. And that the triune God in the Son never leaves or forsakes us. And so it's not just that the wise life can get you, length of days and can get you riches and honor, but the wise life itself, the life lived in fellowship with God, is itself a pleasantness that is above these other things that can get you, is itself a peace, that is above all these things, these other things that the wise life can get you. So walking with God is pleasant and walking with God is peaceful. Wisdom is, as it were, a tree of life. So long as the covenant of works was not broken, so long as it was still in effect, Adam or Mrs. Adam could go and eat of the Tree of Life and know that they were in fellowship with God and that what was promised to them in this God, who is their life, is that in the keeping of that covenant, they would be able to enjoy that life forever. It was a sacramental tree. It wasn't magical fruit that God was worried about Adam and Eve getting to after the fall, and so he places the angel and the sword. It was sacramental. fruit, and it would have been a cruelty of God. to permit them to continue to eat of the sacramental fruit and think that they were somehow still having life and could still have it forever. And so he puts the safeguards in place to keep, to guard, is the actual language in Genesis 3, the way to the tree of life. And we're not done with it yet. We see at the end of Revelation that there's the tree of life bearing bearing the 12 fruits and it's on either side of the river and so on. Well, we don't have the tree of life now, but we do have wisdom. We do have the fear of the Lord. and living in fellowship with Him, and it reminds us, it teaches us, it makes us to know that we are right with Him and that we are the blessed ones who shall be brought into the fullness of the blessedness of belonging to and knowing, having fellowship with, having had covenant kept with God, which, of course, our last Adam in the covenant of grace, the one into whom faith brings us, bringing us into the last Adam himself in union with him and bringing us into the kept covenant of grace, the rewards of which have been secured for all of those who are party to that covenant and you become party to it in the Lord Jesus Christ. Wisdom is like a tree of life to you now. As you spend time in His Word in the morning, in the evening, in these family worship times, in the public worship, genuine Bible wisdom is as a tree of life to us. It makes us to enjoy the pleasantness, the blessedness, belonging to God. So may the Lord give us to both find wisdom by His Word and to cling to, grasp, retain wisdom by his word that we may have the happy life, the blessed life. Let's pray. Father, we pray that your spirit would produce his fruit in us by use of your word, that we would be full of not just love, but joy and peace. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.