Sermon: Adorned With The Father's Wisdom

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Microphone good, thank you. Some of you are probably still wondering who this guy in the pulpit is with no hair on his face.

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You can save the jokes until after, after service. We're going to be in Proverbs chapter 1, beginning in verse 8.

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Hear now the words of the living and the true God. God, hear my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.

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My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.

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If they say, come with us, let us lie in wait for blood. Let us ambush the innocent without reason.

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Like Sheol, let us swallow them alive and whole like those who go down to the pit.

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We shall find all precious goods. We shall fill our houses with plunder.

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Throw in your lot among us, we will all have one purse. My son, do not walk in the way with them.

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Hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.

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For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood.

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They set an ambush for their own lives. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain.

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It takes away the life of its possessors. Thus far is the reading of God's word.

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Let's pray. Father, we come before you, hungering, thirsting for wisdom.

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Please open your word to us now, God. Lord, render our hearts in two.

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Show us just how deep our need is to govern rightly, to judge effectively, and to bear your image faithfully in our marriages, in our households, in our church, and in the world at large,

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God. Lord, render your heart to us now, and show us that blessing, life, and peace are to be found in the community of the wise.

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Help us to forsake and keep our feet back from the path of the foolish, lest we end in destruction.

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Lord, I ask that you would please remove me from the equation, that you would use your servant today to speak for you from your word.

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Please guard my lips from error. Fill me with your spirit so that I can be faithful to you today.

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Open our hearts to receive your words. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Just some preliminary foundations in Proverbs.

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Pastor Jeff laid down instruction about the thesis verse of Proverbs last week, and that is that the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge, and fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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It's interesting, if you look at that verse, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge. That word, beginning, also shows up at the beginning of the

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Bible, Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. Reshit is the same word, and no,

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I did not just curse. The same word shows up, and in Genesis we're told,

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Proverbs confirms this, Proverbs chapter 8, that God made the world by his word, and it was wisdom.

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Wisdom was present, the Bible says, at the beginning of creation. And then we're told in the

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New Testament that Jesus Christ is the head. He is the preeminent one.

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He is the arche, the equivalent word to reshit. So in the beginning,

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God made the world in wisdom, and in Jesus, in the new creation, he is remaking the world in perfect wisdom, making all things new.

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But as Christians who are hungry and thirsty for wisdom, we need to understand what wisdom is for.

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What is this for? Well, we see in Genesis that it's for building, for creating.

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We also see in Proverbs that it is for ruling. What does it say at the beginning in chapter 1?

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The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel. This is kingly stuff.

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This is for reigning, for ruling. You could call

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Proverbs, as someone else has said, rules for reigning. We also need wisdom, godly wisdom, biblical wisdom, to bring peace, like the way our

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Lord Jesus brings peace, reconciling the cosmos to himself, bringing peace.

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We need wisdom to build, to rule rightly, and to bring peace, like our

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Savior. The word proverb has a meaning to speak in a riddle.

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You see Jesus speaking in parables in the New Testament, speaking like a king, if you will, covering things.

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Proverbs says, it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search it out.

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Jesus was speaking like a king. He was speaking in riddles. But the word also means, in its rudimentary form, to rule.

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Mashal, to speak a riddle, to rule. Proverbs are rules for reigning.

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And Christians, we desperately, brothers and sisters, we desperately need wisdom to build, create, and to bring peace, like our

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Lord. But to be wise is to understand something.

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And that is this, that God made the world in a particular way. There are principles.

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There are creational norms. There are designing features. There are things that cannot be denied.

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There are things that cannot be rebelled against any more than gravity can be rebelled against. And our job, as image bearers of God, is to flow with the grain of how

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God made the world and to ultimately conform our lives to the way that God designed the world to be.

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That's what it means to be wise, to search out what God has revealed, how he made the world, how he designed all of this, and to flow with the grain of that, to conform our lives to what

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God says is true, good, beautiful, what's real. What is reality actually like?

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What is reality? We see here it's presented to us in the discussion between a father and a son.

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A father comes to his son and says, son, this is the way the world actually is.

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This is how it works. This is reality. These are the types of people that you're actually going to encounter in the world.

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This is how it actually is. And the implication here is very, very important.

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If you notice in verses 2 through 6, wisdom comes to us by a particular means, normatively speaking.

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It comes to us in the context of a community. It comes to us, as you see here, knowledge and discretion to the youth.

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Let the wise hear an increase in learning, understanding all of these different people of a community.

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That's where wisdom is. The Proverbs say that whoever isolates himself, seeks his own desire, he breaks out against all sound judgment,

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Proverbs 18 .1. That's what happens when we seek to undertake our acquisition of wisdom apart from God's ordained means.

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We become foolish, and we break against all sound reasoning.

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So wisdom is had in a community. It's inherently social, if you will.

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It's interesting, both the Proverbs and the Psalms begin in the same way. Admonition against forsaking this community of fools and clinging to the community of the wise.

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Don't walk in the way of sinners. Don't sit in the seat of scoffers.

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Let your delight be in the law of Yahweh, the law of the

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Lord. And this is hard, isn't it? Life, the

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Christian life in particular, is all about doing hard things. It's about doing hard things, which require wisdom.

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We need wisdom. It's hard to be in a community of people, isn't it?

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It's hard to live. It's hard to sin and then confess sin and go through that process of reconciliation.

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It's hard to receive rebuke. It's hard to give reproof. It's hard to grow and be stretched and be challenged and be held accountable.

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All of these things are hard to do. But wisdom is for those hard things, for those difficult things.

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And it comes to us in community. Those are the means. So it's essential that we're in community, amen?

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In the community of the body of Christ. But look at how foundational this is.

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What do you see here? Father, mother, children. You see the household.

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You see the home as the normative means by which wisdom, biblical godly wisdom, is transferred from one generation to another.

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And we have lost that in our day. There has been a tremendous failure of transference from one generation to another with a biblical worldview, with practical godly wisdom.

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We often hear the word tradition and we think of it as a negative thing.

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And it can be a negative thing if we elevate it above the place of scripture. However, tradition literally just means to hand something down.

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What does Paul say? I deliver to you what I received of first importance. And then he proceeds to give us the gospel, right?

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And in other places, he gives us the sacrament of communion. That is tradition that is passed down from generation to generation.

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And so tradition is not a bad thing. There has been a failure to transfer that faithful and godly inheritance from one generation to another.

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And the onus is on the people of God to restore that transference so that we can equip our children, especially given the times that we live in for what they're going to face.

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And how does Proverbs present this to us here? Verse eight, hear my son, son of my love.

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This is not a father that is barking commandments at his son or losing his temper or being impatient.

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This is a father that is saying, son, here, incline your heart to me.

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In the Proverbs, right? It says, son, incline your heart to me. Don't just listen, hear me.

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This is taking place in the context of a relationship. Sounds elementary, doesn't it?

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I'm not saying anything grandiose here or outside of the norm, but the father is speaking to his son and he uses a word that you'll be familiar with, hear.

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We also see this in Deuteronomy 6 .4, shema, hear.

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When a Jew hears that word in the assembly, they straighten up, hear.

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Shema, my son, your father's instruction. The home is the first place where our children learn godly living, and this implies something quite basic that fathers and mothers are the primary source of authority.

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This teaching that the father wants to communicate to his son, he not only expects him to hear it, but the implication is that it is to be obeyed.

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There is to be obedience, and we see something, once again, quite rudimentary here, and that is this idea of a hierarchy.

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There is distinction, father, son, mother, son.

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There's an order, and as much as we want to try to escape, as much as our world wants to try to escape these good and godly distinctions, male, female,

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God has built them into the fabric of the cosmos, and we defy them at our own peril.

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This teaching ought to be listened to. Our culture teaches the exact opposite.

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Don't listen to your mother and father. How many decades now of traditional biblical morality have been eroded by the criticism of our forebearer's inheritance?

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It's been criticized, and that's the way to begin weakening this whole thing, you see, to criticize it, to bring it down, to erode those foundations of relationship between parents and children.

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This arrogant, haughty spirit that dominates our age, right, Christianity is a religion where the elderly are prized.

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It's quite unique. They're prized. Our age is the exact opposite.

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Our world hates authority. We hate the tradition of the previous faithful generations, but biblical wisdom, tried and true, is this.

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Mothers and fathers, parents are in the place of God, vested with his authority as his deputies.

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Children, to disobey your parents is to disobey God. To reject the authority of your parents is to reject

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God's authority. This presupposes a teachable spirit.

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Are you teachable? Are we teachable as a community? Are we willing to be corrected?

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Are we willing to incline our hearts to understanding? Proverbs 12 .1,

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whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

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Proverbs 15 .32, whoever ignores instruction despises himself.

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If you ignore instruction, you hate yourself. How does that work?

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Well, if you hate yourself, if you ignore instruction, you're not cutting with the way that God made the universe, and you're actually undoing yourself.

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You're at war with that, the way that God made the world, and thus you are at war with God himself.

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Hear, my son, your father's instruction. Do not leave, don't forsake your mother's teaching.

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And the word there is Torah. Don't neglect the law of your mother.

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So once again, children, when your mother's speaking to you, sit up straight.

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Husbands and fathers, if they're not, make sure that they are sitting up straight and listening to the

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Torah of their mother. The teaching. And notice something here.

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The mother's teaching flows from the father's instruction.

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Again, more hierarchy here, right? There is order, there is leadership, there is a word at the top that is to be heeded ultimately.

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However, the equalizing of the father and the mother's teaching together.

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Children, you are to be submitted to that. You are to be under that authority.

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That is godly wisdom in godly community in its most basic form, and we could call it rightly catechesis.

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We do catechism as a church. Catechesis. Once again, teaching.

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This teaching is the basis for any nation and the health of that nation, and that is why what we're seeing today is a result of the disintegration of that.

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Because to leave the teaching of our parents, to leave the teaching of godly fathers and mothers is to leave our father and mother.

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If you disobey God's word, if you leave his word, you're leaving him.

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Scripture equates the two together. To ignore God's instruction, to disobey him is to leave him.

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And if you disobey the instruction of your parents, you are leaving that relationship.

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And we have multiplied that in our society. We have compounded that.

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And so we're faced, as in this passage, it's not just the battle for the soul of one adolescent youth.

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In a larger scale, it's the battle for the soul of a nation. There's quite a bit at stake here.

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The example of the youth who's grown up in the instruction and the teaching of his father and mother now is about to be presented with enticements of this counterfeit alternative community.

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But the father tells him, don't leave your mother's teaching, don't leave your father's instruction, for they are a graceful garland for your head.

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Verse nine, this teaching, this godly instruction from parents to children, it's like a crown on your head, children.

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It's a crown that overcomes. It's a symbol of our victory. It's a graceful garland.

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It's a victor's wreath, is what it is. And it's as pendants for your neck, right?

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You have an Olympic gold medal around your neck. You're well -dressed, children, if you listen and heed and obey the teaching of your parents.

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You wanna be a well -dressed child? The Bible says you obey your father and mother.

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And this teaching not only makes you look good, it guides you. It protects you.

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It keeps you from men of blood. And this wisdom that good children, godly children, wear around their necks and on their heads from their parents, it goes with them into the world.

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And it says to the world that our children have a name, that they have a family, that they have a godly heritage.

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So children, if you would honor the Lord, then honor your parents. The biblical reality is that God's fatherhood is the basis for all fatherhood.

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Ephesians 3, 14, Paul says, "'For this reason I bow my knees before the

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Father, "'from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.'"

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And the word there, from whom every family, another way to bring it across is from whom all fatherhood derives its name.

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God's fatherhood is the basis for us fathers. And then the admonition to children, children,

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Ephesians 6, 1, "'Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "'Honor your father and mother.'"

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This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.

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These are the normative means that God has ordained for us to grow and to mature.

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And that is what God has for all of us. If you think about how God created

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Adam in the garden as his image bearer, with the intention that he would grow up into maturity as a king, learning to govern, learning to build, learning to judge, learning to rightly distinguish between good and evil.

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That is what our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ has restored to us in the gospel.

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The ability to do this rightly by making us new and allowing us to live faithfully unto him.

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Now, one thing about this before we move on, if you notice, this isn't just limited here to fathers and mothers, because you have the teacher,

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Solomon, speaking about this in the context of a relationship of father and son, using that as the springboard.

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But for those of us who maybe didn't grow up with fathers in the home or bad fathers in the home, likewise with mothers, the community of the wise is also seen in the body of Christ, where we have godly church fathers, where we have men that can assume that role in the community of the wise and bring there what has been lacking.

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And honor and submission and reverence are to be given to those men as well.

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So the son is about to be invited to another party. It says in verse 10, my son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.

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If they say, come with us, let us lie and wait for blood. Let us ambush the innocent without reason like Sheol.

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Let us swallow them alive and whole like those who go down to the pit. Once again, the father saying to the son, here is what you're going to encounter.

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Here is what the world is really like. Are there really men like this? Yes, there are. The imagery is shocking.

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My son, here's what they're going to say to you. Hey, come with us. Let's lie and wait to shed blood.

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And not just that, but it climaxes there. Innocent blood. People that don't even deserve it.

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They haven't wronged us in any way. We're going to lie and wait. We're going to ambush them. And when they're dead, we're going to take all their stuff.

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We're going to plunder them completely. You know, you might think it's interesting that Proverbs opens up this way.

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You have the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Then it's like, okay, give it to me, I'm ready. What's the first thing that's said?

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Youth, don't join a gang. Don't be brought into the allurements of this foolish community.

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And what are these allurements? And how in the world could they possibly be enticing if the example that the

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Father gives is so dramatic? They're lying in wait to murder innocent people.

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That doesn't sound very enticing. Once again, the youth must choose who to listen to in this battle for his soul.

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And the quest for every youth is the search for identity. The question of every youth is the search for identity.

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Who am I? Who are my people? Who do I belong to? And the invitation here appeals to that pride.

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What does James say? We are tempted only by what the desires that are within us.

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That is how we are enticed. And they are inviting him in, hey, come with us.

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You'll be in. You'll be accepted. You'll have a place to belong.

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You'll have a community. You'll be one of the gang. Now, this is interesting because isn't this what gangs and angry mobs are?

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A bunch of fatherless men lying in wait to ambush innocent people. What have we seen over the course of the last two years?

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When we pulled up our social media feeds and we saw Walgreens being looted and plundered,

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TVs being taken, electronics, and all other manner of plunder by men who didn't earn it, by those who were stealing from their neighbors, a group of fatherless men.

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So the temptation here is come, belong to us. Come be a part of this.

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Don't you want to be a part of this? And that carries with it this excitement, if you will, this thrill of doing evil, right?

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Evil is subtle. It doesn't come to us in our faces. Most of the time, it comes to us subtly.

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The devil comes as an angel of light. The way that these temptations come to us, this thrill of doing wrong, maybe you will get caught, maybe you won't get caught.

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But it might be fun. Come with us and see. The promise of community, the promise of belonging, right, that camaraderie there, and this promise of easy money, easy money, quick gain.

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No, you don't need to do what the Proverbs say. You don't need to listen to what your parents have entrusted to you as a tradition, which is that hard work, delayed gratification actually lead to a very fruitful increase, and that is the way of life and blessing and the means by which you can bless others.

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You don't need that. Come with us, easy money.

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These chronic, habitual sinners have bloodlust in their hearts.

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Verse 13, what do they say? We shall find all precious goods. We shall fill our houses up with plunder.

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Throw in your law among us, we will all have one purse. Now, note the difference between the two communities here.

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I laid this down at the beginning. There is order, there are distinctions, there is hierarchy, fathers, mothers, there is authority to be obeyed, there is teaching to be submitted to.

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Now, what is the appeal of this community? Nobody's in charge. Throw in your lot among us and we will all have one purse.

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One is a hierarchy and the other is egalitarian. Nobody's in charge.

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Of course, that's not actually true. Somebody's always in charge. Once again, hierarchy is unavoidable, you can't escape it.

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But this socialist paradise that the youth is being enticed to come into promises easy money.

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Throw in your lot among us, we will all have one purse. We'll kill them and then when they're completely dead, we'll take all their stuff and we'll divide it up evenly.

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Now, again, the temptation here, so subtle.

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Bypass the fear of hard work, right? Because what do young men ultimately fear? We fear failing, we have a fear of hard work.

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This could be attributed to laziness, could be attributed to the fact that we just don't wanna look dumb and make mistakes.

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So you can avoid that in this community. You can come with us, we're gonna plunder all of them.

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We're gonna take their stuff and then we're gonna divide it up evenly and the appeal of that is that for a new thief is that you'll get more that way than you would on your own.

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Even more you'll have. These crooks believe that they're above the law.

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They fill their houses with riches and they make their walls high. We'll take it all, we'll divide it evenly.

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And what do they say? See, verse 12, like Sheol, let us swallow them alive.

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The very embodiment of death, right? These are children of death. These are children of destruction.

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We'll swallow them up, we'll plunder them. Throw in your law among us.

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And here comes the warning from the father. My son, do not walk in the way with them.

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And the idea of being communicated here is that if you've ever been to the airport and you get on that moving escalator, the one that makes you feel like you're going a million miles an hour, you don't have to put much effort into it, you're just walking and it's carrying you all the way down the terminal.

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The idea is, son, if you step on their path, you are already headed in their direction.

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You're already moving with the grain. You're going with them. So the warning here is to keep your foot off their path.

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Don't even step on it. Don't get near it, this company of evildoers.

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Don't walk in the way with them. Hold back your foot, for their feet run to evil.

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They're eager to do it. They love it. They're running to shed innocent blood.

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They're bloodthirsty. The father says, don't follow their course.

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Forsake their company. First Corinthians 15, 33, bad company corrupts good morals.

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This proverb warns you, children, you will be brought down if you take their paths.

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Proverbs 22, 3, the prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.

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One of the answers is this. When encountered with evil of this bootleg, counterfeit community, don't walk in the way with them.

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Don't even let your foot land on their paths. Flee, run, run away.

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That's what a godly man does. Run, flee, get away from their community.

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Now, of course, this doesn't mean that we should pass up the opportunity to eat with sinners.

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Jesus didn't. But if we find ourselves in a community of fools, especially as youth, if we find ourselves in a community of fools and we are constantly emerging from those gatherings looking more like them than we do like Christ, something is amiss.

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J .C. Ryle said, nothing perhaps affects man's character more than the company he keeps.

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Nothing perhaps affects man's character more than the company he keeps.

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So the warning is simple. Their feet run to evil. They make haste to shed blood.

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They're running to shed blood. So how does wisdom deliver us from our sinful disposition to join them?

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And we do have a sinful disposition to join them, make no mistake. And this is how we instruct our children, don't we?

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We not only give them God's law, God's commandment. When they break God's law, we tell them this is what

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God requires of you, son. This is what God requires of you, daughter. You've broken his law.

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You've violated his holy character. We name the infraction, which that teaching that we give them, our house rules had better only be an extension of God's law and his rules in our home.

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Right, we're not making this up as we go along. Our teaching should flow from the word of God.

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It should be an outgrowth of it. But we instruct them in the commandments and then we show them the outcome of that way of life, like the father is doing with the son here.

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This is what awaits you if you choose this path. It will not end like you think it will.

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Wisdom would have us count the cost of our sin. Proverbs 14, 12, there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

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And then here comes the clinching aspect here in verse 17. For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood.

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So the father is driving home a very simple point here, and that is this, sin is suicidal.

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If you go with this community, if you consent, if you allow your foot to be on their path, you are on the path of self -destruction.

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You will destroy yourself. Because here's the temptation, the youth may be tempted to believe that the payoff is actually worth it.

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It's actually worth it to do something like this because of the spoil. Right, it's worth it.

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And they may be enticed with all manner of temptation. Hey, you know what, these people deserve it, actually.

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They deserve this to come upon them, right? They deserve this to be the case.

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The fool believes, and he's right, by the way, the fool believes, because this is one of those principles that God has worked into the world, we reap what we sow.

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The fool believes that, and he's right. He knows that the end justifies the means, but he's wrong about the second condition, his next premise, and that is this, that the end of doing evil is anything but destruction.

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Which is why the scriptures warn us again and again, do not envy the wicked.

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Do not envy their way of life. It may look to you, and we say this, don't we? We say, look at this person.

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Look at all that they've amassed. Look at all the riches that they have. Look at all the comforts. Look at all the luxuries.

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Must be worth it. And you know what? I actually don't see anything bad going on with them.

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They haven't received their end for all the evil that they've done, so maybe they're on to something here.

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And the word of God says, you short -sighted fool. Do you not know the value of your own soul, and do you not understand the underlying principle here is that you reap what you sow.

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God will not be mocked. He will repay. And how does that take place?

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These men, verse 18, lie in wait for their own blood.

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This choice won't lead to the happiness you think. Even these dumb birds, even a bird, is turned on to the fact that this is a trap that I'm flying into.

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Even a bird knows that. But these men fall into the traps that they set for others.

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They lie in wait to ambush their own blood. The blood that they are ambushing is actually their own.

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So when you see, there was a video about a year ago, I believe, of a young man, and you see a lot of these, don't you?

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You see an old lady just walking down the sidewalk, and all of a sudden, a young man comes by her, peels around behind, walks up, and just swings for the fences, knocks the old lady down, and goes off.

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We see this playing out in our own world. We're bloodthirsty, we're hungry, we're thirsty for innocent blood.

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Now, how does that work? How do wicked men dig their own graves?

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Because that man, and any man, that seeks to ambush the innocent without cause is digging his own grave.

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They're at war with the way that God made the world. Such are the ways, verse 19, of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain.

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So now there is not just this example here, this individual example, there is a universalizing principle that he's just presented here, and that is this.

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Everyone who is greedy for unjust gain is like this. They're ambushing themselves.

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They're setting a trap for their own lives. And the idiom there in Hebrew, greedy for unjust gain, another way to say it is cut the cut.

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Those who cut the cut, those who cut corners, those who enrich themselves at the expense of the innocent, those who are looking to get ahead by trampling on other image bearers of God, those who are looking to cut the cut.

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Now, it's easy to hear something like this and think, makes sense, criminal element,

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I get it, a band of robbers, a gang, a clique, totally see it, they're bloodthirsty, but not so fast.

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If you look at Romans chapter three, turn there with me, will you?

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I assume you're all familiar with this section of scripture. Romans chapter three, verse 10.

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As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

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No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. There's that Sheol language.

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They use their tongues to deceive. Come with us. The venom of asps is under their lips.

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Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Verse 15, their feet are swift to shed blood.

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In their paths are ruin and misery. The way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

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What does it say in verse 15? Their feet are swift to shed blood. The whole point of Paul's argument here in lumping

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Jew and Gentile together under one umbrella is to show us that we are all condemned under the law of God.

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That it closes our mouths, and this is a description of all of humanity. Our feet are swift to shed innocent blood.

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There is bloodlust in every human heart, and you might hear that today. And think, well,

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I didn't walk in here fantasizing about killing anybody. I hope not.

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I hope you didn't. But all of us, due to sin, are looking to get ahead by our own devices at the expense of others.

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What does James say? I know I'm going from James a lot, but we're doing it in our reach group, and so it's just fresh a lot.

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What causes disputes among you? Why do you fight?

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Why do you quarrel with one another? It's because you have these desires that are not being met, and so what do you do?

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You turn on each other, you bite one another, you devour one another, and you tear each other apart and destroy the community because of your unmet desires, things that you are not getting that you want.

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We see it play out in our homes every day with our children. Nobody has to teach them to fight over those toys.

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Nobody has to teach them to hurt their sibling. It just happens. I want this, you have it, you didn't give it to me,

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I'm gonna hurt you. All of us are looking to get ahead by our own devices at the expense of others.

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Backstabbers, bullies, politicians, gossipers, faction builders, the resentful, those that retaliate, those that justify themselves in their own sin.

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That's a great way to form a counterfeit community, isn't it? You're in sin, and so what do you do?

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In order to feel less guilty about your pricked conscience, you invite other people in to air your grievances to them, and you form your own community of fools because you can't bear the weight of your own guilt, and so you bring others into this community so you're not as guilty.

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Sinners look to recruit others into their community. It's just the way the world works.

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It's wisdom. Recognize it. God made the world in a particular way.

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We and our feet are swift to shed innocent blood, and God made this provision.

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We see it in not only objective reality, but in the subjective experience that we all have.

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What did God do when Adam and Eve sinned? He showed them that the cost of their sin was the shedding of innocent blood, and he covered them.

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He covered them with the animal skins. Because of sin, because of the ultimate problem with every single one of us, and that is what?

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Guilt and shame. Shame of our sin, the guilt of our sin, that debt that we owe to God cries out.

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It has to be paid for. It must be dealt with, and so that guilt demands blood.

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That guilt demands blood, and not just blood, innocent blood.

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God confronts Cain. Where's your brother? Am I my brother's keeper? What does

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God say to him? Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.

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It's crying out. We not only need to shed innocent blood, but we need to shed innocent blood that is offered freely.

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Now, this is why humanity has been doing this since the beginning, haven't we?

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Human sacrifice, appeasement of false gods, of idols, but the bloodshed, the bloodletting is just never enough, is it?

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There's always a new sacrifice that has to be given. There's always more blood that has to be shed, and why is that?

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We know it deep down in our heart of hearts that the weight of our guilt, the weight of our shame, the cost of our debt is too big for us to carry and satisfy.

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That blood will not satisfy. That's why we have to keep offering.

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Innocent blood shames and condemns us. That's why we take it. That's why we take it.

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Innocence shames us. It reminds us of our debt to God, and so we take it.

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Think about this any way that you want to. With any evil of today, child sacrifice, sodomy, all of these things, ripping people off, holding people's wages back from them, what's happening in our current day?

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People are being robbed left and right by those with pens who are seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of others.

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They're greedy for unjust gain. They're cutting the cut. They're cutting corners, but so do all of us who have that unbearable weight of guilt.

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We're always looking to get ahead unjustly. We're thirsty for blood, but the only question is, which blood will satisfy?

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Which blood will be enough? The reason this debt is too heavy is because it's ultimate.

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It's eternal, right? It's ultimate. We can't bear it.

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It's too heavy. We weren't made to bear it. There's only one who can bear it.

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Only God himself can bear the weight of ultimate wrath. Wisdom has only one answer for this problem, and that is this, the blood of Jesus Christ.

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All of our lives, our households, our churches, our communities, they're gonna be built on blood no matter what we do.

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We are gonna seek an alternative community with alternative sacrifice, with false atonement, to attempt to justify our sin, or we are going to turn to the true blood sacrifice that satisfies the wrath of God, that cleanses us from our guilt, that is the once -for -all sacrifice.

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Wisdom recognizes that innocent blood is what will build our lives.

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It's what will build our marriages. It'll build our churches. It'll build our communities, and it will build our nation up once again from the ground up.

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If it's not built on the blood of Jesus, it will be built on other innocent blood, and that's what we're seeing now.

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Say no to the wicked. How do we do that? How do we forsake this?

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Well, consider Jesus. He's the overcomer. The Bible calls him, in 1

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Corinthians 3, the wisdom of God, and he conquers through the power of his spirit. Think about how this very principle, this is incredible, think about how this principle is worked out in the ministry and life of Jesus before he goes to the cross.

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What is the disciple, Judas, tempted to do? He joins a gang to get rich on the life of Jesus.

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He ambushes the innocent without cause, the only righteous man to ever live, for a mere 30 pieces of silver, and Jesus is the one vindicated in the end, and Judas falls into the pit that he's dug for himself.

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Think of the temptation of Christ. How do we overcome? That's what

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I'm putting this in, is the context of how do we overcome this temptation? Satan comes to Jesus in the wilderness, and what does he say?

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No cross, no suffering, none of that. Bow down before me, and I'll give you the kingdoms of the world.

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Just throw in your lot with me, and together we'll rule the galaxy.

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No, I'm just kidding. But Christ is not about to forgo the chastisement that will perfect him.

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He is the son destined to rule. He knows the rules for reigning, and Satan is the thief lying in wait to ambush innocent blood, and furnish his house with stolen plunder.

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But when Jesus rose from the dead, the stronger man entered the strong man's house, and plundered the plunderer.

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And Satan, at the cross, walked into his own trap. Recruiting other bandits to crucify the

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Lord of glory, and get at the throne through means other than the wisdom of God, Christ.

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In shedding his blood, the powers of darkness fell on their own swords.

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And Jesus has been crowned as the son obedient to the will of his father.

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If you're here today, and you don't know the obedient son, if you don't know

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Christ, but you thirst for wisdom, and you thirst for understanding, you're not listening.

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He cries out to you today, from the head of a noisy marketplace, saying, turn in here.

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Forsake the company of fools and evildoers. Receive my blood that was shed for your guilt and your shame.

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No other sacrifice will be needed. Hear his voice. Receive his blood to atone for your sin.

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Trust in him, and become new. Become a new man, become a new woman. Now, just to finish with application here.

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This message is daunting, right, moms and dads? It's daunting. Because the assumption in all of this here, here, children, the instruction of your parents, is that we have to be wise in order to teach our children wisdom.

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And I don't know about you, but I feel ill -equipped for that, very often. I don't feel wise, very often.

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And if you're anything like me, you know, when you look at your children, you see, they are going to need wisdom, but I can't give them what

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I don't have. So if that's you today, understand this, that our

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Father in Heaven has made us sons in the obedience, son, of wisdom.

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And like I said before, the problem with all of us, especially men, we're afraid. We're afraid to fail, we're afraid to look dumb, we're afraid to mess up.

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If we can understand this, that we've been made children in the obedience, son, and we've clung to that blood that can make us righteous, transform us and make us new every day, then we don't need to be afraid anymore.

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What's to be afraid of if there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? Where's the guilt?

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Where's the sting of death? Fathers and mothers, you can be free.

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You can be free to fail. You can be free to mess up, confess your sins, and move on in the grace of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Children, you can know that God's normative means for you to receive wisdom is to obey your parents.

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And when you sin, confess and cling to Jesus's blood.

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And be restored. That's what the basics of godly wisdom and a godly community, that's where we start.

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That's where we begin. We can be free. So like Solomon, let us not ask first for longer lives or more riches, but let us ask the

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Father of glory for the wisdom from above, to judge rightly and to govern those who he has entrusted us to govern.

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Amen? Let's pray. Father, I thank you for what went forward today.

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Just pray, Lord, that you would grow all of us into godly wisdom. Mature us all in your word.

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Lord, help us not to be like those who cut the cut, who cut corners, who enrich ourselves at the expense of others, and so prove ourselves foolish, but help us to be those who live in the freedom that we have been given.

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We pray that you would crown us with wisdom.

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We pray that you would place the medal of wisdom around our necks so that we may be preserved, so that we can govern and judge rightly, so that we can build, so that we can bring peace as you bring peace, so that we can rule as you rule,

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Lord God, with you as partakers of this redemption and this glorious inheritance that we received in Jesus.

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We need you, Father. We ask that you would adorn us in your wisdom now. Thank you, and I just ask that you would continue to make application of this word in the hearts and minds of your people.