Proverbs 27 Wisdom that Leads to 700 Wives

Welcome to Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan, where we are growing in faith, community, and service. You are listening to a message in Proverbs by Elder Zach Lloyd. If you'd like more information about Recast Church, check us out at recastchurch .com or you can find us on Facebook.

Here's Zach. I'll go ahead and get started. I'm Zach Lloyd, one of the elders here. One of the elders here at Recast. Don was away this past week attending a Bible conference, he and his wife, at Moody.

It was sort of beneficial to him to not have to worry about preparing, so I get the opportunity to prepare this week. It's definitely my privilege and to my benefit to have to, not have to, but to be able to share with you this morning.

I thought we'd go over a couple quick details. I know a lot of you guys are regulars, but if you're visiting, we try and keep it somewhat casual. If you want to get up and move around at any time, you're welcome to.

We have coffee and donuts, have as much as you like. Restrooms are out the hallway and back to the right, at the end of that hallway. So that's just if you're visiting. If anybody would like, we try to pray for our church here, the members.

If anybody would like prayer, please fill out that card that you got in your worship folder and drop it in the black box over there. I'm also the treasurer, and I've been the treasurer at Recast since we started.

We try to get in front of you periodically to kind of give you a brief update of how things are going financially. I thought, since I'm already preaching, maybe I'll just do that today. So I think we have like two brief slides that I'll ask the gentleman to bring up, just to kind of highlight where we're at with our finances.

And just to highlight that our main way that we communicate these things is through the e-cast. So we try and keep a link there to the left, like where we're tracking on that. And some of this information was in fact emailed this week.

So the first slide is going to show us, if you want to go ahead and talk about that, where we're at this year, year to date, which I mean up through last Sunday. You guys ready? All right, so that gives the two columns there, budget and actual.

So we budgeted $277 ,000 in offerings. And year to date, we've received $317 ,000, a little bit more, in actual offerings, plus an additional $38 ,000 towards the expansion fund. So it's certainly exceeding anything, and that seems to be the song that I sing each time I get up here, that God just continues to do more than we ask, and we certainly thank Him.

Our expenses, as you see there, the budget and actual are just sort of uncannily right on. In fact, that's not entirely accurate in that we have a 10 of our budget that we hand out each year towards missions.

We haven't spent the majority of that. So there's going to be a big expense upcoming in the next few weeks as we sort of tithe on our offerings. So we've overspent, and the overspent that we didn't budget for would primarily be towards our property.

So we have a property on McGillan, if you head out of town, just over the railroad tracks that we're trying to save money. But there's been some, we did some landscaping there, we redid the barn there.

So we've spent some more money there outside of what we had planned on at the beginning of the year on that property. So then I'll move to that conversation. Many of you might be wanting to know where we're at with the new construction.

So we're planning on starting a building. We've been in here for maybe two, three months now. Ultimately, we would like to be in a facility of our own. So we think that that building is going to cost $1 .7 million.

We want to have 25 of that down as a down payment. We want to have two months of operating cash in the bank. And we want to have another $100 ,000 just sort of for things that we're not thinking of, that we can't think of everything ahead of time.

So we're thinking we need like $589 ,000 before we can pull the trigger on that new building. So currently what we have in the bank is $232 ,000. So you can see we're about a third of the way, a little more than a third of the way there.

And that might seem sort of overwhelming, but when I presented last in January, we had $165 ,000 in the bank. So it's $70 ,000 in maybe six months, and you can annualize that probably inside of three years.

And that's kind of our mindset, maybe be here for two or three years as the Lord wills. Maybe He wants to do it sooner or later. So that's it with the finances. Just wanted to give you a brief update of where we are with that.

So to get why we're gathered here, we're here as Christians to hear from God's word and to interact. And one of the most encouraging things to me as a Christian is to hear how God is affecting other people and how He's influencing, how He came to know, they came to know Jesus Christ as their Savior.

And our small group has been meeting for a number of years, but recently we added a couple of families. And as a way to kind of get to know each other and make sure we're all on the same ground, we had each of us share our personal testimonies.

And in so sharing, Christy Buss shared a testimony that was, I thought, kind of tied in with what I was going to be preaching. So I'm going to ask Christy Buss to come up and share her testimony. So primarily for your encouragement, we like to have people sharing what Christ has done for them, but also kind of to set up my sermon a little bit.

So Christy, if you want to grab that, I think there's that. Am I on? Sounds like it.

Okay, good. Hi, I'm Christy Buss. I was raised in a loving Catholic home. My father always read the Bible daily, prayed, and attended church regularly. I went to Catholic school from kindergarten through 12th grade, and I prided myself on being a great student who mastered things easily.

One thing I mastered easily was my religion. In high school, I even wrote a 10-page analysis of the Apostles' Creed, line by line. I arrogantly considered myself highly knowledgeable of all things Christianity.

But like a lot of modern people who claim Christianity, I regarded the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, as similar to Aesop's fables. Great stories to tell you how to live, but not stories you were expected to actually believe.

I believed in the concept of the Trinity and in Jesus's death and resurrection, but honestly, it had no impact on my day-to-day life. My faith was all head and little heart. Throughout my 20s, my life in the Bible didn't really seem to mesh.

I still thought of myself as a Christian, though the Bible seemed rather outdated to my modern life. I was a good person, but basically I did whatever I wanted. I remember at one point actually remarking that it was pretty neat that we lived in a modern era where we weren't expected to do all those things that the Apostles did.

To me, God was kind of like an ancient college professor who once won a Nobel Prize. Everyone thought he was pretty amazing for all he had accomplished, but behind his back we all kind of remarked how he was a little bit senile now.

The world had passed him by and he didn't even know it. I spent my time with smart, worldly people who were far too intellectual to use the Bible as any sort of authority on anything other than social justice and being nice.

After my oldest son was born, I joined a Bible study put together for my mom's group at church. These wonderful, godly women started me on a long journey of truly digging into the Word of God. Then one day, years into my seeking, I was driving down the road while listening to a sermon on the radio.

The pastor was preaching on Psalm 119, 160. All your words are true. At that very moment, my cerebral, head-filled faith became a very heart-filled faith. It was truly a light switch event, my road to Damascus moment.

The scales fell off and I began to see how vain I was in thinking I actually had the answers myself. God held all the answers and he gave me insight into these answers through his Word. It was as though I was instantaneously able to understand a language I had never been able to speak before.

I had grown up speaking my own language, a language focused on what I thought and what I believed. And now I was learning to speak God's language. I finally understood how vain and self-absorbed I was to think that I could possibly find the answers myself.

The creator of the universe had already given me all the answers. It wasn't enough to simply believe in Jesus, I actually had to believe him. And that meant believing his Word. Awesome. Sure. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Christy. Certainly, to God's glory, I really appreciate her being willing to do that and to share. And I honestly, the elders, we here, we desire for any of you guys, we'd like to hear testimonies.

And that is really encouraging. I hope it encourages your soul. So if you want to share, please, please come see us. We would love to have more people sharing. And I don't know if you caught it, but the part that I really resonated with me that evening when she shared was this idea that every word of God's Word is true.

This entirety is true and how that should be informing our lives. So what I want to talk about this morning is just pushing into this idea first that this is God's Word and he has in it God's wisdom. Wisdom from God for our lives and every word is true.

And we're going to look specifically at Proverbs, the book of Proverbs, which is God's wisdom, Proverbs 27. And it's going to talk about how our relationships, how we interact, and I'm going to lump them into negative and positive interactions.

So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn with me to 1 Kings 3. It's page 243 in the Bible. Mark's going around here with Bibles. If anybody needs one, go ahead and grab or raise your hand. Page 243 is where we're going to go.

So again, that's not the text that I'm going to be going through, but I think it's going to set the framework or the background for what I want to talk about, and that is Godly wisdom. And I expect that even if you are not a Christian, you would recognize that we need wisdom.

I don't think any of us, we all recognize that we're finite human beings. We don't know every answer. We need wisdom. And along these lines, I read a blog recently where he asked the question, he's like, if you were going to write the Bible, what would you have done differently?

And I know that's sort of not a helpful question. You feel like that's going to go wrong. But as sort of an inherent legalist that I am, I would want more detail. I would want a lot more things spelled out clearly for me.

And I think that's kind of what he was getting at with that blog. There's a lot of decisions that we make in our lives that really the Ten Commandments or the commandments that we have, they don't seem to have a moral component.

These decisions that we make, they don't have a moral component. But we have access to God's wisdom, and we also have access to God himself through prayer. And James 1 5 says, if any of us lacks wisdom, it marries the two.

We can ask God, and he gives it freely. So while we may often be praying for wisdom, I think sometimes we can have this mindset that just in the big things, I got a big decision awaiting me that I need God's wisdom.

And that's right, but I think primarily what we see in the Proverbs is not necessarily a prophecy. It's not like he's going to reveal to you this is what you should do. And so this morning, I'm not going to try and delve into that topic of discerning God's will.

I'm focused on God's wisdom, which there is, I'll admit, some overlap. But what I want to talk about is not so much about how you have to interpret God's signs. In fact, Don mentioned a couple weeks ago in his sermon on Genesis 29 about how we, and I encourage any of you to go to our website and listen to that, he talked about discerning God's will.

And a little bit of spoiler alert, he mentioned it was in the rear view mirror that we see that. So as I stated a moment ago, my goal is for us to recognize that God's is the source of wisdom and we all need it.

So here is what God's word does say. We need wisdom and he gives it freely. But the wisdom that God provides is largely about our relationships here and how we interact. So before we go to worship, we're going to read this passage and this is going to be a description of the wisest man that ever lived.

That's going to be sort of our basis. So we are in 1 Kings 3, and I haven't turned there yet, so let me get there. 1 Kings 3, verses 3 -14. Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father.

Only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places. And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.

At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, ask what I shall give you. And Solomon said, you have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you.

And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king to place in place of David my father, although I am but a little child.

I do not know how to go in, or come out, or go out, or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered, or counted for multitude.

Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to govern this? Your great people. And it pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this.

And God said to him, because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life, or riches, or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right.

Behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has ever been before, and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you all your days.

And if you walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days. Let's pray. Our Father God in heaven, we come to you this evening, this morning desiring to be used by you in worship.

We desire that our hearts would be focused on you, that the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart, Lord, that they would be acceptable in your eyes. You are our Savior and our Redeemer, and we submit to you this morning and desire that we would be encouraged by your word and that your Holy Spirit would be active.

It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thanks, Josh. So, we're talking about wisdom, and before we went to singing, I gave the scripture where we talked about Solomon and how we see Solomon was given wisdom from God unlike any other human.

And he used it, too. He was given this wisdom, and he used it. It was not like he was this sort of little Yoda dropping pearls of wisdom, and if you were sharp enough, you would catch those, and you could apply those to your life.

No, he was impacting the people around him, and he was a blessing to those around him. In fact, his fame grew far and wide, such that the queen of Sheba heard of him and came to test him to see how wise he was with some tough questions.

And, in fact, we see that in 1 Kings chapter 10, verses 6 through 9. If you want to turn to page 250, you can see this account of how wise Solomon was. So, 1 Kings chapter 10, verses 6 through 9 say, So, we'll stop there.

So, we can clearly see that God gave this wisdom to Solomon, and then it was a blessing. It benefited others, and it came from God. And it's not that Solomon had grown old, or he had studied abundantly, and now he was wise.

It's that God gave him this wisdom. So, I think it might be important for us to identify what wisdom we're talking about. Talking about godly wisdom, like what's different about this wisdom that Solomon got than an atheist might have, or a Muslim, somebody that is not getting wisdom from the one and true God.

And I would argue that there is something different. The wisdom that God gives starts with the fear of God. Proverbs really can be boiled down to a single line, that is, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

That really is the theme of the entire book of Proverbs. Proverbs 1 .7 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9 .10 also says the same thing. So, wisdom starts with the fear of God.

Now, fear of the Lord might be difficult to comprehend, but just to clarify, fearing God is this openness to Him. It's a humbleness. It's rightly viewing who He is in light of who you are. And that should identify He's infinite.

We're finite. He's holy. We're not. He's sovereign. He declares the ends from the beginning. We don't. We are subject to Him. So, when rightly viewed, that's a fear of God, and that is the beginning of wisdom.

So, that's kind of where we're going, but let's contrast that a little bit with the wisdom that the world might provide to maybe get a little more clarity. Because I think that there are definitely some overlapping there.

I think of maybe parenting tips or things along those lines. Like, before you have your first child, you might read all there is out there about how to raise a child and what to expect and what you're expecting and those types of things.

And to the extent that those are consistent with what God tells us in His Word about training a child in the way it should go and to be loving and to be a good steward, that does reflect God's wisdom.

And I think that oftentimes wisdom does, in fact, produce prosperity in our lives. We can become wealthy. If we are godly wise, we will benefit from it. It might help us advance our career, but largely what we see is God's wisdom and man's wisdom clashing and colliding.

And I think of the example of in the business world, where if you've got a business degree and you are familiar with that world and that realm, bankruptcy is a viable option. That's a legitimate practice to maintain your business.

And I think of the example of Gerard Arpe. He was the CEO of American Airlines, and he thought it was wise to not file for bankruptcy. He thought it would be a compromise of character to not pay back the loans that he had received, that their company had received, to default on his employees' pensions.

To him, that would have been unwise. And it became a part or a crisis for him because his board was pressuring because all the other airlines, Continental, United, Delta, Northwest, everybody but Southwest, had filed for bankruptcy.

And by 2011, they were all now making money because they had shed all their debt. They were functioning with man's wisdom. They were running their business to make money as the primary goal. And he was operating under God's wisdom, and he lost his job as a result of that.

So you might argue, well, that doesn't seem like that was very wise. He lost his job. The point being God's wisdom and man's wisdom don't always line up. And I can't overlook the classic example that many are probably familiar with of what God's wisdom looks like in this realm.

And that is from Solomon himself, who was, you see in 1 Kings 3, right after. Anyways, he gets that, he gets wisdom. He begins, he gets the opportunity to exercise that wisdom. And it's the story of these two prostitutes.

They're living in the same house. They both have male sons around the same time. And then one of them rolls over on the other, kills her son in her sleep. So she takes the other woman's son. So now there's a dispute, and no one's able to discern who has, who is this child's mother.

So they bring, these two women come to Solomon, and he says, well, get me my sword. I'll cut the baby in half. And of course, that revealed who the mother's true, the son's true mother was, because she would rather see the child live and go with someone else than to be put to death.

So that's an example of godly wisdom. It's this practical, it's practical for our everyday relationships. That's godly wisdom. It's more than just obeying commandments. Godly wisdom connects these larger purposes.

So what I'm going to argue is that God's wisdom, God's overall purpose in this creating everything, his number one priority is to glorify himself. I'm not going to try and build up that argument. I hope you can take that at face value.

That's his number one goal. And how that gets fleshed out in our day-to-day lives, that activity, that's godly wisdom. So those actions, those activities that are pointing to God's glory, that is godly wisdom.

And so that when we see in Proverbs, as we talk about this, these are examples of how this gets played out. And we see that in Solomon's life and how God's glory gets worked out in those details. Ray Ortlund wrote this devotional book, accompanying Proverbs and walking through them.

And I'll just give you this quote. I thought it was very helpful. It says, wisdom is when we outgrow our misconceptions about how life should work. So we see things in a certain way and how they should work.

And we learn how God actually built things to work and work well. That's that understanding. It takes us beyond petty rule keeping. Something deeper happens. God enters our hearts and he changes us within so that as we grow, what works out is that is what to do and what, I'm sorry, we know intuitively as a result of God's wisdom working through us, we know intuitively what to do and what not to do.

We just know it intuitively. That is what the book of Proverbs is really given for. It's gospel wisdom for our complicated lives. So we're going to go to Proverbs chapter 27, finally, and we're going to look at this specific example and how it pertains to relationships.

And I think that's beneficial to us because a lot of things are sort of black and white, things that are not relational. I think of problems in our everyday lives, like for me, something like changing my transmission fluid on my van, it's black and white.

That doesn't overwhelm me with just anxiety because there are YouTube clips available. There's man's wisdom available. I have a father-in-law who's really adept at those types of things. These are a reference.

And the way I do it today is going to be the same way in two weeks from now. The bolts are still going to be lefty loosey, righty tighty. But people, we interact with people and there's not many maxims, not many truths that, because people change over time.

They said something yesterday, the next day they could feel totally different. And how we interact with people is, we need wisdom. So if you could think of some kind of truth that you could say about people in general, they're far and few between.

And I think that's what we need to rely on, God's wisdom, this eternal father who knows these things to give us insight in how those things work. I mean, I think of, you know, turning to Proverbs here, but we think of in a relationship, like the husband's wife should always do what the male's wife or his mother says.

Like that example, that might be, that'd be a great maxim. That always works out. But we know that in reality, that's not reality. That doesn't work. That might work in one specific situation, but not across the board.

So Proverbs 27, I'm actually going to get there sooner or later. Sorry. We're going to go through this. And I ask that you guys would bear with me because I, Proverbs are this collection of wisdom. I know, I'm actually going to get there.

Don't worry. Proverbs is this book of God's wisdom given to us. And if you read through it, it kind of was a struggle for me. It's never been my favorite book to go through because it just seems to not have any cohesion.

It's just bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. And I can't, so that's kind of why I felt it would be a challenge to me to be able to preach this, because maybe God would do something in spite of my ineptitude.

But the idea is that it's, it's a, it's not just Solomon's download of his Twitter account, not just his, his, a collection of his sayings. There really is some cohesion to it. And when we look in Proverbs 27, we're going to look at 22 verses.

And those 22 verses are really an acrostic, meaning that each verse starts with the next Hebrew letter. I know that's not obvious in our translation, but that's, that's where we're going. But what I'm asking you guys is for a little bit of leeway in that I've organized it to kind of pick and choose verses and organize them by negative interactions and positive interactions in our day.

So it might look like I'm, I'm leveraging the scripture to say what I want or pulling it out of context, but bear with me, but test me. That is the role of the Bereans is that we would be testing every word that's said.

So page 466, Proverbs 27, and we're actually there. We're going to start with, again, the sort of, the characteristics of negative relationships. This is God's wisdom for us on this horizontal plane. We're going to look at verses 3 and 4 to start.

And we see it says, a stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but a fool's provocation is heavier than both. And in the imagery there is, is the idea of work, of labor, grimy, like it's not enjoyable. It's not the satisfaction that you get from accomplishing a job.

It's just sort of this in the dirt, in the grime, and it's not that great. And we see that a fool's provocation is heavier than both. So it's this qualitative language, and I think we'll see that a lot.

But we need to understand what the fool is. The fool is referenced throughout scripture, and it's in contrast to wisdom. A wise person and a fool. A fool is defined in Psalm 14 1 as someone who says in their heart that there's no God.

That's a fool. A wise person is fearing God. A fool acts like there is no God. Their God is their self. So we see that here. A fool is provoking you or provoking someone, and that situation is burdensome.

So it kind of, this text is helpful in that it helps us identify when you're interacting with the fool, because you should feel sort of this emotional baggage, this burden. It's like you'd rather go out and move the yard of sand and you're driving with your bare hands than interact with this person.

That's a fool's provocation. That's the qualitative sort of identifier. That's what it looks like in that relationship. And perhaps some of you in your mind are thinking of these relationships. You can think of, yeah, I know that situation.

That's just coming to mind. That person is a fool. And maybe you might be thinking of ways that you can interact with them better, and that's great, but I don't want us to overlook, certainly the application, how we are acting like fools.

How we can put burdens on people by acting selfishly, acting like we are God. That's how a fool acts. They behave like they are God, or that there is no God. I think of examples like at work, you know, someone's lazy and you have to pick up their share again, or even a defiant child.

Just things along those lines that were just this burden. But Proverbs 29 .9 gives us some a little bit helpful dimension to it. It provides additional insight. It says how to interact in that situation.

If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs. There is no quiet. So I think we can all recognize that when you're in that interaction with someone, there's no benefit to continuing to argue with them.

They're just going to rage, get mad, or laugh, and brush you off. In verse 4, and these really are organized in couples. Verse 4 says, wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?

So it's clearly saying, you know, it's assuming. Cruelty, anger, those are overwhelming. Those are bad things, but jealousy is worse. I don't think I need to spend a lot of time telling you how that, you know, jealousy is, there's no, it's not virtuous to be jealous.

But I think it can be hard for us to identify jealousy in our own hearts, in our lives. It's certainly easy to identify in someone else, I think. You're interacting with them, and you can just spot it.

And I think we can all recognize that if you say to them, perhaps your problem is that you're just jealous of me, isn't going to go well, right? So I think we can all at least get there. But so it's funny how our human nature identifies that easily in others, but not so much in our own hearts.

And so I don't want you to dismiss it, and I think we'll just spend a little bit of time here trying to connect to these emotions about how jealousy and anger and wrath are mixed. Specifically, I don't think that, I don't find myself, and maybe you're that way, or you're different than me, that we don't struggle with like a billionaire, a Bill Gates, and just jealousy.

I read the Forbes 500 list of these wealthiest people, and I'm not, you know, turning to my spouse, that Bill Gates is driving me mad, I'm so jealous. That just, that doesn't happen. And maybe it does for you, and that's another situation.

But I don't know, I think where it does show up, and we don't recognize it, is in these relationships that we have. I think of situations where, you know, this is, I made this up, and I hope none of you have, and I wasn't thinking of anybody specifically, but this past winter was particularly cold and sort of rough.

And if you knew somebody that had gone on a number of vacations, they went like every month, it seemed like they were going somewhere tropical. And that, I could find myself in that situation, maybe commenting to my spouse like, another one, another Facebook post, while they're scuba diving or something like that, just all of a sudden, there's something is off with me and my heart towards them.

And I would, I think that I could identify that, that there's some jealousy there. Why else would I be mad? Or I think of, certainly as a guy, like technology is certainly something that I enjoy, and I like it.

And if somebody, some guy comes up, and they got the iPhone 7, and I'm like, man, they can't even handle email. How, why are they getting all this technology? What do I care? Why am I, why do I have a hardness of heart towards them?

And I would argue that there are ways that jealousy infects us, and it poisons us. And in fact, this is saying it's better that you're angry or cruel to them. You're better picking up, to have picked up that phone and thrown it in the pool, than let jealousy fester in your heart towards that person.

Where once you would have gone, and this person visited the church, and you saw them as a stranger across the room. You went up to them, you wanted to show them the love of Christ, and you had a soft heart towards them.

Now, because of all these vacations, you think in your back of your mind, I don't want to go ask them about how Paris was. I'm sure it was super terrific. I'm going to go talk to somebody that's, that's, you know, something struggling, or somebody I might be able to help.

And so, so jealousy, I think we need to be mindful of how it can poison us towards people, and certainly acting like there is no God, acting like a fool. We're not loving that person. Now, jump down to verse 13 and 14.

Again, I'm jumping around, hope you guys can stay with me. It says, We'll just stop there. That's, that, that didn't make much sense to me, and it takes a little bit of understanding. Exodus 22, 26 kind of gives this law of how you were to give pledges.

The idea being, like, somebody wants to borrow a tool of yours. You take their coat, and as security, as a pledge, or as a security for that, and then at the end of the day, even Exodus says, you know, even if you didn't return it, give him his coat back so he doesn't have to sleep in the cold.

So you just kind of have this goodness towards them. But this is saying, like, you're nicer to an adulteress than you are to your friends or somebody. You're treating your friends worse than you treat your enemies.

And that's like, what? But then you think about it, and in fact, surprisingly, scripture seems to be accurate again. Like, how are we, who do I usually, who am I most evil to? Who am I most mean to? People I'm closest to.

I'm probably the worst to my spouse. I thank God for her, but that's probably the person I lash out at the most. And I think this is kind of identifying that. And then to go to verse 14, And this isn't really talking about, you know, trying to preserve the peace and quiet.

This is the idea that you're actually cursing the person with a blessing. The idea, like, of a sort of passive-aggressive backhanded compliment. You're making it look on the exterior like it's a, you're blessing them, but you are actually cursing them.

So again, it's this idea, when we couple these verses together, the idea that we are doing something nice to our enemies and treating our friends, the people closest to us, like enemies. So again, that's another example of a man that fears God does not treat his friends like enemies.

In verses 15 and 16, I'm just going to be running through these kind of quickly, another example of negative or destructive relationship. And it actually is pretty strong. I haven't grown in my appreciation to this day of poetry.

I don't sit around reading a lot of poetry. But one thing I really value about it is that it seems to be able to, in very few words, just communicate this massive, just sort of devastating emotion or concept.