Sermon - Wisdom From Above: The Hope of Wisdom, Pt. 2

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Is Protestantism Heresy? Pt. 3 - The Pope | Collision w/ Jeff Durbin

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Maybe soon. If you would open your

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Bibles to the book of Proverbs 2. Proverbs 2.

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We're in our series, Wisdom from Above. This is the wisdom of God in the book of Proverbs.

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Chapter 2, we're going through this verse by verse. This is part 2 of this chapter.

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We're starting in verse 1. We're going to read through, summarize a bit, and then pick up where we left off last week.

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Proverbs 2, verse 1. Hear now the word of the living and the true God. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the

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Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom. From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

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He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He's a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of His saints.

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Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path.

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For wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will watch over you.

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Understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil, from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech who forsake the paths of righteousness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.

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So you'll be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her

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God. For her house sinks down to death and her paths to the departed.

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None who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. So you will walk in the way of the good and keep the paths of the righteous.

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For the upright will inhabit the land and those with integrity will remain in it.

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But the wicked will be cut off from the land and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.

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Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let's pray together as God's people. God, we pray that you'd bless us as we,

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Lord, look into this word from you, which is a gift from you. Help us to understand your word.

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Please, Lord, speak to your people by your spirit, through your word.

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Renew our minds. Help us to have the mind of Christ. Help us to walk in wisdom.

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We know your promises for the future, God. We know, Lord Jesus, that you're on your throne. We know the promise of putting all the enemies under your feet.

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We know your victory. And Lord, we're asking you to bless us with understanding, knowledge, wisdom, to bring you glory and to bring your light into this world that is so often filled with deep darkness.

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Speak through, Lord, the pastor today. Teach, get me out of the way.

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And we pray that you would allow your word to sink and take deep root. In Jesus' name, amen.

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So, this is the book of Proverbs, God's Wisdom. To lay this down at the start, this is the foundation of this work in this book.

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There have been some key elements as we've started off that we have to understand, stand on, master, as we move through the rest of God's book of wisdom.

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And the central foundation for the entire book is, we've been saying, is Proverbs chapter one, verse seven.

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Have you memorized that yet? Proverbs chapter one, verse seven. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of what?

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Knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction or wisdom and correction.

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So, the foundation of all of this wisdom, all of this blessing, all of this guarding, all of this shielding, it starts with the fear of Yahweh.

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Not the fear of some other God, not the fear of any man, but the fear of Yahweh. The fear of Yahweh is the very beginning of knowledge.

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If you want to know, if you want to understand, if you want to be able to apply

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God's truth in the world, then you must start with the fear of Yahweh.

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The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge. It's not the middle, it's not the end result, it is the very beginning.

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And so, if we don't orient ourselves as God's people toward the fear of God as the start, we will never have knowledge.

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We won't have understanding. We're not gonna have wisdom. And so, all of this, as we move through this book of wisdom from above, starts with this.

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Do you fear God? Do you fear Him? Or do you fear man?

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Is your thinking starting with God as the very reference point in everything? You see, that's one of the fundamental characteristics of our faith, our religion, our relationship with the living

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God. Is that truth that all of life is under God.

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There isn't an inch of this universe that isn't under His sovereign rule and care and decree.

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God is the sovereign over everything. There's nothing outside of God's truth. There's no neutral zones in God's universe.

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God is God, and we're not. We're His creatures. And so, if we want to live in God's world with God's blessing and with understanding and with knowledge and truth and skillful intellect, we have to start with God as the reference point in everything.

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That means every moment of my life, from when I sit up in bed in the morning and start walking around the house to engaging in relationships with others, using my gifts and my skills, working, laboring, building, everything must start first with God, fear of God.

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I truly believe this, that if we want to see transformation in our personal lives, in our homes, in our churches, in our world around us, we have to foster this pursuit of fear

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God, fear God, fear God. Because out there, when people live in darkness, when people are, like the text says, those who forsake the paths of righteousness to walk in the way of darkness, the people out there who live like that and delight and rejoice in evil, the fundamental problem is this, they have no fear of God before their eyes.

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People go out there and they parade their sin like Sodom. Why? Fundamentally, they don't fear

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God. They don't fear God. And so to have godly wisdom, to have true knowledge, justified knowledge, and the skill to apply that truth, you must start with this.

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Do you fear God? It's something we should say to our children. We talk about imparting God's truth to them and God's wisdom to them.

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We should say this, ultimately, like your obedience to mom and dad isn't simply to us and for our benefits.

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It's not just for us. Like you can start this yielding to mom and dad and honoring father and mother with this very key thing.

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Do you fear God? In this moment where you're attacking back or you're argumentative or whatever the case may be, the challenge will always be, do you fear

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God in this moment? Do you fear God? When we're holding things against one another, when we're in conflict and there's disunity and disorder, the issue is always that.

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Do you fear God? Do you wanna obey him? Do you wanna extend forgiveness because you yourself have been forgiven or do you have such a lack of fear of God that you're gonna hold on to bitterness and you're gonna hold grudges and you're gonna hold people's sins against them when

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God has forgiven you with such abundance? The issue is the fear of God, the fear of God.

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Fear of God needs to go to education, amen? The fear of God needs to go to government. Fear of God needs to go to the family.

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The fear of God needs to go to philosophy. The fear of God needs to go to the arts and the sciences and medicine.

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There must be a fear of God. It's interesting, and I'll end on this note, one of the things that I love.

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Oh, I don't mean, oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no. I didn't mean the sermon.

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I meant verse one. I know, no.

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It'll be a shorter sermon today. Psych, no. Richard Dawkins.

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Richard Dawkins is a very intelligent man, very, very intelligent man, knows a lot of stuff.

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Rabid atheist, hates God, hates God with a passion. One of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, they call them, of the atheists, like Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Dawkins has written so much just railing against God and the

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Christian faith, and most of it is just incoherence. I mean, he can't really survive a debate with somebody who knows his worldview and knows the

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Christian worldview. John Lennox has taken him to school. The one thing that I wish,

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I know God is all wise, the thing I wish would have happened would Dr. White had a debate scheduled with Christopher Hitchens before he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, so it never happens.

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I wish that would have happened. Some brilliant men, but they cannot sustain an argument against a consistent holding to the

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Christian worldview. But Richard Dawkins, as much as he rails against God, all the knowledge that he's received and the books that he's read and all the rest, all that knowledge, all that intellect, still, when he was going into university, like universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, these are all

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Christian institutions, started for the glory of God, and I used to love to hear about the fact that when

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Richard Dawkins was railing against God and teaching his atheism and neo -Darwinian, micromutational, evolutional, all that he was doing, he had to walk, like when he went to school, he had to walk through, like, doorways that said, like, wonderful are the works of the

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Lord, right? I love that aspect of just where we're at in history, and you can have someone like Richard Dawkins, who has so much knowledge, in terms of brute facts about the world, but he doesn't have any understanding, he doesn't have any real wisdom.

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Every moment of his life is borrowed, borrowed capital from the Christian worldview, borrowed capital from God, as an image -bearer of God, no true wisdom, but the

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Bible, and the word of God in the Christian worldview needs to go, ultimately, everywhere, everywhere, and isn't it interesting that, when you look in history, at Christians who are developing the world with the gospel, under the

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Lordship of Jesus Christ, just in this nation alone, just our own experience, those

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Christians saw all of life under Christ, all wisdom to be found in God, and Christ was the reference point, that was just in the atmosphere, whether it was hospitals, whether it was academic institutions, whether it was law and government, whether it was family, and even educating our children,

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Christians understood that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Apart from Him, you can know, really, nothing at all, and you won't be able to live in God's world.

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Depart from God's truth at your own peril. Where you depart from God and His wisdom and knowledge, there is darkness, there is a path of unrighteousness, and where you yield to God, and listen to God, and fear

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God, there is blessing, and not cursing. There is protection, and shielding, and guarding, and that's how this proverb actually ends.

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So to summarize, last week, we spent time on the first half of Proverbs chapter two, talking about this key thing, and this is just what

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I wanna remind you of, because I think it's really the thing that ought to impact us the most, because I was talking to Zach Conover this week, and he was saying,

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I really appreciated the emphasis on the fact that this is something that you have to actually engage with as a

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Christian. It's an if, then. If you do this, then this is the outcome.

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And oftentimes, and this is what I emphasized last week, we live in a kind of culture where it's been bred into us to sort of have the quick fix, just give me the pill, give me the thing that's gonna solve the problem as quickly as possible.

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I mean, how do people even sell products today that you see them all the time, even things like physical exercise, or physical well -being, you'll see advertisements of them saying what?

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You don't need to exercise, you don't need to change your diet. So in other words, you don't have to do anything, nothing.

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All you have to do is do what? Just drink this potion. Just do this thing. And you'll exert no energy to get the then benefits of being super healthy and like rockstar abs.

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You get all that, that's our culture. Like, I want the quick fix. We don't want the investment of saying, no, there needs to be actual pain

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I experience. I have to actually have anguish here, and like there needs to be sort of a new molding of myself physically, spiritually, it takes time.

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Even the investment in terms of like business, right? Give me the quick strategy where I can have a passive income and do literally nothing.

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People sell it all the time today. They sell it all the time, passive income stream, and you don't have to do a thing for it, nothing.

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All you need to do is just pay 39 .95, you get this product, it goes into motion, and you'll make 10 to $15 ,000 a month, passive income.

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Yeah, sure, no labor, no work, just the quick fix. Well, God's wisdom says this, this is what the book says.

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If, if, God's people, if. It says if you receive

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God's words, and you treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding.

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So there's the if. You need to receive the words, and they need to be a treasure within you, seen as valuable, you're gonna draw from it later.

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It's that deposit box that is so full of treasure. That's how you view it.

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You're receiving and holding it up. You see it as valuable, and it says, make your ear attentive to wisdom.

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In other words, you have to listen, and you're looking to listen. You're trying to hear God's wisdom.

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You want it, you actually desire it, and you do what, incline your heart to understanding.

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Scripture talks a lot about the heart. The heart, the very seed of the passions and the emotions.

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It's like the deepest part of you. And Scripture says, you've got to see God's wisdom like this.

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You have to actually be receptive. You have to be wanting to hear it. You have to see it as treasure, and you need to wrestle with your own heart.

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Wrestle with it. It's one of those things that, in pastoral counseling, that can be challenging at times, is someone will come in, and they're in a devastating position, like something bad has happened, tragedy has happened, whatever the case may be, or they're really struggling with a number of things.

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They don't have the skills to deal with loneliness. They don't have the skills to deal with their anxieties and their fears, and all the ways that they've walked through life before.

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They've got those old habits. They've practiced unrighteousness and a lack of wisdom. They've been living as unbelievers.

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Now they're in Christ, and their heart desires God. They want wisdom, but they still come in wanting the quick fix, right?

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They just, give me the quick fix, pastor, and honestly, sometimes sanctification can be kind of brutal, because you so desire holiness, and you so long for God's truth, and you so want to be wise, and bring glory to God, and want to pursue him, but your heart hasn't been trained in wisdom.

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Your heart isn't inclined to wisdom. It hasn't been, and so it's just like, pastor, can you just give me the verse that's gonna solve all my problems?

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And the answer is, in a way, yes, because only God's truth is gonna renew your mind and heal you, but in another way, there is a wrestling that has to take place where you've been believing yourself and the lies of the world for so long that you have to actually not only hear the word that comes in, but you have to incline your heart to understanding.

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You have some wrestling that has to happen. You have to desire to understand. You have to desire to wrestle with your old thoughts, and your old practices, your old habits, your old rituals, and so what does

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God's wisdom say? It says, if then, if this, then this, the payoff, the reward,

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God says, I'll give it to you, and that's just what is so incredible about this in terms of like, here's something that ought to bless you and encourage you and excite you about a pursuit of wisdom as God's people, is

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God says, if you do this, I'll do this, and God can't lie. His word is sure, it is certain, so he says, if you do this, then this is the payoff.

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This is what I'm gonna give to you. This is what will happen with this pursuit, and so God says, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the

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Lord and find the knowledge of God. There it was. Did you see it? Did you see it?

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It was right there again. Told you it's the foundation, and there it is reflecting back. If, if, if, ear, inclining heart, treasure, silver, if, if, if, then,

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God says, you will understand the fear of the

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Lord. What is the fear of the Lord, everybody? The beginning of knowledge. You wanna understand it?

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Then this is how you have to be. This has to be your posture towards God and to God's truth. This must be our posture.

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Ears attentive, hearts inclines, treasuring it up within us, pursuing it like silver.

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That is hard and dangerous work. It brings sweat and pain and difficulty and brokenness, but you know that there's a reward when you're searching for silver.

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There's a reward in all that pain. There's a reward in all that pursuit, and if you see it for what it is and you pursue it like treasure, then you'll understand, then you'll understand the fear of the

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Lord and find the knowledge of God. So there's an if, then promise here, and that's my encouragement to you.

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Listen, as we're reading God's wisdom from above, these are the very words of the living God who sustains everything and calls everything into existence.

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He says, God's people, if you do this, I'm gonna give you this, then you will get this.

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What are the benefits? Then you'll understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

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For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.

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He's a shield to those who walk in integrity, a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.

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You know, I've mentioned this so many times, just come with me here for a minute, because it's key, you're gonna hear it so much.

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So much of the last couple of years, you've heard people using the term equity and the term justice, and you have people that are talking about social justice warriors and justice, justice, justice, and justice now and justice now, but they don't have any understanding because they have no fear of God.

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What is justice to a bag of fizzing chemicals? What is it? Why do you care? You're in the image of God.

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That's why you care, but your standard of justice is actually perverse. It's injustice.

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When they call for justice, they end up perpetrating injustice upon others, and God says this, here is the benefit.

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God is a shield to you who walk in integrity. He guards the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.

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Just consider that. You have the knowledge of God. You have God dwelling within you as God's people. You're forgiven.

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God doesn't count your sins against you. You have peace with God. He counts you righteous, and you have the knowledge of God right in front of you.

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How do you handle conflict between brother and sister? How do you handle conflict between husband and wife?

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How do you handle conflict in the home? How do you handle conflict in the church? How are you supposed to run the world?

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Well, if you have God's wisdom, what's the promise? He's a shield to you, and he'll guard the very paths of justice.

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You know one of the most amazing things? Being a pastor, I don't have the ability to change your heart.

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I can't, and I never even go into a counseling session or a conflict situation thinking

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I've got the ability to change anybody's heart. I know that my duty in that moment is to point to God, point to God, point to God, point to God's word, point to God's principles, give them

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God's principles. How many of you guys have ever sat with me, and you hear me saying to you this, you don't want the tips from Jeff Durbin?

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I've told you that. You don't want my tips. What I wanna give to you right now is the word of God, and I would say one of the greatest blessings of my life and my experience as a pastor is to watch

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God's people come into a room, say, and there's conflict, whether it's a husband and a wife, or just a brother or a sister, or even a group of people, brothers and sisters, someone made a mistake, someone failed somebody, someone sins, and now they're in front of the pastors.

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And this is a moment where, okay, now we actually have to try to mediate and advocate for everybody here and just give

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God's truth. And in the toughest situations, we'll walk into a room where somebody has been victimized, or somebody has been hurt, or something bad has gone on in the relationship, and it feels irreparable.

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And if it was the world dealing with that, it's over. The relationship is burned, we're not coming out of this, it's gonna end in bitterness, we're gonna hold onto this, it'll just be despair.

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And it's glorious to watch how when you give God's truth and wisdom to God's people who have reshaped and renewed hearts, that room ends with love and mercy and compassion, asking for forgiveness, people trying to take responsibility, how did

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I sin against you, what could I have done better? Forgiveness, confession, and the paths of justice are guarded, the paths of justice are guarded.

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And those relationships heal, and we stay together, we don't abandon one another, we maintain unity, and we grow from it,

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God shields us. He guards the paths of justice, and watches over the way of his saints.

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Now here's where we sort of left off last week, then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path.

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I just wanna point you to it again, because I think it's vitally important to correct our thinking about the law of God in our day.

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Remember when this was written, it's written to God's people who had been entrusted with the oracles of God, they've got

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Moses, they've got prophets, they've got the revelation of God, they know God's standards, they know his statutes, they know

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God's justice. And so when it says, you'll understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path, they're not in a place where they're like,

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I don't even know what that means. I don't have any understanding, maybe we should reinvent the wheel and say, what is righteousness, justice, and equity, every good path,

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I don't have any idea. No, this is God's covenant people, they know God's revealed himself. And in Deuteronomy chapter four,

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I wanna point you to it again, we did it last week, but I want you to have this in your hearts like treasure. In Deuteronomy chapter four, first five books of the

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Bible, Deuteronomy, the second giving of the law, literally is what it means.

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Deuteronomy four, five through eight.

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This is beautiful, it says this, see, I have taught you statutes and rules.

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As the Lord my God commanded me that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it, listen closely to it, keep them and do them for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who when they hear all these statutes will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people for what great nation is there that has a

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God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him and what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today.

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That's how God feels about his law, do we? That's how God feels about his law, the wisdom of God.

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We live in a time and I'll just say this briefly, we live in a time where there has been such a diminishment of the value of the law of God in our culture and I mean

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Christian culture at large that we don't really think the law of God has really anything to say to us anymore.

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It's not a blessing, the law really is just a curse. We talk about the law in that way, it's just a curse, it's only a curse, yeah.

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For a fallen person confronted with the law of God, yeah, it exposes your sin, it shows you who you really are, yeah.

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You have to fulfill it, you haven't fulfilled it, you're judged by it for sure but that's not all the law of God is.

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The law of God speaks, God speaks glowingly about his law, that it is just, that it is righteous, that it is holy, that it is true.

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If you wanna see how God feels about his law and how he desires us to feel about his law, spend some time reading

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Psalm 119. Psalm 119, it'll take you a while, it's the longest one in the

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Psalms. I'm sure if you sang it all the way through in a Jewish congregation, your voice would be sort of raspy and almost gone by the end, it's such a long one but it's all about the law of God and justice and God's righteousness.

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But here's the point, then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity every good path, why?

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Because your ears are open to God, your heart's inclining to understanding, you're seeking it like silver and like treasure and God says, you'll understand the fear of the

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Lord and then what? You will understand righteousness and justice and equity every good path.

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You see, we have tended, isn't this true? We have tended in Christianity in the

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West to think about the whole Christian experience as simply an individual thing that doesn't really accomplish anything ultimately than I get to go to heaven one day, right?

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Like I trust in Jesus and that means I'm going to heaven one day, my ticket's punched and so that's sort of the whole

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Christian faith and the whole Christian experience is I believe these things about Jesus and so I get to go to heaven one day and that's sort of it, that's all

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God's really concerned with. You can't read the Bible and come to that conclusion. You cannot.

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You can't read the Bible and come to that conclusion. The only way you come to that conclusion is through doctrinal twisting and proof texting certain verses out of the

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New Testament that speak to the relationship of God, with God that we have and it's true, we have eternal life,

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God saves us, we have forgiveness of sins, yes, all that's true but that's not all God's word has to say to his people.

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What else does it say? If you do this, I'm gonna do this, you'll be guarded, you'll be shielded, you'll understand justice and righteousness and equity and what else?

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You'll be preserved by God, protected on the path of righteousness, not like the others who will end in destruction.

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There's a promise at the end of this that is straight hashtag dat post mill. Some of you are new and you're like,

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I have no idea what that means, welcome. It's victory, it's the promise that look, this world doesn't end with the wicked ruling and inhabiting everything, this world is not owned by Satan.

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Jesus is the king, he's the one that is ruling and he is on this victorious mission to transform and heal the world with his gospel, reconciliation and peace with God.

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God indwells his people, his law goes forth from the people of God, it is the meek who shall inherit the earth, the wicked are uprooted out of it.

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And here's the thing about the wicked, clearly from the text, the wicked are on one path, there's darkness, there's a lack of understanding, there's no fear of God but the righteous are on a different path where there is justice and righteousness and equity and there is light and there is guarding and there is shielding and there is peace and protection and provision from God.

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The wicked are uprooted, the righteous inhabit, that's a theme we're gonna get to in just a moment.

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But there's the if then, so that's my challenge, I did it last week, I'll do it again. Do you feel that way?

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Do I, do I feel that way? If your heart's treasure is in Christ, if you do this, then this.

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So it says, for wisdom will come into your heart, verse 10, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul, discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight, they take pleasure in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.

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So there's the contrast, do you see it? The contrast, this path, that path, this path, light washing all over you.

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Starts, as I showed you last week, chapter four, that promise, it's like the dawning of a new day.

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At first, the path of the righteous is like just that little bit of sun. I see it, it's good, there's benefits, but by the middle of the day, as you pursue that, the sun continues to rise, you're wrapped in light.

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That's what our path is like, according to God's word in Proverbs. But notice the contrast now taking place.

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God says, justice, righteous, equity, shielding, guarding you, this is where you'll be.

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I promise, if you do this, then this is what you're gonna get. But then the contrast, the contrast is delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech who forsake the paths of righteousness.

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Watch this, they don't just do evil, they don't just walk on that path in the ways of darkness, they actually rejoice in their evil and they delight.

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They take pleasure in the perverseness of evil. Man, I think there are always sinners and this fallen world is always sinners, but man, are we living in a time where we can see that contrast?

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Do you see it? All the time, you see the contrast between the path of the righteous and the path of the wicked.

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Like Pastor James says, that article that came out, that's sort of like, it's sort of like an inside look, like we went into a church where there was mothers carrying a baby, right?

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And then they had like more children they were walking with. And it was people who had their children like in carts, they were carting children into this church.

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It's crazy, there was children like falling out of wagons and children everywhere. And someone looks at that today in our day and they go, isn't that so strange?

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And they said like, and the pastors of the church, all men, right?

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Like if you would have been like at the founding of our nation, where like the Christian faith is just in the atmosphere, like if someone read an article like that, you're like, why'd you have to use those meaningless words?

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Why, it's useless, why'd you say all men, right? Like we have wisdom from God, we have his word of how this world is supposed to work.

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Why is this so strange to you? But you see that contrast, it's a stark contrast in our day where someone can hear about a church, like Apologia Church, and there's so many churches like us, we're not special, we're just a

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Christian church, we love Jesus, we're not superstars, there are faithful churches everywhere, but the world can come and look in a church like this and say, this is crazy, they love children here, they love life here, they don't want babies to die.

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And then you walk outside of this context and you go out to this last month, pride month, where we have men and women naked, walking through streets, dancing naked in front of small children, and people celebrate that, they literally applaud, they applaud and say, oh, this is delightful and wonderful, they rejoice in the evil, they rejoice in it.

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It's so broken, but the contrast is stark, it's bright, you can see it, the one path versus the other path.

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You have people, of course, you guys have seen this over the years, not just a culture of death, God says, those who hate me, those who hate me, those who hate me love death.

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That's where you're going. If you hate God, you're in love with death, your own death, your own demise, and you're in love with death, period.

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It's just saturated with you, those who hate me love death. And the culture doesn't just say, we'd like to have this death, we'd like to be able to take the lives of our children, no, it goes beyond that, it goes into delighting, rejoicing in the perverseness, in the evil.

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What do they say? They sell shirts, t -shirts, bumper stickers that say what?

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Shout your abortion. They love it. It's something they actually delight in.

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It's their sacrament, it's their sacrament.

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It's core to who they are and their being. It's not just, I want to be able to do this in the privacy of my home with whoever

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I want. It's, can I have that? Great, I got it, now I want to celebrate it in the streets.

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And I don't just want the one day, I want the month, give me the month. And actually, here's the thing, not just do

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I want the month of the celebration of this perverseness, I want you, corporation, you, company, to celebrate also.

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I want you to change your items into a way where they can actually identify the fact that you are giving the pinch of incense, that you are serving me, that you believe like me.

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I want you to shout from your platforms that you support me, that you celebrate it, that you delight in this crookedness.

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That's where we are. The paths are clear, light and darkness. Shout your abortion, pride month.

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But notice, and Zach went over this in chapter one, very important, when he describes throwing off God's truth and his knowledge and his wisdom, what it leads to in terms of their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed blood, chapter one, verse 16.

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It's describing the person who's on that path, the crooked one who delights in evil.

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And it says, not only do their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed blood, 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. Now there's more expansion on this thought in chapter two, more expansion.

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They rejoice in the evil, their paths are crooked. They're devious in their ways.

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I was thinking about this too, because there's so many ways, and I'm sure you have so many experiences you could probably reflect on in your life where you just saw something that just struck you with awe in terms of its evil.

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I mean, we did, I mean, all of us had this experience when it was 2020 when all the riots broke out and all of that was happening in the streets and people burning down towns and looting and everything else.

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Many of us probably saw, did you see the videos of people just at night running through businesses, people's hard work and their labor, setting fire, breaking windows, stealing things.

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And they're just like randomly, randomly punching an old man, like hitting a person in the head with a brick.

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They'd never seen this man in their life and they take his life. They lie in wait for him and just destroy him.

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Why? Just because, just because. We all saw that.

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There's something that does strike awe into you, like, wow, that is perverseness and crookedness and evil on full display.

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And it's amazing that most of the stuff was at night, right, under darkness at night when they're doing their work.

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I was thinking back at a time in my life that will always stick with me in terms of people like lying in wait for people and just for the fun of it, destroying a life, murdering somebody.

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I was young, I was probably, I was 15 because I was walking. I wasn't driving yet.

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I was 15 years old. And my friend's house, we're outside of Washington, D .C. in Maryland and not far from D .C.

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And I lived in sort of a, at least a safer neighborhood than some of the places around.

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My friend's house is about a mile. He calls me late. He says, hey, you wanna come spend the night? I said, sure. And again, it's a relatively safe area.

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I mean, anything around D .C. can go bad real quick. But so I said to my parents, hey, I'm gonna go to spend the night at Matt's house.

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They're just like, sure, no problem. And so I decided to walk. It's just a mile. It's nine o 'clock at night or so.

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And I'm walking on the sidewalk and I'm on the left side of the road over here.

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And traffic on the right side of the road should be just passing me right this way. Cars should be coming towards me this way while those going that way are on the other side of the road.

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And so it's nighttime. I'm by myself, I'm walking. And I realize I'm hearing the sound of an engine, but there's no lights.

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And for some reason, the engine's right behind my right ear like close to the sidewalk and the curb right next to me.

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So why is there a car? I'm thinking to myself, why is there a car on this side of the road?

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It should be on that side of the road. And why doesn't it have its lights on? So this is all what I'm thinking right now.

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I got, you know, just walking down. It's dark outside. I'm walking on the sidewalk. I hear the engine of this car and I didn't wanna look back.

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I didn't wanna look at the car and give off that I was aware that they were there. So I'm just sort of walking.

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Wasn't a Christian yet. I'm walking, car's behind me. I'm starting to get scared. And so as I'm walking a little further up, there's a cul -de -sac right here with a house right to my left.

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I remember this so vividly like it literally happened today. That's how on I was from this moment.

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Everything was lit up. Every nerve, my mind was clear. My adrenaline was pumping. And there's a cul -de -sac and a house and I just decided

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I'm gonna make a run for it. I didn't even know what was around that house. I decided I'd make a run so I just bolt and as I bolted,

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I looked behind me to see what it was. And it was a car and it had stopped by that point and the doors opened and it just spilled out with people.

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Just a bunch of guys. And as I looked, I see them. I continue to run around the corner of the house and I turn the corner of the house.

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There's bushes, big bushes in front of the house and I'm telling you guys, truth before God, I didn't hear an audible voice but something deep inside me said, jump.

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I don't even know where it came from because I don't know why I decided to jump into these bushes.

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I turned the corner and I jumped over the bushes. I hit the ground like bricks and I was lifeless.

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I just hit the ground because they were right behind me. Hit the ground hard and I didn't move. I'm just laying flat behind bushes and next thing you know,

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I just see boots running past the bushes. Boots, boots, boots, boots, boots.

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And I waited, I'm trying to catch my breath and I realized no more boots are coming so then I decided to run back the other way.

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So I slid out the bushes back the other way, ran across the street to a different cul -de -sac and I hid behind a car and I watched these men with like bats and sticks and other things looking through the cul -de -sac, desperate to find me.

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Looking under cars, running around the cul -de -sac, looking everywhere and just like, where'd this guy go?

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Ninja! So, it wasn't planned, it just happened.

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No, but I watched and these guys were frustrated at points when they first were there, they were rejoicing, they were literally laughing, looking because they were gonna beat me.

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Why? For what reason? I didn't know them, they didn't know me.

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It was just crooked men on a perverse path who have feet that are swift to shed blood, who just wanted to delight in doing evil and harming another person.

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That's what our world is filled with and that's what the path looks like. A lack of wisdom, a lack of God's truth leads to darkness, leads to destruction, leads to being overwhelmed with evil.

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That's what it looks like. But the path of righteousness and God's truth and wisdom leads to what?

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Guarding, shielding, justice, righteousness, equity, loving neighbor, protecting one another, the preservation of life.

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That kind of life and pursuit only leads in death and ultimately it's leading to your own death and destruction.

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You can believe that, look at the statistics from cities like Chicago and Washington D .C. and where that pursuit brings you.

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So, God says the paths are crooked, they're devious in their ways, they rejoice in it.

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But, and this is emphasized again, look here where it says paths of justice, paths are crooked, it says those who are devious in their ways, just turn a page over or just drop down where it says in verse 20, so you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.

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There it is, path of the evil, the crooked, path of those who delight in their evil, they celebrate it, but you will be on this path, righteousness, justice, equity, light.

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What's that look like? You know the famous, I thought, okay, let's give more of the word as a grounding for this.

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Hopefully you've read this one, Psalm chapter one. Psalm chapter one, look at the contrast.

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Verse one, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight, his delight, his delight is in the law of the

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Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. So you see the difference between those who are on the paths of darkness and crookedness and perverseness?

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What do they delight in? Taking life, destruction, crookedness, they take pleasure in that.

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But the difference is, the man of God, the woman of God, the blessed one, they delight, they take pleasure in God's law.

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They take pleasure in it and they meditate on it day and night. What's the difference? He's like a tree planted by streams of water.

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That yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, he prospers.

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The wicked are not so. Contrast, righteous, wicked, blessed man. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

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Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

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For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. There, it's like thematic now, don't you think?

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The wicked perish, the wicked are uprooted. The wicked perish, the wicked are uprooted. The righteous inhabit the land.

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The righteous inherit the world. The meek shall inherit the earth. And what's it look like when they do?

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Wisdom, justice, righteousness. How's God do it? Well, we're good, solid, reformed people here, right?

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So we know what God's promises are about the heart and the mind. How's God do it? Regeneration. Why do you love

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God's truth? Why do you love justice? Why do you delight in the law of God?

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There's no God seeker. There's none who does good, but you love God's wisdom. You're sitting in a room right now where a man is telling you that this is the source of life,

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Jesus Christ. And this is the truth of God. This is where life will be found. Why do you feel that way?

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And scripture says what? I'll sprinkle clean water on you so you'll be clean. I'll cleanse you of all your idols.

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He says, I'll remove a heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to observe my statutes.

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How's God change the world? He saves people. He gives them himself. He pays for their sins.

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God indwells them. And God gives them a passion for his truth and the knowledge of God and the fear of God.

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And that's how God changes the world, redemptively and with wisdom.

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So if you do this, then God says, you'll get this.

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Which path are you on? That's the question. Which path are you on? So you can think,

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I'll just, I'll throw these out as quick, right? Just to have, what are the examples? Our world today says no fear of God.

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Our world today says don't bring the Bible into, keep that in your churches between your ears. That's fine for your house, maybe for now, maybe not later.

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But don't bring that out here, really. How you doing running the world? How are your families?

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How's your foster system? How's your government? How's your economy? The world says we don't need

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God's instructions about gender and family and roles and fathers and mothers. We can have families with fathers, fathers, mothers, mothers.

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We don't need any of that stuff. As a matter of fact, you don't even need a father in the home. Perfectly fine and acceptable. The world will be just fine with single parents.

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Look at the problems of fatherlessness in jail. The people who were in prison, in jail, ask them, ask them generally.

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Did you grow up with your dad? Do you know your father? Were you raised by your father? Fatherlessness leads to the wicked, leads to death, leads to destruction.

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You don't have to take my word for it just to read the statistics. Intimacy, wisdom.

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We don't need God's instructions about intimacy, physical intimacy with someone that you love.

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We don't need any of that. And so you can just look at super gonorrhea, super chlamydia, all the things that are passed around today.

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We have drugs today that can't even touch the sort of things that are passed around today. We say, we don't need it.

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We don't need God's wisdom. We don't need man, woman, and just one committed relationship. We can have multiple.

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We can have as many as we want. Love is love. And I can do it with whoever I want. And we see the consequences, the ravaging of the physical body by choosing that wisdom over God's, that path over God's.

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And then we miss out on the glory and the beauty of physical intimacy that God built into the world.

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I'll say this as carefully as I can. Just consider God's wisdom and how we're supposed to be intimate together and have that glorious,

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God -glorifying satisfaction only with God's wisdom. Only with God's wisdom, the way that he's built the world, can physical intimacy be mutually satisfying, mutually satisfying with man and woman.

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Only that way. And the world chooses bootleg pleasure and bootleg joy over God's wisdom, and they lose.

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It only leads to death. It only leads to a lack of satisfaction, a lack of pleasure.

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God's ways are beautiful and they're harmonious and they're full of life.

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We look at the world today, the world says, no, we'll choose our path of wickedness. We'll delight in our crookedness and our evil.

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We don't need God's wisdom. And so we don't need to look at God's word when it comes to money and how we should see money and use money.

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And so people have problems with debt. They don't know how to save money. They don't know how to use their money.

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And then we look at a higher level in what? Our country that was built on so many

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Christian biblical principles went from a silver and gold -backed currency to what?

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A fiat currency, the imaginary currency that's built upon what? The good faith and credit of the

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United States of America, right? How are we doing on our good faith and credit? What if we go bankrupt being trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars in debt?

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How's our credit? How are we as debtors? You see, God's word has so much to say with wisdom in terms of money and the value of money, but we don't want

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God's wisdom. We would rather, we would rather pervert money.

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We would rather actually perpetrate injustices upon our neighbor by devaluing the currency.

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We don't want to walk in wisdom. We don't want to say what money actually should be so that we love our neighbor, so that we're actually caring for our neighbors.

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God's wisdom speaks to all of it. I'll save the money discussion for when we get to it. Our court system, we say no to God's wisdom.

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We say, let's do something different. We'll lead our own path. We won't walk in the light. We'll do it our own way.

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And so we have a court system today that honestly, I think I've told you before, I've been to two trials in the last six years where I just watched two people just get run over and destroyed by the court system.

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They were guilty from day one all the way through. In one of the court cases that I watched, the person was literally sanctioned by the judge and given punishments through the duration of the trial, and this person was maintaining their innocence.

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There wasn't proof that they were guilty, but the judge literally said, okay, you're the accused. Well, while we're doing the trial and you're defending yourself,

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I want you to do this and this and this, and they were all sanctions. They were all punishments. They were all treating them as though he was guilty.

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The whole entire trial was a charade. It was just getting through the details.

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The judge had already determined this person's guilt the entire way through. The day of the actual decree, it was obvious.

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He's been guilty the entire time. You never assumed his innocence. You weren't waiting for evidence.

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You had somebody you came to destroy. I went and saw one of our other brothers here in Tempe the day of the end of his trial where he was persecuted by the city of Tempe and the police departments.

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The entire way through the trial, he was guilty. Didn't matter. He was guilty. There was no reason to even provide evidence for his case.

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Didn't matter. The judge was just determining how bad are we gonna punish this man? That's all that it was.

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The court systems today says no to God's word, no to God's justice, no to his truth. And so all there is is destruction.

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All there is is an end that is darkness. In God's word, there is justice and truth and light.

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Here we go. Verse 16. So you'll be delivered from the forbidden woman from the adulteress with her smooth words who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her

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God. For her house sinks down to death and her paths to the departed. None who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.

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Spoiler alert, you're gonna get a lot of this in Proverbs. A lot of this in terms of protecting yourself from the adulterous woman and that would also apply, of course, to the man.

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But this is actually interesting. As this is being laid down as a foundation, what is wisdom?

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What does turning from God's wisdom lead to? Here's how you gain wisdom and understanding.

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What are the blessings? What are the paths? There's a moment where we just go right to the adulterous woman.

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Right to the adulterous woman. And I just wanna point to a couple things about her.

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If you walk in God's wisdom, you will be delivered. You'll be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulterous with her smooth words.

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There are a number of ways we can go into this today, but there is an epidemic in our day of addiction to pornography and not just pornography, it's just normalized now.

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You can't even scroll through your feed now on any platform without being blasted with the adulterous, lustful woman, selling herself, maybe not with smooth words, but just her body.

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She's trying to draw you in to destroy you. It leads to death, but it starts somewhere.

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It's a smooth talking woman. She's trying to seduce. It doesn't have to just be with words.

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It can be with OnlyFans, it can be with Instagram. It's right there, the adulterous woman.

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And God says, you'll be delivered from her. And women, if it's the adulterous man who forsakes his companion, you'll be delivered from him too.

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By what? Fearing God and walking in his wisdom, walking in his paths, avoiding the path of the adulterous woman.

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But notice what it says about her. It says that she forsakes the companion of her youth.

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That's who your spouse is, is your companion.

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And that's supposed to be shocking, by the way, in the text. She forsakes the companion of her youth.

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And this is madness. You have people who are crooked, they devise wicked plans, they feed her swift as shed blood.

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Like that path has got some destruction and death on it. And this woman, this woman that God wants to protect you from, this woman, she leaves the companion of her youth.

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That's senseless. And they understood how senseless that'd be. She forsakes the companion of her youth.

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This is someone she's supposed to be committed to. This is supposed to be her lover, her friends. This is supposed to be the person that she's in covenant with, and she forsakes.

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That's crazy. She's forsaking the companion of her youth, and then it says, and forgets the covenant of her

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God. This is the emphasis. This is the huge part. You, some of you, we've had the privilege of marrying.

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Got to just do your marriage. What did I say at your marriage?

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This isn't a test. I'm reminding you. What did I just say at your marriage? It was such a privilege to do.

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I say at every marriage, I just said to David and Sarah's marriage, I said, we're here gathered today with God as our witness.

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And we're here to be witnesses to this covenant they make with each other. We're here because ultimately, right now, the key issue is that God is the one who is actually attending here and witnessing these vows.

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So in marriage, my promise to Candy and her promise to me is actually secondary in terms of the ultimacy of the commitment.

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It's between us. We're making it to each other for sure, but ultimately, this is the covenant of her

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God. He is the one who stands over this marriage. He is the one who stands over the marriage.

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He's protecting, he's holding us to those vows. This is a covenant, first and foremost, here.

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And the glorious, and honestly, it's kind of scary. Like, I think the weird thing about weddings is you know how significant this moment is?

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You are before God and creation and friends and witnesses making a sacred covenant and bond with your companion, and God is watching it.

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And the madness of this moment is she forsakes God's paths of righteousness. She's smoothing her words.

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God wants you to deliver you from her, and she is forsaking the companion of her youth, and she forgets the covenant of her

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God. God knows about this. God is watching. God is here, and God is holding you to your covenant.

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And first and foremost, in our marriages, this is between us and God. When I make that covenant, that promise across this way, it is first there, and this is something that he's made.

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So when Bonson was talking about this, I wanted to take this from Bonson's commentary because I thought it was actually good.

59:45

Bonson was talking about just this moment, how significant that is that she's forsaking her companion, and she forgets the covenant of her

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God, and that's the main thing in marriage. He talks about the fact that J. Adams would comment on the fact that you sometimes will have, like, professing

01:00:02

Christian couples, marriage, there's a marriage, and they're sinning and hurting one another in whatever way, and maybe they get to a place where they, quote, fall out of love.

01:00:17

Fall out of love, right? And they say in the counseling session with J. Adams, they say, you know, pastor,

01:00:24

I just don't love her anymore. I just don't love her anymore. Well, considering how

01:00:30

God views this here, your companion in the covenant of God, J. Adams says that he would say to those

01:00:37

Christians who say, I think we're going to get divorced. I just fell out of love. I don't love her anymore. He says, oh, that's too bad.

01:00:44

You'd better learn to. Why? Like, that's wisdom.

01:00:52

That's too bad. You better learn to. Why? Because you made the promise, and God was watching it.

01:01:00

And that promise is first and foremost to him. You said it. And so you'd better learn.

01:01:06

You'd better learn. And you know what? The bonus here is there was a day where you stood together before God, creation, and witnesses, and you said that she's the one.

01:01:17

You said it. And so God is the one who attends to this. It's what matters the most.

01:01:23

The covenant of God. Now, here's the promise. I already read verse 20. We'll wrap this up here.

01:01:30

For the upright, verse 21, will inhabit the lands, and those with integrity will remain in it.

01:01:39

But the wicked will be cut off from the lands, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.

01:01:46

We don't talk like that anymore, do we? Often. It even came up in the recent article.

01:01:54

I don't want to talk about the article too much. It even came up like Pastor Jeff was preaching on wisdom and how something to the effect of nations that abandon

01:02:03

God's wisdom will be destroyed. And I bet you there was a bunch of secularists and humanists and atheists who were like, ew.

01:02:10

What? God destroys nations for their wickedness? Yeah. Yeah, there are historic judgments, even for nations like ours, that were started with a focus on God and all the rest.

01:02:23

There's historic judgments. You choose the path of wickedness. You depart from the way of uprightness.

01:02:29

What's God say? The wicked will be cut off from the lands, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.

01:02:37

But watch who's left. The upright will inhabit the land. That's a principle.

01:02:43

It goes throughout scripture. There's promises that go beyond it. But you can see, even in texts of God's word,

01:02:50

God will command his people. He'll say things like, a man shall not lie with a man as he does a woman.

01:02:56

He'll command against it. And then he'll say that he's actually judging and destroying the surrounding nations for practicing those things.

01:03:05

You don't do these things. I'm actually destroying and judging those other nations, uprooting them, destroying them for those very deeds.

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And this text says, in God's wisdom, there's a path of uprightness. There's a path of light. There's a path of justice and righteousness and wisdom.

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And there is a path of destruction and darkness. And God says, those on that dark path, he says they will be cut off.

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They will be uprooted from the land. And there's so many promises. I was tempted just to go fire -breathing post -millennialists here to say, look, this isn't just promising wisdom.

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This is where it leads and what God does. But I want to at least give you some anchors here in terms of this is thematic.

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It's throughout the Bible. The wicked do not inhabit the land. It is the righteous who do.

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God saves people. He redeems people. He transforms people. And this is what they look like, wise, filled with the knowledge of God, on the path of righteousness.

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God has made so many promises. You know the famous one, Matthew 5, 5, Sermon on the Mount, what's

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Jesus say? It's the Beatitudes, right? The meek shall inherit what?

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The earth. It's not the wicked. How can Jesus say something like that? He's God incarnate.

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He is the truth. And he is the very wisdom of God. And he says, it's the meek who shall inherit the earth.

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It's not the wicked. It's not the unrighteous. The wicked are uprooted out of the land. That's what history looks like.

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That's where it's going. Promises of God about what he's gonna do in the world flow throughout scripture,

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Old and New Testament. Just go read Isaiah 2 later, read it. That's the future of the world.

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God drawing the nations up to his mountain. The law of God going forth from the people of God. That's the future.

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Read Isaiah 42 about this Messiah who's coming, who will establish justice in the earth.

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And he won't grow faint or weary until he's done it. The coastlands are waiting for his law. That's where the future is going.

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In Romans 4, 13, can you go there real fast? Romans 4, 13.

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There is actually a pretty amazing line that I think most of us have missed.

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At least I did. I spent years reading Romans. And it has to do with Abraham, Father Abraham.

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What's the, real fast, quick test, trivia, quiz here. The promise to Abraham, your descendants will be what?

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As numerous as the stars. It'll be like the sand on the seashore. So your descendants are gonna be as numerous as the stars.

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It'll be like the sand on the seashore. And the promise is Messiah's coming through Abraham's line and he shall have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth.

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And like all the nations are gonna obey him. Like that's what they were looking forward to, right? Now they were broken in some ways in the first century in terms of some

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Jews and how they saw, you know, what the true circumcision was. But we won't go into that. But just this promise here.

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After Paul explains, and we're so familiar with that Romans 3, 4 section, where it's none righteous, not one, none who seeks for God.

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See, the law of God can be used to justify anybody. Here's why Christ did what he did. And here's how a person is justified before God.

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It's by faith apart from works of law. We know all that. But then when Paul is talking about, when he's talking about Abraham and the promises to Abraham, here's what he says in 4 .13

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of Romans. He says, for the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

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Just a little line there that sort of summarizes what the future's gonna look like and the world is gonna look like.

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Heir of the world. Here's what I wanted to emphasize. Who's this world belong to?

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Who's it belong to? God. And Christ is the ruler of the world.

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And we're God's people. And we are the ones who are his saints. We're the ones who are upright.

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We're supposed to be. We're the ones who are called righteous in Christ. We're the ones who have the oracles of God, the knowledge of God, the wisdom of God.

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And God says, here's what I'm gonna do to the world. Heir of the world, the meek inherit the earth, the wicked are uprooted out of the lands.

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This is what the future looks like. And God says, here's how it happens in terms of wisdom and justice and righteousness.

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He says, if, if, then. If, then.

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So I wanna encourage you as we know the blessings and the promises of where this wisdom leads to really challenge yourself right now.

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Like really think deep. Ask yourself this. Has your mind as a follower of Christ, has it actually been centered on the knowledge of God, the law of God, the wisdom of God?

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Like have you been devoted as a follower of Christ to say, I want wisdom? Or has, for us, has it not really been a crying out for wisdom?

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God, give me wisdom. Has it been barely a whisper or not even a thought?

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Because God is saving the world. He is elect and he is drawing the nations to himself.

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He's saving people. He's filling them with his spirit. And he tells us, here's how the world works out.

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Wicked path ends up like this. Destruction, uprooted, out of the land. And here's what the world looks like with wisdom.

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These paths look like guarding and shielding, justice and righteousness and equity. Here's what it looks like.

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So the question is, is that my life? Do I look like that? Do I have that ear and that heart inclined to wisdom?

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Do I pursue God's wisdom like that? Like it's silver and treasure? Because here's my encouragement to all of us, me too, is

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God is saying in his word, if, if, then.

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Here's the reward. May God give it to us. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you'd bless the word that went out today for your glory and your kingdom.

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Give us the heart and the mind that delights in your law, in the knowledge of God, the wisdom of God.

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Give us the kind of spirit and perseverance that's longs for wisdom and your truth.

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The kind of, the kind of fear of you and the resistance towards instruction and correction.

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Lord, be glorified through what you do here among us as we study your wisdom from above. In Jesus name, amen.