Sunday, July 13, 2025 AM

The Prayer for Wisdom and the Glory of Christ

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day that you have ordained and arranged and shepherded, prepared for your glory and for our good. We give you thanks for your word that you have so masterfully compiled and granted to us.

And everywhere here, you speak by your Spirit of your Son, that we may know you and glorify you, that we may rejoice in your truth. We pray that you would grant to us wisdom. Lord, you know how much we need wisdom.

You know that we are designed for your glory, designed for things that are well beyond our ability, but only possible by your grace, only possible by your riches and your blessings. And so we pray that you would give to us everything that you would desire to give us in your Son, Christ, that you would bless us with your wisdom and that we would rejoice in your truth today.

We ask, Lord, that you would humble us, that you would give us hearts ready to hear, hearts ready to respond favorably to the things that you have to say. I pray, Lord, that you would give us joy as we consider your wisdom, what it means, and the promise of it.

We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, the one with whom you.

Are well-pleased.

Amen.

Proverbs 1:1-7 and the Aim of the Book

I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Proverbs. We're looking at Proverbs 1. We'll be reading verses 1 through 7. This morning, the title is To Know Wisdom, which seems to be the whole point.

Of Proverbs.

So this will be something of an introduction to begin to orient ourselves toward this important book in the Bible. Proverbs might be one of those books that you know fairly well. Perhaps some of you have adopted that custom of reading a proverb a day so that you can read it through in a whole month.

Often, that has been a habit of many saints, and then my own personal testimony is that it's a real blessing. If you have read through the whole book of Proverbs, then you will have noticed that some chapters seem to have connected trains of thought, and then other chapters seem to be filled with disconnected thoughts.

But the book of Proverbs offers both instructions, the connected thoughts, and sentences, which are collected thoughts. So there are connected thoughts and collected thoughts regarding wisdom. Part of my goal in preaching through the book of Proverbs is going to be staying with the instructions and working our way through the connected thoughts, and I plan to use the collected thoughts as the additional scriptures that give us understanding of various themes as we move through.

I think that might be the best way to go through the book of Proverbs. There are different passages within the first 9 or 10 chapters, and then passages at the end of the book, which are all very much connected.

And there are a lot of sentences in the middle that we'll use to amplify the teachings of wisdom from Solomon and others. When you read through the book of Proverbs, you'll notice that some of them seem immediately applicable to your life.

Some of them may be a little too honest for your comfort. At times, some of the Proverbs seem a little strange, and you wonder at the wisdom that is there. Some of them may seem to promise too much and to assume too much for your taste, given our world of qualifications and equivocations.

But we have here a special book in the Bible meant for wisdom, and we should know and desire to know wisdom. If you're able, I invite you to stand with me as I read Proverbs 1, verses 1 through 7. This is the word of the Lord.

The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity, to give prudence to the simple, to the young man, knowledge and discretion.

A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel, to understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and the riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. You probably have seen some of those DIY videos, damage it yourself. I was on a kick doing that for some time. It's a very popular genre, but my favorite is more about the scene where you know things are going to go wrong.

You find an ambitious craftsman leaning sideways off of a ladder, hammering in a nail with the battery side of a power drill, and you just know it's going to be good, whatever comes next. There's no critique that should reasonably interrupt the awesomeness of that scene.

You just sit back and wait for all that potential chaos to resolve. What is lacking in this moment, of course, is knowledge. What is lacking is understanding. Apparently, there's a huge lack of wisdom.

But there's no sitting back and waiting in life. Sometimes, we find ourselves on a precarious balance, holding the wrong end of an approach. Sometimes, it's those we love, those for whom we are accountable, and so we can't sit back.

We need wisdom now. We need wisdom yesterday. And what hope do we have to sail towards the horizon unless we have the wisdom of the king under whose flag we sail? We are made in God's image. We are made for His glory.

Only His wisdom will suffice for our success as He sees it, which is the way it matters. So this introduction to Proverbs exhorts us to get wisdom, to use wisdom, and to value wisdom. The truth of the matter is that we are not innately wise in Adam.

Because of Adam, we are innately foolish. We are not righteously attuned innately in Adam to the order of God's creation. In our sinful condition, we are foolish, meaning we do not fear God and we despise wisdom.

And we must be careful. We must be cautious lest we confuse craftiness with wisdom, lest we confuse calculation for understanding, or confuse data for knowledge. We need not the first Adam, we need the last Adam.

We need the son of David who is the wisest of all men. He who is our Savior and our King. By Him, we are saved from folly. In Him, we are united to wisdom. Through Him, we gain the knowledge and understanding which comes by the fear of the Lord.

If you would value wisdom, then you should value Christ. Wisdom is essential for life. We must pursue it in the fear of the Lord, trusting Christ as our wisdom and as our Savior. The first admonition from these seven verses, this introduction to Proverbs, the first admonition is very clearly, get wisdom.

This is very clearly the point of Proverbs. There's a great way to sum up a whole lot of the instructions in Proverbs from the Father to the Son, it's get wisdom. He says more than that, but that's a great place to start.

A secular proverb says, money makes the world go round. Well, actually, God makes the world go round. It's His world and He runs everything in His world by His rules. Do we need to be reminded of that?

I think we do. In Proverbs, or in Psalm 104, I'm going to have you look with me at verses 24 through 31. We were singing a little bit about this in our hymn earlier, but it's good to remember who makes the world go round.

Oh, Lord, how manifold are Your works. In wisdom, You have made them all. The earth is full of Your possessions, this great and wide sea in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great.

There the ships sail about. There is that Leviathan which You have made to play there. These all wait for You that You may give them their food in due season. What You give them, they gather in. You open Your hand, they are filled with good.

You hide Your face, they are troubled. You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. You send forth Your Spirit, they are created. And You renew the face of the earth. May the glory of the Lord endure forever.

May the Lord rejoice in His works. We would do well to remember the child song, He's got the whole world in His hands. We would do well to humble ourselves and to confess the truth that God makes the world go round and everything in it.

To come back to that solid answer to the questions, why does it do that? Why do these things happen? Who made all that? Why does it happen that way? And to come back to the very simple answer, it's God's world.

He made it, He does it, He governs it, He brings it to pass. We need that starting point because as we see in the book of Proverbs, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and understanding.

The fear of the Lord is where we have to begin. And this means that we must begin in a place of humility, recognizing that God has made the world according to His rules. And that is exactly why we need wisdom.

Wisdom, the Hebrew word for wisdom, speaks to the skillful mastery of life. The skillful mastery of life. And what is our life? What are our lives being made in God's image except that we have a God-given interplay of relationships and responsibilities and resources?

God has made us this way peculiarly for His glory out of all of His creatures. Not until did God make man did He say it was very good. In Genesis 1, verse 26, we read,. Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image.

In the image of God, He created him, male and female, He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

You say, well, that sounds like a very important job. Oh, it's more than that. When we read in Genesis 1 when God blesses and then describes the blessing, it's not so much an aspiration. I sure hope you get about doing these things.

It's this is who you are, who I've designed you to be, and it's going to be happening either for good or for ill. He does the same thing with the birds and the fish. He blesses them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the air and fill the seas.

And they do. He blessed mankind to be fruitful, multiply, to fill the earth and to be in charge. And guess what?

We are.

It's not about us wondering if we have enough wisdom to sign up for the job, folks. We have the job. We need the wisdom to do it well. We're here blessed by God in a certain way to live for his glory, and we need wisdom to do it well.

We can't fake it till we make it. We need to humble ourselves and go to the king of the universe and say, I need wisdom. I need wisdom. We have relationships to love God supremely and love each other rightly and to steward the creation faithfully.

We have responsibilities. We're accountable to our Creator. God has bestowed to us resources that we are to own as stewards for his glory, and so we need wisdom. In this, I want us to remember this. When God makes us according to his image, according to the likeness of God, I want you to remember that when you think of the word godly.

What is godliness other than conformity to the image of God? What is godliness except conformity to Christ, who is the image of the invisible God? When God describes us as those who are made in his image with certain responsibilities and relationships and resources for his glory, godliness is living according to that.

How can we do that masterfully, skillfully, other than by God's wisdom? And so, wisdom is godliness at the tactical level. Wisdom takes up the hues of these three R's, our relationships, our responsibilities, and our resources, and paints masterpieces with those colors.

Wisdom is the image of God gone kinetic. We are made for wisdom, not waiting. Holiness is not found in doing nothing. Godliness is not found in sitting back and saying, things are too complex, too sinful, this world sure is icky, I'm going to sit here and wait for it all to end.

Remember there was a servant in one of Jesus' parables who tried that. Where we see the image of God brightest, we see the wisdom of God fullest. Colossians 1, verse 15, in the hymn to the glory of Christ, we read that he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, meaning he has the highest place, the highest status.

For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him.

He is before all things, and in him all things consist, and he is head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have a preeminence. And so fearing the Lord, thinking of him first and thinking of him most means that we ought to think of Christ first and think of him most as the creator of all things, the sustainer of all things, the reconciler of all things, he is King of kings and Lord of lords.

To have the foremost thought in our life, to be the gravity and the ballast of our life, to be the direction that we're heading, this is wisdom. In fact, in Christ, Colossians 2, 3 says, in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Wisdom is the key. Wisdom is the currency for an orderly life, a godly life. We must have wisdom to live a life ordered, well-ordered by the truth of God. Now here's some sage advice from Solomon in Proverbs 4, verse 7.

I want you to hear this. Wisdom is the principal thing. Get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding. How's that for square one? Wisdom is the principal thing. Get wisdom. It's like Dave Ramsey counseling a caller on the radio.

The beginning of finances is, get money. That's why I'm calling, I don't have any. How do I get wisdom? Well, our passage this morning tells us that we are to get wisdom from God and we are to get wisdom by hearing.

Get wisdom from God and get wisdom by hearing. Notice the way that the first verse reads. The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. Now we have at least five considerations from that verse.

All of them are about getting wisdom from God. I want us to think about what these considerations are and then think about here, each one signifies how wisdom comes from God. First of all, we have the person, Solomon, Sholomon, the man of peace, the one who's descendant from Judah, a glorious king, Shiloh as a shadow.

He was named Jedidiah by the Lord, beloved, one whom God specially loved. We remember that Solomon's very life was a gracious gift as his older brother died under the judgment of God because of David's sin.

Just the fact that Solomon is alive and king, the fact that he became king despite all the chicanery of his brothers, we remember Solomon as a story of grace. Then we have the promise, for God had promised David a son to reign on an eternal throne, a son who would build a house for God.

The son of David, you may remember, is the one who builds the temple, and that is true whether we're in the Old Covenant or in the New. We also remember the position. He is, as we read, the king of Israel.

Being the king of Israel was no small title in God's redemptive economy. To be the official head of God's mouth to the world, to wear Adam's regalia, it's no small matter. Also, we have the pursuit. These are the Proverbs of Solomon.

These are the sayings of Solomon that reminds us that he made a pursuit of his wisdom. Out of all the amazing things that Solomon did, out of all of the notable things that Solomon said and did, what remains for us today are these Proverbs, these sayings of.

Wisdom.

How glorious was the temple that he constructed, and yet that temple is lost in the ruins of history. But what do we still have? We still have, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we still have these holy scriptures, these wise sayings.

This is what has lasted. And he made a pursuit of this wisdom. It was of great importance to him. And lastly, we have a consideration of the Proverbs themselves. The Hebrew word for a proverb, mashal, can mean a comparison, a simile.

It could be...it could be referred to a parable, an allegory. A proverb is a concise, memorable saying that conveys wisdom, but these Proverbs are all rooted in divine wisdom. Now, I want us to think about these five aspects that we see in verse 1, and I want us to see how each one of them tells us that wisdom is from God.

From the very beginning, every word here in the first verse is telling us wisdom is from God, wisdom is from God, wisdom is from God. And by considering these things, it also helps to inform us as to the context of Proverbs.

When was it written? By whom? In what world did Proverbs first emerge? That will help us better understand and appreciate these holy scriptures. First of all, we have the person, Solomon. We remember that Solomon desired wisdom.

In 1 Kings 4, verses 29 through 34, we read this,. And God gave Solomon wisdom and exceedingly great understanding and largeness of heart like the sand on the seashore. You can hear the reference to the Abrahamic covenant, a largeness of grace given to Solomon in terms of wisdom and understanding.

After all, if the people from Abraham were as large as the sand of the seashore, Solomon, their king, would have to have wisdom large enough to encompass that. Verse 30,. Thus Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the men of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt.

For he was wiser than all men, than Ethan the Ezraite and Heman, Chalcol and Darda, the sons of Michal. And his fame was in all the surrounding nations. He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five.

He also spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs.

Out of the wall.

He spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish. And men of all nations from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. You hear how his wisdom pertained not only to the administrative duties as a king, but he asked for great wisdom to encompass all matters in God's good creation.

When God granted wisdom to Solomon, his wisdom touched every aspect of his life, not just as a king, not just as a magistrate and as a judge, but also the things that God made in the world, for God made all these things.

This is his world. And when God gave wisdom to Solomon, that wisdom pertained to all things that God had made. And when we see that God gave this wisdom to Solomon, and God's glory was shining through Solomon, that kings of the earth, men from all nations began to orient themselves towards Israel, towards Jerusalem, towards the king of Israel began to hear of the wisdom of this one true God.

Solomon was made great in this wisdom, but his greatness was penultimate, not ultimate. God gave this wisdom to Solomon for God's own glory. Wisdom comes from God. And not only the person, but we remember the promise.

First Chronicles 17, verses 11 through 14,. Now, God is speaking to David by the prophet, and this is the promise He makes to David, that I will set up your seed after you, who will be of your sons, Solomon, and I will establish his kingdom.

He shall build me a house, and I will establish his throne forever. Peter preaches in Acts 2 and says that throne, that very throne is occupied by Jesus of Nazareth, the risen Christ, at the right hand of God today.

Verse 13, I will be his father, and he shall be my son. Now last time God said something like that, He said it of Israel in Exodus, I'm your father, you are my son. But here is the whole nation consolidated down to one man.

One man stands in for the whole. I will be his father, he shall be my son. I will not take my mercy away from him as I took it from him who was before you. Remember Saul? And I will establish him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.

So God establishes the kingship of Solomon, establishes his throne, doesn't allow it to fail, and then promises that this throne, that this dominion, this kingdom somehow will last in perpetuity. And we're told in the New Testament and by the latter prophets that this is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

By the gracious purpose of God, by God's covenant purposes, this wise man was given this throne. It was by God's promise that Solomon was established as a good king. But he is the king of Israel. That is no random appointment.

This is not the dog catcher. This is not a county judge. This is king of Israel, which has a lot to it. So in Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 14, we read Moses talking to Israel about what happens when they get themselves a king.

When you come to the land which the Lord your God has given you, and possess it, and dwell in it, and say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me. And indeed, they said that and did that during the days of Samuel.

Verse 15, you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses, one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you. You may not set a foreigner over you who is not your brother, but he shall not, listen, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt and multiply horses.

For the Lord has said to you, you shall not return that way again, meaning he's not going to be king because he has the most military power. He's not king by military force. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away.

He will not be king by a variety of political alliances, by his skill in diplomacy, as Solomon would later do, marrying so many wives, making political alliances. So not by merit of his military, not by merit of his political alliances, nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself, nor by the merit of all his wealth.

Now, how does someone become king and keep a kingship in the ancient Near East or stay in power today? By this, military might, political strength, exorbitant finances. This is the way that men lost in Adam understand power.

But how shall the king of Israel act? And so it should be when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book. We're going to write down God's words in a book.

From the one before the priest, the Levites, and it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life. He's going to be king because he's going to have God's Word, and he's going to stay with.

God's Word.

Every day he's going to write it for himself, he's going to read it for himself.

Why?

That he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes. Fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, knowledge, instruction, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, so he would not become prideful, so he would not become arrogant, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.

So then you hear, the king must depend upon the Lord and upon the Lord alone, so that he will not become arrogant and prideful, but remain humble and wise. Because if he doesn't do that, if he doesn't stay humble, if he doesn't stay wise, then his days will not be long in the land.

And things are going to go very poorly for his descendants, things are not going to work.

Out.

So keep in mind, Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel, there by God's grace, according to God's promise, but he stands as the king of Israel, Israel who is in covenant with God, and unless the wisdom precepts are followed from Proverbs, guess what?

They're not going to stay in the land very long. If they don't follow the wisdom of God and Proverbs, what are they going to lose out on? Their descendants are going to die, their children are going to perish, there's going to be great famine, there's going to be disaster.

You see? Proverbs is written with an eye towards covenant curses and blessings. Proverbs is written with an eye towards the considerations of the old covenant, as well as the entirety of creation, and of course, what is the covenant but an amplification of God's good creation.

Now in 1 Kings 3, we are reminded of the pursuit that Solomon made of wisdom. Now Solomon prayed to the Lord and says in verse 7, Now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king instead of my father David, but I am.

A little child.

You hear the humility? I do not know how to go out or come in, and your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted, as the sands of the seashore.

That's how much wisdom God gave to Solomon, as the sands of the seashore. Therefore give to your servant an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil. What's the basic thing that comes down to our decision-making in our lives when we are desperately in need of wisdom?

I want to make a good decision between what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, what is of eternal value and what is of eternal temporal value. What is it that God wants me to do?

And Solomon is saying, I need help with that, for who is able to judge this great people.

Of yours?

The speech pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked for this thing. And God says in verse 12, I have done according to your words, see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you.

In verse 14, if you walk in my ways and keep my statutes and my commandments as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days. And then Solomon goes to the temple, goes to the ark of the covenant of the Lord, goes to the tabernacle and worships.

When Solomon prays, he prays in recognition of the great promise that God had made to his father. He prays in light of who he's supposed to be as the king of Israel, and he does so in worship to God in the old covenant, and God grants all this wisdom to Solomon.

Now what about these Proverbs? One last reference to help us orient ourselves to this book, Ecclesiastes 12, verses 9 through 11, a summation of Solomon, who is here called the preacher, or in the Hebrew, Qoheleth.

And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge, yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many Proverbs. The preacher sought to find acceptable words, and what was written was upright words of.

Truth.

Now listen, verse 11, the words of the wise are like goads. That's not something comfortable if you were wondering. The words of the wise are not like hot chocolate and marshmallows. Goad is something that pokes you and prods you and brings change into your life.

The words of the wise are like goads, and the words of scholars are like well-driven nails given by one shepherd. And we know who the great shepherd in all wisdom is in Christ. Now reviewing all of that, I hope you can see that wisdom comes from God.

Where did Solomon get the wisdom from? He got it from God. Where was the king of Israel supposed to get wisdom from? From the Word of God. When Solomon prayed and God exalted him, it was because he prayed for wisdom and God granted.

It.

The wisdom that Solomon put into his Proverbs came from one shepherd. So if the beginning of wisdom is to get wisdom, we've got nothing better to do than to ask God for wisdom. Ask Him for wisdom. Desire it.

Ask God to set your heart upon it. Humble yourself in recognition of your need for wisdom. Say, I don't have it. I need it. Ask God for wisdom. James 1 .5 says, if anyone of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

Like, I don't like that word liberally. I understand. I mean, you're getting hives just from me reading that out of the Bible. God grants wisdom to you the way that liberals spend money. So ask for wisdom.

He's not going to hold back. He's going to give you wisdom like there ain't no tomorrow. We need wisdom. Ask in faith. Ask expectantly. Wisdom is essential for life. Look to the Lord and ask Him to grant you wisdom.

Wisdom.

The one who truly believes that God will grant him or her wisdom will then not do nothing but pursue wisdom in the obvious way that God has purposed it, and that is by hearing. By hearing. The one who asks God for funds to meet his financial needs but does nothing to change wasteful or lazy habits or refuses to work has not asked in faith.

True faith leads to the fitting response, the fitting act. So get wisdom by hearing. So the title of the book is there in verse 1, the Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel. But the title begs the question, why?

Why are these proverbs, why are these wise sayings composed and compiled and conveyed? The purpose, verses 2 through 4. So why do we need these proverbs? What's the point of the book? To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity, to give prudence to the simple, to the young man, knowledge, and discretion.

So all those verbs of know, perceive, receive, the giving, all of it provides momentum for a further explanation of who's going to benefit from this book and how. Verse 5, a wise man will hear. You see this?

A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel. And so the necessary words, instruction, and knowledge by which a wise man grows more wise and by which an understanding man increases in wise counsel must be received, attained by hearing.

That is not the acknowledgment of air vibrations. You ask your child, did you hear what I said? Those sounds did indeed disturb my eardrum. That's not the kind of hearing. This is the meaningful consent of the heart to what was said.

The kind of hearing that is a receiving, the kind of comprehension that is also a confession, the audio amplified by an ardent amen. It's basically God honking at you because you're a bad driver. Now there's two things that can happen when you get honked at because you're a bad driver.

You get really irritated with those people who are honking and disrupting the road, or you yield and you're thankful for the assist. I'm so glad they honked. I would have been in a bad way. Goads, nails well-driven, the wisdom of God is there to redirect us and our hearing must be something that is both humble and eager.

The kind of warm, welcoming hearing that we need to have is God's gracious means by which we attain the wise counsel God desires for us. Men of understanding understand that they need understanding, so they seek to attain wise counsel.

They actively search and acquire, all the while acknowledging God as a source of wisdom. And the purpose of hearing and attaining, learning, and wise counsel, verse 6, to understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and their riddles.

I think we see from this that the wise and understanding man must be humble. The prideful rejects God's Word. The humble hear, receive, and amen. The prideful rejects God's Word.

Why?

Because I'm too special. I'm too different from the Bible, from those who wrote the Bible, those to whom the Bible was first written. It was too long ago. I'm too modern. I'm too post-modern. You know, there's all sorts of things here that I reserve the right to say has nothing to do with me, and I have nothing to do with it.

I'm not going to listen to that. I'll pick and choose, because I know better. I know better. I'm just too precious for God, all right? That's the prideful approach. The hallmark of pride is wanting to be heard.

Now, I'm going to tell God the ways in which He could help. The hallmark of humility is wanting to hear. And what is required of our hearing but this, first of all, we have to be silent. Now, that's difficult to do, to be silent.

Let something else be said. Or be silent in the silence and not have to say anything. And not just the kind of silence where we're just waiting for someone else to stop talking so we can go ahead and get across our point, because we love to hear our point.

Hearing requires silence. Hearing also requires discernment. Thinking about what's true and what's false, what has God said, actively listening and thinking about what it is that is true, what is good, according to God.

And then also, the kind of hearing that we're talking about is the kind of hearing that.

Does.

The kind of hearing that is such an amen, that we follow through on what God has... If we're going to pray for wisdom and ask for wisdom and then God grants wisdom and then we don't touch it, don't use it, what kind of hearing is that?

So the wise man is one who seeks more wisdom. The understanding man wants to understand more. The wise and understanding man is humble in that he knows he needs more wisdom and needs more understanding.

He does not privately say to himself and to others, I've gotten all the wisdom and understanding I need. The wise man is not the one who has all the wisdom, who thinks he has all the wisdom. The wise man is the one who keeps listening to the one in whom all the treasures of wisdom are hid.