The Beginning of Knowledge - Brandon Scalf

Heritage Church Tulsa

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7. And the title of this evening's message is,

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The Beginning of Knowledge. The Beginning of Knowledge.

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And if you would, please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy, infallible, and all -sufficient

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Word. And for the sake of context, I will begin reading in verse 1.

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Proverbs chapter 1, verse 1 through verse 7.

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This is the Word of God, the Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.

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To know wisdom and discipline, to understand the sayings of understanding, to receive discipline that leads to insight, righteousness, justice, and equity.

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To give prudence to the simple, to the youth, knowledge, and discretion.

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Let the wise man hear and increase in learning. And a man of understanding will acquire guidance.

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To understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and their riddles.

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The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge. Ignorant fools despise wisdom and discipline.

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The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Amen? Amen. Go ahead and have a seat and find your eyes on verse 7.

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It should go without saying that we live in the most technologically advanced time in human history.

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We have the wary world at our fingertips. With a simple search and a search engine, we could know all there is to know in terms of all that is available to us to learn.

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At least speaking, of course, from an earthly or humanly perspective.

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As a matter of fact, the Bible software that I use is becoming more and more technologically advanced to the point that it scares me.

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It summarizes multiple resources at the click of a button and instead of doing hard, hard, hard, laborious work that I spend a lot of dollars and a lot of time doing in seminary, people can just do it in about 15 seconds.

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Medical procedures and knowledge are more helpful than they've ever been in many ways.

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Although, as we've saw during the COVID era, as silly as it's ever been. And I could go on and on and explain to you about how we have so much information and we are so blessed beyond measure to exist in the time in which we exist because of that reality.

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But despite that, despite the fact that we are essentially drowning in information, we can't seem to use it.

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We can't seem to apply it. We can't seem to be filled with actual wisdom and knowledge.

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Our culture is consumed by the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, but they are deaf to it.

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They are deaf to its source and they are deaf to its truth because they are deaf to its source.

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Despite the information, our culture drowns in ignorance.

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And what this text is going to show us is that knowledge, apart from the fear of Yahweh, the fear of God, is destructive and it blinds eyes.

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It is a great tragedy that knowledge that is pursued apart from the fear of God leads not to enlightenment but enslavement.

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I want you to look with me here. In verse 7, it tells us if we want to not be like our culture, if we want to not be like people in the here and now that are drowning in ignorance by being covered in information, we need to fear

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Yahweh. So the first thing that I want you to see as we look at this text is the foundation of knowledge,

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His self. You could say itself, but it means much more theologically to say

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Himself. The foundation of knowledge Himself. It says here the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge.

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There are a few things that I want to draw your attention to as we look at verse 7, the first half of it.

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And it's not going to be in order, but it's going to be, I think, and hopefully helpful to you to look at.

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The first thing is that it says that the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge. It's the beginning of knowledge.

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And so what that means, very plainly, is that you don't get knowledge apart from the fear of Yahweh.

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That if you want to be a person that is knowledgeable, then you have to be acquainted with the

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God of the Bible. If you have filled your mind with lots of stuff, but that stuff is not the fear of Yahweh, then you haven't taken the first step in being knowledgeable.

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You have not taken the first step to being filled with any sort of wisdom.

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Now I'm going to use wisdom and knowledge somewhat similarly.

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I'm going to say them in parallel ways, although I know that there's probably, at least in some of your minds, a difference in the two.

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And to some degree they are different. But Proverbs 9 .10,

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a little bit further on down the road, the author here, Solomon, is going to say that the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the

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Holy One is understanding. So there is a certain level of parallelism happening here in the book of Proverbs between wisdom and knowledge.

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Now the customary or common way to look at that is to say that knowledge is information and wisdom is how one applies that information.

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That's the way that people generally think about this. But the reality is you can't have knowledge and apply it correctly without the fear of God.

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And so for our purposes today, they're the same thing. They're the same thing.

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So the foundation of knowledge himself, the foundation of wisdom himself, is

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God. Now, if you are the thinking type, then you are probably thinking to yourself, how do

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I make sense of this? And the reason that you're probably asking that is because a lot of times pastors and theologians do not talk about the fear of God.

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One, because it's a little confusing, and two, it seems to bump up against things that we know about God, especially if we define fear incorrectly.

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For instance, fear is oftentimes juxtaposed with love.

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In 1 John 4, verse 18, John says, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves punishment.

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And the one who fears is not perfected in love. So if we are good thinking

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Christians who read our Bibles and we read 1 John, but then we also read Proverbs, we see some sort of a conundrum.

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What makes matters worse is the number one command in all of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, if you count them up, is fear not.

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God's number one command that he gives to his children is do not fear.

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Do not fear. And this complicates matters further, right?

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Because not only is God telling us through the author of Proverbs that we must fear

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God in order to begin being knowledgeable, but that we need to fear.

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And more than that, we need to fear God. Why would a loving

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God need to be or want to be feared? And why does that lead to knowledge?

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Well, most certainly there is a good fear and a bad fear or a right fear and a wrong fear or the fear of Yahweh and the fear of everything else.

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As a matter of fact, I think as you will see, as we journey through this text, you will see that a proper fear of God, a proper fear of Yahweh actually drives out all the other types of fear.

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But we have to get to what is being said. There is the kind of fear that the author of Proverbs is saying here.

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And then there's the type of fear, for instance, that James, the brother of Jesus, talks about when he says that even demons believed and shuddered.

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There's a fear of God that produces good. And then there's a fear of God where you stand back and you are afraid of the day that he will in fact crush you if you are not a part of his people and in his

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Christ. That kind of fear drives you from God.

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But the type of fear that's being talked about here and in the rest of the Bible, as it's pointed at,

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God is one that causes you to look toward and move toward God.

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Now you might be saying, well, you're just saying that there's not these different types of fear. Hold on.

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Moses shows us in Exodus chapter 20, verse 20. It says, and Moses said to the people, speaking to the

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Israelite community, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid for God has come in order to test you and order that the fear of him may be with you so that you may not sin.

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Did you catch that? Moses tells the people of Israel not to fear and then says he's telling them not to fear and that God is there so that, or in order that, they might actually fear him.

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The fear of the Lord might be with them so that they might live righteously.

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So there's something about fear in God that's not like fear that everyone else has that also leads to holiness, to trusting

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God's good nature and his promises and his law. We can see this in Jeremiah 33.

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When he's speaking about the prophet here, the new covenant, he says, and I will cleanse them. Speaking of those whom would be cleansed, the

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Israelites first, us by extension and in fulfillment,

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I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me.

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And I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against me and by which they have transgressed against me.

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And it will be to me a name of joy, praise, and beauty before all the nations of the earth, which will hear of all the good that I do them.

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And they will be in dread and tremble because of all the good and all the peace that I make of it.

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So the matter gets more complicated because this fear not only enables us to live righteously according to Exodus 20, 20, but here, what we see is that it is having to do with a name of joy.

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It has to do with praise and beauty, and they will fear and be in dread because of the good that God does.

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So if we just pause and we listen and we think there is a type of fear that we must have of God that causes us to reflect upon his goodness, love it, cherish it, and want more.

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So what is this fear? Well, the Hebrew word used in this verse here conveys a sense of reverence, a sense of awe, if you will, of a all -supreme being who demands and warrants your submission.

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So this is not a dreadful type of fear, though it's not less than that, but it's a type of fear that rests in God's godness.

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It is a type of fear that looks a lot like love. Now, that's a weird thing to say because a lot of people don't preach it that way.

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They don't think about it that way. They like all. They like, and also, what do you do with love?

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There's a book I've been reading by a man who works at Union Seminary, and he kind of teases this out and says the reason that this is so complicated is because we don't understand what love actually is, and we don't understand that love actually is dependent upon the object that it is aimed at and the level in which that communicates.

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Now, if that doesn't make any sense to you, let me explain it to you this way. If I said,

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I love my dog, if you know me, you know that's a true statement.

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But then I said, I love my smoker. You guys would say, oh, okay,

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I believe that. Do you love it the same as you love your dog? But then if I said, I love my wife, well, now things start to get even more complicated because certainly

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I don't love my dog and my smoker and my wife the same. And if I did, there would be something wrong with me.

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But then I say, I love my God. I love my

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God. Well, now I love my dog. I love my smoker. I love my wife, and I love my

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God. And somehow, they all get the same word, love. But each love and the way you define that love is determined by the greatness of the object that that love is pointed at.

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And so to fear God is to love God with only the love that God deserves.

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It's a fearful love. It's a trembling love. It's an all -encompassing love that makes you completely weak in the knees, so to speak, but not romantically.

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I saw something on TikTok or something earlier, the reels in the Instagram or whatever. And they were talking about God wants to romance you, some famous viral thing.

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He wants to woo you and win you, but he's not trying to romance you. The reality is that this type of love for God, this fearful love, this fear of God is a trembling love where you are completely overwhelmed.

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It is the type of love for God as God is God that can only be given to God because he's

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God. Does that make sense? It is what

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God deserves because he's God. And it is what God gets that completely enthralls you in his

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Godness. It's affection, but it's awareness that he could crush us at any moment.

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It's reverence, and it's awe, and it's beauty. It's transcendence, especially in Christ.

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It's nearness. It's all -encompassing. It's everything. Now, I want you to think about it like this.

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Children, would you look at me? What I'm trying to get across to you is this. Have any of you ever been to the

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Grand Canyon or seen pictures of it? Anyone? Okay, this might be a really horrible example for the children.

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My bad, but I'm going to roll with it because it's in my notes. So if you've never been to the

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Grand Canyon, let me explain it to you. It's a big hole in the ground in the middle of Arizona, right near Flagstaff, as a matter of fact, and it's awesome.

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And I know you're thinking, how can a hole in the ground be awesome? Well, because we won. We don't know how it got there.

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I mean, we can, you know, take guesses at it and all these sorts of things, but also it's so big.

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It is so big, and it is so beautiful. And when you see it, it just takes your breath away because you can't even wrap your mind around fully what you're seeing.

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For those of you who have been to the Grand Canyon, am I lying? No, it's mesmerizing.

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It's mesmerizing. And what I find absolutely insane about going to the

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Grand Canyon is there's no like rails. You figure this place would be like roped off so that people couldn't just, you know, jump off of it, but it's not.

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So you can get right to the edge, and there's a lot of emotions that come with looking at the

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Grand Canyon. It's grandeur is in your face, and it's so beautiful, and you just want to be as close to it as you can.

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And yet, you know that at any moment, if your foot were to slip, you'd be done.

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This is how we ought to think about fear of God. We got to think about it as approaching him humbled and irreverent, yet drawn to his beauty and his glory and his is -ness, his

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God -ness that is indescribable in everything that it is.

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So the fear of Yahweh is a trembling love of what is insanely hard and impossible to fully wrap our arms around.

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And we feel this, and we see it, and we fear when we acknowledge his sovereignty, when we are astonished by his

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Christ, and when we're surprised by his love.

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And I want to tease this out a little bit more, because I think it's important, and we're going to see actually how these two things come together, and how the

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Bible really ties this idea of both love and fear into the same thing.

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But one of the things that I want to say is this before moving on, because I know there are a number of men sitting in here who love theology, even a few men who desire to be pastors, even one who is in the pipeline to become an elder potentially here.

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And this is what I want to say. I want to say that there is no knowledge apart from this type of fear.

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You can fill your brains with all the stuff in the books. You can memorize all the

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Greek verbs and Hebrew verbs, and you can learn to parse, and you can learn to get into all of the nitty -gritty.

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But at the end of the day, it's all meaningless if it's not leading to and causing you to fear

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Yahweh. If it's just stuff to fill your head, you haven't started getting knowledge.

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You haven't started getting wisdom. One of the things that I want to do here now is

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I want to back up, and I want to just turn your gaze, if you will, to Isaiah chapter 8, verses 11 and 12 and 13.

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And this is my second point. First, the foundation of knowledge

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Himself. And then I want you to see here is that this source of knowledge

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Himself, in fearing Him, it protects us.

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So I want to make this plain, because I'm a verse -by -verse guy. I'm going to jump out of this for a second. I'm going to plop down there.

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We're going to talk about some stuff, and then we're going to plop out and plop back in. Okay? That's what we're going to do.

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But I want to do that for this very simple reason, because I want you to see something. In Isaiah chapter 8, verses 11, 12, and 13, the prophet

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Isaiah says this. For thus Yahweh spoke to me, of course, speaking to Isaiah, with a strong hand and disciplined me not to walk in the way of this people, saying,

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You are not to say it is a conspiracy in regard to all that this people call a conspiracy.

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And you are not to fear what they fear, and you shall not tremble.

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And so Moses, or not Moses, Isaiah, rather, is saying, God told me not to fear what they fear.

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He's saying that I need to fear something else. And he continues on in 13, it is

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Yahweh of host whom you should regard as holy, and he shall be your fear, and he shall be your cause for trembling.

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See here, not only is the fear of God lead to knowledge, of course, begins you on the journey anyhow, it also protects you from the fear of man, from the fear of circumstance, and many times, in many ways, cultural deception.

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You see that very clearly from this text. Isaiah warns against the fear of man, which leads to compromise.

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But the fear of the Lord guards our hearts and our minds.

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First Corinthians chapter 1, verse 20 says, Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?

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Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? When you fear God, that stuff out there looks foolish, and the stuff in here looks foolish to them.

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Right? The cross is a folly to those who are perishing.

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Let me ask you this question. How influenced are you by the shifting tides of what the world has to say about any given thing, the tides of culture, and what they value?

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Only a fear of God will drive out fear and anxiety everywhere else. It protects you also from eternal ruin.

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The fear of the Lord points us to Jesus Christ, which we'll get at here in a moment, but in here is my third point.

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These things are all true, and I want you to feel them. I want you to see them. The fear of Yahweh, this trembling love, starts us down the path of knowledge.

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It is the beginning of knowledge. It's ground zero for knowledge, and it protects us from the fear of man.

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It protects us from the fear of circumstance, and it protects us from cultural deception, and it protects us from eternal ruin.

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Now I want you to see the foolishness of rebellion. The foolishness of rebellion.

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So you see that. Now I want you to see this. Look at verse 7 again, the second half. It says, Ignorant fools despise wisdom and discipline.

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So the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge, but the ignorant fools despise wisdom and discipline.

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I love the way that the Legacy Standard Bible renders this, and it adds this modifier, ignorant fools, instead of just saying fools, because they are ignorant, but they're not ignorant because they don't know.

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They're willfully ignorant. So in some ways, I wish they would have put willfully ignorant, but I'll settle for ignorant.

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Ignorant fools. And these fools despise wisdom, and they despise knowledge.

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The reason that the LSB renders this the way that they do is ignorant fools, although many translations do not, is because this

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Hebrew word describes not just those who don't know things, but those who are morally and spiritually bankrupt and blind.

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They're not ignorant because they don't know information. They're ignorant because they want to be, because they rebel against God.

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They're blind to the fear of God because they want to be.

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They will not fear God because they won't fear God. They can't fear

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God because they won't fear God. And so this is already kind of pulling at the tapestry of what we know about biblical theology, right?

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So in order to feel fear Yahweh properly, to have this trembling love, we must be born again.

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But I want you to think about this. This here is a rejection of divine wisdom, of divine knowledge.

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And to despise these things are to despise God Himself, for all wisdom flows from Him.

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Job 28 .28 says, so he said to man, behold the fear of the

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Lord. That is wisdom. So when you fear the Lord, you're being wise.

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And to turn away from evil is understanding. So when you turn away from evil and behold the fear of the

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Lord, you are in fact doing what you were meant to do.

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But here's something interesting that maybe you've never considered. There is not a single person who doesn't know that there's a

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God. Have you heard this? Do you know this truth?

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There's not a single person that has breath in their lungs who does not know there is a

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God. Here's what that means. Atheists, agnostics, those aren't things.

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It's evident. It's evident that God is

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God and He is here and that He is real.

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Romans 1 .18 makes this irrefutably clear. For the wrath of God, Paul says, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

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You see, when you don't fear God, you do this. You stuff the truth.

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You're made in the image of God. You see God in creation doing all of the things that He does, and that's what Paul gets into here.

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And you just take that and you just stuff it. Kind of like you did when you were in sports and you twisted that ankle or you hurt that elbow or you did whatever you needed to do and you just pretended, ah, it's not that big of a deal.

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You know, your bone might be popping out, but you're like, we've got to win this game. You just close your eyes and pretend reality is not what it is.

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That's the problem with everybody who says that they don't believe in God or they don't know if there's a

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God. No, you're a liar who is suppressing the truth, silencing the truth, doing away with the truth.

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He goes on, because that which is known about God is evident within them. For God made it evident to them.

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For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are what?

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Without excuse. For even though they knew God, they knew

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Him. The plot thickens. They did not glorify

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Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened.

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Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible

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God for an image and the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and of four -footed animals and crawling creatures.

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They wanted the lie. They wanted the lie.

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So not only is the fear of Yahweh the beginning of knowledge, but ignorant fools don't even want knowledge.

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They don't. They would rather believe lies so that they would stand as their own

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God, wear their own self -made crowns. And what does God do in Romans 1 to judge them for that?

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He sent fire down from heaven. No, He didn't do any of that. He gave them what they wanted.

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He gave them a debased mind. Okay, don't fear me. See where that goes.

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Sometimes judgment looks like God giving you what you want. You won't find that on a coffee cup at Mardell's, but it's true.

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It's true. And so man, apart from Christ, trusting in the fear or having fear of God, cuts himself off from life, cuts himself off from knowledge like a man strained in the desert, cuts himself off from a compass.

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The fear of God is true north. It makes everything else make sense. This is why it's great to go out and do evangelism with us.

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And people begin to talk to us, oh, Christ isn't real. God's not real.

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Now, how do you know that? My Bible tells me that the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.

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And you're claiming to have knowledge apart from God. And so I don't see how this works very well.

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Well, your God is not loving. Okay, well, that's interesting because my

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God is love. God is love, right? And so to understand what love is, you have to understand my

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God. And so all you're doing is borrowing from the truth that is in my

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God, the only God, the true God. And you're trying to redefine, you're just twisting truth.

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You're twisting reality. You're not gaining any ground. You're just ignorant.

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You're an ignorant fool who suppresses the truth and unrighteousness.

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And these ignorant fools, they do some things. And it's not study books, although they will study themselves stupid.

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They despise wisdom and they despise discipline. So instead of fearing

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Yahweh, they despise wisdom and they despise discipline. The word for instruction here carries the idea of correction and training.

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And what this is getting at here is that ignorant fools, they resist this. They resist this wisdom and discipline, this correction and training because they love sin and they hate righteousness.

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This is a good point for you to pause, by the way. Am I teachable?

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Do I give myself over to correction?

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Do I hate discipline? No, no.

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People who fear Yahweh, they love discipline because as Hebrews chapter 12, they understand that that produces something in us, namely, a holiness without which no one will see the

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Lord. They'll be conformed to the image of the son. So when we are, as Hebrews 12 says, scourged, it's because God loves us.

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He disciplines us. True wisdom, true knowledge delights in correction because when we are corrected, it draws us ever nearer to God himself.

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So what is this all about? The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge.

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You must have this trembling fear. You must not be like the ignorant fool who despises wisdom and despises discipline.

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You must fear God. Now, we wouldn't be

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Christian if we didn't talk about Christ. So where does he fit in? How does that work?

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That's a good question, which is my next point, which is the focus of true knowledge, and that, of course, is

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Christ. The focus of true knowledge. Now, is Christ the wisdom of Proverbs?

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This is a question we could ask, or at least it's a question you might want to ask, considering that Paul says in many letters that he is wisdom to us.

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Now, there are some theologians and commentators who see this kind of personification of wisdom to be speaking of Jesus Christ, foreshadowing, in particular, things if like we look at Proverbs chapter 8 verse 12 and 36.

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They also see Christ as the divine wisdom. Proverbs presents wisdom as eternal and active in creation, which

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Proverbs does, in 8, 22, and 31. And this parallels

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John chapter 1 verses 1 through 3. As a matter of fact, when you look at Proverbs chapter 1, 20 through 33, let's look at that right now, 1, 20 through 23.

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It says, wisdom shouts in the street. She gives forth her voice in the square. At the head of the noisy streets, she calls out.

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At the entrance of the gates in the city, she utters her sayings.

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How long, O simple ones, will you love simplicity? And scoffers delight in scoffing, and fools hate knowledge.

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Turn to my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you, and I will make my words known to you.

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Certain commentators and theologians will say that this is wisdom calling out.

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Of course, we'd agree with that. But wisdom calling out to humanity can be seen as a picture of Christ inviting sinners to repentance and faith.

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And depending on where you land there, I think a lot of that can be true, and we want to make sure that we're not reading too much into it as well.

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But Proverbs 1, 7 most certainly points to Christ in that Christ himself perfectly feared the

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Father. And we see this on Isaiah chapter 11, verse 2 and 3. And he calls us to follow him in reverence and mission for sure.

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And he is also wisdom's centrality. Colossians 2, 3, it says of Jesus that in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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So this is most certainly true. The fear of the Lord ultimately drives us to Christ because he is the wisdom of God.

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First Corinthians chapter 1, verse 30 says, But by his doing, you are in Christ Jesus.

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So because God, right, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God and a righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

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More than that, First Corinthians chapter 1, verse 22 makes the argument that he is the embodiment of wisdom. But to those who are called,

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Paul says, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. So Christ is the wisdom of God.

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Children, I want you to think about it like this. Have you ever been to a library? Ever seen one? All right. That's got to be an easier one than the

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Grand Canyon. The library filled with books. Okay. I want you to imagine that.

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Imagine a library filled with the wisdom of the ages.

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And that is what books are. It's filled with wisdom. Yet Christ is the living book and whom all treasures of wisdom are found.

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Christ unlocks all other wisdom because he is wisdom. He's the way, the truth, and the life, and he is wisdom.

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That's pretty nuts. So we must pursue Christ above all.

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And we make him the center of our studies when we think about how to fear

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Yahweh. So I don't have much time and I could literally just go on for days, but here's what

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I want to do with the remaining time that we have. I want to ask the question, how does Christ, specifically in the cross of Christ, display this wisdom that it might, and here's how it connects, drive our fear of Yahweh?

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It might bolster it. It might act as a catapult.

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Let's look at him. Christ, specifically in the cross of Christ, is the wisdom of God because in the cross,

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God does the unthinkable and harmonizes his justice with his mercy in a way that only

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God can. You've heard me talk about this ad nauseam.

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God is holy and he hates all who do evil, and that includes you and me. Psalm 5.

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I didn't make that up. You're not in Steven Anderson's church, okay? It's just the truth.

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And so he must, he must demand justice and he must deal with it swiftly and he must do so because he is

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God and God is good and good people do not ignore justice. And yet, in the cross of Christ, mercy is extended to us and it's not just extended to us by him saying, oh, it's okay.

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It'll be all right. You're forgiven. No. He would be evil if he did that, but he maintains his justice while he extends his mercy by satisfying it with the blood of the sinless lamb of God.

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It is Christ who bears the punishment to our sin, satiating God's desire to pour justice down on the guilty.

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He absorbs the wrath of God on our behalf that we not taste his justice.

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If we are in him, this is why Romans chapter three, verse 25 and 26 says, whom God is this

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Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith for a demonstration of his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed.

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So how could God forgive the old saints? Even though Christ did not come yet in the new covenant formally covenanted, not because he promised in Genesis three, though he did do that, but because of Jesus, he continues on for the demonstration of his righteousness at this present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

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So these old Testament saints could be saved by the new covenant by looking to it in faith, by looking to it in faith, because he was slaughtered to harmonize this justice and this mercy.

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As a matter of fact, many theologians, many pastors have said the cross is where God's justice and mercy kiss.

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Do with that what you will. Their mercy is extended.

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Sinners are forgiven and reconciled to God through faith in Christ. This is why St. Corinthians says in five 21, he that is

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God made him that is Jesus who knew no sin to be sent on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God and him.

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Now you tell me in this resolving of that tension, the justice and mercy piece, is that a way that human beings would conceive to deal with that problem?

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No, we'd figure out how we could fix it. Another reason you know the

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Bible is true, because not one disciple is looked at as a hero. They all look like a bunch of goofballs like us.

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They're always messing up. They never know what Jesus is talking about. It's kind of like I said, it's kind of a side little tangent here, but I mean, if you wrote the

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Bible and you were making stuff up, you'd be like, and so there I was just being awesome. And Jesus said,

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Hey, here's a wild parable I got for you. And I nailed the interpretation of that.

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You should have been there, right? That would be the Bible we wrote. And so this idea that God was simultaneously uphold his justice, that his wrath that burns toward us and also at the same time, give us mercy and do so in a way that satiated that's completely mind blowing.

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That's the wisdom of God on display. And it defied all expectations. The wisdom of the cross appears as folly to the world now.

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And it most certainly did when it happened, but it overturns human wisdom and throws it out the door.

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First Corinthians chapter one, verse eight, 25 says, for the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

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It's stupid. It's silly. Well, I don't want to open up my mouth and speak on behalf of Christ because people will think

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I'm crazy. Look, if it's not true, you are crazy. It's nuts.

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But if it is true, you're crazy for not opening your mouth. You're crazy for not giving your life to Christ.

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And you're crazy for not fearing shock way. And I'm not saying anything that Paul didn't say, right.

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Cause Paul said, eat and drink. Like if, if, if Christ had not been risen from the dead, eat and drink and be

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Mary for what tomorrow we die. What he was saying was, if this is all fake, we might as well just party because that's all we got.

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And so here we are. But to those who are being saved, he continues on.

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It is the power of God for it is written. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever.

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I will set aside. You see the Jews then expected a conquering

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Messiah. Instead, Christ conquered through apparent defeat. The cross.

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In other words, it's some of the best camouflage that has ever been orchestrated.

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The Gentiles sought philosophical enlightenment, but instead God shows the foolishness or the

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Gentiles rather foolishness of the cross to reveal his wisdom.

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First Corinthians one 21, four cents in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know

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God. God was well -pleased to do the foolishness of the message preach to save those who believe.

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So even in preaching, and this is not something that I want to say all the time, but it's true, right?

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This right here is foolishness. And what I mean by that is when

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God uses a broken sinner like you, who's not great at oratory, who, if you looked at his life, doesn't have that much going on impressively, other than he loves

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God to preach a message about a man dying on a cross, absorbing the wrath of God and resurrecting on the third day sentence into that like as foolishness.

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And it pleased God through the foolishness. It says the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe

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God and the preaching of his word turns worldly wisdom on its head.

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Keeps me humble. Do you think about it that way? It reveals the depths of God's plan.

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It demonstrates his eternal plan of redemption, which was hidden through the ages, but walking through the book of Ephesians talks about the mystery of Christ.

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It has not been revealed to the old Testament saints as it has now been revealed to them. And it causes his redemptive work that was orchestrated before the foundation of the world to be put into plain sight.

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This is in Revelation chapter 13, verse 8, the lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.

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And then Paul says in first Corinthians chapter two, verse seven, verses seven and eight, that the rulers of this age did not understand

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God's plan because if they had, they would not have. And you know, this verse crucified the

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Lord of glory. If they had feared Yahweh, they would have known

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Jesus for Jesus. And they wouldn't have killed him. And yet it was the predetermined plan of God to have them kill

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Jesus so that your sins could be purchased. If that's not wisdom, if that's not knowledge,

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I don't know what is. He overcomes evil with good and he unites all things in Christ, Ephesians, right?

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Chapter one, verses nine and 10, he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him for an administration of the fullness of times.

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That is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

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And not only that, but he takes this finished work of Christ on the cross and in his wisdom applies it by the spirit and creates trophies of his grace, you and me.

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And in so doing, he glorifies himself supremely.

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The cross glorifies every aspect of who God is. It upholds his Godness and it shows you him.

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And this ought to cause us to fear, to lovingly, to stand in awe of, to be weak in the knees, to let his love be a love that transcends any love that we have ever experienced ever.

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Look what he's done. Look who he is. And if you can't get there, the book of Proverbs says, you've not even begun your first step in understanding, your step in knowledge.

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If you don't know God in Christ, you don't know Jack. That's the point.

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That's the point. Everything is empty. Everything is missing of the plot.

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Every math problem is missing a number. You see what I'm saying? It's all about Christ.

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And it drives us to fear, to fear Yahweh. So if you want to be an ignorant fool, despise wisdom, despise discipline, look away from God's plan.

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But if you want to know things, if you want to be engulfed in knowledge and not ignorance, fear

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Yahweh, fear Yahweh. We pray for our time together.

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Father, we thank you. We thank you for your Christ. We thank you for your wisdom that you put on display that helps us to see you, to fear you, and to fall prostrate at your feet.

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We just ask that you would help drive these truths home deeper and deeper and deeper, that we might continue and we might grow in our fear of you.