In fallible scripture by which I mean it fallible as a direction as for our lives in Aaron as to its source but for the circle to be complete it takes illumination and while as teachers we can participate in that ultimately it's a work of the Holy Spirit that would depend upon him all grace is from him so we do not rest on our education though we trust God would be pleased to use it totally dependent upon the Spirit of God to make it alive in our hearts isn't that spirit that I come to you as fellow believers that we might taste and enjoy a portion of God's word that he's that may into study for about 25 years now in the book of Proverbs we are a people of the year we are not a people of the eye I don't think any of us has seen God the New Testament normally God is in the old as well he's rarely seen but he's always present in word and the people of God here God spiritual what they hear in the spiritual here is more real than what they hear with the physical here and we hear it as the word of God and that's God's good gift to us so it's a privilege to be part of that book of Proverbs as you know is the book par excellence for wisdom we'll have to define that term but basically wisdom as we shall see means skill it's a book that's going to give us a skill of living there a kid in the begins his commentary quite quickly on he says the book of Proverbs takes up those matters Merch those matters that are too fine to be caught in the mesh of the law too small to be hit by the breadside of a prophet takes up the details of the living and how do you relate to your spouse how do you relate to your children how do you handle your money how do you speak really it takes up the matters where we really live for a large extent so I suppose to be looking at that kind of material in the first hour I will be lecturing from the book's own introduction to orient you to the book purposes not only to understand the introduction but to give you a frame of reference or your future reading of this portion of God's words so that you read it more intelligently and more richly that you can share that with others the second hour I want to take up how to know God through the book of Proverbs I think most of us come to the book of Proverbs expecting to know God if that's exactly why the book was written that we might encounter for that God might encounter us beyond that that we will know God now we want to understand the dynamics of how is it we know God for the book of Proverbs the truth of the matter is what we say here is applicable to all scripture it's a way of approaching scripture tomorrow night I want to take up the topic first thing does the book of Proverbs promise too much it's promises seem it's heavenly promises seem detached from earth's realities it seems in fact to teach a health wealth and prosperity gospel and while we accept its inspiration existentially we have trouble identifying with it with muzzle been reading it because it just doesn't seem true one time had an honest student he said to me for he took a course in Proverbs with me he said you know I used to think the book of Proverbs with either banal or wrong was honest I think many people feel that way about the book and so I have to grapple with that to get over that so that you understand how do you approach these heavenly promises of health long life peace that's overflowing with wine and bonds filled with grain and yet life isn't all that weird when we look upon a lord fought across got a grapple with that the second out will be more a popery in which I'll take selected text and read them more quickly to fill in blanks along the way and then Sunday morning the Lord will and I hope to take up its two dominant topics to be more topical preaching Christmas folks will not have been here during these evening sessions so I'm going to take up the topic of how to speak wisely all relationships come back to speech and communication and our problem is often we don't know how to talk to one another and I want to help us to learn how to speak in the church and in society and finally I want to talk on the other important topic is I want to give you a framework of philosophy of wise money for the book of Proverbs how do you think about your finances I think many times Christian have guilt about their finances and I find the book of Proverbs very helpful to think about money and so I will talk about smart money I think you have in hand an outline of all these things six lectures so if you wish you can follow along your outline and fill in I will give every time question and answer I would hope the questions would focus principally upon this material but God has called me to be a teacher of the that section of the canon which we call the old testament and while I'm here as a resource person I'm glad that if I could help I'm here to be you as a servant in Christ and I want to thank Dan for allowing me to participate in his ministry I want to thank the session for entrusting the sacred lectern to me I want to thank Ken for all the work he did to get me here and it's a delight to be with you because I recognize you had a prayer authorized to be here you could be at a movie you could be watching TV and you can be here and you are the excellent one who would choose the things of God and it's a privilege to be with you so with that background and oh I'll get time for question aside from the question and answer we can range I will stop and allow time for clarification questions to make sure it's clear or challenging questions a alternative way of looking at it what you may have thought for years about something and interact with it it's your time so there will be the time to ask questions so there's only one dumb question really and that's a question you honestly have that you don't ask there's nobody any good so feel free to ask questions there are no dumb questions except those you don't ask okay those are mute let's begin then in Proverbs chapter one verses one through seven which is the book's preamble and many times people begin directly with the Proverbs of chapter 10 and verse one and you'll see if you look at Proverbs chapter 10 and verse one we're told the Proverbs of Solomon that's where they actually begin but you must start a chapter 10 you never start any book at chapter 10 you start at chapter one because if you start at chapter 10 you might think this is a how-to book just got to learn some Proverbs and do them you all know that doesn't work you have to have the preamble and the prologue and I'm going to spend most of my time in the prologue which prepares your heart to receive the Proverbs it's not a how-to book it's a character developing book and unless your character is developed by the Holy Spirit it will mock us we will not be able to give it anymore than any other New Year's resolution we might have so we have to spend time on the prologue that develops our character and out of our character comes appropriate conduct with its rewards I'm reading from the new international version the Proverbs of Solomon son of David King of Israel for attaining more literally for knowing wisdom the problem the reason in the NIV we did not translate it to no wisdom is that the average reader would think that means to know about in fact the New RSV does it's a fairly good translation of my judgment but handles this very badly when it says for knowing about wisdom there is no dichotomy between knowing about wisdom and knowing wisdom you do not know something until you experience it you can know about it you can know about the gospel but you don't know Jesus until you experience Jesus and you really make a commitment then you know you don't know until you can have a bike and learn all about the bike but you don't know riding a bike until you ride a bike and fall a couple of times then you know and you don't know wisdom by studying the book and the book was written that you might know which means to internalize it experience it know it existentially and so we translated it there for for attaining wisdom if you haven't King James is going to say to know here which is good but I think it miscommunicates the knowing wisdom and I think better here would be instruction it's the word Musaar can mean either instruction or discipline or lesson and if it's verbal it's instruction to quell our waywardness if it's corporal we would translate it discipline I will translate it here for attaining wisdom and instruction for understanding words of insight for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life namely doing what is right and just and hard to translate word living within boundaries the problem with modern America is we want freedom without form we want liberty without law we want love making without marriage that is anarchy it cannot endure we need to know form and when you have form then you can have real freedom but without that you have anarchy and we have substituted libertinism for liberty and it's disastrous and we're reaping the consequences and that's the idea of this word fair it's known to live within boundaries equity for giving prudence different word I'll come after this or not it's the word used for the serpent in Genesis 31 for giving subtlety shrewdness subtlety and the next word simple is I think better translated I'll put in my commentary gullible the word petite means to be open and the problem with America is today we are open to everything and committed to nothing this is album plumes book as you well aware but it is to those who are uncommitted sometimes translated naive but I would translate gullible because they're open to everything they believe everything knowing knowledge and discretion to the youth not are and as we'll see the book was principally written for young people at this age of puberty about to be married that's the direct audience of the book and to a large extent in this book the seven uses of the word youth is somewhat negative follow is bound up in the heart of the youth translated child that's the word used here but beyond that it is also for the wise let the wise listen and add to their learning and let the discerning get guidance indeed this is the book of guidance and the tragedy is most of the young people in the church at large do not know it they're trying to find gods will often bury sincerely don't know what the Bible says about how to marry for understanding proverbs that always need interpretation hence proverbs and parables it means proverbs that need to be interpreted and that is the material of Solomon the sands of the wise and their riddles they too need interpretation and then the key of the book the fear of the Lord that's foundational to this knowledge but fools despise wisdom and instruction the preamble then has three parts to it we have a pro-supercription in verse one we have the purpose for the book in verses two through six and we have the motto the book's motto and key you cannot get into the book until you've gone through the gate the wicked gate of children's progress you don't get on to the celestial city until you've gone through the wicked gate that's with a tea not with a day remember how thougas fragments opens and thougas finds himself he's left the city of destruction and he finds himself at the wicked gate with a tea and he either goes through it and he's on the road to the celestial city or he turns back to the city of destruction and that's verse seven it takes you to the wicked gate through which you must go to get into this book or you're going to go right back to the city of destruction where you stuck it out and there is no third way so the book's going to challenge us I'm going to bring you right to that gate and you have to make a decision to go through it or you're lost the stakes are high eternal guide eternal death and I find it awesome to even be part of such discussion let's look first of all then at verse one where we have the literary genre what kind of literature is this and that's one of the first questions you have to ask when you're reading the book of the Bible is what kind of literature is it it says a proverb then the proverb is part of a large body of literature in the Bible that we call wisdom literature namely Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes as you've made your book of wisdom literature it stands apart from legal literature of Moses like Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy it stands apart from prophetic literature like Isaiah Jeremiah what makes this literature different why is Job Ecclesiastes and Proverbs different from that literature existent apart one scholar before computers took the effort of counting how often the word wisdom and sentence occur in these books over gets other books and as you might expect the words are just standing competence wisdom prudence knowledge and so forth they occur more frequently in these books than in the other book of of the Old Testament I don't know beside counting that what good is that to me it doesn't help me particularly it's a sum interest to us to notice that these books do not pertain to Israel as such there's no reference in these three books to Moses, Sinai, Abraham, David, Jerusalem they do not pertain to Israel they pertain to humanity broadly and generally and we'll see why that is the case. Kindness says the difference is that there's a tone of the book it's it's more rational I think that's not quite right women women wisdom in chapter one she preaches hell fire and damn nation believe me she's very passionate and indeed you cannot know wisdom without passion you could never know wisdom just intellectually it takes strong emotions strong emotions of love and affection to get it for myself I satisfied that the difference is a matter of its inspiration remember Hebrews chapter one it says that God who at various times and in diverse ways in times past spoke to the prophets but spoke to the fathers for the prophets has in these last days spoken to us in the sun what is he saying God spoke in various ways for example to Moses he appeared in the offending God was pleased to come in the form of a man it was a form so to like looking at the president on a TV screen it wasn't looking directly at God nobody could see God and live we're told Moses knew that from Exodus chapter 34 32 but there was a form of God and he saw God he spoke to God face-to-face mouth-to-mouth it says it was direct it was immediate and it says not in middles clear that's law no ambiguities no figures of speech the prophets he spoke in envisions Hazar auditions they heard the word of God in the inner ear had you been there you wouldn't have heard anything seen anything it was a supersensory vision and audition in which they heard the word of God and they come down with thus sayeth the Lord indeed the prophet was like an angel the prophet was lifted up into the heavenly court in his vision and he heard God speaking to the angelic and so when Isaiah was in that heavenly court and he hears God speaking to the angelic host who will go for us he's part of it like an angel he says here I am send me and he is a messenger like an angel the word angel means messenger so he's a messenger from the heavenly court to earth to the kings on earth and that's the prophet the sage never says that I saw God face-to-face he doesn't come along with thus sayeth the Lord you don't hear the vision of Solomon like the vision of Isaiah it's different but just as inspired the sage looked at creation he looked at the same things you and I look at and as he looked at it he gained an insight about it you'll see the sage pointing a proverb in Proverbs chapter 24 if you wish to turn with me these are in the further sayings of the wise Proverbs chapter 24 and and they'll enter the chapter in the fifth of the further sayings of the wise we have an autobiographical account of a wise man a sage coin a proverb he said I went past the field of the sluggard and then in typical Hebrew parallel this is verse 30 I would pass the field of the sluggard well it wasn't just a field it was vineyard which is the very finest field took years and years to develop it that's the point this was the most precious remember when I was in the Ron Valley in Switzerland that land for wine making is so precious they put bridges over it the highway is a bridge over the land that's a vineyard and that's what we're talking about the most precious land and it took years to develop it but this was the sluggard is a person who has no sense he doesn't have the moral sense to survive he will die Proverbs chapter 26 the sluggard is worse than a fool and then he observes in his laboratory as he looks at it thorns had come up everywhere the ground was covered with weeds and the stone wall was in ruins actually it says the stone wall was torn down so he goes by it and he discovers that the ground does not produce edible growth it produces unedible growth and if you're a sluggard you can eat you will die but if you work the ground you can have the vineyard and wine and wealth that takes wisdom to do it remember when my boys were teen ages I had a garden I had a garden not to raise vegetables I had a garden to raise boys and you know one day Steve said to me dad why did you sew all these weeds that shows what city slickers we were you don't sew weeds
and when it says the stone wall was in ruins it means it was torn down in other words there's some force this is what we call the law of entropy but there's some force that's utterly destructive stone walls do not go up stone walls come down you go from cosmos order to chaos chaos on its own never goes to cosmos and order you have to work to get a stone wall and order but left to itself it falls down so here's yet work the word I applied my heart to what I observed the word observed here is the same way for the prophet to insight I applied my heart to what I saw learned a lesson that's the word translated discipline back in one two the mousseau you translate which translate it right I learned a lesson from what I saw a little sleep a little number a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man there is some force in creation that is hostile to us and neglected forever so so short a period of time one year of neglect and you will starve and it will destroy you now the sage is not an agronomist he's a moral teacher for proverbs and parables what is he saying he's saying there is a spiritual force that is against us that will destroy us and if you're a sluggard and you don't work to overcome it that spiritual force will destroy you and you will die but if you have wisdom you can overcome it you can have life you can have order it's what Jesus said the spirit that is in you is greater than the spirit that is against you but understand that entails logically there is a spirit against you and the problem in America is we are open to everything committed to nothing and without wisdom we are being destroyed take Bible take prayer out of the schools and you're gonna get guns in its place weeds death chaos destruction and we're trying to solve it by taking away guns instead of solving it that will cure the guns it's stupid it doesn't work and it takes faith which we don't have and that's what this is saying but the point of making is you see how the sage is working he's looking at the creation and he's learning something about it now I'm gonna back off from that because this is not natural theology as we'll see but I'll come back there but he is observing creation and you see it very clearly here but I'll say more about that in a little bit we can look at creation we can be a bent frank one who is brilliant we can write out poor riches all maniac not that I could but he could without supernatural inspiration but it wouldn't be holy scripture what we have here is a brilliant mind under the holy spirit that's giving canonical literature a far-tated literature for our faith and our practice it's a different kind of inspiration but it's just as much an inspiration as the prophetic and the mosaic material well that's the broad understanding of you take the book of ecclesiasticals how does it begin he looks at the cycle of the sun he looks at the cycle of the rain he looks at the cycles of nature that's how he starts and learns from it and when he learns it's all going nowhere there's no prophet to the whole thing well that's the book of cohella but he's looking at creation how does Job work when God speaks to Job where how did God speak to Job in a whirlwind that ought to tell you a lot but he didn't understand is that God could be in a whirlwind he was in a tornado that's where God was he'd ever knew God was in tornado God is speaking in the whirlwind and what does he point out the whole lesson is about he shows in the sea chaotic energy but it's founded he shows him the night but there's a morning he shows him ice and rain and destructive forces and lightning he shows him the credit and the prey he shows him the eagle when it's prey the lion and it's prey you see he's looking at creation Job had seen it many times but never understood and he had to learn there was a mystery about the creation that you don't understand I don't understand the vioffin I don't understand the moat I don't understand the monstrous creatures I don't understand dinosaurs I don't understand all that but I'm assured it's part of God's creation that's Job but you see he too is looking at the creation and he's helping us to see what we always saw but never understood and that's what's happening here and that's the sage that's the inspiration of it now the proverb is to take to make a truth in a pithy little memorable saying little sleep little slumber little folding of the hands to rest you say imagine that it's cursed it's precise it says the whole thing and poverty will come on you and destruction like an armed bandit so that's the proverb then you notes I give you a definition now turning back then having said a word about the nature of the nature of this literature and how it's inspired we now come to the author it is Solomon son of David and frankly the more I've worked with this book the way it's put together is absolutely beyond my comprehension it's put together I it would blow your mind to see how carefully this is put together you have to retain all 375 proverbs at once to understand how it goes together it is brilliant it's brilliant stuff he didn't write the whole book he wrote the first 24 chapters I believe it's an anthology it's like the book of songs uh you've got an anthology of hymns you have an anthology of wisdom literature it's collections the first nine chapters are collections of poems that are praise of wisdom to a large extent and then you get 375 proverbs chapter 10 one through 22 16 then you got 30 sands of the wise this slightly different again 42 17 through 24 22 then you got 20 then you get further sands of the wise another collection of material then we have more proverbs a Solomon chapter if you take a look 25 and what one this is written that these were collected at 700 BC by the men of hezekiah 251 these are more proverbs a Solomon copied by the men of hezekiah king of Judah we got 140 proverbs there through chapter 29 then you got the wonderful chapter chapter 30 the words sayings of agor then you have the sayings of king emules mother the words that his mother taught him proverbs chapter 31 I think that's very late so it's an anthology material Solomon did not author the whole thing book tells us that but I think Solomon wrote gave us collected materials that give us the first 24 chapters the question that you have I'm sure and I'll answer it because you're going to hesitate and ask it unless you sound like an unbeliever you're going to you really think of yourself how could this man be so wise and dies such a fool right that's what we're asking ourselves how can a man be this brilliant wisest man that ever lived and he dies in utter fool how to explain that and oh mistake constructs the book I'll share with you what helps me it's one of his own proverbs chapter 19 and verse 27 if you want to take a look at it he hangs himself on his own gibbet at this point proverbs chapter 19 and verse 27 stop listening to instruction my son and you will stray from words of knowledge that's our depravity stop listening and you will stray Solomon stopped listening to his own wisdom and he went astray your spiritual success tonight is no guarantee of your spiritual success tomorrow as you know my dad was at my dad's funeral last week dad was pushing 104 years of age I was staggered when he came to live with me was then 95 whatever he said to me no Bruce I still have the same temptations I had when I was a young man I couldn't blame it dad wait that was my dad there were something else but anyway has it here for him anyway I had the same temptations when he was on it as he had when he was young sounded like Moses to me or Elijah or somebody but anyway the point is stop listening that's our depravity and you will stray I know that at my age I'm 70 now I stop listening and I know I will stray I sometimes think God in his grace maybe a teacher because I can't stop listening I got to keep teaching that's what I'm afraid to retire who knows what this should I would get into
but now notice it's the prayer of the Solomon son of David but now notice this is the oldie place you get Israel and the wisdom literature he's king of Israel you see he's looking at the creation through the lens of faith if you just look at creation it's the law of the thing and the clawed survival of the fittest you might draw the conclusion as many businessmen do get the other God before he gets you you might draw the conclusion due to others what you think they'll do to you but do it first and that's what you might conclude go ahead that's cocclesiastes he looked at the creations as I can't make sense of the whole thing I can't see any distinction between the righteous and the wicked they all seem to die the same way to me job couldn't figure it out he lived the righteous life and it wasn't all beautiful at all he ended up on a ash heap that's what he saw now they look at the word for God is the Lord you see it doesn't say in verse 7 the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom it's the fear of the Lord that's Israel's covenant keeping God it's the God who spoke to Abraham Isaac Jacob David is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ it's for the covenant community and he comes with the mosaic covenant firmly in place and he looks at the creation as our Lord did on the sermon on the mount as they consider the lilies of the field how they don't toil and labor and clothe more beauty than Solomon all of this glory that's a statement of faith that's a way of looking at life through the lens of faith and he's looking at life through the lens of faith he's interpreting the creation with the covenant values clearly in place well that is the superscription I think you could see why we could be here a whole year and not finish this book but I'm going to take a break we've been talking almost 45 minutes and maybe white clarification or I'll take a break and entertain a couple of minutes or questions if you someone has a question yes please yes yes yes yeah well they treat humanity broadly it treats humanity as human but its values are within the covenant community values it's really ultimately written for the covenant community but it's treating we are part of humanity so it's for the covenant community one of the differences there are many many centuries let me back off for just a second there are many similarities between the book of Proverbs and Egyptian instruction but the Egyptian instruction is written for a court official a young budding official of this year and then named this book has no addresses it's been democratized and you'll see where we get down to it's written for the youth and it's written for the wise but basically it's within the covenant it's it's addresses are the covenant community as part of humanity broadly maybe that would help clarify that thank you for helping me clarify other questions yes yes well natural theology is that the creation itself is sufficient to make us wise to salvation you can go out in a golf course and you can study the trees and the grass and they can go out by the sea you can learn an awful lot about God from the creation and natural theology is that by looking at that you can gain enough insight in order to live your life with a saving knowledge that's natural theology to put it very popularly yes no no let me be clear here I never refer to the Old Testament saying as Jewish
what the average person means by Jewish and bar mitzvah is non-Christian Abraham was not Jewish in that sense he looked forward to Jesus Christ rejoice to see his day I have never met a modern Jew as we normally news the term who rejoiced in Jesus Christ so there they are our fathers they are his natural descendants but they look like Ishmael today in unbelief so and that's a whole religion and their main religion Judaism calls itself the way holocah means way part of the Talmud is the holocah that's in contradiction to Jesus who is the way so I don't study Judaism it's only religion and Jesus said it's of the devil because it put Jesus to death fit along the roof and married she didn't go by the matchmaker you could marry an atheist but you couldn't marry a Christian the modus state of Israel supreme court Jewish couple in the physical sense septic Christ no question about the pedigree supreme court ruled two or three years ago you cannot be a Christian and Jewish so therefore I will never refer to the Old Testament say as Jewish nor am I interested in that particularly you see I'm saying it's it's another religion it's a false religion but it's got a lot of good points because it's based in scripture to a logic
yeah well it's intention was very much Solomon intended what's it's to my mind it's very similar to what Moses intended a dude right on me chapter six that israel was to have it in their home the parents were to have it in their hearts they were to write it on their doorposts on their finger on their hands on their forehead everything was to be informed by it that's this book too but the problem is that Judaism focused on the law and neglect they thought of this as inferior and Judaism did not see this as of the same authority as the mosaic law they became focused on the law it's very similar to what the animus do today in the church they focus on the law without understanding the law is part of narrative the law is part of a much broader context of the scripture that the bible calls all of the the history is called Torah just like the mosaic law