Proverbs 19, eight, he that giveth
wisdom, loveth his own soul, he that keepeth understanding
shall find good. Now, this is a very simple equation,
really, you could say. Getting wisdom equals care and love good for your own soul. And it has to do with keeping understanding
the meaning as always in the scripture is in the words used.
What is good? How do you get wisdom? What does
it mean to love your own soul? I'll tell you what it doesn't
mean. It doesn't mean to love yourself. It sounds like that,
doesn't it? Loving yourself is not a virtue.
We see that clearly in the word of God. It's not just my opinion.
In this world, it's seen to be a virtue to love yourself. We
naturally do that. That's our problem, not our virtue. That's not the message of this
verse. The phrase loveth his own soul is saying that doing
this, the getting of wisdom, is the best thing you can do
for yourself. It's not that it isn't real love
when I say it's not loving yourself. It's not that this isn't real
love, this is real love. It's different though from the
self love that is our nature and that's at the root of our
sin. Loving yourself in the way that
the world does is to be selfish and proud. God haters, again,
not my words, Listen to 2 Timothy 3.1. It's a mark, loving yourself
is a mark of the reprobate. 2 Timothy 3.1, this know also
that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall
be lovers of their own selves. And here's the words, covetous,
selfish, boasters, proud, Blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
unholy. And then the next verse, I didn't
put the verse three in my notes, but lovers of themselves rather
than lovers of God. To love your own soul, though,
in the sense of our text is different. So let's look at the difference.
I believe the scripture shows us very plainly. Look at Luke
12 with me, if you would. Luke chapter 12, verse 16. The difference between loving
yourself and loving your soul. Well, isn't your soul yourself?
Yes, but that's the way the wording is in the scriptures, and we'll
distinguish it that way. Luke 12, 16, the Lord spake a
parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man
brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself,
saying, What shall I do? Because I have no room where
to bestow my fruits. He said, This will I do. I will
pull down my barns and build greater, and there will I bestow
all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul,
thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease. eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, thou fool,
this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose
shall those things be which thou hast provided? So is he that
layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."
Now, would you say this man loved himself? Pretty clear. But did he love his soul? You
see the difference? In the sense of the way the word
is used in our text, he hated his soul. He damned his own soul. He clearly loved himself, but
he neglected the good of his own soul. And in that sense,
he despised his eternal soul, consigning himself to hell. A stark example of the difference
between the love of soul in our text and the love of self that
is evil and self-destructive. If we want to love our soul in
the sense of doing what is best for us, what we need, the scripture
here that we're looking at says we have to get some wisdom. Get wisdom. Now we know from
this same book of Proverbs how that happens. The obvious question
is how am I gonna get that? Where am I gonna get that from?
By reading a lot of books, by studying things, subjects, facts. Proverbs 2.1, look at it with
me if you would. Proverbs 2.1. To get wisdom is to love your
own soul. not with a selfish, proud, God-hating
love, but with a genuine desire to be saved, to save. And then didn't Paul say, save
thyself from this wicked and perverse generation? In that
sense, of course, it's God that saves you, telling you how that
happens. And so look at verse one of Proverbs
two. My son, if thou wilt receive
my words and hide my commandments with thee, so that thou incline
thine ear unto wisdom and apply thine heart to understanding.
Well, okay, so it sounds like if you just try real hard, you
know, you'll get wise. You apply, you incline your ear,
you listen and you, well, Let's keep reading. Yea, it does involve
that. It does involve an earnest hearing
of the gospel, the truth. Look at the rest of it. Yea, verse three, if thou cryest
after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding,
if thou seekest her as silver, and searcheth for her as for
hid treasures. You see, that's to search eagerly,
that's to search with all your heart. What do
you value? What is it that's valuable to
you? Then shalt thou understand, verse five, the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God, for the Lord giveth wisdom. It's not in how hard you try
or how much you want it. That's just the way that the
Lord causes you to latch onto it when you hear it. He gives
you that heart. But it's a gift. It's a free
gift from God. And when you know that, and when
you know who wisdom is, you're gonna want it bad. You're gonna
need it. You're gonna count everything
else as loss, like Paul did. for the sake of knowing the Lord,
that I may know him, Paul said in that passage, that I may know
him. What do you mean everything else
is done, Paul? That I may know him. You see that here? But the
Lord gives it. He gives it. The Lord giveth
wisdom. Out of his mouth cometh knowledge
and understanding. So it comes from him. And if
you're gonna get any of it, he's gonna have to give it to you.
So this reminds us now of a couple of things in the scripture. You
remember Abraham when, in Genesis 14, would you turn over there
with me, Genesis 14, 21. Let's look at this together. Sodom was at war and they lost. and there were many prisoners
of war from Sodom that were taken, and the spoils went to Sodom's
enemy as well. They took all their goods, and
when the battle was over, they had lost, but Abraham, they made
the mistake of taking Lot with them, because Lot was in Sodom
at the time, and Abraham heard about it, and he loved Lot, and
so he went after that army and defeated them and won everything
back. And the King of Sodom is saying
this in that context, in verse 21 of Genesis 14, verse 21, the
King of Sodom said unto Abraham, give me the persons, give us
our citizens back. but take the goods to thyself.
You won the battle, you did all the work, you take the gold and
whatever spoils there are to thyself. And listen to this now,
listen to what Abraham said because this is, it's not just a bright moment.
This is a believer's life. This is what it is to know God.
Right here, look at it. And Abraham said to the king
of Sodom, I have lift up my hand unto the Lord, the most high
God, the possessor of heaven and earth. He owns everything. And I will not take from even
a thread to even to a shoelatch it, that I will not take anything
that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abraham rich. Abraham wanted this man and everybody
else to know who made him rich, who gave him everything he had,
who deserved the glory, who really owns everything. God. I've lifted my hand. What an
image that is, what a picture that is. Again, not just a brilliant
moment in Abraham's life. This is us. By God's grace, it's
got to be that way, right? It's got to be that way. Everything
the believer gets, he gets from the Lord. You think about that.
We may have to make a living in this world, but it's not from
this world. We know that. This world has
nothing to give. It's like the people talking
about government money. The government doesn't have any
money. It's your money. And when we talk about our money,
we come and we say, well, I've got a little bit of money. That's
the Lord's. He's the possessor of all things,
Abraham said. I'm gonna hold up my hand to
him. And he gives and he takes. And we're fine with that. We're
fine with that. And that's true in a physical,
earthly sense. And it's true in a spiritual
sense. My soul, I hold up my soul to the Lord because he's
the possessor of eternal life. He is himself eternal life. And what I need spiritually,
if he don't give it, I'm not gonna have it. And so I hold
up my hand to the Lord. That's a way of
life now. There is such a thing as the wisdom of this world,
but that's not the wisdom we seek. Paul said in 1 Corinthians
2, we're not interested in that. By God's grace, we're not. Christ
is the power of God and the wisdom of God, 1 Corinthians 1.24. The
word keepeth in our verse, to keep understanding is to guard
it. What would you guard understanding
from when you understand the truth of God? What would you
guard that from? There's really only one thing, isn't there?
You would guard understanding from error, from falsehood. The opposite or the destruction
of understanding is a perversion of the truth, a decline in understanding
by something else being introduced. That's why Paul said, I determined
to know nothing, no thing among you save Jesus Christ. and Him
crucified. That's why Paul said, I fear
lest you be removed from the simplicity, the singleness, the
all-inclusiveness that is in Christ. A little leaven leaveneth
the whole lump. To guard it, to guard it, to
keep, to treasure it, to treasure understanding. If you do that
by God's grace, you'll find good. you'll find good. Wisdom and
understanding go together and both come from God. I wanna look at another passage
of scripture or two in the next few minutes here. If you could
turn to Job 38, 36. Job 38, 36. We saw in Proverbs where it says,
the Lord giveth wisdom, out of his mouth cometh knowledge and
understanding. Look at Job 38, 36. Who hath put wisdom in the inward
parts? Or who hath given understanding
to the heart? To keep understanding, to hide
it in your heart to guard and keep and protect it, to treasure
it. How does that happen? Where does
that come from? Well, the rhetorical question is answered by other
rhetorical questions. Who is he talking about here?
Who does that? Who can number the clouds in wisdom? You. Or who can stay the bottles of
heaven? When the dust groweth into hardness
and the clouds cleave fast together. there's a drought and thousands
of people die. And the world says, that's not
God, God wouldn't do that. Then who did? And where was God
when they did it? Verse 39, without hunt the prey
for the lion. You think the Lord just winds
up a lion and lets him run like a clock? Every bite of food comes
from God. or fill the appetite of the young
lions? When they couch in their dens
and abide in the covert to lie in wait, who provideth for the raven his
food? The Lord used a raven to provide
his prophet with food. Who gives the raven his food?
The same God. When his young ones cry unto
God, They wonder for lack of meat. When the little baby birds
are crying out, they're hungry. They're really crying to God,
it says. They might expect their mama to bring them a worm or
whatever, but they're really crying to God. He's the one that
provides it. How beautiful. He's the one that gives understanding
to the heart. So let's define a couple other
words in this text and we'll be through. What then is wisdom
and understanding? Let's define those two. Well,
we see where it comes from. We see who gives it and how you
get it. It comes out of his mouth, but are you gonna get any of
it? That's the Lord, that's the Lord. He'll make you hungry for it.
Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Not smart, not prudent, blessed. Blessed of God. And he said,
if I give you the hunger, I'll give you the food. Isn't that
what he said? Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst. They'll be filled. They'll be
filled. If God gives you a desire for
Christ, and you will lay hold of Christ. You will feed upon
Christ. You will nourish your soul upon
him. But what's wisdom and understanding?
Honestly, think about that for a second. What separates a wise
person from somebody that's not wise? Honestly, in this world,
what would the world say? Well, you gotta read a lot. You
gotta study a lot to be wise. Is that what it is? The Pharisees studied a lot. Was anybody ever called a fool
more than a Pharisee by the Lord? They studied a lot. They memorized
pretty much the whole Old Testament. That's something. Be able to solve riddles. Maybe
it's just to outsmart other people. Most people consider themselves
wise as compared to others. In other words, if I can prove
you wrong about some things, that proves that I'm wise. Is
that what it is? You're the smartest worm in the
heap. You're the prettiest magnet on
this earth. That's awesome. 1 John 5, 20, and we know that
the Son of God is called and hath given us an understanding. What did he give us when he gave
us an understanding? If you can answer that, You can
answer our question. What is wisdom and understanding?
What does that mean? What separates a wise person
from a fool? Listen to it. And hath given
us an understanding that we may know him. That is true. Him that is truth. And we are in him that is true.
Even in His Son, Jesus Christ. How'd that happen? Of Him are
we in Christ Jesus, who is made into us. What's the first thing? Wisdom. Righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. We are in Him that is true, even
in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God in eternal
life. When Paul said to Timothy, the
scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation, that's what
he's talking about. God might just use, you preach,
Timothy, peradventure, God will give repentance unto the acknowledging
of the truth. So if you have that, you'll have
good. We've got to define another word,
look at it. but wisdom to know Him, that we may know Him. Let me say it to you again. If
you don't know Christ, you don't know anything. If you know Him, you know what
Paul said in contemplating the fact that we know Christ? He
said, we know all things. Isn't that the way he said it
in 1 Corinthians 2? We know all things. What else is there? Doesn't
mean we know everything, but knowing him, he's my wisdom. So I have all wisdom. But then, okay, so the end result
is good. What's good then? To this world,
finding good would be what? Find wealth or fame or whatever. For everything to go their way.
You know what it means for everything to go your way? You know what
that is? You want everything to go your
way. You know what that means to be God? The only one that's
true of is God. We wanna be God, don't we? That's
what we wanted in the garden. That's what we want as we sit
here today. We wanna be God. If somebody crosses us, It incurs
our wrath. You don't get to do that. That's God. So what is it to
find good? What truly is it according to
God? Psalm 4.6, let's turn over there. Well, we're out of time. If you
want to turn there quick, Psalm 4.6. So here it is, just as plain
as day. Psalm 4, 6, there'll be many
that say, who will show us any good? And here's the psalmist
response to that. Everybody, who's gonna show us
any good? Just seems like everything's
bad. We plant our crops and there's a drought or a hailstorm It looks
like the world is working against us, you know. Looks like everything,
who's gonna show us any good? Here's David's response to that.
Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. You're not gonna know any good.
You're not gonna see any good. You're not gonna have any good
until the Lord shines upon you. That's what good is. we may call
something bad. Something bad happened to me.
No, if the Lord is smiling on you, that was good. And something
good may happen to us, we say, oh man, this is, wow, it's my
day, you know, I'm gonna go to Vegas. No, if the Lord's not
smiling on you, that was bad. That just took you farther from
him. Good is the Lord looking at you
with favor. Thou has put gladness in my heart
more than what makes this world happy. You see that? More than
in the time that their corn and their wine increased. That's just another way of saying
more than this world's joy from getting rich. You remember in
the story of the rich man that said, what am I gonna do with
all my stuff? I'm gonna have to pull these barns down and
build bigger ones. Remember what it said? It said
his ground brought forth plentifully. That was wealth then. That's
what riches was. That's why he had big barns,
but they weren't quite big enough, because his ground brought forth
plentifully. But what he didn't know is that
was the Lord's ground, and the Lord's seed, and the Lord's sunshine,
and the Lord's water. For the Lord to smile upon you,
that's more, that's joy beyond what makes this world happy. And here's what he said at the
end. You know this is one of my favorite verses. I will both lay me down in peace. How much is that worth? How much
corn does that equal? I will both lay me down in peace
and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. Good, goodness is his light,
his countenance, his joy, his peace, safety, security in Christ. That's good. You young people,
don't look for it in this world. Don't look for it in this world.
You're not gonna find it. You're not gonna find it. I'm
not trying to depress you. I'm not trying to say, you know,
go live in a convent or something. I'm just telling you, if you're
gonna find any good, that's where it's gonna come from. You must
have Christ. And everything else without him
is not good. God give us grace now to seek
him as silver, to look for him as for gold, And may God cause us to find.
Amen, let's pray.