All right, if everybody will,
take your Bibles and turn with me to Proverbs chapter 5. We'll
look at verses 1 through 7 this morning. I don't believe we'll get through
all of those, but we are going to attempt, if the Lord is The
title of the message this morning is The Necessity of Divine Wisdom. The necessity of divine wisdom. The scripture here says, My son,
attend unto my wisdom and bow down thine ear to my understanding. The wisdom of the Father to his
son. I know that this is a good book for any family to read together. It has wonderful things, I think,
for everyone. This is a wise book. And I'll
tell you, if you are a son, you should heed the counsel of your
father. If he is a wise man, a saved
man, you should heed the counsel. of your father. It's wise to
do that. It's wise in our day, you see
this prophecy and he's going to be talking about a strange
woman. How needful is that in our day?
If they would just heed those things, we don't even have that. Adultery and fornication run
rampant in our nation as though it were just a frivolous But
we know the Word of God teaches better than that. The Word of
God teaches us it's an abomination. Anyone lay hold on that, lay
hold on adultery or fornication, they're laying hold on hell.
That's what they are. People hardly ever come back
from those things unless God brings them back through great
suffering. So these things can be looked
at and seen by anyone. as wisdom. It's wisdom. Now,
but this thing here is something more to every child of God. This is not just the wisdom of
an earthly father who has many faults, many sins. This is the
wisdom of God the Father to each and every child of His, to every
son of God, to every elect sinner, to every believer in Christ,
God says this, My Son, here, My Son, attend unto My wisdom. My wisdom. This is the word of
God the Father to every adopted son. A word to all that are chosen
and predestinated unto salvation, for the praise and the glory
of His grace. It is a word of never failing
wisdom. Listen to this word of never
failing wisdom. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. What a word of wisdom. It's wise. Is it not wise for
the guilty to beg for mercy? Is it not wise to bow yourself
before the only true and living God? Is it not wise to bow down
to His Son, the only propitiation, the only mercy for our sins? When God has promised salvation
to everyone that believe it, isn't it wise to believe? That's wisdom. Have you believed? Have you heard the wisdom of
God? Have you believed on Jesus Christ
alone? Because all the fullness of God
dwells in Him. If there is any joy, any peace,
any comfort, It is only found in the person of Jesus Christ. This is why I do not go by any
creed or anything like that, because everyone would adore
the creed and miss the person. I want you to see the person
of Jesus Christ. He is the God-man, the only God-man
mediator. He is the only hope for you and
for you and for you and for me. He's the only hope for sinners. That's it. There is no other
way to God. No man cometh to the Father,
Jesus said, but By me. Listen to that wisdom. Not my
wisdom. It's not my earthly wisdom. This
is the wisdom of God. That you come by His Son. That you come by Christ, the
eternal Son of God. He was ordained. The wisdom of
God ordained Him from eternity. to be our mediator. Flip over,
hold your place, go to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 5. The scripture says, concerning
those burnt offerings. He said, Wherefore, when he cometh
into the world, he saith, Sacrifice an offering thou wouldest not. In other words, God has no pleasure
in burnt offerings. He has no pleasure in the works
of men. He has no pleasure in men trying
to obey His law. There's no pleasure in that.
You know, I take pleasure in my son trying to obey me. I do. I know he can't. And because
I'm a sinner, I know he's a sinner. And so I have allowances. There
are certain things I'll let slide. Oh, but God is altogether different.
Friends, God does not want your good works. God is not pleased with our works,
our religious exercise. The fact that you got up this
morning and came to church, I think that's good. And I know it's
good because God's Word says it is. But really, in righteousness,
this adds nothing to the righteousness of Christ. Nothing. Me preaching
the gospel adds nothing to my salvation. Not one thing. Not
one thing. His sacrifice and offering, thou
wouldest not. But a body hast thou prepared
me. In burnt offering and sacrifices
for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come in the
volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will, O God."
Jesus came to do the will of God. He came to be a substitute
for the elect. He was prepared a body and low
in the volume of the book. Jesus said, beginning at Moses
and all the prophets, He expounded unto them all things concerning
Himself. When you read this Bible, are
you looking for Christ or are you looking for you? I want to see Christ. I know
what I am. I know what I am. By seeing Christ,
I see more of what I am. But I'll tell you, we need to
find Christ first. Seek first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness. And all these things will be
added unto you. We need to seek Him. God had no pleasure in any
obedience of man, nor sacrifices or religious exercise. None of
them could have saved us. None. could have made us holy
or accepted. None, as the song says, no sighs,
nor prayers, nor tears could bear my awful load. But isn't
that what men believe? If they're just sincere enough,
if they just have enough of sincerity, then that will take away their
sin. No. No. You can weep from now unto
eternity, and that will not bear one sin. There is only One who bore sin
in His body. And that is Jesus Christ. He
was made a man so that He might bear the iniquity of us all. That He might bear the sins of
His people. Christ was prepared to be a Redeemer. And by His one sacrifice, one
sacrifice, He has forever removed all our Sin. All my sins. Even those sins
I don't know about. Even those sins that I've committed
in the past before I knew Him. The sins I commit as I know Him. The sins that I shall commit.
He has already bore them in His own body and God unleashed holy
hell on Him. Pure justice. And friends, God's justice The scripture says is satisfied. God is satisfied. With who? With him. God is satisfied with
him and God is satisfied with me in him. If you are in Christ
by faith in Christ, you are in union with Christ, and God will
not deny Himself, because all of our sins are gone. God so put away our sins that
He Himself says He will not remember them. God cannot find our sins. Isn't that something? He cannot find them because they
are gone. Gone. They've been punished. And the righteousness has been
taken and put in, in place of our sin. The righteousness of
God. And therefore, as God had purposed,
Even so now, if we believe in Christ, He has accomplished,
He has revealed to us what He purposed and accomplished, that
we are His sons. I am a son, and my dad's name
is Fred Evans. My earthly dad. That's his name.
But who cares? I have a great Father who is
God. I am a son of God. Well, you're arrogant. No, I'm just believing what God
says. As many as received Him, to them
gave He the power or the right. I have the right. I have the
authority of God that I am a son of the living God. That's something. Gave He the right to become the
sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were
born. We weren't born of our blood. We weren't born of our
will. We weren't born of the flesh
or will of some other man. We were born of God. If you're
born again, it's because God has chosen you to be His Son. John says in 1 John 3, 2, it
says, Beloved, now are we the sons of God. When? Now. You are
now the sons of God. You are now the sons of God.
And it doesn't appear what we shall be. I don't know what that...
I don't know what all that entails. But man, how should we boast
of God for what He has done for us? How should we not brag concerning
the glory of our God's grace who made us sons? He took the
most unworthy, the most vile. He's taken the most rebellious
men and women and made us His children. What grace is that? What king do you know of in this
world that would have taken the rebels and made them sons? None. Because none of them were so
gracious as our God. None are so gracious as our Father.
So this word, my son, that's you. Believer in Christ, my son. That's what God says. Attend
unto my wisdom. The wisdom of God is the second
thing. It is the depravity of man to think he is wise, or that
by learning he can somehow know God. That is foolishness. You can go back in my study,
and there are many books. I don't have as many as others. But you can go back there, and
you can memorize every page of those books, and there's a lot
of information in those books. You can assimilate that information,
and you can probably understand what they're talking about carnally. Friends, you'll never know the
wisdom of God unless God Himself reveals His wisdom to you. This
wisdom is given, and you know it's given to the most simple.
It's given to the most ignorant of men. You know, when the Lord
chose His disciples, He didn't go out and choose what man thought
would be best. He chose men that were simple. They said, how in the world does
this guy know letters? How does he know how to read?
He didn't even attend our schools. You know, I still get that today.
Well, where did you go to school? Well, I say the same place John
the Baptist went to school. The school of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the one that taught me. The Holy Spirit is
the one that called me. I don't need their approval.
Why does any man need approval of another man to preach? If
God called you to preach, preach! Preach. The truth. of God is something that man does not
desire to hear. Wisdom of God is something man
doesn't want to hear. That all men are fools. If you are lost this morning,
if you are without Christ, you are the most ignorant person
in this world. You are blind. You are dead and you have nothing. How do I know that? Because that's
exactly what my nature is. I know you because I know me. I know what we are by nature.
And men hate to hear this, but we don't trust in any wisdom
of men. Go over to Jeremiah chapter 17. That's what God says about somebody
who won't hear his wisdom. Somebody who's trusting in themselves
or looking to something that they've done. Verse 5, Thus saith
the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh
his arm, and whose whole heart departed from the Lord. For he
shall be like a heath in the desert, and shall not see when
good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
in a salt land, and not inhabit it. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord, whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be like a tree
planted by waters, that springeth out of her roots by the river,
and shall not see when the heat cometh. But her leaf shall be
green and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither
shall cease from yielding fruit." The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can know
the heart? Here it is. I, the Lord. That's
who knows the heart. I, the Lord. Search the heart
and try the reins. And give every man according
to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. Anybody's
leaning on themselves, I'll tell you what, you must be a very
depressed man. You must be a very sad fellow. If you were to contemplate all
the times that you were successful in leaning upon yourself, you
will come up with a big old goose egg, zero. Every time I've trusted
in myself, I've failed miserably. Every time I've trusted in someone
else, they have failed me miserably. My children will fail me. My
wife will fail me. You will fail me. I will fail
you. Don't put your trust in me. Don't
put your trust in your family. Don't put your trust in yourself.
Cursed are you who put trust in anything but the wisdom and
righteousness of Jesus Christ. God says you're like a fire in
a desert. Now, who needs a fire in a desert? Who would go out and plant in
a desert? Only a fool would do that. And
if you're planting on yourself, You're betting on yourself you're
going to fail. It's a sure loss. It's not wisdom. It's foolishness. And yet, men,
the heart is so deceitful that men continue in this way to despise
wisdom. Who is he to tell me that I can't
build a fire in the desert? Go right ahead. Go right ahead. But blessed is the man who trusts
in the Lord. He's going to be like a tree planted by water.
Now, that's beautiful. That's just right, isn't it?
Wouldn't you want to plant a tree by a river as opposed to in a
desert? No, you wouldn't want to plant
in the desert. It's foolishness. You plant a tree by water. Blessed
is the man that trusts in the Lord. It's just right. It's just
good. It's wisdom. It's wisdom. Jeremiah goes on in this chapter
to talk about defiling the Sabbath. He tells them, don't you defile
the Sabbath. He goes to this gate and he proclaims
God's word. He said, if you bring any burden
into this city, if you carry any burden outside of your house
on God's Sabbath, you're cursed. And truly, if you try to bring
anything into the righteousness of Jesus Christ, you're cursed. If you try to bring any burden
into God's kingdom, you'll be cast out. You won't be welcome. You see, God's grace is free. Free. Every man likes free, except
this. I mean, you tell him he gets a
free, you buy a car, you get a free coffee cup. He'll run
down there and spend a thousand dollars on a car, get a coffee
cup. You know, and I'm telling you, God's salvation is free! Free! Free from your works. Free from your merit. Come and
bow down your ear and listen to God's wisdom. Come and live. Live and not die. Why will you
die? Why will you try to bring your works
into You're nothing but filthy rags. And God says, leave those out
and come and welcome. And I'll save you forever. Yes, sir. Yes, Lord. Yes, sir. I come. How? I come by His wisdom. By His
wisdom. Behold the wisdom of God that
no man could have ever imagined. Free grace. You know, there's no religion
in the world that speaks of free grace but this one. Every false
religion demands you do something to merit their God's favor. Every religion. Every false religion. Every false religion. This is
the only one that says by grace you are saved through faith.
And that faith, even that faith is not of ourselves. If you can
believe, believe. And if you do believe, understand
this, it's not because you had faith. It's because God has given
you faith. You see that even our faith is
not something to boast in. We have nothing to boast in. Nothing but Christ. Who would have imagined peace
and rest with God without merit, without the burden of religious
exercise? Friends, Jesus is the wisdom
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. Everyone that believeth. Behold the great wisdom of God,
how God can be just and still save a sinner like us. That's wisdom. Because I'll tell
you, there is no earthly way that a man can remove guilt. Do you know of a way a man can
remove guilt? Is there any instance in judicial
history of any man removing guilt? Now, you can remove a man from
the punishment of his crime. You can declare a man to be innocent. But one thing you can't do is
you can't take away the trueness of his guilt. If I've committed murder, they
may pardon me. You may love me. You may say,
well, I forgive you. But one thing you couldn't do
is take away the fact that I actually killed that man. You can't take
that away. This is only something God can
do. This is only something God has done. He's taken my guilt
and He imputed my guilt to His Son so that justice might be
satisfied in Him, in His death, so that my guilt would actually
be punished like it should be. And so that when He was punished
for my guilt, I was given His righteousness. Do you suppose that's fair? Is that fair? Absolutely not. That's not fair. I don't want
fair. Fair is I go to hell. That's
fair. That's right. I want mercy. I want to be found in Christ
and His righteousness, so that when I die, my soul will ascend
unto God where I'll rejoice with Him forever, because He promised
He'll do it. And so when I preach to you this
morning, this is not the words of my wisdom. This is the wisdom of Christ. Now, bow down your ear and hear
it. God commands you. God demands of you that you hear
His wisdom. Paul said, for after that in
the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. You're
not going to know God by your wisdom. It pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that belief. If you're not saved, you know
the foolish thing, the most foolish thing in the world you can do
is not be here. Isn't that right? If you are
not saved, the most foolish thing you can do is avoid this worship
service and hearing the gospel. Why? Because it is by this foolish
means, what you think is foolish, God has chosen, God was pleased
by this means to save them, that belief. Friends, no man is going to be
saved apart from hearing God's Word. You're not going to one
day be walking in the woods and all of a sudden be saved. Nope. You're not going to be walking
along and praying and then all of a sudden, boom, you're saved.
No. You must hear the Gospel. You must. Because this is the
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. Bow
down your ear and hear His wisdom. Well, I can be saved anywhere
I want to. That's your wisdom. That's not
God's wisdom. Matter of fact, anybody who thinks
this message or these things that we are doing here is foolish,
It's because you're dying and it's in your sins. Scripture says, to them that
perish, it's foolishness. It's old-fashioned. You need
to change your method. One of the hot topics on the
sermon audio this week was how to set your church on fire. Well,
you know what they should do is take a match and set their
church on fire. That's what they should do. I'm not going to set you on fire.
Oh, that's the work of the Spirit
of God. I don't do that. But this is the means. And to
the flesh, it is intolerable. To the flesh, it's a burden.
To the spirit, it's a joy. To the spirit, it's a joy. I don't come preaching wisdom
and you know, you don't you don't come to hear my smooth words.
I know that. I have no gift for smooth words. But consider the rebellion of
our day, have you considered the rebellion of our day? People
who profess to believe in Christ, but yet when there's no church
near them, they don't move. What is that? Well, there's no
gospel here, but I'll just stay here because this is my family
and my friends, and why should I have to give all that up? Well, because Christ said, if
any man hate not his father, and his mother, and his sister,
and his wife, and yea, his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Bow down and hear the wisdom
of God. You better bow down and hear the wisdom of God. God says, forsake not the assembling
of yourselves together as a manner of some is. Why? Because you
discourage the brethren. That's why. Because you discourage
the brethren. If you are a believer in Christ,
you should be here every time this door opens. And don't think that's my word.
That's not for me. It's not because I desire to
have a big crowd. I'm telling you because I love
you. And I desire the best for you. And I also desire the best
for everyone else here. Because it encourages us. It
strengthens us. And how can you encourage anyone
if you're not here to encourage them? Well, I was there in spirit. Well, that spirit didn't do me
any good. We need to encourage one another.
And this is encouraging. To be here is to encourage each
other. And believer in Christ, lastly,
I want you to see this, that we are to beware false religion. If we're not hearing the wisdom
of God concerning false religion, we are in dangerous territory. Oh, well, Pastor, I just surely...
I'm so strong in the faith that I won't ever be moved. This false religion is pictured
as a strange woman. The lips of a strange woman drop
as honeycomb and smoother than oil. Isn't that true of false
religion? Man, they got the best speaker.
I received, man, one of those big old postcards like that.
It must have cost him a fortune to put out those things. Had
the pictures of all of these speakers, and man, they were
the best! They were the best orators and
professors and all these things. Smooth! But every one of them
were lost, and none of them knew the gospel. Smooth. Don't think you can't
be swayed by them. And I'll tell you what, if you
listen to him long enough, you'll say, well, he says some good
things. He's a liar, and get away from
him. Don't be brought in by smooth
words. And notice this. Her end is bitter
as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell,
lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life. Her ways are movable,
if thou canst not know them." You know, that's one thing about
false religions. You can't really know what they believe. They're
always moving. They're always shifting, changing. And if you ponder the path of
life, if you ponder the truth of God's wisdom, you can't figure
out Her ways. She swifts and she'll say, oh,
yeah, we believe that. You say, well, that's not what
you. Yeah, but we really believe it.
I know I don't preach it, but man, I really believe it. You
know, I believe in election, but I just can't I just can't
say it because I don't want people to leave. I don't want to offend
anybody. He's a liar and get away from
him. He's a liar. He's a false prophet. He's a
stranger. And you believers, listen to
this word and be very careful concerning this. Hear the wisdom
of the Lord. Verse 21, it says, My son...
Let me see, make sure I've got the
right one. I'm sorry, I'm on the wrong one. There it is. Remove thy way, verse 8, remove
thy way far from her, and come not nigh to the door of her house.
Why not? Why don't we all just get along?
Why don't we all just become one big melting pot? And just
say, well, I'll just call you brother, and you call me brother,
and we won't fight about these other things. We'll just get
along. No, God says, get away from her
door. Don't even come near it. Lest
thou give thy honor unto others. and thy years to the cruel."
When you attend anything in false religion, you are giving your
consent that it's okay. Somebody in our church had a grandson
who was baptized. under false religion. And he came to me and he says,
I don't know what to do. I don't know whether to go or
not. And I said, would you consent to his baptism? He said, no. I said, why would you give your
honor to it? Why would you give your consent? Don't go. That's what God says. Now, did
that offend people? You bet it did. But I'll tell
you what, it drew a line. It made a distinction. And that's
exactly what the wisdom of God does with every believer. It
makes a distinction. We believe in God. We believe in a successful Savior. We believe in Jesus Christ, Him
crucified, risen from the dead. And we do not believe or trust
in ourselves. Christ alone. The wisdom of God. Have you heard it? Believe it. Believe it. Obey it. And friends, things will be well
with you. God says, say you to the righteous,
It shall be well. Yeah, but I'm sick. It shall
be well. Yes, but I'm dying. It shall
be well. It shall be well. My family's lost. It shall be
well with you. That's what God said. I think
I'm going to trust his wisdom. Mine don't work out too well.
Mine never worked out too well. I pray that God blesses to your
hearts. Let's stand. We'll be dismissed in prayer.