to Proverbs chapter 3, and it's
glad to see some of our strangers make it back home. Two is off over, but one was
in the Bahamas, the other is in the Caribbean. And we was
here, and we have some folks here with us from down at Greg,
Jerry Salzberg, his wife and daughter Rachel. Uh, Gary Shepard's
wife, Betty, passed away yesterday evening. And, uh, she'd been
sick for quite some time. And, uh, the Lord called her
home. But, uh, you need to remember
Gary. It's the living that has to go
on. And you remember Gary and, and,
uh, Stephanie and Matt and the folks out there, you know. Gary's
brother and his sister-in-law, they all sat there together,
lived together. But you please remember them.
That's a tough thing to go through. And remember them. And all right,
I'm going to start reading here in verse 13 and go to the end
of the chapter and hopefully say some things about these verses. happy is the man that findeth
wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise
of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof
than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies,
and all the things that thou canst desire are not to be compared
unto her. Length of days is in her right
hand, and in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways
of pleasant, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life
to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is every one that retaineth
her. The Lord by wisdom hath founded
the earth, by understanding hath he established the heavens. By
his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop
down the dew. My son, let not them depart from
thine eyes. keep sound wisdom and discretion.
So shall there be life under thy soul and grace to thy neck.
Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not
stumble. When thou liest down, thou shalt
not be afraid. Yea, thou shalt lie down, and
thy sleep shall be sweet. Be not afraid of sudden fear,
neither of the desolation of the wicked when it cometh. For
the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from
being taken. Withhold not good from them to whom it is due,
when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy
neighbor, Go, and come again, and tomorrow I will give, when
thou hast it by thee. Devise not evil against thy neighbor,
seeing he dwelleth securely by thee. Strive not with man without
cause, if he hath done thee no harm. Envy not thou the oppressor,
and choose none of his ways. For the froward is abomination
to the Lord, but his secret is with the righteous. The curse
of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but he blesses the
habitation of the just. Surely he scorneth the scorners,
but he giveth grace to the lowly. The wise shall inherit glory,
but shame shall be the promotion of fools. Look back with me here
in Proverbs chapter 3. Last week I dealt with the first
12 verses on six words of wisdom. Six words of wisdom. Tonight
I want to talk about the value of wisdom. The value of wisdom. Starting at verse 13. See the
value of wisdom. And there's several ways that
we'll see it. About the value of wisdom. How
precious wisdom is. And of course, when we talk about
wisdom, you have to be talking about Christ because we see the
wisdom of God in Christ. Christ Himself is our wisdom. We have no spiritual understanding. We have no spiritual light. We
could never understand how God could be just and justifier unless
we saw the wisdom of God in our Lord Jesus Christ and saw God's
blessed wisdom. But the first thing here in verse,
let me show you in verse 13, down through verse 16, I believe. He said, happy is the man that
findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding. Now here
is true happiness, true happiness for those who find wisdom. Find
wisdom and getteth understanding. And that word getteth understanding
means draw it out. You're after it and you draw
it out. You want wisdom. You want understanding. And you
desire this. And it's what makes you happy.
Don't Christ give us happiness? Don't Christ give us blessedness?
Don't Christ encourage our hearts? Don't Christ meet the needs of
our souls? In fact, he said it's this way
in verse 14. For the merchandise of wisdom
is better than the merchandise of silver. than the merchant
and the gain thereof than fine gold. Now, he often compares
wisdom to what men would call great wealth and great riches.
Now, you can get a lot of merchandise with silver and get a lot of
merchandise with gold, but the merchandise of wisdom, what you
get with wisdom, what you get from God, what you get from Christ,
what you get from the scriptures, what you get from the gospel,
what you get from God Himself and the blessings of God, that
is worth more than anything you'll ever have in this world. We'll
leave everything in this world behind. Gold, in fact, James
says, you rich man, your gold cankers, and it'll be a testimony
against you. But all to have the wish to know
God, to know God in Christ. To rejoice in God in Christ and
to have that merchandise that wisdom brings to us. All those
messages we heard last weekend, we're dealing in truths. Truths, blessed, precious truths. And that, the merchandise of
that. Would you rather have a lot of silver or have the gospel? Would you rather have a lot of
gold or have the gospel? And that's what he said. Oh,
that man's happy that has that. And look what else he says here.
She's more precious than rubies. Wisdom is more precious than
rubies. Except that ruby. She's pretty precious. But you
know, honestly, wisdom is more precious than rubies. These precious stones. And not
only is it more precious than that, but look what else it says
about it. and all the things that thou canst desire are be
compared to her." You have all the things that you desire. As
far as this world is concerned and the things that this flesh
desires, you cannot compare the desires that you would have to
wisdom. And we can desire a lot of wonderful
things, but I think the desire of the righteous, we'll get to
it later, but it says, the desire of the righteous shall be granted,
but the hope of the hypocrite, it'll perish. So what is the
desire of the righteous? It's righteousness. It's fellowship
with God. It's fellowship with Christ.
It's fellowship with one another, union with one another. And look
what else it says about her. Oh, down in verse 16, about this
wonderful thing of wisdom. She's got two hands now. Wisdom
has two hands. Length of days is in her right
hand. When it talks about length of days, I think it's talking
about the quality of your life. And I know we got some folks
here that's lived a long time. And they've had a wonderful life,
a blessed life. And he says, length of days is
in her right hand. Wisdom gives you length of days,
gives you enjoyable days, and your days from the day that you
become a believer, that's when your days in your life really
start. So with the right hand, she gives you long life, she
gives you length of days, and in her left hand, she gives you
riches and she gives you honor. Right hand, length of days, left
hand, riches and honor. And you know, and the thing is,
is that's not what we desire, but God gives us what we need
anyway. He gives us what we desire, even
though we don't even ask for it. And then look what else it
says about her. Her ways are ways of pleasantness. Wisdom are ways of pleasantness.
What did Bruce Crabtree say? He said, I'd rather be in hell
with Christ than heaven without Him. That's how pleasant the
ways of Christ are. He said, Heaven would become
hell if Christ was there. Heaven would become hell if Christ
wasn't there. And so you see, that's what it
is. Her ways are ways of pleasantness. Oh, the blessed gospel, the precious
word of God, the ways of wisdom are ways of pleasantness. How
much do you enjoy life as a believer? How pleasant is your life as
a believer? Pleasant, ain't it? It's a pleasure
to be here. It's pleasant. How many pleasant
people do we know? People that gives us pleasure, gives us pleasantness,
make our life pleasant, makes our life better. And then look
what else it says about with all her paths are peace. Oh my,
when we walk in the gospel, walk in the wisdom, walk in Christ,
walk by faith in Him, live by faith in Him and walk in Him,
beloved, it's a way of peace. It's a way of peace. That's what
it is. So Solomon, he praises wisdom.
Look what else he tells us about wisdom. The value of wisdom. Down here in verse 19 and 20. No, no, let me finish verse 18. She is a tree of life to them
that lay hold upon her. You lay hold on Christ. You lay
hold on wisdom. Paul told Timothy, lay hold on
eternal life. And that's what we do. We lay
hold. And that means, beloved, you
want this. You cleave to this. And she is
a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her. Our Lord Jesus
said, I'm come that you might have life and might have it more
abundantly. He is life. And you know where
there's going to be a tree of life? There's two trees of life
in the scriptures. One was in the garden of Eden. And they, God put in there also
a tree of life, of good and evil. And he put in there and he says,
the day you eat of that fruit, you're going to die. And that's
why he drove them out because of that tree of life. If they'd
have got that tree of life, they'd have had life forever. But there's
a tree of life there, and there's going to be a tree of life in
glory. And we have the tree of life right now in our Lord Jesus
Christ. He gave us the truth. He Himself is our life. And oh, listen, He goes on to
say here now, and happy is everyone that gets a hold of her and retains
her. Don't let her go. I'm not letting
you go. I'm not letting you go. We're like those disciples, and
he said, we also go away. Lord, where are we going to go?
You have the words of eternal life. And there, look what we
see about God's wisdom, God's wisdom in creation. In verse
19, the Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath
he established the heavens. You know the heavens and the
earth, everything that's in this earth,
all the seas, all the deep places, all the high places, every kind
of world that's in this world, God created and He created it
by wisdom. Do you know how this world continues
on year after year, day after day, and the seasons change every
year? God does that. God in His wisdom made this world
the way it is. You know all it would take to
destroy this earth? Is for God to move the sun one
degree right or left. Just move it one degree away
and we'd all freeze to death. Move it one degree closer and
we'd all burn to death. And listen, He gave us people,
God in His wisdom, He created this world and you know how many
people He's fed off out of His earth? How many people, how many people
have, you know, you go to the ocean and you keep getting shrimp,
you keep getting lobster, you keep getting fish, you keep going
to the river, you keep going to the lakes, and it gets green
in the spring, it looks dead in the winter, and then summer
comes along. God in His wisdom made this,
you look out at the stars at night, and He made constellations,
and before every man ever had any other way to go by, He'd
look at the stars, and He could travel by the stars. Because
God made constellations up there for them to go by. Well, I'll
follow that star right there and that'll take me north. Follow
that and that'll take me east. So that's how they traveled the
seas. God made this world in His wisdom.
And He made us in His wisdom. Oh, David said we're fearfully
and wonderfully made. And then by understanding He established the heavens. Look
with me over in Psalm 104. Let's look at this just a minute
together. Psalm 104. Psalm 104 in verse 5. Oh, He's the one that broke up
the depths of the sea, created the clouds. He was thundering
yesterday afternoon and we had told Riley when she was a little
bitty girl, Just a tiny thing. When it'd go to thundering and
raining and all that, she gets kind of scared. You know what
we told her that was? I said, that's God speaking.
That's the voice of God. And it is. I love to go out and watch them
storms. Just boom, boom. And she said that yesterday evening.
She said, oh, she heard that way off. And she said, oh, that's
God speaking. Oh, this is God's world. This is God's world. These clouds,
did you see what he said about them? He said, they're the dust
of my feet. He said, when he shoots lightning,
he said, that's my arrows. When you get up in September,
October, November and a great big frost storm looks like snow,
he said, that's just the breath of my mouth. Oh, our God's great glories. And look here in Psalm 104 and
verse 5. Who laid the foundations of the
earth. Oh my, they can't, it's Michio,
I remember me telling you all about Michio Kaku, whatever his
name is. He keeps going on about a big
bang theory. He's supposed to be one of the
most brilliant men in the world. And he tells how this world come
into existence and all this stuff and he goes that. But now beloved,
somebody had to lay the foundations of this world. There's too much
order for it just to automatically just, boom, come out of the cosmic. There's too much order, too much
wisdom, too much glory, too much, even the laws of nature are God's
laws. They call them laws of nature,
they're God's laws. Laws of physics, they're God's
laws. And an apple fell out of a tree and Isaac Newton, he said,
well, he found out gravity. Gravity had always been, apple
had always been falling out of trees. He decided to call it
gravity. God knows what it was before that. Apples had always
been falling out of trees. But man thinks he finds something
out and if he finds it out, God's one gives him the sense to know
it. But He laid the foundations of the earth, and listen to what
it said, that it should not be removed forever. Look down at
verse 24 and look what it says. Psalm 104. O LORD, how manifold
are Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them
all. The earth is full of Thy riches. As long as there's been men looking
for gold, they still find gold. As long as there's been men looking
for diamonds, they still find diamonds. As long as men have
been fishing on the face of this earth, they're still catching
fish. As long as men have been raising corn on this earth, they're
still raising corn. As long as they've been raising
wheat, they're still raising wheat. As long as there's been
a cow on this earth, men are still raising cattle. You know
why that is? God and His wisdom. We ain't run out, people say,
whoa, listen, we're gonna run out, we're destroying the earth's
resources. If they was the earth, then we
would. But the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Ain't nobody gonna destroy this
thing but God himself. Ain't that right? And then look
what else about his creation. And it says over here, by his
knowledge, in verse 20, Proverbs chapter three again. By His knowledge,
the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down to dew.
Oh, my. That means, beloved, that He's
the one that broke up the deep and caused the earth and the
mountains to come up out of the sea. And He broke up the fountains
in the deep and created the oceans and the seas. And, oh, my, you
get out of the evening and Be out and it won't even be dark
yet. You'll walk out and your grass will be wet and you'll
know why that is. The dew fell. God caused the
dew to fall just like a cloud. So we see God's wisdom, all the
value of it. Solomon praises it. We see God's
wisdom in creation. And see what wisdom does for
us. He said in verse 21, look what he says here. See what wisdom
does for us. My son, let not them depart from
thine eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion. Wisdom gives us discretion. And what is discretion? It means
knowing what to say when you should say it, not what to say
when you do. And if you know something about
something, you just, you keep it to yourself. You're discreet. with how you respond to people,
and how you treat people, and how somebody tells you something,
and you don't let it go. You don't tell anybody else about
it. You have some discretion. God gives you some sense. And
this said here, and then He said in verse 22, Oh my, so shall they be life under
thy soul, and grace under thy neck. What does that mean? Give life to your soul. Oh, wisdom gives life to your soul.
Christ who is our wisdom. And then that word grace means
adornment and beauty. It'll be upon your neck. Grace
be beauty and anointment. That'll be upon your neck. Adornment
and beauty to your neck. Just like a wonderful necklace.
And then look what else he says. Then shalt thou walk in safety.
Let thou walk in safety. Then shalt thou walk safely,
and thy foot shall not stumble. Oh my. What are we talking about
here? Oh my. Helps us. Grace makes us. Our Lord gives
us and causes us to walk safely. Walk safely. You ever wonder
why? Something happens that you can't
go to where you want to go or do what you want to do at any
given time. Something comes up to keep you from going or doing
and be someplace. Have you ever wondered why that
is? I'll tell you why that is. God means to keep you safe and
there's something out there. He may, he'll stop what happens
today and then open the door tomorrow to keep something else
from happening. I believe that. I believe sometimes
He gets us behind real, real slow people to keep us from getting
ahead of somebody down there and hitting somebody. There's
lots of things. God says I'll cause you to walk
safely. And how much safer can you walk
than to walk by faith in Christ? And to walk with our feet shod
with the preparation of the gospel of peace. He says, ìOur steps
will be directed by wisdom.î And then look what else He says,
ìAnd thy foot shall not stumble.î The paths of a good man, the
steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. And that they will
not stumble, that means that you wonít fall into a pitfall. That Christ will guard us and
protect us and direct us so we wonít fall into pitfalls that
other people do. And then look what else he says
now. In verse 24. This is what wisdom does for
us. When you lie down, you won't
be afraid. Why you gotta be afraid of it?
Huh? When you lie down, you won't
be afraid. I heard Henry Mahan say one time,
God neither slumbers nor sleeps. So there ain't no sense both
of us staying awake. You just go ahead and go sleep. You know, God's going to stay
awake and keep an eye on you, so just go ahead and go to sleep.
And I said, you know, and don't be afraid. When thou liest down,
thou shalt not be afraid. And oh, listen to what else he
says. He calls us to sleep so securely. And look what else
he says. And thou shalt lie down. And
oh, listen, thy sleep shall be sweet. Oh, it's so wonderful to be able
to sleep Go to sleep, rest peacefully and quietly. Oh, that's a wonderful
thing, isn't it? Oh, the sleep of a laboring man
is sweet. Sweet. And oh, they make our
things. And look what else he says now.
Let's look at what the things that... And here's another reason
why. Because the Lord... Be not afraid. I'm going to give you six things
now. We're going to move on. The value
of wisdom, God's wisdom, how Solomon values and praises it,
and God's wisdom in creation, what wisdom does for us. But
then wisdom gives us six things that tells us not to do. Six
things not to do. And the first one's there in
verse 25. Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of desolation of
the wicked when it cometh. Don't be afraid of sudden fear,
and neither of the desolation of the wicked when it comes.
I'm going to tell you something. We see the desolation of the
wicked every day. We see the desolation of the
wicked right here in our own country. And I'm not trying to
get into any kind of political thing or nothing here, but just
the fact that they're killing babies more than any, more people
die by abortion than any other way. and all the murders, the
murders, and then this idea that a man can just walk in and shoot
as many people as he possibly can, and people don't absolutely
go out in the streets and demand that something be done, and they
want to take your guns away from you to keep you from protecting
yourself. We see the desolation of the wicked every single day. We see the desolation of the
wicked in our children and in our families. They're not interested
in Christ, they're not interested in the gospel. They're desolate,
their lives are empty and their lives go on and they don't seem
to be caring about anything but they go on and on. They don't
seem to care. But don't be afraid and here's
why you shouldn't be afraid, verse 26. For the Lord, for the
Lord, shall be thy confidence and shall keep thy foot from
being taken." He won't let your foot be taken. He's going to
be your confidence. You certainly don't have confidence
in anybody in this world, do you? Surely, I mean other than
one believer having confidence in another believer as a man
and as an honest person and some scruples and some integrity.
We do that. But I mean out in the world.
Surely, surely, you ain't putting all your eggs in the basket of
somebody like what's going on. We wouldn't do that. And that's
why he says, the Lord should be your confidence. Where's my
confidence? Christ's my confidence. And whatever comes, day or night,
week or month, or year after year, who's our confidence? Christ
is. God is. You put your confidence
in man, he said, it's like a foot out of joint, a broken tooth
and a foot out of joint. That's what he said. That's about
the way it is. And oh, listen. And look what
else he says now. And talking about don't deny
good. Look what he says then in verse
27. Here's another thing wisdom tells
us not to do. Withhold not good from them to
whom it is due when it is in the power of thy hand to do it. If you got the power to do gifts
to somebody, something that's due them, praise to whom praise,
honor to whom honor, and if you owe them anything, be sure to
give them the due. And withhold not good from them
to whom it is due, when it's in the power of your hand to
do it. If you got to do good and do it not, James said, it's
a sin. So to do good, when you have the opportunity, the power's
in your hand, do good. And if man's got something due
him, give him what's due him. And then look what else. And
say not unto him, here's another thing not to do. And you know
the only thing that we have to owe one another, that we really
are due one another, is to love one another. Is to love one another. That's what we're to owe one
another. Withhold not good to them to whom it is due. And say
not, here's another one. Say not unto your neighbor, go
and come again tomorrow, and I'll give when you have it by
you. What people do that for, they
put up people off hoping that they'll forget about it. Maybe
they'll forget it, but if your neighbor comes and he asks something
of you, and you have it, let him have it. I'll tell you something my neighbor
done for me. You're talking about a good neighbor. And then, you
know, I went off somewhere and one of my grandsons which had
a brand new shovel. And he was out digging with it
and he broke the handle out of the shovel. Had a brand new set,
never even been put in the ground yet, brand new set of post hole
diggers. He started digging a post hole,
done like that, broke the handle out of it. So I said, Ben, you've
done without anything to work with. Didn't need to. Well, I
left and I went somewhere and I come back And I went up to
my shed, and my neighbor, I had two posts to pull, one of them
was broke, and what he done, he just took it out, cut it off,
put both handles back in it, took my broken handle, he put
that thing together and wrapped tape all the way around it, and
now it's just like it always was. And I didn't ask him to
do any of that stuff, he just done it because he saw that it
needed to be done and he did it. Now that's a good neighbor,
ain't it? But I'll tell you what, you know
what our Lord said? There was this man, rich man, young man,
came to our Lord Jesus Christ. And said, what must I do to inherit
eternal life? And he says, you know the commandments,
love the Lord thy God with all your heart and your neighbor
as yourself. And willing to justify himself, you know what he said?
Who is my neighbor? And our Lord used, as an illustration,
three kind of people. A priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan. Priest is one that served at
the temple and offered sacrifices. Levite was the one who moved
the tabernacle and carried things around. And the Samaritan was
worse than the dog. And they went by there and that
Levite, he went over on the other side of the road and the priest,
he did too. And that Samaritan, that sorry no count nobody, went
by there and picked that fella up and took care of him. Now,
who do you suppose his neighbor was? Huh? The law ain't gonna
do nothing for you. Love in your heart's what caused
that to happen. And oh, listen, I'll tell you,
let me give you another one. And then it says, Devise not,
verse 29, devise not evil against your neighbor, seeing he dwells
securely by thee. Oh my, devise evil? Oh I don't, surely a man wouldn't
devise evil against anybody, any of his neighbors, any of
the people that he knows and loves, seeing he dwells securely
by thee. He lives by you and he's secure.
Why would you want to devise evil against him? And oh my,
God, give us the love of Christ in our hearts so we never think
of any things like that. And listen, let me give you,
I gotta hurry, I gotta hurry. Let me show you another not.
Verse 30, strive not with man without cause if he hath done
thee no harm. Don't strive. Strive, strive
with a man without cause if he's never done any harm to you. That's
a foolish thing to do. Just to argue and strive with
a felon. Strife. You know, where there's
envy and confusion, there's strife and every evil work. And I tell
you, strife can do, and striving can do a lot of harm. And it
can escalate and get bigger and bigger and bigger, unless God
stops it. So don't strive with a man if
there ain't no cause to do it. Now, if you got cause to do it,
deal with it. And that's why no wonder the
Proverbs and no wonder God said, vengeance belongs unto me. Let
the Lord take care of it. And then let me show you quickly,
verse 31. Envy now not the oppressor and
choose none of his ways. A man of violence, that's what
that means. The oppressor, a man of violence, a man that's angry,
a man that wants to run over people, a bully. And don't choose
none of his ways. Don't be a violent man. Don't
be like a violent man. Don't be like a bully. Choose
none of his ways. And here's the difference between
the righteous and the wicked. And this happens all the way
through the Psalms. These last three, four verses. Three verses. He says, For the
froward is an abomination. That word froward means perverse
and crooked. But look what else he says. But
his secret is with the righteous. Oh, had their abomination, but
God gives secret to the righteous. The curse of the Lord is on the
house of the wicked. Cursed is every one that continueth
not in the book of the law. But listen, blessed, their house
is cursed, but blessed is the house, the habitation of the
just. See the difference? Surely he scorns the scorners.
But oh, what does he do for those others? He gives grace unto the
lowly. And oh, look what the wise are
going to inherit. They're going to inherit glory.
But you know what the promotion of fools will be? They'll be
ashamed when the Lord comes. Be ashamed. So the value of wisdom. Precious, precious thing. Precious
thing. Our Father in the blessed, blessed
name of Christ our Lord, thank you for allowing us to meet here
this evening. Thank you for your word. We want to be honest with
it, true with it, for ourselves and for everyone else, but especially
for our own heart. Father, bless and strengthen
your people. Some are going to go on, start traveling this weekend. Please give them traveling mercies
and protect them, see them safely back to us. Lord, give us the
gospel on the Lord's day to preach here. Bless your people as they
go out into the world this evening back to their jobs. Keep them,
preserve them, uphold them by your blessed grace. Again, we
pray for Gary, Stephanie, and Matt, Gary's family and church
family. God help them. Oh, Lord, please
help them for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen.