The Call to God's Wisdom (An Introduction to the Proverbs)

If you would go ahead and take your Bible and turn to Proverbs chapter 1. We were there earlier. Proverbs chapter 1. We're going to get familiar with this book because we'll be here for a little while. I'm really excited about what we're going to be looking at in the book of Proverbs. Now I discovered something in the several weeks that I've been studying to get ready for this study. It dawned on me that I have not taught very much out of the book of Proverbs. Now I've taught a Bible study or two. I've read it extensively through the years. But I've really never taught a big portion of scripture out of Proverbs.

Now I have gone in many different places in the Old Testament. But I just for some reason have never taught that much out of this book. Now by the time we get through we'll be very familiar with the book. Now I want to give us a couple of preliminaries before I give us what I'm calling the introduction to the book. The introduction will deal with the actual book itself. And the introduction will help us to get ready for the verses in the study as well. But these two preliminaries will help us. First of all I want to give you my approach. The way I'm going to approach teaching the book.

We are not going to go verse by verse like we normally do. We went through James first by verse, first, second, and third John. First, second, Timothy. We were in John for quite some time verse by verse. But we will not skip blocks of scripture. What I mean is there are certain portions of scripture I'll go a little deeper into. Then there are certain portions of scripture I'll touch on. And then we will move on. I took this approach when we were in the book of Ezra in Nehemiah. The second preliminary is this. I want to encourage you to develop four disciplines as we get into this study.

Now don't let this intimidate you four disciplines when I say that. First, I would encourage you to read and meditate through the book. Read and meditate through the book. Make reading proverbs and meditating on the proverbs a part of your personal study, your personal prayer time throughout the week. It might look one way for you and one way for me. I'm a meditator. I read and I meditate. So develop that discipline as we're in this book together. Second, I would encourage you to take good notes and not just take notes but read back over those notes.

Sometimes we go back and we read back over what we've learned and the Lord really just impresses it upon our heart. Maybe there's something that I say that the Lord really uses. You write that down and you go back and study and pray over that throughout the week. And then third, the third discipline, those portions of scripture that we do not cover thoroughly, maybe study those on your own, maybe go a little deeper. Take some time during the week to study those a little deeper. And then the fourth discipline, mark passages, mark truths, those things that the Lord teaches you. Share them with your spouse. Share them with your family.

Make what we're learning a part of your family discipleship, especially if you have children who can understand. Now sometimes with the smaller ones, it can be hard to teach some of these things and relate some of these things to them. But I thought that those four disciplines will help you and I would encourage you to develop those disciplines in this study. And if you need that information, I can definitely give that to you when we're through tonight. Now I want to introduce our study with a personal question for you. And I want you to be honest with yourself and a personal confession from me.

So I'm going to start off with a personal question of you and a personal confession from me. Now that might make some of you nervous. Now here's the personal question. In your life, have you ever been a contradiction? Have you ever been a contradiction? I know there's some of us here. We like to exercise. We try to exercise. Maybe some of us when we're exercising, we say we're going to eat right. But yet when we have First Sunday fellowship, we make one or two trips to the dessert table. Is that not a contradiction? One we can smile about and laugh about? Yeah. A little more serious.

Maybe we start a Bible reading plan, a new Bible reading plan. Maybe we've developed a Bible reading plan of our own. And we're just doing real good with that for three, four, five months. And then life crowds in and then the plan kind of goes out the window. Is that a contradiction? I think about a very, very serious contradiction. This is not one any of us would smile about. I remember years ago, a leader in the life of the church, one of the churches where I was attending, I'll never forget he would talk about his upbringing and how he came from a divorced home and how his dad left his family and left his family for another woman.

And he used to always say he would never do that. He would never do that. He would never do that. And then he did. That's a very serious contradiction. Now, we all live with contradictions. We all do. Some we can laugh about and some we should not laugh about. Well, whether you know it or not, the book of Proverbs is about one of the biggest contradictions in the Bible. Now, I'm not talking about the book itself. The book itself is not a contradiction. But the author of the book was a big, big contradiction. Proverbs was written by Solomon or King Solomon. King Solomon was David's son. And he was what I call the wisest fool who ever lived.

That's what Solomon was. He was the wisest fool that ever lived. He was a miserable contradiction. When Solomon was king of Israel, God made him the wisest man on earth. 1 Kings 4, verse 29 to 34 says, "God gave Solomon wisdom beyond measure." Let that sink in. "Wisdom that was immeasurable," the text says. He was so wise people came from many nations to hear of his wisdom. The kings of all the earth, the text says, heard of his great wisdom. But then there comes a contradiction. In his later years, he made sinful political alignments with pagan nations. He married many foreign wives to secure those political alliances.

And those foreign wives led Solomon to worship foreign gods. And ultimately, he built temples to those foreign gods within the nation of Israel. And this led to a loss of spiritual discernment in his life, a loss of wisdom in his life. And he ended up a train wreck of foolish living. That's why I say he was the wisest fool that ever lived. Now, this is the man who gave us the book. Now, he did not write all of the Proverbs. Some people mistake that, have that mistake. He compiled them. Now, there were many that he did write, but most of them were written by many, many others. And we'll touch on who they were as we go.

But I want us to see who gave us the book. Now, why do I bring up the contradiction? Why do I spend the time with this contradiction? Solomon's life was about two things, wisdom and foolishness. And the book of Proverbs is primarily a book about wisdom and foolishness. It is about wise living and foolish living. Now, this helps us see the theme of the book. The theme of the book is wisdom. You can just write that one word down. The theme of the book is wisdom or wise living. Every resource commentator that I looked at for the past couple of months had some type of a phrase that involved wisdom or wise living to describe the theme of the book.

Now, in the book of Proverbs, the words wise and wisdom are used around 125 times. And many times, they are contrasted by the subject of foolishness or foolish living. So the theme, again, wisdom or wise living. That's why I call the title of the series, Wisdom for Christian Living. Because we as Christians want to live wise Christian lives and we want to be equipped to do that through the book of Proverbs. Now, I've asked you a question. Now, I've got to be personal. I've got to come to my personal confession. When I'm driving, I like to use my GPS navigation on my phone. I remember the days of the tom-tom. Remember those?

My dad bought me one. It's in a drawer somewhere in my house, I'm sure. Now, a couple of weeks ago or a few weeks ago, my family, we were on vacation. And my wife was using her phone to navigate for us. So the picture is I'm driving and she is navigating. But that caused a problem. That really caused a big problem. To be honest with you, she's not good at using that technology. She's not good at using it at all. And here's where my confession comes. It caused a few tips as we were driving. I think about one in particular, we're on a busy road. We're trying to get to the interstate. The sign says go one way. The navigation says go another way.

And then my wife is saying go another way. And then the person that was coming up in my rearview mirror was saying go another way. Now, listen, folks. I'll use that illustration to help us see. We live in a day when everyone has something to navigate them in life. People today have many things to navigate them through life, all of which are supposed to give their lives direction and purpose and happiness. But most of the time with people in the world, what is meant to make their life better ultimately leaves them empty and hopeless, even destroyed, because that which is navigating their lives will destroy them.

But we as Christians, we don't want anything in the world to navigate us. We don't want anything in the world to try to bring us fulfillment in life. We need God's wisdom to form us and mold us. And that is what will navigate us in life. And yes, we'll have trials. Yes, we'll have difficulties. But through that, we'll have the fulfillment that God wants us to have, His wisdom navigating us. Now, here's where I want us to see the key verse that will give us and help us see the purpose of the book. The key verse is right in front of us in Chapter 1, verse 7. If you'll look at your copy of God's Word, look at this verse, maybe mark that.

This is the key verse for the entire book, especially the first nine chapters. The verse reads, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and fools despise wisdom and instruction." This is the key that unlocks the door of the book, knowing that the entire book is meant to bring the reader, those who study, to a place of fearing God and seeking after His wisdom and knowledge and unlocks the meaning of the book. And that was Solomon's purpose. That was his purpose as he compiled all of these proverbs. He taught young men in his royal court. He sought to equip these students, these young men, to be skilled in God's living.

Solomon sought to develop spiritual discernment and understanding in their lives. He desired to bring his students to a place of spiritual wisdom and maturity, making them skilled in Godly living. And Solomon was skilled in Godly living in the early days. This weekend, my brother-in-law and I will be doing some bush hogging at my granddad's place. This is the time of year we always do that. We're really behind. Usually we bush hog at least one or two times in the summer, but we've all been busy. My family keeps up my granddad's old place. We enjoy being with each other. We enjoy deer hunting a little bit. This weekend I'll go.

I'll hook up the bush hog to my dad's tractor. And you know there's two or three things that I must have when I hook up that bush hog. They're called lynch pins. Some of you men know what lynch pins are. And you know if I lose one of those lynch pins, the bush hog won't stay connected. I can't do anything. I'm disconnected from the implement that I'm going to use. Well, I'm going to give us two lynch pins. And if we're not connected to the book of Proverbs properly, listen, it just won't work. So let me give you two lynch pins before we get into the verses.

First, we must see that the Proverbs are all sufficient and authoritative from God's Word. They are a part of God's Word. God's Word is sufficient, and it is authoritative. The book of Proverbs is sufficient to give us wisdom, to give us spiritual understanding, to give us discernment. When we are empowered by the Holy Spirit, these truths can take areas of our lives where we are unwise, where we are lacking understanding, where we need discernment, and can replace those things in our lives with wisdom and understanding and discernment. The book of Proverbs is not only sufficient, but it is authoritative. We need to be reminded of that.

We must see that every word, every phrase in this book has authority over our lives. And if we ignore any teaching here, we will be rejecting God's authority over our lives. I have here in my notes a reference to 2 Timothy 3.16. We know that verse. It's one of our vacation Bible school songs, and we've sung it many times. I can't read the verse without hearing the tune in my mind. All scripture has been given by God, and it is sufficient and authoritative. And Proverbs fits into that category as God's Word. Second, or the second lynch pin, we must be born-again Christians. Solomon often used the term "my son" in my study.

I saw just a list of how many times that is scattered all throughout the Proverbs. This is all throughout the book. This suggests that this book is from a loving father to their child. To be considered a true child of God, one must be truly born-again. We know that here. And to acquire wisdom for Christian living, one must be a true child of God. And so if we are not a true born-again Christian, we might learn and put it in our minds, but it really will never filter its way into our hearts because it can. I was reminded of an event that took place when I was a kid in my life. I spent many, many days at the ballparks.

My brother played baseball. I played baseball, and I never forget being at the ballparks one particular day. And my brother, my older brother, was up at bat. The ball came across the plate, and he hit it, and it went all the way to the fence. And there was an outfielder juggle the ball, and he goes around first, and they waved him on to second, and they kept juggling the ball, and they waved him on to third, and the third-base coach said, "Go home," and he goes all the way home. And it was an inside-the-park home run. Man, they were going nuts.

But then the umpire out in the outfield just quietly said, "You're out," because he missed first base. And he knew it. I never forget that. And there are a lot of people in the life of the church. God's Word really can't affect their life and mold them into who God would want them to be because they've missed first base. And many times, they're like Nicodemus. They're trying to live a sanctified life and not be a born-again Christian. So those are the two lynchpins that will help us be tied to this study as we should be. We must see that it is sufficient to mold us, and it is authoritative over our lives, and we must be born again.

Otherwise, it will just be information. Now, being that we took some time here with some introductory material, we really only have time to kind of get started. We're going to cover verses 1 to 7, and then next week we will cover the rest of the chapter. I was sharing with Brother Keith there might be times when we have one message out of a chapter. There might be some times when we have two or three. We're going to try to juggle that balance between getting through the book and being thorough. And again, we won't be looking at every word.

So tonight, we're going to look at verses 1 to 7, and then next week we're going to pick up with verse 8 and go all the way through the rest of the chapter. Verse 8 and 9 is a reminder, and it will be a reminder for us to remember what we've learned, and then we'll transition into some new material. I'll go ahead and give you how we're going to break down the Scriptures. It's really, really simple. It flows real well. I think you'll see it. We'll have four major truths that we'll look at. We'll spend a little more time in number two, but we're going to look at the genre. We're going to look at the goal. We're going to look at the challenge.

And then the point. We've already read verse 7. That's the theme verse for the entire book. So you see how we'll divide this, the genre, the goal, the challenge, and then the point. And then when we get through with my conclusion, I've got some things I want you to really think about. I think I'll send you home with some information that will stir up your mind and your heart for what we have in front of us. Let's look at the verses that are before us. Let's read them verses 1 to 7, and then we'll pray and dive into the verses.

"The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity, to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young or the youth. Let the wise hear in increasing learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles." And then verse 7, our last verse, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and fools despise wisdom and instruction." Let's pray.

Lord, I do thank you for the time we've had in worship. Lord, we sang that little phrase that we're familiar with, "There's no one like you." Lord, help us not to just sing these words. Help the truth that we sing, the phrases we're familiar with, the words we might say as we sing, to be prayers to you that they would echo back to our hearts, and they wouldn't be just words. Lord, there is none like you, and I thank you for your salvation and your Son Jesus. Thank you for your word. I think about what you prayed for your disciples in John 17. You prayed that your men would be sanctified by your truth.

And Lord, I pray the very same prayer, that us here tonight would be sanctified and molded and changed by the truths found in your word. And as we start in Proverbs 1.1, and we're on this journey through the book, just take your truth and mold us, inform us into the people that you want us to be. And we ask it all in Christ's name. Amen. Well, let's start off with main truth number one, or number one in our outline, the genre. Now, that might be a funny little word for you. You might not know what that word means.

The time to look up genre in the Webster's dictionary, and that might help some of you, but Webster defines genre as a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content. Definitions helps us sometimes. Sometimes examples help us. I'll give you an example or two that'll help you. Country music is a particular musical genre. It's much different from that musical genre that I detest, which is hip hop. I don't like hip hop music. Never have. I don't really like country music either. I'll give you another example. Science fiction. Some of you might like science fiction.

Science fiction is a different literary genre than maybe a biography. I think you understand what I mean by that. Now, I have a purpose here, because we must see the type of biblical literature that the Proverbs are. They are part of what's called wisdom literature within the Old Testament. In your study, you might come across that term. Wisdom literature is comprised of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. Wisdom literature is completely different, and I promise you, when you begin to study, you will see that. Now, why is it important for us to see this fact?

Proverbs is a part of that wisdom literature category, and wisdom literature can be hard to understand. It can be. Many times, the truths and the teachings can be elusive. They can be hidden within what is written. So we need to understand what we are searching for. We're searching for truth that can be hidden sometimes, and it requires work. Now, what must we see specifically about the Proverbs in their style and their form? We must see specifically that Proverbs are short sayings that contain timeless truth and wisdom.

These short expressions are meant to grab the reader's attention, which is intended to cause the reader to question and to think how they might find that truth and apply that truth and those principles into their everyday life. Now, we might not know it, but we are used to this exercise. Many times, I've taken you into the parables in the Gospel accounts. A few weeks ago, on a Sunday night, we were in Luke chapter 18, which is one of the parables on prayer. Parables are earthly stories that are cast alongside spiritual truth. The truths are hidden within the story.

The story is meant to grab our attention, to draw us into the story, and to seek after the meaning that's within the story, and then take the truth of the principles and apply them to our life. So this is a spiritual exercise, and we must get that on our mind so that we can know what we're getting into. I read something earlier to our young people, and that might have caught your attention. When I went on down to verse 8 and verse 9, "Hear, my son, your father's instruction." We can get that. "And forsake not your mother's teaching." That's obvious.

"For they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck." There's a hidden meaning there. That's a cultural difference for us. We don't necessarily understand what those are, but those were items they used to beautify the body. So what does the proverb mean? Don't forget what's taught you because they will make you a beautiful, godly person. So understanding the genre, the type of literature, does help us. I have another illustration I had in my notes, but in Proverbs 5.3 it talks about the adulterous woman, and it talks about how her lips are dripping with honey. Is that literal? No. There's a hidden meaning there.

That's a figure of speech. It's meant to grab our attention. Well, what's the meaning? The adulterous woman's conversation sounds sweet and sounds, and is attractive, but we know the truth. So how do we apply just looking at the style of writing? How do we apply that to us? We understand that some of what we read can be tough to understand. We understand that we might have to work. We read, maybe it jumps off the page, maybe it grabs our attention, and we don't know what this means. So here's some advice for you. If you're reading through and you're struggling, pray, pray over the verses. Pray and ask God to help you.

Meditate over the verses. Sometimes as you meditate, you begin to see what's being taught or what's being said. Use your cross-reference system in your Bible. Other passages of Scripture in Proverbs might reflect on the meaning. Remember, remember, the Bible will interpret itself. The Bible will interpret itself. So it's necessary. It's important for us to see the style of writing. And even myself today, as I was finishing up this material, I was gripped by how different it is compared to some things we've been in together for so long, namely the Gospel of John. So let's move on. Number two. I want us to see the goal here.

I want us to see the goal in verse two, and I'm breaking this down, verse two to verse four. Now, in explaining these verses, I like to use the word "goal." I ran across one writer that used the word "prize." There's a prize here. I use the word "goal." So we have a goal. We have a prize here. Now, this goal is a work of God and the Christian, and this work of God in the Christian is the goal, but it really includes a lot. This is a multifaceted or a multi-layered work here. Now, this is not a gift. This is not a gift. There was one writer that used the word "prize." This is not a surprise. This is a goal that must be sought after.

This is a prize that must be worked for. And I'll show you why I wanted to use the word "goal," because it's almost like we see the phrase "we seek." Let me show you what I mean. Look at your copy. We seek verse two to know. Then I'm using this phrase again, verse three. We seek to receive. We seek to get. We see the word "give" here. What do we see? We seek to know things. We seek to receive things. We seek to get or to gain things. That's why I'm using the word "goal." There's a goal here. There's a prize to be attained. So let's go through these verses.

Notice first we seek to know, verse two, to know wisdom and instruction to understand words of insight. Now, we seek to know, and it might be good for you to mark those words, wisdom, instruction, and understanding. Now, you're going to see some of these words cycle back and forth through here. And I'm going to talk about that cycle here in a minute. Now, this word "wisdom," it means the ability to use knowledge correctly. It's not knowledge. It's the ability to use knowledge correctly in the practical areas of our life. This is knowledge of God's ways, God's purposes, and they're being used in life to produce a godly life.

So it's not knowledge. We're talking about wisdom, the proper use of knowledge. And then this word "instruction." This has the idea of a parent's correction, a parent's discipline. Here it speaks of correction or disciplining the character. This is the forming of the character or the inner person, much like a parent would discipline a child. And then this word "understand." This speaks about one's spiritual discernment. This one has the ability to distinguish between that which is right and wrong, that which is godly or ungodly.

I like the word "discernment." Now, let me keep going on, and then I'm going to tie all this together, because it's layers. That's why I said it's multi-layered, multifaceted. So we seek to know in verse 2. We seek to receive in verse 3. Go back to the verse. "To receive instruction in wise dealing, injustice," or excuse me, "righteousness, injustice, and equity." So we seek to receive. Now, this verse is really an elaboration of what was said in verse 2. It's just a layer. Studying the book of Proverbs, it enables one to receive wisdom for right behavior. It enables one to have the ability to make right choices.

Also, they understand God's justice, which is his standard. And they know how to live a life in a way that is pleasing to God. So it's just a layer. And then notice, we seek to, and I use the word "gain." It's given. We seek to. Look at verse 4. "To give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth." So this verse, verse 4, helps us see that the Proverbs can give discernment or ability to the one who might be naive, or to the one who might be ignorant. They might not know. The word "simple" here is a picture of an open door. And this means that the Proverbs enable the one who is open to anything.

It gives them the discernment or the ability to close that door to worldly things and only be open to godly things so they can live wisely. Now, look at all the words here. They just really pile on top of each other. If you go back and look at the verses. Verse 2, "Wisdom, instruction, to understand." Verse 3, "To receive instruction, wise dealing in righteousness, justice, and equity." "Pruitence," verse 4, "to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young one, or the one who might be naive." Again, these are layers that I spoke of.

This is a multifaceted, multi-layered work within the one who sets his heart and mind to be a student of the Proverbs. The goal is a work of God. The prize is seeing these verses made real in one's life. And so that tells me that we can roll up our sleeves and we can get into this book and we can pray and we can study and this can begin to take place. And we look back on our life and we see success. We see the results. That's the prize. That's the goal. I have some questions here. I think it would be good for us to ponder. Think about it. Which of us doesn't need knowledge being correctly lived out in our everyday lives producing wisdom?

Which of us need that? Which of us doesn't need God's correction and discipline so as to form our character and our inner self? Do we need that? Which of us doesn't need a work of discernment in our life so as to distinguish between that which is right, that which is wrong, that which is godly or ungodly? Do we need that? Which of us doesn't need our simpleton minds and hearts closed to worldly ways and worldly thinking? All of us can be naive in certain ways. So what am I trying to show you? This is a goal. This is a prize. And it's not that we ever ascend the mountain and we get there, no.

And you know as I was studying this and it's just began to unfold for me, truthfully, all of the words piled on top of each other, they all relate. It's difficult to just kind of untangle them. But then when I began to see the work, I see it's a goal, it's a prize, we yearn for it and we never stop. I was immediately reminded of a man that I went to church with years ago. There was a time when he said he got there, I'm wise, I know, and everybody else doesn't know. Not very discerning. Not very humble. Not very wise. He thinks he's smart and wise when all along he is a simpleton. So this is the goal. This is the prize. Let's move on.

I want us to see number three. And this is in verse five and six. We see here this challenge. We see the challenge. Look at verse five and six. "Let the wise hear an increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance to understand a proverb and a saying the words of the wise and riddles." Now, I call it a challenge. I almost used the word call, if this was a call. I think it's a challenge. Now, to get this challenge, there needs to be two words that we have in our mind. The word humility and the word pride. Maybe write those two words down. The word humility and the word pride.

You know, today, humility is rare, whereas pride is everywhere. It's kind of hard for us to do, but when we look at politicians today, most of us see nothing but pride. Their message is simply, "We know, and you be quiet, and let us tell you." I'll never forget what a man that I know said back in the -- during the days of the Obama administration. He said this, and it really hit me. He said, "I'm tired of my president telling me what to think." It's pride. Look at sports figures, so-called movie stars. Most of them are full of pride and arrogance. Where's the humility? Humility's rare today, is it not?

Now, to me, humility is the key to getting the challenge here. This is a challenge. So, let me place this word humble in here. Now, I'm not trying to desecrate God's word. Let me put this word humble in between wise and here. Look at verse 5. "Let the wise, humble man hear." "Let the wise, humble woman hear." Let that sink in for a minute. The humble, they hear from God's word, and they increase in learning. God's ways and God's purposes. The humble, they grow in understanding of God's ways.

Even in understanding the hidden truths of God's word, the proverbs that are hard to deal with, the parables and the stories of God's word -- you hear what I'm trying to show you? The humble hear God's word, and they increase in learning. The humble, they grow in their ability to understand deep things from God. That's why I did that exercise. Go back to verse 5. "Let the wise, humble man," or woman, "hear and increase." So, the challenge here is that we grow in wisdom, grow in understanding, grow in discernment, not to grow in self-sufficiency and pride.

The challenge or the call is to stay in a humble position and condition so as to continue to grow. Let me go back and read it again. "Let the wise, humble man," or woman, "hear and increase in learning." And the humble one, "let them continue that they may understand and obtain more guidance." I thought about two examples that might help you here. You know, when I go to preacher's conferences, and I don't do that very often, I watch what preachers do. And it amazes me what I see. It's usually one of two things.

Sometimes at a preacher's conference, there's a preacher up there preaching, and there might be a very famous, knowledgeable preacher in the congregation, and he'll sit right on the front with his notepad and Bible, and he's taking notes. You know what that tells me? This is what he's doing right here. "Let the wise," see, he's learned it, experienced, but yet he's humble, and he wants to hear and increase in learning. But then I'll see certain preachers get up and walk out. It's almost like they're saying, "I got that." I'll never forget one time there was a particular person that came up to me, and it was a preaching-type service.

Yes, they had their mind more full of some spiritual things, and with frustration they looked at me and they said, "I already knew that." And in my mind, I thought two things. There are all kinds of people that didn't know that, and they needed to hear it, and you really needed to hear it again, and you didn't get it. See? A lack of humility. Again, see the challenge? Because if we're not careful, we can all grow in pride instead of staying in humility. "Let the wise, humble man or woman hear and increase in learning." See, that's what we're going to do in the book of Proverbs. If we stay humble, that is the challenge.

We will continue to grow in understanding and ability, and we'll be able to understand more of God's Word and God's truth. Let's move on to number four. I want us to see the point, verse seven. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction." Now, I call this the point. I know I'm referring to the theme verse of the book. The point of the book is to reflect this entire verse. You need to get that. The point of the book, the whole book itself reflects, it's seen in this one verse. Like I said earlier, this is the key that unlocks the entire book.

Knowing the entire book is meant to bring us, the reader, to a place of fearing God and seeking after God's wisdom and knowledge. It unlocks the meaning of the book for us. A question, this is a legitimate one. This is a legitimate question we need to ask. What does this fear of the Lord mean? I can see where people would be tripped up by that. Verse seven, "The fear of the Lord." This fear is not a fear of punishment or damnation or hell. This is a fear that comes with love and honor and respect, one that has a personal knowledge of God, that has experienced the grace of God in salvation. They are humble.

They're humble themselves before God, and they have a reverential love and fear of God. They are devoted to God. They fear God. Remember the pride that we spoke of earlier. There's no pride here. If we fear God, there's no pride. Only humble submission. This reverential fear of God is the beginning of spiritual knowledge. One cannot even begin to have spiritual knowledge and wisdom if they do not have this healthy fear of God. Go back to the verse. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Full despised wisdom and instruction. Remember my story about my brother missing first base? I've told that story quite a few times here.

I'm sure I'll use it in the future. Meaning the life of the church missed the first base of this verse, and the first base is the fear of God. They're prideful. They think they know more than they actually do. They're not humble. And what am I showing you? They don't have this fearful, this reverential fear of God. And so guess what? They do not begin to get knowledge. They do not begin to have insight. You see what I'm saying? This work right here in verse 7 is hindered. Now remember that earlier I said that in this book, wisdom and foolishness are seen in contrast.

I said the theme is wisdom, wise living, and many times it's contrasted by foolish living. That's what we see here. Look at the verse. "The fear of the Lord first base is the beginning of knowledge." Fools, despised wisdom and instruction. And I ask you, are you fearful of the Lord, the things of God, you love God, you're fearful, you're respectful of His word, or are you casual and maybe even prideful? And this is the challenge because we're always having to deal with this that can creep up in our lives.

Now as I close with dealing with these verses, I want to engage in a little exercise here, and I want to call out three areas of your life, and then I want to make a few statements. And my prayer, my hope is that this will stimulate you to action, to seriousness, to take what we're going to look at very serious. So I pray that this stimulates you spiritually. The first area of your life is your family. What about your immediate family? Your wife, your husband, your children, your immediate, you'll go home tonight, close the door, that's your immediate family. Then beyond that, your extended family.

Maybe your parents, maybe your aunts, uncles, cousins, those who you come in contact with. I go beyond your family. What about your church family? You know, I've had people here say, "No, this is my family. We have the church family. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ." But then I think about another part of your life, maybe your workplace. Now that's different for all of us. Your workplace. Maybe you don't work, you're a stay-at-home mom, but yet there are people that you come in contact with, and we're going to talk about that as I continue. Maybe you're in school.

I know we do have adults in the life of our church who are in school. I'm talking about those who we come in contact with outside of our family. That leads me to the fourth area of our community. Our neighbors, where we shop, where we pay bills, we have a community. So think about your family, your church family, your workplace, your community. I'm going to read a statement. "Your family needs a man or a woman of wisdom to be used for his glory and honor and purposes." Your family. Some of your family are lost and outside of Christ. They need to see the wisdom of God in you. Our children must see the wisdom of God in us.

Your church family needs men and women who are wise, wise in Christian living. And the church, the work of the church needs men and women and young people who are wise, wise in Christian living. Your workplace needs to see you as a wise man or a wise woman living for the Lord and the things of God being fleshed out in their life. It's not just what you say. It's how you live. And your community needs to see this. You see what I'm showing you? You go places in your family, extended family, your workplace, in your community, and people are watching you. And it's got to go beyond what you don't do, what you don't say.

It has to go beyond that to who you are. Now, yesterday I spent quite a bit of time on this material and then saw them really going ahead. And a term just kept coming to my mind. It's the term "the call." The call. There is a book called "The Call of the Wild." I think it's a classic. In the late 19th century in our American history, really right after the Civil War was settled, there was a great call to move west. Just thousands of Americans moved west. Musicians say that they have the calling, the call of the road. We've probably heard country songs about that. Again, I don't really like country music.

We have some in our church who are military. Me and the military, they have a calling, a call of duty. See, for Christians, for us, for us here tonight, there should be a calling. We should be feeling a calling, sensing a calling. We should be hearing a calling. And look, it is the call for wisdom. There needs to be a hunger within us, a hunger for godly wisdom and understanding so as to live a godly life, not by what we say and don't say. We're not careful we can check off a list of habits and what we'd say and don't say and think that's the Christian life. No, there needs to be a call that we would be wise in the way we live.

So that's why I chose the title of the message. I call this the call to god's wisdom. That's what we're going to have all through this book. Every now and then we'll hear the phrase, "My son." We'll see intimate language as god is calling us to acquire knowledge. And if we work hard and we study and we journey together, I believe god will form you, god will mold you, god will change you, god will mature you, and you and I together will become who god wants us to be. Never attaining, always working. Because if we stop, then we fall into that category of pride that none of us want to be in.