Most of us intuitively know that wisdom’s a good thing. Sometimes we’re full of it – wisdom that is … and sometimes, we’re full of ourselves and that’s when we come unstuck. So – where do we find the sort of wisdom that really makes a difference?

Wisdom Starts Here

Hey, it’s fantastic to be with you again this week. How quickly the weeks roll on by! And today I am really excited because we are kicking off a brand new series of messages called “Wisdom that Works”. Now, I don’t know about you but I have done some pretty silly things in my life. We all make mistakes and the thing is that the mistakes have consequences.

Sometimes those consequences are mildly annoying but other times, they are devastating. Sometimes we don’t even notice some of the silly things that we’re doing – they seem so trivial and yet we do them over and over and over and over and over again and the consequences compound and before we know it, we have a situation on our hands.

Wisdom is about avoiding mistakes so that we can avoid the consequences. Wisdom is about taking the goodness and the experiences and the knowledge that others have developed and decide to apply in our lives so that we have a better life. Fewer mistakes, fewer consequences! And it’s not just about avoiding mistakes, it’s about knowing how to handle difficult situations. It’s about knowing how to be proactive in making good things happen, rather than wallowing around in the consequences of repeated stupidities.

In fact, there is a lot to be said for wisdom – the sort of wisdom that actually works. Okay, so exactly what is wisdom? I mean, intuitively, we know that wisdom is probably a good thing and most of us wouldn’t mind having a bit more of it but have you ever stopped to think exactly what is it? Well, here’s a dictionary definition: Wisdom is the quality of having experience, knowledge and good judgement and the soundness of action or decision by applying this experience and knowledge and good judgement.

That’s not bad! You boil that down and there are two parts to that. Firstly, knowing what to do and then doing it. Knowing what to do and then not doing it is pretty dumb and that’s why I for one have done some dumb things in my life. Yes, sure, sometimes I didn’t know what the right thing was to do, so I ran into a brick wall and it hurt and I learned that that particular thing doesn’t work. Or perhaps, even better, I listened to someone else who had run into that brick wall before me and I learned from their experience.

But sometimes, you know, we know the right thing, either because we just know – I mean, I know that it’s wrong to rob a bank and I know that if I do, there are going to be some undesirable consequences – or because I have been down that road before or because I have listened to someone who has. So, sometimes we know the right thing to do – we have access to the knowledge but then we turn around and we don’t do it.

I know that drink driving is dangerous. I know that. Seen the road statistics lately? Seen the random breath testing stations on the road? Yea, so I have the knowledge, but if I get into that car, having had too much to drink and run over a pedestrian – you know, some people do that – then do I have wisdom? No, just the knowledge! For it to be wisdom you have to have the knowledge and then put it into action.

Wisdom isn’t just having the experience and the knowledge and the good judgement, wisdom is using it; acting on it; doing it; living it. Wisdom is only wisdom when it involves the knowledge and the doing. Does that make sense?

Quite a few thousand years ago, King Solomon, King of Israel, David’s son, was pretty much recognised as one of the wisest men on the planet. He had a few sons and so he decided to jot down some of that wisdom. We have access to that in the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament and over these coming four weeks we are going to spend some time ransacking this Book for wisdom – getting as much of the proverbial Wisdom of Solomon as we can, so that we can put that to work in our lives. And that’s the key: putting it to work.

I can help by unlocking the treasure chest of wisdom, I can help even by encouraging you to put it to work but only you can make it happen in your life – only I can make it happen in my life. Remember this series is called “Wisdom that Works.” Okay, where do we find that wisdom? Where do we start? Well, let’s start at the beginning of the Book of Proverbs, chapter 1 – the preamble; the introduction; the reason for wisdom. That’s what it’s all about. Proverbs chapter 1, beginning at verse 1:

The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: For learning about wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity; to teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young. Let the wise also hear and gain in learning, and the discerning acquire skill, to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Hear, my child, your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s teaching; for they are a fair garland for your head, and pendants for your neck.

Well, isn’t that what we have just been talking about? It’s about getting good wisdom into us and for it to have a good outcome. God’s wisdom – the sort of wisdom that actually works. There is plenty of wisdom out there that purports to be real but it’s fake; it’s a ‘me’ centred wisdom which will eventually come unstuck. Not a God-centred wisdom at all and that, my friends, is the starting point of wisdom – shifting our thoughts and our hearts away from the seductive slight-of-hand that passes for worldly wisdom and coming back to the source of real wisdom – the sort of wisdom that actually works.

Have a listen again to what Solomon writes about where to find wisdom that works – Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

And the meaning of that word ‘fear’ in that context isn’t just fear of the consequences of God’s judgement if we are rebel against Him – and there is that and it will happen – but awe and respect and reverence. When I was a young lad, if I played up, I knew I would get a belting from my Dad – but much better to live in respect of my Dad, knowing of course, that a belting was in the offing if I mucked up – but living instead in a good respect for my father and avoiding the belting all together.

See, there are two sides to that “fear” thing and it’s when we finally decide to stick our pride in our pockets, to realise that all along, “I’ve been trying to do it my way and hey, you know what, it isn’t working so brilliantly well. It isn’t bringing me the joy and contentment and the satisfaction that I’ve been craving for.” Admitting that and saying, “You know something, God? I have been wandering out there, trying to do it my way and it’s not working. I can reject and despise Your wisdom and instruction and live with the consequences, God, or I can yield my life to You and do it Your way.”

And throughout the Book of Proverbs there is a contrast between the wise and the foolish, between good outcomes and bad outcomes. And that’s what we are going to be exploring over these coming weeks on the programme. But the starting point is here: Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

And the choice is yours for your life and mine for my life. Question is: which way will we choose?

Good Friends, Bad Friends

Do you remember when you were growing up? You know when you were in those teenage years, your parents would tell you this or tell you that and we would just roll our eyes into the back of our heads, wouldn’t we? “Don’t hang out with the wrong crowd; be careful of the company you keep”. “Yeh, yeh, yeh, right, what would they know – the oldies?”

But it’s really interesting in this Old Testament Book of Proverbs – thirty one chapters, packed, verse after verse with lots of wisdom. One of the very first things that Solomon talks to his sons about, in fact, the very first thing after talking to them about where to find wisdom – which is what we chatted about earlier – the very next thing is the crowd they hang around with.

You know, maturity is an interesting thing. As we grow, we grow in our ability to discern what “good advice” is. Sometimes we reject people’s advice because it is inappropriate or self-interested but what we are about to hear is some very good advice – some stunning advice, in fact and if we put this into action then it becomes wisdom.

Now, any parent knows that if our kids keep bad company that doesn’t auger well for their future because that bad company is a bad influence and it can be terribly, terribly destructive on our kids when they are growing up. And this is what Solomon has to say to these young me – his sons – about keeping bad company. Proverbs chapter 1, beginning at verse 10. He said:

My child, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us wantonly ambush the innocent; like Sheol let us swallow them alive and whole, like those who go down to the Pit. We shall find all kinds of costly things; we shall fill our houses with booty. Throw in your lot amongst us; we will all have enough in the one purse”, my child, do not walk in their way, keep your foot from their paths; for their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed blood. For in vain is the net baited while the bird is looking on; yet they lie in wait—to kill themselves! and set an ambush—for their own lives! Such is the end of all who are greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.

Okay, hopefully most of us aren’t murderers – hopefully most of us aren’t going to go and lie in wait and mug someone and rob them but we kind of do that sometimes in life, through our behaviour and our attitudes and dishonesty and aggressively looking after our own interests above other peoples’ interests. And it turns out that keeping bad company is different from being around bad people. You go to work, you go to church, you are a member of a club, you interact with people and some of them are great and some of them are fantastic – they’re wonderful to be with – and some of them are downright awful. That’s life!

When we deal with people sometimes, we have to deal with those people and everything in between. But it’s not whether we are around them or not, so much, it’s a question of influence. Let’s go back to what Solomon said – Proverbs chapter 1, verse 10:

My child, if sinners entice you, do not consent … My child, do not walk in their way; keep you foot from their paths; for their feet run to evil and they hurry to shed blood.

Look what Solomon says – he says, “Look don’t be tempted by bad company or listen to them when they say, ‘Come on, let’s gang up on someone and kill them, just for the fun of it.” It’s a question of whether we take their advice and go with them; whether we keep their company; whether we let them influence what we think, what we feel and ultimately, what we do.

Here’s the chain of events: they speak, we hear. Now, when we hear, we have a decision to make – we either accept or reject. And if we accept, it changes our behaviour and if it changes our behaviour, that has consequences – that’s the important bit. When we hear, do we accept or reject? Do we rely on them or not? Do we trust them or don’t we? Do we put our faith in them, to the extent that we let them change what we do?

It’s not that we are around bad people; it’s not even that we hear them speak – that’s not the problem. It’s when we are tempted by them and when we allow them to change what we do. It’s a question of influence. Bad company can discourage us; it can lead us to complaining; it can be disruptive; it can make us suspicious; it can make us envious; it can make us dishonest; it can make us violent. Bad company is an entry point of bad influence from other people and I have enough issues in my life to deal with without taking on bad stuff from other people.

Now, at the end of the day, all of us want to live a good life. Sure, we want to be comfortable, we want to be happy but part of that is knowing that we are living a good life – that there’s a goodness that we are reaping the fruit from and God comes to us here – this is stuff from Solomon, it’s from the Bible. And we might go, ‘Aw, come on, it’s three thousand years ago. Aw, it’s from the Bible – it’s not for me.’ Come on, this is good advice! God is giving us Fatherly advice, born out of His love because whilst bad company may entice us into action that appears to give us a quick win, ultimately that bad influence … ultimately that bad influence leads us to destruction.

Listen again to the consequences – Proverbs chapter 1, verse 17:

For in vain is the net baited while the bird is looking on; yet they lie in wait, ultimately to kill themselves – they set an ambush ultimately, for their own lives. Such is the end of all those who are greedy for gain – it takes away the life that it possesses.

See, they think they are ambushing the other guy through their bad deeds but in fact, they are ambushing themselves. They want to kill the other guy but their evil desires are going to destroy them. Come on, who do you hang around with? Who are the people whom you allow to influence you and are any of those ruining your life with a bad influence? Because if they are, it’s like drinking in poison from them – it’s time to do something about it.

Bad company drags us down – bad company has consequences and we are going to sit here and go, “Well, that’s a nice story from Solomon, Berni,” and we can ignore it but there will be consequences. Or we can take it on board; we can say, “You know what, this advice from God through the Book of Proverbs; from Solomon – this is great advice!” I never really thought of it that way. Do you know something: there are some changes I need to make about the people I hang around with?

The Value of Wisdom

Now, the very next thing that Solomon talks about in the Book of Proverbs, after the beginning of wisdom and the impact of bad company, is the value of wisdom. Now, why do people make investments? Why do they take their hard earned money and buy shares in a company? Well, it’s not for the fun of it so much – people make investments in order to reap a return. On the stock market, the price of a particular share goes up and it goes down, according to the market’s perception of the return that they can make on their investment in that particular company.

If the company has good prospects, the value goes up – if there are some bad returns, the value falls down. It’s the way of the world! But it’s not God’s way – God has an investment that we can make in the good times that actually pays dividends in the tough times. In fact, that’s the whole point of this particular investment.

Intuitively we all know that wisdom is a good thing – we would all like so more of it and so you have to ask yourself, why is it that we are not all as wise as we can be? Why is it that we are not full to overflowing with the Wisdom of Solomon? Well, the answer is simple – because like any investment, wisdom requires a sacrifice up front. If I invest some of my hard earned cash in this company or that company on the stock market then the point is I have to use the money that I would have spent otherwise, for that investment. I have to make a sacrifice up front.

It’s locked away – the money – and hopefully it’s locked away because it will earn me a good return. That’s the concept of investing – sacrificing now so that we can benefit later on. It’s the same with wisdom but the mistake that we can often make with wisdom is that we imagine that it’s just about having the knowledge and the experience and the principles. I mean, all those are necessary but they don’t become wisdom until we put them into action – until we live them out. That’s when we demonstrate that we have wisdom – by living it.

So, back to this question: why is it that we are not all living virtuous lives, reaping the harvest of our wisdom? Because we haven’t bought into it! And when do we buy into a company? We do it when we think there is going to be a good return. The problem for most people is that they don’t perceive a return on investment – the upfront sacrifice – when it comes to this precious commodity that they call “wisdom”.

So right now we are going to look at what accountants and economists call “ROI’s” – return on investment. So let’s dive into the Book of Proverbs; Solomon’s advice to his young sons and let’s see what it say about the ROI on our investment in wisdom. Proverbs chapter 1, beginning at verse 20:

Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? 

Give heed to my reproof; I will pour out my thoughts to you; I will make my words known to you. Because I have called and you refused, have stretched out my hand and no one heeded, and because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at you in your calamity; I will mock when panic strikes you, when panic strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.

Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel, and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and be sated with their own devices.

For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but those who listen to me, (says wisdom,) will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster.

I love the old Hebrew writings and the way they use picture language. And here we have this picture of wisdom as a person, calling out to us from the street corner in the middle of life, stretching out her hand – but everyone walks by and ignores her – they are too busy with life.

Doesn’t this just hit the nail right on the head? Earlier we looked at Solomon’s advice to his sons about the company they keep – keep bad company and they will lead you astray and it will cost you a lot of pain. That’s it in a nutshell! So times were good – his sons had a choice: listen to Dad; take his advice; turn away from the bad company or continue to hunt with that pack.

Wisdom is something that so often comes to us when the times are good. When the economy is buoyant and returns are strong – she cries out to us; she stretches out her hand – invest in me! So we have a choice – we either go and invest; we act on the advice of God’s wisdom; we live out that wisdom in the good times when it appears that we don’t actually need the wisdom; when it appears that we don’t need to make a sacrifice – we either do it then or we don’t. And the whole point of wisdom is that we need to act on it in the good times in order to reap the reward in the bad times.

Let me say that again: wisdom is the one investment we can make that delivers a dividend in the tough times. All the other investments come crashing down in the tough times but it’s the dividend of wisdom that stands head and shoulders above the rest. Listen to what Solomon said again – Proverbs chapter 1, verse 32:

For waywardness kills the simple and the complacency of fools destroys them but those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease without dread of disaster.

So wisdom either helps us to avoid the bad times – as in the case of the advice about keeping bad company – or when the bad times hit, which of course, they inevitably do in life. We don’t want bad times to hit but they always do. Eventually the cycle turns and the bad times hit. And see, wisdom helps us in the bad times. It’s like putting away some savings today so that we have some spare cash on a rainy day – bad choices in the good times inevitably lead to bad outcomes and bad consequences. Wise choices however, the sacrifices that we make in living out God’s wisdom, pays dividends.

It may not lead to perfect outcomes that we always planned but wisdom pays dividends. In fact, it pays huge dividends in tough times. This is wisdom that works!

Wisdom cries out to us – God cries out to us, “Listen to Me – sacrifice the things I ask you to sacrifice and I will be with you there in the tough times; in the bad times because God’s wisdom is wisdom that works.”

Well this week we’re kicking on with our second message in a series called Wisdom that Works – looking at some of God’s mighty wisdom through the Book of Proverbs. And we’re going to be chatting this time around, about trust, truth … and temptation.

Trust and Honour God

Welcome to the programme again this week and yes, we are continuing in a series that I have called, “Wisdom that Works”. Now wisdom is an amazing thing – a seductive concept. I mean, who doesn’t want to have more wisdom; who doesn’t want to be wise? That’s ridiculous isn’t it? Of course we all want wisdom; of course we all want to be wise, but wisdom … well, it’s a double edged sword.

Sure, it’s about having the knowledge that comes from experience but theory is aren’t enough. Someone who knows that treating other people well and loving them and sacrificing for them; someone who knows that but spends most of their lives not doing it, well, we wouldn’t call them wise would we? In order for someone to be wise, they need to know it and do it. That’s wisdom! And the sort of wisdom that God shares with us is the sort of wisdom that actually works.

So we are spending some time again this week ransacking the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, written by King Solomon – one of the wisest men that ever walked the earth. And my encouragement to you is that we take this wisdom from God and actually apply it to our lives. Why? Because it works! Bottom line is that if we will take God’s wisdom to heart; if we will take God’s Word to heart it will make a real difference in our lives. God will make that difference in our lives through His Spirit and through His Word. And if we don’t take it to heart, He won’t! Can I say that again? If we don’t, He won’t!

So let’s get back into this great Book of wisdom; the Book of Proverbs and see what wisdom Solomon has for us about trusting and honouring God. Proverbs chapter 3, beginning at verse 1. He says:

My child, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you. Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favour and good repute in the sight of God and of people.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be a healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body.

Honour the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. My child, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves the one whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

So we’re chugging along through live, stuff happens and we get impatient and we want to head off our own way and here’s Solomon with the wisdom of age telling his sons, “Guys, this is just going to happen. You’ll want to drift away from God – you just will – but don’t do that. Don’t forget what I told you: be loyal, be faithful. I know it won’t always make sense to you but listen to me, write these words on your hearts.”

So, stuff is happening and life is not going the way we planned it and it’s not making sense and so we have a wisdom decision point here in that place. We can flap around, we can carry on, we can head off our own way – most people do – or we can say, “Hang on a minute; hang on! Remember what God told me through Solomon?” That was wisdom that works:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding. In all you ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

You see how we have a decision to make? Either we can believe this stuff and take God at His Word or we treat it like some useless theory lesson. Here’s the promise: trust in God – don’t try and figure it all out because you can’t – just acknowledge God in how we live our lives. And listen, here’s the promise; here’s the dividend; here’s the return on investment: if you do that God will straighten it all out. Listen to me, if we just honour God through the difficult times in what we say and what we think and what we do, God will straighten it all out.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don’t rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.

Now, let me ask you: which bit of that don’t we get? Why do we have to make everything so complicated? Are we going to be like those people I was telling you about the other week? Are we going to spend hours and hours and hours studying the Bible for studying’s sake, as though it was some intellectual exercise, without ever really believing that it is meant to be true in our lives or are we going to take God at His Word? Are we going to take God’s wisdom to heart?

See, he goes on to tell us what it means to honour God:

Trust the Lord with all your heart, don’t rely on your own understanding, acknowledge him in all your ways and he will make straight all your paths. Don’t be wise in your own eyes – instead fear God and turn away from evil. It will be a healing to your flesh and refreshment to your body.

How often do people pierce themselves with many pains by turning away from God– by going and doing it their own way; by being proud; by being greedy; by being selfish?

Honour the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce.

In other words, put in first with all that you are and all that you have:

… and then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. My child, don’t despise God’s discipline and get weary of his reproof? He loves you! He reproves the one whom He loves as the father does the son in whom he delights.

See, this is such simple wisdom … it is so simple. We want to go off and do it on our own and flap around and carry on and wander away from God and then we wonder why it is all falling apart. This is about trusting God and honouring Him – and the two go hand in hand. I absolutely love how practical God’s truth actually is!

And when we just simply put this into practice in the everyday things that happen in life – in the tense relationships, in just forgiving people, in moving on, in honouring God, in blessing other people when they curse us, in the simple things of life – they might be simple but often they are difficult – if we will just put this into action in our lives; when we choose to stop mucking around, flapping around, complaining, doing the “woe is me” bit and just sit down and decide, “God, come hell or high water, I am going to trust in You. I am just going to do the best I know how, I am going to honour You the best I can with what I have and who I am”, do you know what happens? God honour that; God springs into action; He starts sorting out the mess.

My friend, this is not – let me say this in capital letters – N-O-T … this is NOT a theory lesson. God’s wisdom is imparted into our lives when we take His truth into our hearts and live it out.

Don’t forget His teaching, let your heart keep His commandments because there is a blessing at the end of that – for length of days and years of live and abundant welfare they will give you. Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart so you will find favour and good repute in the sight of God. As you sow so shall you reap.

Do it God’s way and you reap the blessing – do it your own way and you reap the pain. This is not complex; this is not rocket science.

True Wealth

Now the next thing that Solomon talks about in the Book of Proverbs is money and wealth. Now a man that I have come to have a lot of respect for is a guy by the name of David Bussau. For a good many years we have attended the same church as David and his wife Carol. He is the founder of a ministry called Opportunity International; an organisation that now creates a new job in the developing world, something like every twenty second, or something outrageous like that.

I heard David one day talking about the “economics of enough”. Now he lives in a comfortable home and they constantly have people staying who are visiting for ministry reasons. He drives an ordinary car, dresses in ordinary everyday clothes. And he said he came to the conclusion many years ago that he had more than enough “stuff” – he just didn’t need any more. It was the “economics of enough”.

Remember we are talking this week and the next few weeks about God’s wisdom; wisdom that works. And we are doing that by taking a step through some of the powerful wisdom that we discover in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs which was written by King Solomon to capture the wisdom that he was handing down to his sons. And not surprisingly, fairly early on in the piece he talks about money – not so much money but wealth. Have a listen to what he says – Proverbs chapter 3, beginning at verse 13. He says:

Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy.

Now, there was a time in my life, in fact, for much of my life where I would have scoffed at this suggestion. “Aw, give me a break please. How can wisdom possibly be better than silver or gold and precious jewels? How can wisdom be better than anything that my little heart desires? No, I’ll just have the cash thanks – show me the money.”

And for all that to make sense there are two things we need to know about Solomon. Not only was he blessed with great wisdom – he was one of the wisest men that ever lived – but he was also one of the richest men in all of history. And it all comes to Solomon when he prays to God – have a listen – as a young man. It comes from First Kings chapter 3, verse 5 right through to verse 13, so grab your Bible. First Kings chapter 3, beginning at verse 5:

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask what I should give you.” And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. 

Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?” It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked for, both riches and honour all the days of your life; no other king shall compare with you.

Right from the beginning, as a young man, Solomon had preferred wisdom over riches so he asked God for wisdom. What a brilliant thing to ask for! I wonder what you and I would have asked for if God had said to us, “Ask what I should give you?” So, all of his adult life, Solomon had both great wisdom and great riches. And having lived his life with both, out of his experience he was able to say to his sons: wisdom is so much better than anything else that you can imagine. Why? Why did he say that? Because the dividend; the return that this wisdom gave him was huge.

Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy.

You know, that’s a dividend statement that Solomon makes after a life of wisdom. As much as we try and kid ourselves, we know – we know through experience, we know deep in our hearts – that riches can never deliver that sort of dividend. We chase after money alone and it’s a lonely, unhappy life. Believe you me, I’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt and I can tell you ABSOLUTELY that wealth simply doesn’t deliver that sort of dividend – a dividend of riches and peace and pleasantness and joy and happiness.

Wisdom … wisdom means that we learn God’s truth and we put it into action in our lives. Even though sometimes; in fact, most times it involves sacrifice up front, like any other investment. We live out God’s truth in our lives – that’s what wisdom is – and we reap the rewards – peace, life, joy. Why? Because we know how to avoid the dumb things we used to do that caused us so much pain; because we know how to make good choices that bear good fruit.

True wealth is living a life of abundance in Christ. True wealth is having the wisdom to build strong relationships and enjoy serving others and getting over our pride and our stupid tantrums. Wisdom is about ultimately enjoying life – whatever life throws our way.

Friend, this is such great advice! But it only becomes true wisdom in our lives when we put it into action and the thing to put into action here is to seek after wisdom above and before riches, because nothing … NOTHING compares to the dividends paid by wisdom; God’s wisdom. The sort of wisdom that works!

Impurity and Infidelity

I remember back in college one of our lecturers in a subject about, I guess, the foundational issues of Christian living – said to each one of us who were training for some form of ministry or another – he said: there are three things that can bring you unstuck: girls, gold and glory (or in the case of women, guys, gold and glory.) In other words, people whom God calls to serve Him, often stumble in infidelity or because they start loving wealth too much. We spoke about that last week. Or because they seek the glory and they fall to pride. It’s not a bad executive summary, is it? Girls or guys, as the case may be, gold and glory.

Well as we roll on to the next piece of wisdom from Solomon in the Book of Proverbs, we are going to chat a bit about the girls, guys thing, or impurity and infidelity, because it’s huge. Statistically, almost half of all marriages fall apart – and in fact, of those that remain, only fraction are what you would call happy marriages – the sorts of marriages where people really thrive.

The facts about marital infidelity – sexual unfaithfulness to a spouse are astounding. Polls in the U.S. show that, although ninety percent of married people disapprove of extramarital affairs, fifteen percent of wives and twenty five percent of husbands have experienced extramarital sex. Now those numbers increase a further twenty percent when emotional affairs and sexual relationships without intercourse are included – so thirty five percent of women and forty five percent of men have been unfaithful to their spouse. That’s frightening, isn’t it?

Marriage is supposed to be the most wonderful relationship – fulfilling, lifelong soul mates and yet, almost half of all men and over a third of all women have some sort of extramarital affair. That blows me away! But it’s nothing new! Almost three thousand years ago Solomon, when instructing his young sons with the wisdom of his years, spends a whole chapter, in fact, a couple of chapters – the 5th chapter and another chapter in the Book of Proverbs, on this very subject.

It’s one of the first subjects he deals with comprehensively – maybe the stats were pretty much the same back then as they are today. Let’s have a listen to what he had to say to his sons about infidelity. Proverbs chapter 5, beginning at verse 1:

My child, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, so that you may hold on to prudence, and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a loose woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her steps follow the path to Sheol. She does not keep straight to the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.

In other words, the grass may well appear greener on the other side, guys, but this seduction that promises so much is going to kill you. Even though the thought of an affair may be oh so seductive, oh so tempting, it leads only to bitterness, pain and destruction.

I remember a man I used to work with back in my days in the I.T. industry and he had two affairs outside his marriage – two that I know of anyway. I knew the husband and the wife quite well. He was lured into this trap; he followed his desires and his emotions and it almost destroyed both of them. By God’s grace his wife was a godly woman and strong and with great faith and their marriage weathered the storm. But the pain and of course, as much as all may be forgiven, the memory never, ever, ever, goes away.
And the crazy thing was, they had everything.

And here’s the advice that Solomon has for his sons – here’s the wisdom that really works – Proverbs 5, beginning at verse 7:

And now, my child, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your ways far from her, and do not go near the door of her house; or you will give your honour to others, and your years to the merciless, and strangers will take their fill of your wealth, and your labours will go to the house of another; and at the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. Now I am at the point of utter ruin in the public assembly.

The advice – the wisdom that works? Keep away from relationships that can lead to infidelity. “My child, listen to me, keep away from her door.” Don’t go there! Don’t put yourself in a position of temptation. Don’t spend time alone with members of the opposite sex. Don’t form close bonds and relationships that could head in the wrong direction. Keep yourself to yourself – just don’t go there or it will ruin you and you will spend the rest of your life regretting it.

And the alternative? Well, it’s pretty obvious – Proverbs chapter 5, verse 15:

Drink water from your own cistern; flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for sharing with strangers. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always by her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord, and he examines all their paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them, and they are caught in the toils of their sin. They die for lack of discipline, and because of their great folly they are lost.

My friend, if you have a wife, enjoy her – if you are a woman with a husband, enjoy him. Do not be enticed into an extramarital affair, like almost half of all men and over a third of all women who are married are. Enjoy each other – God has given the wife to the husband and the husband to the wife so that they may truly enjoy each other, emotionally and physically and spiritually and be the best of friends and live their lives together for one another. Find fulfilment husbands, in arms of your wives; wives find fulfilment in the arms of your husbands.

Sure, they are not perfect! Let’s get a revelation here today – they never will be, ever – but they are the lifelong soul mate that God has given you and that … that is the right place, the only place in God’s eyes, to discover and to experience and to enjoy and to revel in the beauty of intimacy.

Remember, forty five percent of men and thirty five percent of women – now you may think this is an odd subject for us to be discussing today but judging from the statistics, Solomon was right to make this one a high priority.

My prayer is that you will never; never know the pain and the bitter regret of adultery. Please listen to God’s Word today; please heed His warning! This is God’s wisdom – it is wisdom that works.

God is a God of love and so we don’t often think about Him hating things. But He does – He clearly tells us so in His Word. So – what are the seven things that God hates … things that are an abomination to Him?  Do you know – because my hunch is … they’re worth avoiding.

Proud Eyes and a Lying Tongue

One of the most common responses we receive from people who listen to this programme around the world is: well, how they’ve been blown away by how practical and down to earth God’s Word actually is. Many people have never realised that God, in this thing that many consider to be a stuffy old book, the Bible, gives us such incredible, practical wisdom that makes our lives better.

It’s pretty sad because He does; God loves us. He reveals Himself to us as our Father. To the shock and the horror of the religious leaders of the day, Jesus actually called Him “Abba”, which translated means “Dad”. So if God’s our Dad; if He loves us so much, why wouldn’t He want to give us down to earth, practical advice? Well, He does and He has.

That’s why we are continuing this week in the Book of Proverbs; a father’s godly wisdom and advice – King Solomon to his sons; God our Father, “Dad”, to us. And today we are going to take a look at seven things that God hates. Now we don’t often think of God hating anything; we think of God as the God of supreme love; a love so great that He would send us His only begotten Son.

And that’s the point: He loves us so much and He hates our sin so much that the way He sets us free from this sin; the sin that ruins our lives and separates us from Him, is through the supreme act of love in all of history – the death of Jesus Christ, His Son on the cross to pay for my transgressions and yours.

So, does God love us – you and me right now, given all that we have done to rebel against Him? Right at this instant, in Jesus Christ, the answer to that question is a huge, resounding YES! Of that we can be absolutely certain. Believe in this Jesus who came to die for you and me, to pay for our sin and to rise again to give us a new life – believe in Him and we are forgiven. Full stop! End of story! But does God hate our sin? Well, in Jesus Christ, the answer to that question is also a huge, resounding YES! So gravely does God view our sin that He deals with it by letting His Son die for us to deal with them.

And through King Solomon, God tells us the sorts of sin that He really hates. We will have a look at just two of the seven, right now. But first have a listen to them all – Proverbs chapter 6, beginning at verse 16:

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that hurry to run to evil,
a lying witness who testifies falsely,
and one who sows discord in a family.

Now, for much of my life, I thought of all this religion stuff, “God stuff”, as being a whole bunch of outdated moralising but the list we just read out there – the seven things that are an abomination to God – well, I’d have thought that none of those, well, we wouldn’t have a problem with any of them. Take the first of them: haughty eyes – fancy God hating haughty eyes! But have you ever been around someone who looks down on you?

I remember before I became a Christian, I visited a woman’s home; an elderly lady, the mother of a friend of mine and I looked around it as if to say, “Well, this isn’t decorated to latest fashion.” And years later when I was in a desperate time in my life; when God had brought me down low, she was the person who gave me somewhere to live and encouraged me and strengthened me. And it turns out that she had noticed the way I had looked around her place all those years before; she had noticed my haughty eyes and remembered them. Why? Because haughty eyes are a sign of arrogance and superiority in the heart – looking down on people belittles them in order to exalt ourselves.

I remember a woman, a Christian, who would every now and then would stick her head into our office here at Christianityworks and instead of engaging with our staff – asking them how they were, how things were going – instead of caring for the people, she looked around with haughty eyes. And those haughty eyes have brought her so much grief since that time – much, much grief.

Listen to me – that sense of arrogance and superiority that some people have because of their ability or their position or their status or their wealth or … or just their own distorted self-view, or all of the above – this is an abomination to God. God hates it! The original Hebrew word for “haughty” means “to lift up, to raise up, to exalt on high” and the only person we are meant to exalt on high is Jesus, God Himself. God doesn’t share His glory with anyone and those people who look down their noses at others, for whatever reason, are doing something that is an abomination to God. It’s something that God really hates.

Now, number two on this “hit parade”, on this list of things God hates, is a “lying tongue”. Let me ask you, do you like it when someone lies to you? Do you like it when someone deceives you? Of course we don’t! Lying equals deception; deception equals dishonesty and dishonesty makes a person rotten to the core. They purport to be one thing on the outside – sweetness and light – but on the inside they’re something completely different. And so that we don’t notice, they tell us lies.

You know, I don’t even like lies where people are trying to protect me and not hurt my feelings. Back in the days when I was in business, if we bid on a job and then missed out, ninety percent of those prospective clients – well, they wouldn’t even give you an answer as to why. Me, I’d really like to know why even if it’s because the CEO of our opposition was a friend of the senior manager and the client. That’s okay, but tell me the truth so that I know; so that if there is anything that I can do better next time, I can take steps to improve.

The lying tongue takes all sorts of different forms – from not telling the truth; in other words a bald faced lie – to (as a character in one very funny British sitcom, “Yes, Minister” once said,) being economical with the truth. In other words, not telling the whole truth! Even telling the truth in theory, but playing on the situation and the context so that the recipient gets the wrong impression – that is dishonest. We can be so clever in hiding the truth; we can think we are so smart, but listen to me: a lying tongue is an abomination to God; it is something that He hates.

Now, let’s just say – humour me – let’s say that God is in fact God; that He is all powerful; that one day He is going to judge the living and the dead and that that judgement will have a huge eternal impact on us – you and me. Well, maybe the things that God hates are things we should avoid!

God Hates Evil

Now, as we continue looking at the sort of wisdom that works, God’s wisdom, I’d have thought that it makes a lot of sense to look at things that God hates. So let’s have another look at the things that God hates – the next two on the list. Earlier, we looked at haughty eyes – the sign of a proud heart – and a lying tongue. Right now we are going to look at the next three on that list, in fact, not two, three, that I read out earlier from Proverbs chapter 6:

… hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans and feet that hurry to run to evil.

Those three seem to go pretty naturally together, don’t they? “Hands that shed innocent blood” – I can’t tell you the number of times I have seen this. Of course, I’ve never seen bloodshed – thank God for that – I’m absolutely sure there are many, many people listening around the world today who in fact have. In my experience what I have seen through, is people who lord it over and punish and riot and bully other people … other people who don’t deserve it.

It’s exactly the same – bullying is something that takes place all the time amongst kids at school, in the workplace. Someone who is strong, either because of their personality or their position or both, decides to start playing with someone else the way a cat toys with a mouse. It’s so incredibly cruel. And sometimes the perpetrator doesn’t even realise they’re doing it – they are shedding innocent blood because the pain that this behaviour is causing the recipient, is beyond anything words can describe.

Can I tell you: bullying; just toying with someone; treating them this way isn’t some sport; it’s a sin. It’s something that God hates; it’s an abomination to Him. It’s something I used to do before I became a Christian – it’s something I don’t do now because it’s wrong and because I don’t one day want to be a sinner in the hands of an angry God.

And some people … some people in their hearts devise wicked plans – Proverbs chapter 6, verse 18. There are people who scheme: “How can I get back at this person; how can I make it so that they will never, ever do this again?” Now that old adage, “don’t get angry, get even”. Or, “How can I get my hands on something that I don’t deserve or haven’t earned? Perhaps if I do this and twist that and lie this way and deceive that person that way, perhaps then I’ll be able to trick them out of that thing that I want for me.”

Jesus said, “Murder begins in the heart.” If you are angry with someone it is the same as murdering them in God’s eyes. If you look at a woman or a man who is not your wife or your husband, with lust and desire, it’s exactly the same as committing adultery. That’s what Jesus said. What we do in our hearts and in our minds – what we think, the anger, the resentment, the vengeance we harbour, the scheming and the planning and devising in our hearts – that matters an awful lot to God. And wicked plans in our hearts are an abomination to God.

Sometimes people make us angry and sometimes we want revenge or at least, justice which ultimately involves some form of recompense. It’s a natural reaction but if we let that brood in our heart, bubble away instead of forgiving the person, the more it takes hold of us and grips us and takes over our lives, well, ultimately it turns into wicked plans.

That’s why the Apostle Paul, centuries later, wrote to his friends at Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 26. He said:

Be angry but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

In other words, don’t let it fester because if we do something else happens. There is a natural consequence to that and it’s the third thing on our list that we are looking at right now, of the things that God hates – things that we do that are an abomination to God – it’s “feet that hurry to run to do evil.” What happens in our hearts, overflows into our lives. The thoughts turn into actions, just as sure as God made little green apples and the more we allow some injustice or some evil desire to fester in our hearts, the more prone we are to devising wicked plans and the more likely we are to go and run towards evil, as a moth flies into a flame, to its own destruction.

It’s exactly what James writes in the New Testament, centuries after Solomon wrote this wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. James chapter 1, verse 13:

No one, when they are tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God”; because God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt any one. But we are tempted by our own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived.

It’s a natural cycle: cause and effect. Think evil, devise evil plans and ultimately our feet are going to run towards doing evil and towards our own inevitable destruction.

This isn’t some reluctant sinner here – let’s understand – this is someone who is running towards sin; embracing sin; launching themselves into an evil act because of the darkness that they have allowed to fester and to brood in their hearts and their minds and ultimately, a darkness that controls them; a darkness that causes them to run to towards evil.

This is such great wisdom from God. There are things that God hates – He hates them to the point where they are an abomination to Him. That’s why our hearts are so important to God. That’s why it is so important that we spend time each and every day with God, alone – to let Him direct our hearts; to warm them, inspire them, lead them, fill them with His Spirit and goodness and love and peace and mercy, because where our hearts are set upon God, friend, there’s no room for evil desires to take hold, to conceive sin.

Whatever it is in our lives – we are all different – whatever it is, this is wisdom from God that works and I implore you to heed this wisdom. If there is something going on in your heart – some unforgiveness, some evil, something you want to do that you know is rebellion against God – I want to encourage you, right now, to lay it down at God’s feet. To go to God and say, “God, You have just spoken to me through Your Word. You don’t tempt me, I am being tempted by my own evil desires and I know that that’s going to lead to destruction. Father, I repent, I turn away from it and I come back to You because You are my God.”

I want to encourage you – this is God’s Word; this is God’s wisdom and it works.

Lying and Dissension

Today so far on the programme, the third message in this series that I have called, “Wisdom that Works”, we have looked at the seven things that God hates. Let’s just recap – Proverbs chapter 6, beginning at verse 16:

There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.

And we have managed to chat about all except the last two in that list: “the lying witness who testifies falsely and the one who sows discord in the family.” Now, law courts are not a place where I have spent a whole bunch of time. Once for a car accident I was in when I was nineteen years old, several times with soldiers who had been charged with this or that, when I was an officer in the Australian Army and once to be sworn in as a Justice of the Peace. I have never, for instance, been at a murder trial or anything like that. But I can imagine the gravity of proceedings in a serious trial.

There is a lot at stake. I mean, justice itself in at stake – that there should be a fair trial with the burden of proof resting on the prosecution. The defendant is on trial – his or her whole future depends on the outcome. I mean, imagine if an innocent person were convicted. And to some extent the victim or the victim’s family or both are on trial, depending on the nature of the alleged crime. In a sense, they feel as though they are on trial. For them, a large part of the healing and recovery process involves seeing justice being done.

So, imagine in a highly charged; high stakes trial for a major crime with so much at stake, imagine that a crucial witness gets up on the stand and lies; that bears false witness and as a result there is a miscarriage of justice – either in one direction or in another. That’s something of an abomination, isn’t it?

We can totally understand why God hates this and yet, people lie all the time, in day to day life. They say and do things in the workplace that will get their work colleagues into trouble. They tell the boss one thing and something else entirely is the truth. “Aw, well, you know, that’s not the same as lying under oath in a murder trial.” But what God is saying to us here through Solomon, in the Book of Proverbs … what He is saying is “Yes, it is! It is exactly the same thing. It is an abomination to Me and it is something that I hate.”

I trust that you find this bit of insight into God’s nature and God’s wisdom as sobering as I do. Last week we saw that Solomon kicks off this wisdom Book of Proverbs with a statement that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, I trust that is becoming so clear why he said that.

You know, we start bearing false witness pretty early on in our lives. Of course, I never once blamed my sister for something I did wrong! Not much! Of course I did! And I’m sure if you have brothers and sisters; you have been on the receiving end of that and the dishing out into that as well.

And that leads us to the last of the seven things in this list of things that are an abomination to God – “… someone who sows discord in a family.” Families are such a precious thing – hard sometimes, isn’t it, to be a part of a family? Whether it’s husband and wife, with the stresses and strains of modern life, tearing away at the marriage and conspiring, seemingly, to pull them apart. Or the pressure of bringing up children, or holding down a job and paying the mortgage and putting food on the table.

And as I remember, it’s not that easy being a child and growing up in a family either. As we move into those teenage years, we want to spread our wings and have our own way and we are yet we are still subject to the authority of our parents, which is why there is so often conflict in families.

Guess the point that I am making here is that there is already so much going on in life that puts pressure on families, the last thing that a family needs is pressure from within. The last thing a family needs is a husband; a father who is so domineering that his wife’s personality is being suffocated or his children are being provoked. The last thing that a family needs is a mother who doesn’t show respect to her husband and who undermines his authority in front of the children. And the last thing a family needs are children who deliberately set about rebelling and dishonouring their parents.

In each of those cases it’s about sowing discord into the family. And it’s like sowing seeds for weeds – those weeds grow and thrive and take over the good fruit that should be growing in the family. I know that relationships in families can be highly charged and that’s why God hates it when we sow discord into our families. Husbands – love your wives. Wives – honour and respect your husbands. Mums and Dads – nurture, love and discipline your children. Children – obey and honour your parents.

It ain’t complicated! And in living our lives that way in a family, that’s how we honour God – that’s how we show that this family who says it believes in Jesus; who professes a faith called Christianity, is different from the rest.

Is a family ever going to be perfect? No! Am I ever going to be a hundred percent perfect father or husband? No! I’m me – I make mistakes, just as you do. But friend, when we set about being peacemakers in the home; when we turn the other cheek; when we discipline our children out of love rather than out of anger and resentment, then what we are doing is sowing good seed that will bear good fruit.

I know it’s a journey, this wisdom thing. I know it frustrating and I know that to sow peace rather than discord, involves sacrifice and pain sometimes. But it’s pretty obvious isn’t it – all seven things in this list that God hates, this list of abominations, is so obvious. Let’s just look at them one more time. If you’ve got a Bible, go there and open it up. Proverbs chapter 6, beginning at verse 16:

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him; haughty eyes (which are the sign of a proud heart), a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely and one who sows discord in a family.

It’s quite a bundle of things! And let’s make no mistake about it – God hates them. They are an abomination to Him and as much as we might want to sweep them under the carpet; as much as we might want to tell a little lie here and maybe upset the family there and look down our noses at this person there, and as much as we think, “Ah, no one notices – none of that matters,” friend, these things are things that God hates. They are an abomination to Him and as we saw earlier, the beginning of wisdom; the place where wisdom starts, is with a fear of God.

One day you and I will stand before God and we will be judged. One day we will have to stand before Him and give account for our actions. Now, I believe that I am saved and I am forgiven through Jesus Christ – it is pure grace; it has nothing to do with my works – but once we accept that, God calls us to start living in obedience to Him. Not many things – I mean, there only seven on that list – not many things He says, “Don’t do!”, but there are a few. He loves us, He cares for us and the very few things He says, “Don’t do”, are the things that are going to hurt you and me and the people around us.

It is not rocket science – it is wisdom. It is wisdom that works.

When I first started reading the Bible, it seemed to me that it was all about the things I had to give up – what I was going to lose. But what I discovered is that actually, actually God wants to bless us. His Wisdom brings blessing to our lives – as counterintuitive as it may seem, when we’re sitting there wrapped up in our selfish desires.

The Fruit of Discipline

I can honestly say, as I look back on my life, that there is not a single time … not one, where I have enjoyed being disciplined. I remember as a child – I was a lively sort of a lad as you can probably image. I was into everything and inquisitive and full of beans and since I was old enough to sleep in a bed, rather than a cot, I’ve been getting up at four or five o’clock in the morning – that’s just the way I’m wired. I was never shy or retiring – I was always out there and into everything.

So it’s not surprising that growing up, I had more than my fair share of discipline – more than the odd belting when I grew up. Not that I am necessarily suggesting that’s always the best way of discipling a child. And then as a teenager and a young adult when I was studying at the Royal Military College Duntroon, to become an officer in the Australian Army, that’s where you learn what discipline is all about. And then later on in the workplace.

I can honestly say there is not a single time that I have enjoyed being disciplined. But looking back on it, without that discipline, I think I would have grown up to be a horrid person, completely unbearable. See, discipline is never fun at the time but it’s an important part of our lives.

And I think it bears some thinking about so today we are going to spend some time unpacking this whole thing of “discipline”. There’s not one of us, I suspect, who can’t think back to the time when we lived with our parents – those of us fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to grow up with our Mum and our Dad, or at least one of them. As we think back to those times what we remember is being disciplined and some of those memories are frankly, not very happy ones. I can remember how unfair discipline felt at the time – how much I hated being disciplined. Aw, man, why do things have to be like that? Why did God have to invent a world where we would have to learn by being disciplined?

Well, today we are continuing on with this series that I have called “Wisdom that Works.” And right in the next passage of the Book of Proverbs, a book of wisdom, written by a wise old King Solomon to his young sons – right in the next bit that we are up to, we get an answer to this question: Why do we need discipline? So let’s have a listen – we are looking at Proverbs chapter 6, beginning at verse 20:

My child, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Bind them upon your heart always; tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; for a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread, but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life. Can fire be carried in the bosom without burning one’s clothes? Or can one walk on hot coals without scorching the feet? So is he who sleeps with his neighbor’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished. Thieves are not despised who steal only to satisfy their appetite when they are hungry. Yet if they are caught, they will pay sevenfold; they will forfeit all the goods in their house.

But he who commits adultery has no sense; he who does it destroys himself. He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away. For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge. He will accept no compensation, and refuses a bribe no matter how great.

Now, the example that Solomon uses here to his sons is that of adultery. He kicks off by talking about the huge investment that he and the mother of these young men have made in them, through their commandments and their teaching and their wisdom and their reproof. And their council is to hang on to that – to bind it round their hearts, to tie it round their neck – why? Because the things that you have learned when you are young through discipline will protect you – they will watch over you, they will council you.

When we head off and we want to do something stupid like adultery – but it could be anything – it could be dishonesty or it could be dissension or back biting – it could be anything – when we want to head off in the wrong direction, the wisdom given to us by our parents will be like a lamp and a light and show things for what they are. The wisdom of our parents and, for you and me, the wisdom of God, will protect us.

Now wisdom always involves discipline – it always involves us being taught the hard way not to head off in a certain direction because that’s where we are going to get hurt. You and I, we naturally shun discipline, but have a listen to what Solomon says to his lads and what God is saying to you and me, here and now:

For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

Did you pick that up? “… the reproof of discipline is a way of life.” – to preserve us from the consequences of wrong doing. And then, of course, Solomon goes on to lay out the horrible things that happen to a young man who commits adultery, notwithstanding the seductive nature of what’s on offer. Discipline is a way of life. Ouch!

You see, we have this idea that if we are succeeding, things should always be getting better, things should always be on the up and up and we should be getting more influence and more success and more this and more that. That’s the picture we have of life! And then all of a sudden, when things take a turn for the worse, we think to ourselves, “Oh, woe is me! Has God forsaken me? Where’s God – what’s He doing? Why is this happening to me – ME of all people – me?” Right? That’s how we want to carry on.

Come with me to the New Testament – a thousand or so years later on, after Solomon wrote the Book of Proverbs to the Letter of Hebrews chapter 12. Have a listen to what God has to say about discipline: Hebrews chapter 12, beginning at verse 7:

Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children. Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live?

For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness. Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later on it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

See, discipline is a way of life, as God’s way of helping us to grow. Jesus said, “Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it to make it bear more fruit.” So the next time God is disciplining you – and this is not about punishment and justice – that happened at the cross when Jesus died for us – discipline is about teaching and learning and pruning so that we will be able to bear more fruit. So the next time God is disciplining you and disciplining me, let’s remember there’s a purpose that goes way beyond our desire for comfort and convenience – that purpose is that God has a plan. And instead of flapping around, wondering what the blazes is going on here, here’s God’s advice:

Discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time. So, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight the paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

In other words, don’t fight it! Go with what God is doing – don’t get your nose out of joint, instead, be healed. Now that … that’s wisdom that works!

Our Heart’s Desires

To be frank, when I first started reading God’s Word in the Bible, my expectations of that stuffy old Book were pretty low. I thought it was pretty much irrelevant – truly! And that, “Well, if I am going to call myself a Christian, well, I suppose I’ll have to pray and I’ll have to read the Bible, just one of those chores; the price you have to pay to get eternal life!” Seriously, that’s what I thought!

So the last thing I expected was to discover this vibrant, living thing – God speaking His love and His grace and His wisdom into my life, in a way – get this – in a way that actually works. In a way that radically, makes my life better. And the last thing I expected was a God who wanted to bless me and having taught me His ways, to give me the desires of my heart. But that’s exactly what I discovered.

Page after page, verse after verse, as I read it and thought about it and how it might work in my life, I met a God; a Jesus, who wants to make my life better by getting rid of the sin out of my life. The stupid things that we all want to do and they end up robbing us of life – the life He always planned for us. And then, by taking our hearts and filling them with His love and humility and showing us the depth of joy that comes from living our lives for Him – living our lives with love for other people.

My friend, let me tell you – with all that I am, that was the very last thing I expected to find. See, the funny thing is, the reason I held back my life from God for the first thirty six years of my life was that, I was afraid of what I would have to give up. I have always been pretty clever – I’m fortunate I have a quick, sharp mind, I have always been industrious and resourceful and so what I had done in my life was to take those natural talents (other people have different talents, but these were mine) and to use them for … well, to use them for me, of course.

I’d figured out that I could use them to make lots of money. I knew that because I was strong and articulate and driven, I could crash through just about any obstacle that got between me and my objective of getting the sort of career and recognition and wealth that I hungered after.

And deep, deep down I knew that if I invited God into my life to be my Lord and my Saviour, I’d have to get off my throne – I’d have to surrender that to Him! I’m not sure if I could have quite put it in those words back then but that was it. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God – I believed pretty much for most of my life, that He was out there somewhere. Yet I had this uneasy dread that one day, the day of reckoning would come.

It’s just that I duped myself into believing that my brand of evil and frankly – let’s call a spade a spade – that’s what my selfishness was – that my brand of evil was somehow, okay. It was good that I was driven; it was good that I was getting wealthy and recognised in my field and industry – it was good that I was making it. And that con job, my friend, is a con job that the devil is working out in countless people’s lives walking this earth today.

‘It’s not evil what you are doing – it’s good; it’s fine, it’s okay; it’s good that you are making it – sure, go for it. And if someone gets in your road, just roll over the top of them – squash them like a fly.’ I wonder if, perhaps, you don’t relate just a little bit to what I’m saying. This is a universal human condition. It’s the condition that God calls ‘sin’ and the worst thing is … the most dangerous thing is that we end believing that it’s okay; that it’s good.

So have a listen with me now to God’s wisdom on the difference between good and evil. It’s wisdom that shines light on this oh-so-important subject and it’s the sort of light I think, that makes us see evil for what it is. And my prayer is that it makes us desire good over evil. Let’s have a listen – Proverbs chapter 10, beginning at verse 22:

The blessing of the Lord makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it. Doing wrong is like sport to a fool, but wise conduct is a pleasure to a person of understanding. What the wicked dread will come upon them, but the desire of the righteous will be granted. When the tempest passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are established forever.

See, God being God, He always starts off by telling us about the blessing He has in store for us. God reveals Himself to us as our Father – Jesus literally called Him “Dad”. Listen to me, every dad wants to bless his children – we do! We love to bless our kids. God’s no different.

Look at verse 22 again – Proverbs chapter 10:

The blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow with it.

Friend, God wants to bless us and when He does, He makes us rich. I’m not talking about money – sometimes He blesses us financially – but money isn’t what makes us happy. There is something deep inside that makes us happier – a deep abiding joy; the sort I could never find when I was working out my particular brand of evil on this earth – the sort that always eluded me. I thought I’d have to give something up, by giving up my evil ways, and sure, in a sense, I did. But the reality was that the prize was that one thing I’d been looking for all my life.

I was living in the first part of this next verse without realising the blessing in the second part.

Doing wrong is like sport to a fool but wise conduct is pleasure to a person of understanding.

As I said earlier, I always had this deep dread down inside that one day this would all come unstuck – that one day something bad would happen – that one day this whole house of cards would come crashing down and that is exactly what God says is going to happen next verse:

What the wicked dread will come upon them, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

I proved the first bit of that in my life because that’s exactly what happened – it did all come crashing down. But I’m also discovering the profound truth of the second part now that I am living my life for Him, that “…the desire of the righteous will be granted.” God grants the desires of our heart when we are living our lives for Him. Elsewhere: Psalm 37, verse 4, he tells us to:

Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

God wants to give us good things, like any father. And now the desires that I have going on in my heart – for the most part – spring out of a delight that I have in God. My point is, we all have things still to deal with – you do, I do – but more and more my desires flow from God’s desires. You know what? God is a great Dad; a fantastic Dad! I am discovering that He really does wants to bless me with His joy and His peace and His love, right in the middle of the storms of life; right in the middle of the trials and the challenges.

A lot of those haven’t gone away, in fact, the more we step out onto the spiritual battlefield, to weigh in with our lives for God on this planet earth, the more things are going to come against us; the more our enemy, the devil, is going to come against us. But in the middle of all that, God wants to bless us.

Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

That’s the point! And how does it all end – this story of life, when we either live out a life of rebellion against God or a life of honouring God – what is the end game? Proverbs chapter 10, verse 25:

When the tempest passes, the wicked are no more but the righteous are established forever.

Friend, all those years I was conned, I thought to myself, I was going to lose something; I had to give up something to serve God. What a fool I was because what I have discovered is when we do lay our lives down; when we do give everything we are and everything we have to God, WOW! The blessings of the Father, God in heaven, flow in our lives and they make us rich and He adds no sorrow with it. That’s who God is! That’s the wisdom of God – lay down your life and you will find it. Try and hang on to it and you will lose it.

Back to the Beginning

Well, over these last four weeks – isn’t it amazing how much wisdom there is in God’s Word, as we have stepped through the Book of Proverbs in this series that I’ve called, “Wisdom that Works”? But we have only stepped through just a few chapters – there is so much more there. And that’s the thing – people sometimes ask me – they say, “Berni, you produce hundreds of episodes of your radio programmes every year and you write books and all that stuff, don’t you ever run out of ideas; don’t you ever run out of fresh content?” And my answer to that is a huge NO! Absolutely not! If I get to do this every day for another hundred years, I’ll still only have scratched the surface of God’s wisdom.

Is that because it’s big and complicated, so that you need a PhD in Theology to understand it? No! God’s Word is actually simple, practical and straight forward. It’s just that, well, I’m such a slow learner – I need to feast on God’s Word every day. And little by little He changes me. And you know, the more time I spend in God’s Word each day, the less of it I read. Now, that sounds a bit weird, doesn’t it? Let me explain.

I used to try and plough through several chapters each day as though somehow, it was a race to see who could get to the end first. But then I stumbled on a passage written by Paul the Apostle. He was old and experienced and much wiser for it, writing to his young ministry protégé Timothy. This is what he said. First Timothy chapter 2, verse 7:

Think over what I say for the Lord will give you understanding in all things.

In other words, stop and think over what is in God’s Word. That’s when it makes a difference. I had a young listener email me recently and she said, ‘I have a problem – I am trying to read my Bible but by lunch time I can’t remember what I read this morning.’ So I said to her, ‘I had that problem too so what I started doing was reading less – not less often, but less in volume. And I started thinking and praying about it more. See, that’s when it came together for me. God’s wisdom is so powerful! But just like good food, we need to chew it over and swallow it for it to do us any good.

So I encourage you to do that – to take His wisdom, chew it over, think about it and then, in prayer, swallow it. Let the Spirit of God write it on your heart – that’s when it becomes part of us. And over a decade and a half of doing that I can honestly say that God’s Word has become part of the fabric; the essence of who I am. That’s what transforms us – that’s how His wisdom starts working in our lives. We take it in little by little and the old maxim is true, we discover that “we are what we eat”.

And the place where I think is the best place for us to draw this four week series to a close, is the place where we began four weeks ago. Proverbs chapter 9, verse 10:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

If we read this stuff with a proud heart; if we are full of pride that we know better and we should be able to hang on to our own attitudes and our own sin– my friend, that is so often how we at first come to God’s Word. So often! If that’s how we approach God’s Word it will profit us nothing! The beginning of wisdom; the starting point is the fear of the Lord. The beginning of wisdom isn’t a hard, prideful, puffed up, a “full of myself” heart.

The beginning of wisdom is a humble heart, a soft heart, a teachable heart, a heart that knows that without God it is poor, wretched, feeble and naked. A heart that seeks first to honour God, that’s the place, my friend, where wisdom begins. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” – nothing else!

And unless and until we are ready to humble ourselves at God’s feet; unless we are ready to say, “Lord, I know I have been trying it on my own; I know I have been doing all this stuff; I know it doesn’t work. Lord, I am going to lay my way down. I am going to lay my life down at Your feet. I am going to lay my pride and crucify it and lay it down.” Unless we go that way then we are not demonstrating the fear of the Lord. And without the fear of the Lord our heart is hard and the wisdom can’t get in.

That’s sad, because without God’s wisdom; without His wisdom – let me tell you because I have been there, without His wisdom, frankly, it’s a lousy life.

My friend, I am going to bring you back to this verse – Proverbs chapter 9, verse 10 and ask you to consider in your heart where you are at.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

May the Lord soften your heart and open your heart and pour His wisdom and His love and His power and His grace into you.