Episode Transcript
Proverbs chapter 14 and verse 8 is where we are tonight.
Proverbs chapter 14 and verse 8, going verse by verse through the Proverbs.
The title of the message tonight is Godly Know How.
Godly Know-How.
In our proverb tonight, Solomon once again contrasts the wise man and the fool And this is such a wonderful way of teaching because contrasting the difference between two things, in particular good and evil things, helps us to better understand and recognize both.
The two different things can have similarities if you were to look at money.
Real money and counterfeit money, they're going to have a lot of similarities, but it's when you contrast them. that you see, ah, I see here what makes this genuine, what makes this counterfeit, and thus what makes this valuable, what makes this worthless And so Solomon is taking that same, by the Holy Spirit, taking that same principle.
And throughout the book of Proverbs, he's continually contrasting the two.
And tonight he's bringing us back to the theme of Proverbs, the general theme of Proverbs, which is wisdom.
Which he's directing our attention to tonight.
He says, look in your text, the wisdom.
And remember, wisdom has the idea of being skillful.
Skillful.
Wisdom isn't just facts in the head.
Wisdom is skill.
The first time this word is used in the Bible is in the book of Exodus, chapter 31, verse 3.
Exodus 31, verse 3.
Watch how wisdom is explained here.
It's when God speaking of the man he chose to build the tabernacle in the wilderness.
Alright?
And speaking of that man, God told Moses, he said, I have filled him with the Spirit of God.
In wisdom.
Now what does that tell us right there?
Wisdom comes from God's Spirit If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.
And so wisdom comes from the Spirit of God.
You can have people who are skillful.
But not necessarily have the wisdom of God.
And we'll look at that here and how to tell the difference here in just a moment.
But he says, filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom. and in understanding and in knowledge, and all of those are akin to each other, and in all manner of workmanship.
Again, they're all akin to each other, all of those descriptions.
Wisdom, understanding, knowledge, workmanship.
And then in verse 4, Exodus 4 through 6, the Lord went on to describe how that wisdom that God gave him would be used.
He gave him this wisdom.
Why?
He says.
Verse 4.
There we go.
To devise cunning works. to work in gold and in silver and in brass and in cutting of stones to set them and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.
So God filled him with his Spirit, and God gave him this wisdom and knowledge and understanding.
Why?
So he could work in gold and in silver and in brass and in cutting of stones, to set them in carving of timber to work.
And all manner of workmanship.
And then in verse 6 he says, And I, behold, I have given with him a Holiab, the son of Ahisamak.
Did I pronounce that right, Hannah?
Okay.
Ahisimok of the tribe of Dan, and in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted, I have put wisdom, watch this now, that they may make all that I have commanded thee.
So we have workmanship, the idea of making or constructing.
And then all of the workmanship and the construction was according to God's commandment, according to all that I commanded you.
So in that passage, notice the words, cunning works. workmanship, and all that I have commanded.
So there is a connection between wisdom And work in God's commandment.
Wisdom, work, and God's commands.
God gives us wisdom that we may do the work that He commands us to do.
That's what we can derive from that.
God gives us wisdom that we may do the work he commands us to do.
Now there are people who are skillful.
Very skillful.
They could work in all manner of cunning workmanship.
They can work in stones and carving of wood and and uh and all kinds of workmanship.
They can do everything that these men did right here, in the tabernacle.
They have that skill.
But if they do not yield that God-given skill to the God who gave it, so that his commands may be fulfilled in their lives.
It is not divine wisdom.
It is worldly wisdom.
You look at singers.
I saw this morning where rock star Gene Simmons, Brother Shepard used to list him all the time.
I'm just kidding.
We're rock star Gene Simmons was gonna testify before Congress about how the radio stations need to pay the entertainers better and some some way more favorable to them.
But but there's people like him.
They they uh they have been given Talent, natural talent, natural skill.
But they take that skill and they don't yield themselves to God's word so that God's will will be accomplished through their lives.
They could be singing, and I I told uh someone, as my wife the other day, I was talking uh about a a man that uh I grew up uh uh he was my dad's age, and uh he's in heaven.
I hope he's in heaven now, but uh uh he went to church with us.
And he was a fairly famous singer, country and western singer.
And And he would they would ask him to sing specials in church and he never would.
He just wouldn't do it.
And we don't know if it's because he felt like he was a hypocrite 'cause he was singing the honky tonks on Saturday and coming to church on Sunday or If he wasn't singing, he wasn't getting paid for it.
We don't know which one.
But either one's bad.
Because God gave him that voice to use And he used it in a foolish way.
He wasted that voice when it could have been used.
To further God's command in edifying the brethren and glorifying God.
That's worldly wisdom And so don't get the two confused.
True godly wisdom is wisdom that is imparted by God's Spirit to return back to God's glory by God's command being worked out through that person in his kingdom.
Wisdom is not man's philosophy.
Wisdom is divine capability.
Wisdom is God-given know-how.
And someone who possesses this God-given know-how is called a prudent person.
Solomon says it is the wisdom, look back in your text, of the prudent.
The prudent.
So a prudent person has wisdom, and the wisdom of that prudent person, look in your text, is to understand.
It's to understand.
There's a difference between wisdom and understanding.
They're all interconnected.
But they're also distinguishable.
The Hebrew word translated and understand means to separate mentally.
I love that word, the idea of separating something mentally.
You know what that means when we we'd call separating mentally, we'd call breaking it down.
Breaking it down.
That's when you really understand something.
It's when you can break it down.
And understand all the ins and outs of it.
Suppose there are two men.
Brother Jesse loves vehicles.
Have y'all noticed that?
He he loves vehicles.
He got him a nice pickup right now.
But he he'll drive a Corvette sometimes or he'll drive some old antique pickup.
He loves vehicles.
But suppose there are two men who have beautiful antique pickups.
The same year, the same make, the same model, the same color.
Two beautiful antique pickups.
One man bought his antique pickup from an antique car dealership.
The other man restored his antique pickup from the frame up.
Now what's the difference between these two men?
Both men own the same vehicle.
They drive the same vehicle, but only one man understands that vehicle.
One man looks at the vehicle and he sees a pickup.
The other man looks at the vehicle and he sees all the parts assembled into one unit.
There used to be a man that was in the construction business.
And my mother always marveled whenever he would, they would go out somewhere, he and his wife and my mom and dad, they'd go out somewhere together.
And she said, when Brother Carl goes into a building and sits down, we'll all be sitting there talking.
He'll be looking up to see how it's all put together.
He'll be looking to see how it's built and how they constructed it.
He sees buildings differently because he understands how they're all put together And that's the way it is with the man who understands it.
He looks at that vehicle and he sees all the parts assembled into one unit.
He knows it from the ground up.
One man knows how to drive the vehicle, the other man knows how the vehicle drives.
That's understanding.
That's wisdom.
Excuse me.
When the vehicle breaks down.
One man opens the hood.
Y'all ever seen people do this?
You'll have people you know you can look at them, their IQ is probably very low.
And they'll get broken, they'll get broke down on the highway, and the first thing they'll do is pop that hood.
They'll all get out and they'll raise that hood, and they'll stare ignorantly at that engine.
They don't have a clue how that thing works, but there's just something inside them that makes them think they need to at least look, look at it, you know.
Like maybe I don't know there's a switch that needs to be switched on or something and they'll be able to do it.
But uh the but but that's the way it is.
There w when the vehicle breaks down, one man he can open the hood And then stare ignorantly at the engine, the other man can open the engine, put it back together.
And put it back under the hood.
That's the difference between the man who has understanding and the one who does not.
But the wisdom of the wise man is not to understand his vehicle.
But to understand, Lou Beckner text, his way.
Excuse me, his way.
Now remember, we've been learning about the way that we travel.
The way here is referring to our spiritual walk.
It's referring to the direction we're traveling in life.
And everyone's traveling, remember, the moment we're born, our clock starts ticking down and day by day pushes us forward to the time when we're going to stand before God.
And so time marches us along on our walk every day.
And so that's the way that the wise man understands the wisdom of the wise. is to understand the godly path that he is walking.
Now, what does it mean to understand that godly path?
Well, as believers in Christ, we're all walking that godly path.
That means we're taking God's word, and we're trying to view life through a biblical worldview.
We're taking the scripture.
I like what this young lady said.
I believe it was University of Oklahoma, where she wrote a paper, got a zero on it from her transgender professor, but they were interviewing her.
She says, I I view all of life through the Bible.
And that now that's the godly path.
And us viewing life through the Bible, through God's Word.
We see a certain path that we're to take that the other people don't see.
That transgender professor, he doesn't view life through God's word.
He's taking a path that leads completely off the road that God's paid for mankind to walk and he's wandering off over here and it's going to take them to destruction.
And she says, I see everything through God's word.
And what she's saying is, I view my path.
I view everything.
According to the Bible, so she's walking down that path.
And the wisdom of the wise is to understand that path.
To be able to raise the hood up on the road we're walking on and know how it all turns and works.
That's what we've been called to do.
And the wisdom of the wise is to understand that godly path.
And one thing we need to understand about that godly path is this, the way that we walk is not always easy.
If we presume that the way that we're walking, the path that we're on is going to be easy, then we're going to be greatly disappointed.
As children of God, we need to understand, this is the wisdom of the wise, is to understand his way.
And we need to understand that our way as children of God is going to be paved with trouble.
It's going to be paved with tribulation.
Jesus said, in the world ye shall have tribulation.
And that's what it means to understand our way.
When we're walking that path and we come up on tribulation, If we don't understand that it is part of the Christian narrative, it's part of the Christian experience to run into God-ordained trouble.
Jesus had to understand that.
Jesus was God manifested in the flesh?
And Jesus was going to begin a ministry.
God Himself was going to be preaching on earth But Jesus had the wisdom to understand the way that he was traveling in this world.
And he knew it was going to be filled with sorrows.
You know how we know that?
Because Jesus, through the Holy Spirit. wrote in Isaiah chapter 53 through the prophet Isaiah and said he was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief That's the wisdom of the wise.
Jesus, before he walked that way, understood the way he was going to walk.
He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.
And if we walk the path that he walks, we're going to be people of sorrows acquainted with grief.
God ordained grief, where God puts the tribulationary path.
Brother Shepherd talked to me the other day about uh him praying about what to uh uh teach on next when he's through in 2 Kings and he suggested perhaps Job.
And the reason God put the book of Job in the Bible is to help us have the wisdom of the wise so we can understand our way.
Job was a godly man.
Job was more godly than me.
But look at the trouble that he went through.
That was the way that God ordained for him to take.
So the way is not easy.
We get tried in our paths, but the reason we get tried, the reason we go through tribulation, is to try our faith. to increase our faith in the end to give God glory and then God through our faithfulness give us reward. and us grow thereby.
The next thing we need to understand is the way that we travel is not always popular.
Not only is it not always easy.
It's not always popular.
That young lady, once again, that wasn't the popular route she took.
Everybody uh she was the only person that got a zero so far as we know.
Everybody else kind of figured out what the transgender professor wanted and they just kind of tailored it to get the grade.
That would be the easy way to take.
That was the popular way to take.
But that wouldn't have been the godly way to take.
And so she told the truth.
And the way we take is not always popular.
Sometimes we'll get singled out.
We'll be made fun of.
People will think we're weird.
But that's okay.
When we walk the path we're supposed to walk on, we need to understand the world's not always going to applaud what we do.
They're going to think we're funny.
We also need to understand that the way that we walk is contrary to the flesh.
Absolutely contrary to the flesh.
The Bible says that the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, so we couldn't can't do what we'd want to do.
And so they're contrary one to the other.
Well, God's word gave us the path that we're to walk, and it's spirit And so we are a soul that has a spirit that lives in a fallen fleshly body.
And so when we yield ourselves to God in our spirit, Our body is going to have to walk along with us, right?
So we got that inward spirit that's been sanctified through the Holy Spirit of God. washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ, and the will is present in me, and I yield myself to God to take the road that He's called me to travel As I'm walking down that road, my spirit and my soul are walking down that road in fellowship with God, but my body Is not going to agree with that spiritual path.
It's going to have temptation against it.
It's going to do like the mixed multitude that came out of Egypt is going to moan and groan and bellyache.
And uh it's it's a whole lot easier.
I was talking to someone the other day about them being in church.
I said, are you in church as you should be?
And that person said, no.
He said, I've just been lazy.
Just been lazy.
Just hadn't got up to go to church.
And uh, well.
That flesh likes being lazy.
It's nice sleeping in.
It's nice waking up and hanging out in your pajamas.
Playing on the cell phone and things like that.
That's what your flesh wants to do.
And we need to understand. that we can't be guided by our flesh.
We have to be guided by God's word.
So it's not always easy.
It's not always popular.
It's contrary to our flesh.
But the way we travel is truth in its right.
We can't the the what the prudent man, the wise man understands his way.
The wise man understands that my flesh Will tell me one thing.
My flesh will try to navigate me in a different direction than what God's Word tells me to go.
My flesh is going to crave something differently.
God's word is going to tell me something differently.
Now what am I going to listen to?
I'm going to listen to the craving of my flesh or to the inspiration of God's word?
we have to understand there's going to be that contradiction.
The wisdom of the wise is to understand his way, and if I understand my way, then I'm going to know That God's word, the way He's told me to walk, is always going to be truth And my flesh, the way it tells me to walk, that's contrary to God's word, is always going to be wrong.
It's always going to be a lie.
It'll always send me in the wrong direction.
I watched a Here's a good one for your kids.
Moody Science Film.
Have you ever seen those?
You ever seen the one where they were teaching how the sense of direction is in the human brain?
Go look it up.
Moody Science Film, let all you kids watch it.
Grown-ups, you watch it.
It's good.
But it was showing how that sense of direction in the human brain works physically And uh and it showed, it gave real-life examples of why a pilot has to have instrument ratings.
Y'all understand what instrument ratings are?
Because when you get up there and there's no point of reference in that blue sky, your body may tell you I'm right side up or I'm going banking left or banking right.
But your instrument rating is going to tell you something entirely different.
Now, if you're a pilot, then you know Your body may tell you one thing, but you better go by what that instrument says.
Because the instrument's going to tell you the truth.
Your body's going to lie to you Y'all look that up, Moody Science films.
You can't go wrong with any of them.
That's the way it is here.
As a pilot understands his way.
You got to go by the instruments.
I can't go by my natural instincts or my sense of direction.
We've got to understand our way.
You got to go by the inspiration of God's word.
It is our instrument panel.
That is the wisdom of the prudent is to understand our way.
Look back in your text now.
But the folly, he's contrasting wisdom with folly.
The folly, on the other hand, and that word folly is foolishness, it it literally has the idea of perverse thinking, not perverted thinking in the sense that we think.
But perverse thinking in the sense that you have the way, the roadway that God's given you to travel, and we need to think according to that way.
Perverse thinking is to think contrary to the way.
Is to think, no, I know a shortcut, I'm gonna go this direction over here, that's a better direction for me to go.
That's the folly.
That's folly.
To think of going in a different route other than the route God's paid for you, that's folly.
And that's the secret to walking the right direction is following God's word.
And folly doesn't belong to the wise, but is the folly buck in your text of fools.
Folly belongs to a fool.
A fool is a person who has a perverse way of thinking, thinking that is contrary to God's word.
The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way, but the Bible says the folly of fools, look back in your text, is deceit.
It's deceit.
The folly of fools is deceit.
You see the contrast?
There's the contrast between understanding and deception.
The wisdom of the wise understands the way.
The folly of the fools is deceived by their way.
Does that make sense?
It's deceit.
So to understand the proverb, we have to juxtapose the wise with the fool.
And so Solomon is basically saying that the folly of fools is that a fool thinks He understands his way.
But the way he's traveling on is actually deceiving him.
He doesn't understand it.
The fool's way appears much easier.
We said that the way of the wise is not always easy.
But to the fool, his way, again, I know a shortcut.
Why would I want to take this route with all these troubles and difficulties?
It's not popular.
It's contrary to my flesh.
Why would I want to take this route?
When I can take this shortcut here, and it's much more pleasant to my flesh, I can avoid all the trouble, and I can take this route and I can get there quicker.
Well, it appears much easier to the fool, but it's deceptive.
It's a lie.
It's going to be much more trouble.
You watch a person that lives by the word of God, and you're going to see someone that has no unnecessary problems.
You watch someone who doesn't live according to the word of God, you're going to see people with unnecessary problems.
Problems that were generated by their disobedience to God's word.
I saw in the news yesterday, KLTV out of Tyler. posted uh very informative, we all needed to know how that uh the uh FAG Plus, I think is what one of the groups called themselves, was Fag Plus.
It was the one of these LGB2Q Plus. uh commun they're all communities.
Everything but a Christian has a community.
But uh they they had one of these uh uh perverted homosexual transvestite communities and they were meeting with uh some kind of social group, and they were discussing how they could prevent getting AIDS And I just look at that.
And I think, well, if you just take the B-I-B-L-E, If they would just go by the scriptures, we wouldn't even have AIDS.
It's always that community that is concerned.
With the sexually transmitted diseases.
But here's the truth.
You take a young woman, a virgin young woman, and a virgin young man, neither one of them are going to have a sexually communicated disease.
If they get married, I've studied medicine to know this.
They're still not going to have a sexually communicated disease.
It's not going to be until they go outside God's word, till they have to worry about uh um not concept contracting one of those diseases.
And so the reason the homosexual community is always concerned with this It's because their way appeals to their perverted flesh that thinks way outside of God's design.
I mean, like the pendulum swings as far as it can.
And so they think way outside of God's design, but it appeals to their flesh, so they yield to that And now they have this unnecessary problem of having to meet, trying to figure out what to do about AIDS.
When it's right there in front of them the whole time in God's word.
It's deceptive to them.
It deceives them.
The fool's way is popular with the world Whatever direction the world's want wanting to go, it's popular and the fool's way just follows right in line with them.
Just see what direction the traffic's going.
I like it when people say Y'all ever heard people say this?
Y'all probably said it yourselves.
They say, well, I just go with the flow of traffic.
I don't really worry about the speed limit.
I just glow with the flow of traffic because if you don't, you'll get ran over.
Brother Shepherd, you guys ran over yet doing that.
I haven't either.
I drive the speed limit.
No one's run over me yet.
But I've seen a lot of people going with the flow that end up driving over the speed limit and they end up getting in wrecks, because speed does kill.
I hadn't been running over yet.
They just go right on by me.
My dad's smart.
He sets his cruise if it's 70 miles an hour.
He sets his cruise on 65, gets in the slow lane, just lets them all go on by it.
He just enjoys his drive.
And that's a good way of doing it.
But the popular way is to watch and see what everyone else is doing and say, well, I'll just follow them The biblical way is to see what Jesus is doing, and Jesus says, come follow me.
That's the popular way.
And I'll take Jesus' way over the popular way every time.
The fool's ways pleasing to the flesh.
If it feels good, they're going to do it.
We heard that back in the 60s.
If it feels good, do it.
And basically that's saying, don't listen to God's word, don't listen to your teachers, don't listen to your pastor, don't listen to your parents, listen to your flesh.
And boy, have we paid the price because of that.
The fool's way is a lie.
It seems like truth to them.
It makes sense to them.
But it's a lie.
It'll deceive them every time.
Here's the difference between the fool's way. in the wise man's way.
The wise man's way, which is paved by the Word of God, even with all the difficulties, it's worth it in the end.
In the end, it'll always pay off.
In the end, it'll always be a blessing.
In the end, the person who walks it will always be rewarded.
In the end, they'll have everlasting life And the wisdom of the prudent is to understand that part of their way.
That no matter how rough my road is.
I know that my God is with me.
His word is true.
I'll be rewarded in the end, and I'll have everlasting life by walking the King's Highway.
The fool's way is not worth it in the end.
The fool's way is going to lead them, excuse me, into destruction, and it's going to leave them disappointed.
Jesus said, whoever believes in him will not be ashamed.
They'll never, that means they'll never be put to shame.
They'll never be ashamed of taking The route that God gave them to walk.
They'll never say, oh man, I wish I'd I was such a sucker.
I wish I'd have never followed God's word.
How stupid I could have been.
No one will ever say that who follow God's word.
But the fool who disregarded God's word, I believe that they'll regret that forever and forever and forever.
Their heart may never change about God's word.
But I know one thing, they'll be ashamed because they didn't.
And they'll confess that God in his word was right in the end.
So the fool is deceived by the road he travels.
The wise man is assured by it.
Father, we thank you for your precious word.
Thank you, Lord, for giving us the understanding of the way you've called us to.
Thank you, Lord God, for telling us that we need to understand that way.
Lord, so we can be prepared like Jesus, who said beforehand that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
O Lord, the servant is not greater than his master.
If he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief for following your way, Lord, so will we be. in times of our lives for following your word as well.
But Lord, I thank you that the man of sorrows, Lord, is now the man of joy, the man who is the head of the church, his body.
And waiting on his bride, and I thank you for that.
It was worth it in the end.
For him.
And because of that, it's worth it for us.
In his precious name we pray.
Amen.
