Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] When my older brother and sister started to drive. So when they turned 16, which I have three siblings, but two of them are older now. When they started to drive, it became clear to me rather quickly, especially because they're close in age, that not all drivers are equal.
[00:00:19] Does anybody else know this truth? Not all drivers are equal. Yeah, you don't have to rat out anybody, but we all know it's true. You know, when my sister would drive, it'd be fine, just fine. My brother was a bit of a thrill.
[00:00:34] He never knew what you were gonna get. He was just a little bit less focused. We could say, now he's a great guy and a better driver today.
[00:00:44] But when she would drive, I was much more comforted than when he would drive. I would be clinching the seat. I don't know if you've ever clinched the seat or grabbed the handles in the car.
[00:00:58] The moral of the story is that not all drivers are equal, and it matters who's in the driver's seat. When you drive somewhere, you want to be sure you will get there alive. It matters who's in the driver's seat, and that's true for your life.
[00:01:15] Your heart is in the driver's seat of your life. But is your heart, is the driver of your life a renewed heart given by the spirit of God upon your faith in Christ? Or is it a cold, dead, lifeless heart of sin?
[00:01:33] What is driving your life?
[00:01:37] Now, yet again, we're turning into proverbs. We're in proverbs four. So if you're not there, flip there. I'll actually flip there, too. Proverbs chapter four. Here we're going to encounter another one of these lectures from the father to his son. And in fact, we're going to read three lectures in this one chapter.
[00:01:57] In summary, these lectures, they each open by repeating some familiar language that you may have picked up on about hearing, accepting, listening to the father's teaching and instruction and understanding and all that stuff.
[00:02:12] Specifically, we're going to see in these three lectures, the father says, to hear wisdom, to accept wisdom, and to attend to wisdom. So that means to pay attention to it. And these exhortations, they lead us to the main idea of proverbs four, which is partly written out. The main idea is that wisdom issues, commands, warnings and promises.
[00:02:41] Wisdom issues, commands, warnings, and promises, all of which are fulfilled in Christ.
[00:02:51] So all of these commands, warnings, promises, they're all fulfilled, made complete in Christ. Therefore, we must hear, accept, and attend a to wisdom. And when we hear wisdom, I hope by now we are immediately thinking of Christ.
[00:03:14] I hope that's what we're thinking about, because that's what we mean here. We are talking about the wisdom of God, which Paul says, christ is the wisdom of God.
[00:03:24] The theme of proverbs. We've said it before.
[00:03:28] What is this first word?
[00:03:31] Someone say it out loud.
[00:03:33] Close. It's. Yeah. Choose which follow works just as well. Choose the path. Oops. Misspelled that. The path of what?
[00:03:46] Wisdom. That's right. Which is the what of Christ?
[00:03:53] It is the path of Christ. Very good. We're going to keep repeating this. This is just a theme that runs all throughout this book. Choose the path of wisdom, which is the path of Christ. With that, let's start reading the text. We'll just read the first nine verses now. So, proverbs four.
[00:04:11] One.
[00:04:13] Hear, o sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight. For I give you good precepts. Do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son, with my father tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, let your heart hold fast my words, keep my commandments and live. Get wisdom. Get insight. Do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you. Love her, and she will guard you.
[00:04:46] The beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom. And whatever you get, get insight.
[00:04:53] Prize her highly and she will exalt you. She will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland. She will bestow on you a beautiful crown.
[00:05:08] So that's the first lecture. This is the fifth lecture of the entire book. That's why point one says lecture five. And here we begin with the command to hear. So that's what this blank is, lecture five. We must hear wisdom.
[00:05:24] Hear wisdom. And here we're going to look again at the commands, warnings and promises in each of these lectures.
[00:05:33] So the commands here are all the commands that we just read. I'll just repeat them. Hear, be attentive, hold fast, keep wisdom. Get wisdom. Get insight. Do nothing, forget, nor forsake wisdom. Love wisdom, prize wisdom.
[00:05:46] I hope we're getting the point that wisdom is so important, we're repeating it, it seems, chapter after chapter, lecture after lecture.
[00:05:54] And in order to do these things, we need to be able to hear wisdom.
[00:05:59] We need to listen to her call.
[00:06:03] Wisdom is calling to you.
[00:06:07] And what you might be tempted to do when you hear me or someone else say this. You might be tempted to act like, yeah, I hear yes. I know wisdom. I know Christ when you don't.
[00:06:20] We've all been in a situation where we can't really hear. You know, you might be in a loud place.
[00:06:26] Someone's too quiet. They speak to you and you don't quite hear it. What do you do?
[00:06:34] You might have them repeat it once, maybe twice, but then you're. What? Yeah. You just say, mm hmm. Yeah. Right. We've all done that. Right? Am I the only one? Caleb's done it, I guess. Yeah, we've all done this. We've pretended to hear someone we clearly can't.
[00:06:49] Don't do that now. Don't. Yeah. Mm hmm. The call of wisdom. Don't ignore it. We do this too often.
[00:06:59] As Christ obediently lived unto his father, so should we heed the commandments of this proverbial father and the father's father, even in this lecture.
[00:07:10] So that is what we're commanded to do. There are not explicit warnings in this chapter, so we'll talk about God's promises in this section.
[00:07:21] First, we see what we see. Wisdom will keep you and guard you. That's in verse six. Wisdom will keep you and guard you if you love her.
[00:07:34] Now, the words are different, but they're operating as parallels to describe the same thing. Keeping and guarding, overseeing, protecting.
[00:07:43] We also see a promise that wisdom will exalt you and honor you if you prize her.
[00:07:49] Again, different words, but communicating the same type of truth. And some, if you do indeed get wisdom, treasure wisdom.
[00:07:59] You will be both defended and decorated. You'll be defended by wisdom. You will be decorated with honor and glory that we don't deserve.
[00:08:11] Now, the Bible provides a great illustration for this in John.
[00:08:17] So if you want to flip to John ten to read this with me, that would be helpful. So flip to John, chapter ten, the Gospel of John ten.
[00:08:29] I'll start reading in verse seven. John ten, seven.
[00:08:35] So Jesus again said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not listen to them.
[00:08:48] I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
[00:09:05] I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
[00:09:13] If you follow Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, true wisdom, then you don't need to fear the thief. You are protected from him. He is a good shepherd. He doesn't lose sheep. He protects them no matter what.
[00:09:31] And he will secure them for eternity. Because he has. What? That last verse we read. He has laid down his life for the sheep. He's already done this. He has already secured all of his sheep to be in his fold and to not be lost or taken by the thief. This is the protection that wisdom is offering. This is how she will keep you and guard you. It is through Christ who keeps you in the sheepfold. So merely by faith in Christ, you'll be given true wisdom. And wisdom will place a garland of saving grace on your head for eternity. And you'll be given a beautiful crown which you then can throw at the feet of your savior. That is what is being promised here. And that's so important.
[00:10:19] Let's keep reading in proverbs four so you can go back there. Verse ten.
[00:10:26] Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.
[00:10:34] I have taught you the way of wisdom. I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your step will not be hampered. And if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction. Do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life.
[00:10:51] Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it, do not go on it, turn away from it and pass on. For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong. They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.
[00:11:19] The way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know over what they stumble.
[00:11:28] So here we have started the next lecture. .2. Lecture six. And we begin. My son, be or my son, hear and accept my words. So now we're going to focus on this accepting wisdom.
[00:11:44] That's what goes here. Lecture six. Accept wisdom. We will hear wisdom. We must accept it. And we must accept his commandments. Keep hold of instruction. Guard. Wisdom. Don't enter the path of the wicked. Now, I want us to stop and zoom in on that one. Don't enter the path of the wicked. Look what he writes in verse 14.
[00:12:11] Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it, do not go on it. Turn away from it and pass on.
[00:12:21] The way of the wicked is sneaky.
[00:12:26] It's sneaky. It's often the attractive way, the easy way. It's the quickest route between point a and point b. It's the easy way.
[00:12:39] But Jesus says, enter by the narrow gate.
[00:12:44] For the gate is wide and the way is easy. That leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
[00:12:52] For the gate is narrow and the way is hard. That leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matthew 713 14 it is so much easier to go with the way of the wicked. Point a to point b. But we ought not travel that way. It really doesn't even make sense. If I drove straight from my house to here, I would drive through several homes, some businesses, probably a lot of cars and pedestrians, and a school. I think that's not good. You don't take the easiest path. It's far worse to do that in your moral life than it is for me to do that in my car.
[00:13:31] That is the level of seriousness with which we should take this command.
[00:13:37] What path in life have you chosen?
[00:13:42] What have you chosen?
[00:13:45] Have you chosen the easy path? Does it seem pretty easy? If it does, maybe you should take this as a warning that you have chosen poorly. But it's not too late.
[00:13:57] It is not too late to switch paths, to enter the narrow way by faith in Christ.
[00:14:05] But you must avoid this wicked way, the path of the evil.
[00:14:13] Do you guys know what a riptide is? Have you ever heard of that? We're pretty safe from them in Oklahoma because they occur on the coast. So we're pretty far away now. Riptide, if you don't know, is just a tide that pulls very strongly out to sea. Some can be so strong that if you dip your foot in it and fall, you can be ripped to sea in seconds.
[00:14:39] This is the danger of the way of the wicked. And we don't know. And we aren't guaranteed the next hour tomorrow. We aren't. We don't know. And if we are in the way of the wicked, we are in danger of being swept out to sea.
[00:14:56] Now, sometimes the way of the wicked comes in the form of bad company.
[00:15:02] The way of the wicked just comes with the people that we spend time with.
[00:15:06] In John Bunyan's the Pilgrim's progress, a very famous book in history, the main character. This is an allegory of the christian life. The main character, his name is Christian. And while Christian is on his journey to the celestial city, which is heaven, he encounters several bad friends.
[00:15:28] Some examples he encounters talkative.
[00:15:31] Talkative is religious, basically. In talk only, he doesn't walk the walk of faith, he just talks about it.
[00:15:40] He encounters buy inside who was religious only when it was advantageous to him, not when things were hard.
[00:15:49] He also encounters ignorance.
[00:15:52] Ignorance was religious only when it was, or I'm sorry, he did not live out his faith. He assumed that he had his ticket punched to the celestial city, but his life showed no evidence of conversion.
[00:16:07] Do you know people in your life like that? Do you spend time with such people?
[00:16:12] Do those characteristics describe you?
[00:16:17] These bad influences are sneaky because they're Christian in name, but they really aren't at all. And so they have the opportunity to draw us away in a sneaky and dangerous way. And of course, others of us are surrounded by people who aren't even christian in name. We probably all have people like that in our lives. And so this is where we need to lean in to good relationships, lean into the local church, the relationships that we can have here, and to be discerning, not to cut off all people that are cultural Christians or not Christian at all, but to remember who is influencing our lives, who is closest to us, which of our friends are we beginning to look more like? That's telling for who's closest.
[00:17:11] Lean into the church. Now here in this second lecture, we have some warnings. When we fall into the way of the wicked, we're likely to stumble along with them. That's the warning. And it warns also that the way of wicked is in deep darkness. Deep darkness.
[00:17:32] If you feel lost in this world, if you're looking for direction, but you're walking in the way of the wicked, it makes sense why you can't find your way. Step out of the darkness. Follow the light of Christ.
[00:17:50] And now let's look at these promises in this lecture.
[00:17:54] When you step into the light, when you get to know Christ, he shows you the way in which you must go.
[00:18:02] And only then will you see clearly. You must have faith in Christ to do that. Not only will you see the way, but the wisdom of God will be made clear to you.
[00:18:15] You will know how to apply wisdom to your life because the spirit will direct you to do so.
[00:18:23] Sort of like feeding a baby. If you give a baby just a spoon and a bowl of food for the first time, she probably won't know what to do with it. She's going to make a mess. She's going to fling stuff around. I'm not necessarily speaking from experience, but I am. She'll just fling it around.
[00:18:42] The baby needs help, or at the very least, a lot of practice, but the baby needs help. The parent needs to show the baby, maybe feed her, maybe help guide her arms while she figures it out.
[00:18:56] In this illustration you're the baby. You guys are the babies. You need help understanding and applying God's word to your heart and your life. And when I say, you guys, I'm a member of the church too. I'm one of those babies. We need help. We have leaders and pastors in the church. We have teachers. We have parents and disciples. We have people that help us. And most importantly, we have the spirit if we have faith in Christ, and the spirit guides us as we search the word.
[00:19:28] Now, if you're in Christ, then you will not, and you should not join the wicked by eating what he says here is the bread of wickedness and drinking the wine of violence.
[00:19:44] You are united to Christ by faith in him.
[00:19:47] And so, once baptized into the family of God, we ought not be having this meal with the way of the wicked. Instead, we have another meal. We have the Lord's supper. We drink of the wine of reconciliation. We eat of the bread of the righteous one. We do not walk in the way of the wicked any longer.
[00:20:13] For the Lord Jesus is righteous, and so we too must be righteous. His life was perfect. His death provides something for all who believe, and that is his righteousness. That's what he provides through his death to all who believe through his righteousness being given to you or credited to you by faith.
[00:20:38] This is the promise of God.
[00:20:42] But now let's get into this last lecture here in chapter four. This is starting in verse 20.
[00:20:49] My son, be attentive to my words.
[00:20:53] Incline your ear to my sayings.
[00:20:57] Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh.
[00:21:06] Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
[00:21:13] Put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you ponder the path of your feet. Then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil.
[00:21:31] So here in lecture seven, we are told to attend to wisdom. We are told to pay attention to the teaching and guidance of wisdom. Attend to it.
[00:21:44] And there are several more commands to be kept, namely, pay attention to the teaching. Guard your heart. Don't speak evil. Look to where God is leading you. Don't swerve from what is right. But at the center is this very crucial command. I hope we caught it. Look again at it's verse 23.
[00:22:05] Keep your heart with all vigilance.
[00:22:09] Keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life.
[00:22:18] Charles Bridges writes, but the heart must be known in order to be effectually kept. He's saying, we must know our heart in order to keep it and to guard it going on. He says, nothing is more difficult, while nothing is more necessary. If we don't know our hearts, we know nothing to any purpose whatever else we know. To neglect knowing our hearts is to be a fool. If we do not know our weak points, Satan knows them. Well, that's a great way to put it. Great warning.
[00:22:57] We must know our hearts. Remember, our hearts are the drivers of our lives.
[00:23:05] Satan will do what he can to find out your heart and where it is weak. That's why we must have the Lord search our hearts for us, because from our hearts flow all things. So if your heart is full of evil, you will say and do what is evil. But if your heart is full of God's word and his love and his wisdom, then you'll honor him with your words and your actions.
[00:23:32] That's what it's like to live a life as a Christian. That is the christian life. But so often we neglect knowing our own hearts, which gives the devil the perfect opportunity to commandeer us for his purposes.
[00:23:49] When we read the word keep, know that it could easily be translated as guard and protect.
[00:23:57] While I was in seminary, one of the jobs I had there was working security. I worked for a company called vigilance, and we would be hired out to work at different businesses. A lot of hotels and stores would hire us, and so I would take jobs and go different places pretty frequently all over the city.
[00:24:18] I had to be, as our company name implied, vigilant. I had to watch because people are bad and sneaky. They are, and they love to steal things. One time I was working at a place you may have heard of called ulta Beauty.
[00:24:35] I worked there a lot of because people love to steal. Like, really, so many people would steal there.
[00:24:44] Anyway, one time I saw a woman come in, and as is typical, I looked, I, you know, make sure I'm paying attention. Everyone that's going in and out, I noticed that her purse is open. You know, all the normal stuff I'm looking for, just to make sure, because, you know, people put stuff in there and then close it. That's kind of like their strategy. So I would look at stuff like that. But she had this operation. She had done this before. She had her sons and her sons kept wandering around the store. And I was just watching. And then she would, like, make a big commotion. And call them back. And they would come back and like, I could never really see clearly what they were doing. And then they would immediately just walk away for several minutes and they would come back. I'm like, they're just bringing stuff to her. That it was obvious to me, and I called it out and it went poorly. But I did. I caught her. And I caught her because I was actively watching and guarding. I was paying attention to the details. If I wasn't, if I was just on my phone or something, they would have never gotten caught.
[00:25:49] We need to guard our hearts with this type of vigilance. We need to watch it closely because stolen perfume and makeup or whatever is far less important than your soul. We must watch what is driving our life because your heart flows to all other areas of your life.
[00:26:14] The same guy I quoted before, Charles Bridges, he goes on, he says, the natural or sinful heart is a fountain of poisonous. The purified heart is a well of living water.
[00:26:26] As is the fountain, so must be the streams.
[00:26:30] As is the heart, so must be the mouth, the eyes, the feet.
[00:26:36] Therefore, above all keeping, keep thine heart.
[00:26:41] Guard the fountain lest the waters be poisoned. Many have been the bitter moments from the neglect of this guard. All keeping is vain if the heart is not kept.
[00:26:54] All keeping is vain if the heart is not kept. That means no matter how well and neat and tidy you keep your life if your heart is not kept. If your heart is wicked and in the way of the wicked, it doesn't matter what your moral resume says, it doesn't. Christ is concerned with your heart. That's what he wants. Have faith in him. He gives you a new heart. And we need this because a bitter heart spills over into the tongue, the eyes, the feet and the rest of the body as we read in the proverbs four.
[00:27:28] And it does this just as a bitter fountain spills over and poisons all the waters connected to it.
[00:27:34] That's the product of our wicked hearts, poison and bitterness. But God, he has solution. And there's an example of this in Exodus. You don't have to flip there, but I will read it.
[00:27:49] Exodus, chapter 15. If you're writing it down, here's what happens then. Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea. This is after they left Egypt and they went into the wilderness of Shurike. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. Therefore, it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses saying, what shall we drink?
[00:28:22] And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log and he threw it into the water and the water became sweet.
[00:28:29] God can make actual water go from bitter to sweet. He can do so much more with your heart.
[00:28:36] And so in a similar way, God can turn your bitter fountain into one of sweetness, overflowing to the benefit of those around you and to your own soul. But you need only to attend to wisdom.
[00:28:50] So trust in Christ. The fountain filled with his blood can flow over into your heart and cleanse it absolutely clean.
[00:29:01] Now we also see in this last section of the chapter some more promises that I want us to pay attention to. Here they are. If you control your eyes, then you will, your gaze will be straight.
[00:29:18] If you want your gaze, you want your gaze to be straight because then you don't know where you're going.
[00:29:24] Cross your eyes.
[00:29:26] Can you do it? If you can cross your eyes, cross your eyes. Now, if I pegged a football at you, would you catch it?
[00:29:32] Maybe. If you're lucky, you'd probably get a bloody nose because you can't. You have a very low likelihood of catching the football like that. You really can't do anything with your eyes crossed. You need to plain and simply be able to see straight.
[00:29:50] And that's what wisdom promises for us in a greater sense than just with our physical eyes. We're able to see straight like Christ.
[00:30:00] If you think about where you're going in life, here's another promise. God will make your ways sure the direction, the paths that you go in life are sure and set because God establishes them.
[00:30:16] Now, again, I just mentioned the football thing about football. Again, a good wide receiver is going to what? He's going to run what is called a route. You know, if you're not a football fan, this is the guy that catches the football. They run a route. They want to run a crisp, good route. They want to keep their eyes on the ball and they want to bring it in before trying to make a move, because when they don't, they're going to drop it or something.
[00:30:40] So if they start to hear and they think about who's coming to hit me and they get a little bit of afraid and they run a bad route and they take their eye off the ball or they turn too soon, they're going to drop it or they're going to cause a turnover, those are bad. In Christ, your footing can be confident, but only in Christ.
[00:31:00] We must trust the promises of God in Christ, because Jesus is trustworthy. We can trust all of these promises. That's why we've been pointing out promise after promise in proverbs four, and we know that they will come true because two corinthians. So you wanna write that down? Second Corinthians 118 22 says this, as surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been yes and no for the son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Sylvanus and Timothy, and I was not yes and no, but in him it is always yes for all the promises of God find their yes in him.
[00:31:42] That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, and who has always put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
[00:32:00] All the promises of God, including these that we've read, are fulfilled perfectly in the perfect God, man, Christ. They are yeses in him, as Paul says. So why not put your faith in Christ and why not live such a life? His promises are all a yes. These things are all true for the Christian.
[00:32:25] And because of that we can say amen, which means so be it or truly yes, he has redeemed my debt that I owe him out of his great love. I can trust my redeemer, for he has guaranteed my salvation through faith by sealing me with his spirit.
[00:32:44] This can be true for you too. He can make that reality true for you, and he will put himself within you. When you trust him, you can truly trust him.
[00:32:57] Only he can renew your heart and save you from your foolishness, and so follow him by faith alone.
[00:33:03] This is the center of a heart driven Christianity. It's faith alone in the savior, and he gives you a new heart, a new driver.
[00:33:14] And it matters who's in the driver's seat. Is it Christ or is it you?
[00:33:19] Is it a redeemed heart or a dead one? Get to know Christ, the true wisdom of God, who gives us commands, warnings and promises, all of which are are fulfilled in Christ. Thus we should hear, accept and attend to Christ's wisdom. Let's pray.
[00:33:39] Lord, we acknowledge that we are sinners in need of a savior. And we praise you that many of us have come to know you personally and that through faith you have helped us to attain to such wisdom. God, we praise you for your glorious grace in Christ. Lord, we ask that those of us here that are holding on, that we want, those of us that want control, to drive our own life in the direction that we so choose. God, give each of those people humility, convict them of their sin and point them to your son, Christ tonight, Lord, may we all be renewed and have hearts given to us by the spirit that we may better follow Christ, and we may have confidence and be safe and secure and protected for all life and for life eternal. Lord, we pray, as we break into our small groups, that you would help us to understand your chapter proverbs four here, better and better, and how it affects and applies to our lives. We pray this all in Christ's name. Amen. I.
