Studies in Proverbs: Lesson 5 (Prov. 1:4-5) | Paul Washer

hello again and we're back for on another lesson in in proverbs chapter 1 let's begin reading in verse 1 through verse 7 the Proverbs of Solomon the son of David king of Israel to know wisdom and instruction to discern the sayings of understanding to receive instruction and wise behavior righteousness justice and equity to give prudence to the naive to the youth knowledge and discretion a wise man will hear an increase in learning and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel to understand a proverb in 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 let's go the Lord in prayer father I pray first of all I thank you for for your word that is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our path I thank you for the young people who may be listening to this video and I pray dear God that they would grow in wisdom that they would know you they would walk with you that they would stand before you on that great day in Christ Jesus and here well done my good and faithful servant enter into the joy of your master father please bless them and help us now in this small study in Jesus name Amen all right well we're in verse 4 so let's read it and then we'll begin to look at some things about that we find there to give prudence to the naive and to the youth knowledge and discretion now prudence here is kind of a strange word because it can also mean shrewdness or craftiness you know like we know that the devil in the serpent and the garden was crafty was was shrewd and so this this type of prudence this rudeness this craftiness can be both negative and positive there are people out there young person you need to understand this that are very shrewd in doing evil and you are a youth you are a simpleton as we will learn today I don't want to be offensive but but it's true and they will be able to deceive you and to hurt you and to use you and most of all to mislead you away from God and so you need a prudence a positive craftiness a positive shrewdness in which you can look at things and you can see there's a trap going this way I'm going to go this way these people have just asked me a question but they don't want to learn they just want to ensnare me so silence is better than an answer there's so many places and circumstances in which you need this type of wisdom and we have a perfect example of what this really means and of course it comes from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and it's in Matthew chapter 10 verse 16 now listen to what he says he's going to send out his disciples in order to preach in order to proclaim the kingdom now he's sending them out not into a world that loves God but a world who is antagonistic toward God and will actually use its craftiness to fight against those who seek to do God's will and proclaim God's purpose this is what Jesus said in Matthew 10:16 behold I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves now we've all heard the saying fire you know fight fire with fire well it really doesn't work that well except with regard to fire here he says I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves he doesn't say I send you out as wolves in the midst of wolves if you're gonna you're gonna swim with sharks you need to be a shark that's not what he's saying but he says this and I want you to be pure and holy and innocent and kind and loving and yet at the same time you are going to be surrounded not all the time but many times by very dangerous shrewd and clever people and he says I want you to be as shrewd as a serpent I want you to be more shrewd than they are yet at the same time without losing your innocence without losing or departing from righteousness shrewdness does not have to mean doing evil it doesn't have to mean trickery or deception it can just be the application of wisdom of seeing a trap and being able to go around it you know when they asked Jesus you know should we pay taxes or not it was a lose-lose situation it really was because if he said pay taxes then the Jews would be angry with him who hated the Roman rule and if he said don't pay taxes he's going to be arrested look at the shrewdness that he used he said give me a coin who does this coin belong to whose emblem whose whose image is on it Caesar then give to Caesar what Caesar and to God what is God's do you see and many times he was asked a question he said well let me ask you a question first so be very very careful but the only way you can be careful and be shrewd and at the same time innocent not lose your righteousness is by cultivating the mind of Christ in the scriptures in the book of Proverbs now he says here in verse 4 to give prudence to the naive literally montt means the simple ones those who cannot handle discern of complex and complicated matters now people who are easily deceived here's what I want you to see look look at verse 4 to give prudence to the naive to the youth knowledge and discretion remember what I said I think about Hebrew parallelism sometimes in the book we'll have one line and then the second line comes which is not really a separate idea it's just adding to our explaining the first idea and so here basically the naive and the young though that's basically a synonym they're being used synonymously if you're a youth you're a simpleton you're naive now I know especially when you hit your teenage years I know that you think you know all the answers well not only do you not know the answers you don't know most of the questions but I want you to know there are people out there who will take advantage of that and so you know I have met young people who through their study of the Scriptures have become wise I have also met old people who through their neglect of the Scriptures acted very foolishly even those who were in the ministry and what does it come down to Oh what do you want to be you want to be wise or do you want to be a simpleton all your life what do you want to be he said well I want to be wise well there's only one road hits the scriptures that's all the scriptures now he goes on and he says this to give the prudence to the naive to the youth knowledge and discretion now knowledge here I want you to see something if you look at Psalms chapter one the the one who meditates upon the law of God he will prosper in his life that doesn't mean he will prosper just in church that's not what it means even though you should prosper in church it doesn't even mean he'll prosper just in the things of God and religious things no he'll prosper in every area of his life if he meditates upon a law of God remember Joshua he was - I mean he wasn't he wasn't a cleric he wasn't so you just sat behind a desk or preached behind a pulpit he was a warrior and he had to lead God's people into battle and do so many things not just battled but administration dividing up the native the tribes everything what was he told to do at the very beginning of the book of Joshua to meditate upon the law of God and that God would help him you see if you're right with God you have a right relationship with God it doesn't mean you're not going to suffer it doesn't mean you're not going to go through times of terrible trials but what it means is your life as a whole it's going to be healthy prosperous and useful to God now he says gives all kinds of knowledge every kind of knowledge you said well what about math what about science well know that the Bible isn't a book on math or necessarily a book on on science well then how's that going to help me well because it will teach you the disciplines to be able to prosper in those areas it will give you the character for example there are many people who are gifted in math that never become good math mathematicians why they have no discipline they have no character just like there are many brilliant athletes they have all the gifts but they do not have the character you know I've heard many many people say that there are people playing basketball on the on the streets you know that are better than people in the NBA but they didn't have the character to be able to function as a teammate to be able to practice to be reliable and so in this in this you need to grow and that is only through the scriptures and cultivating the mind of Christ now he says discretion in verse 5 a wise man will hear an increase in learning I'm sorry verse 4 to give prudence to the naive into the youth now and discretion what is discretion it's the ability to choose the right path in any given situation it's the ability to know how to act to be able to observe a situation and know how you should respond to it now it's very important this word I did a little bit of study on this word and it also has to do with purpose and plans like the ability to look at a project like building a house and to work it out also the idea to say you you're 18 years old or that you're starting to think about college and to choose a college and to choose a career path that's actually going to be beneficial you know so many people go to college and it's literally four years of spending a whole lot of money and coming out with nothing that they can apply in real life so you need discretion to be able to choose a path but another thing that's very very important in this area tremendously important is choosing the path for your entire life you know I can't emphasize this enough I know that I'm gonna sound like a broken record but your life isn't isn't a circle it's it's linear it had a beginning and it's going to have an end and you're going to go from the beginning to end a lot quicker than you ever imagined I promise you and and at the end of that life you will stand before God you will you know here's the thing when I talk this way so many people will say you know what you're trying to scare you're trying to do this no it's a reality I'm talking about a reality and if that right reality is fearful to you well that that's that's up to you there isn't it but the reality is you're gonna stand before God will you have wasted your life and not just your life your time your resources your talents your opportunities now you can go out there and you can you can maybe be very disciplined and successful but you've done everything for you but see you weren't made for that and you won't be happy ultimately you were made for God and you are made for serving others now do you have the the discretion to be able to sit there and look and go I don't want to waste my life I don't want to trade eternity for some fleeting passing thing here that can't even begin to compare with what's waiting for the godly the believing so please you need discretion now proverbs 5 the chapter 1 verse 5 a wise man will hear an increase in learning in a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel now this can also be translated as a command and when it's translated as command it has really a lot of force to it so listen let the wise man hear an increase in learning and let a man of understanding acquire wise counsel now here's something I want you to see in verse 4 the scriptures are basically telling the naive the youth beiong to grow in in wisdom to grow in knowledge to grow in discretion look you're young you don't know the answers you don't know the questions you need to grow in wisdom but then it comes to five and it's basically the same thing to the wise man you see what you need to understand is this that that young people without much wisdom the naive the simple they can become wise through the study of Scripture but being wise is not a static position now what do I mean by that static means unchanging like you arrived you're wise now and and after that you don't need more wisdom because you're you're just wise that's not what means you see you grow in wisdom but then you have to keep growing in wisdom no one is as wise as they could be not even someone as old as me we're not as wise as we could be and also you need to know this if you stop studying the Scriptures if you stop looking at wisdom not only are you not going to grow you're gonna go backwards I've seen a lot of old men do a lot of foolish things because they departed from their dependence upon the Scriptures so this is not me telling you you're young and you need to study the book of Proverbs until you're 25 this is me telling you you need to give yourself to the study of the full counsel of God all the days of your life so that the last day of your life you're still seeking to grow in wisdom and remember this all true wisdom all true wisdom will lead to godliness will lead to godliness no look he says a wise man will hear well here you understand me what does James say we're to be slow to speak we're to be slowed us to anger but what are we to be quick in and hearing so many people just simply do not want to hear I've been in conversations with people and you knew they weren't listening to you they were just waiting for you to be quiet so they could talk and so many young people you don't want to hear your father and your mother and society will basically tell you if someone's old they don't have any wisdom that's the very opposite you see there was a time when when we were young and now we've lived many many years and we've made a lot of mistakes and we've learned a lot of things and if we're Christians we've had the opportunity to study the scriptures maybe you should listen so you don't repeat the same error here here listen but to another thing you need to understand is that in the Bible the word here doesn't mean just listen or even learn but it means to do it means to obey please young person I'm pleading with you learn by listening and then what you learned apply to your life practice it work it out diligently now he says a wise man will hear an increase in learning and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel now here's something I want you to think he acquires it he goes after it he's not just like some sea sponge that responds when it's touched he goes after it he pursues it he knows I'm not I'm not wise I don't have the understanding that I need I'm going to actually do something about it and do something about it entire life now this wise counsel can you know it's it's it's a good way to translate the word it is wise counsel but sometimes we just think it sits well I heard something wise let's look at it this way wise guidance you've got to navigate through a very very dangerous world and you need guidance you know I've said it before you know I've been through so many dark jungles and places like that and and I really don't know that much about being in dark jungles but I was able to navigate because I was with people who knew what they were doing I would receive their counsel you see so it opened up so much that I could do in my life because I submitted to the counsel of others even now if I want to do something I've never done before the first thing I do is go talk to people about how to do it why should I reinvent the wheel or go through countless errors that I don't have to go through so we need to receive wise counsel now I want us to look at verse 6 well I tell you what let's go ahead and do verse six in the next lesson because there are some very very important truths in that verse that uh that we need to take a look at so well we got through two verses we tried three and I'll see you in the next lesson you

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Keywords: Paul Washer, Gospel, HeartCry, Proverbs, Bible, Bible study, Scripture, Bible course, Bible lessons, curriculum, wisdom

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Length: 20min 50sec (1250 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020