What Is The Book Of Proverbs About? - Proverbs Lesson 1

they are caring more about punching holes in the darkness then they are the my life is his and it committed my life to community anyway for Jesus are you saying that is what is the norm in this kingdom what is it that makes you cry for happy or sad or miserable what is it [Music] they did something that I want all right good morning good morning to those of you that are here in Phoenix we are glad you are joining us for our new series in Proverbs for those of you that are watching us online apps Roku or YouTube we're glad you're joining us today too if you want to know more about our ministry go online to women's Bible study comm there you can actually get the handouts for today's lesson you can watch past lessons catch up if you've missed a few of these and that's kind of what we do there so anyway we are starting a brand new summer series we've never done this before we're gonna be talking about the book of Proverbs and the reason why we're doing this particular study in Proverbs is because we realize this the world is a complete mess and I think that we probably know that we have lots and lots of knowledge in this world we've never had more knowledge available to us we've gotten because of Technology because of computers and all of those things now I'll just start off here for those of you that are new and you don't know this I always tell the stupidest jokes so so you have to laugh even though they're not funny I told Rob I go what if no one laughs and he said well we'll have David get a laugh track I said no we're not doing that but anyway here's your first dumb joke I actually have people write me and say wow I love your jokes I hear more about jokes than I do Jesus so somewhere this might not be working right but anyway so here's your first joke okay Bill Gates decided this is all about technology Bill Gates decided that he needed to figure out if the gender of a computer should be called a he or she and so he got all of his female experts and his male experts and they came up with out trying to figure out should we name our computers should we say it's a he or a she so he got all the women together and they they presented their case and here was their case they said that the computer should actually be called a men because they have a lot of data computers but they are still clueless okay just letting that know that's why you should be called a men they said they're supposed to help you solve problems computers but half the time they are the problem okay so that's another one here's another reason why they should call men as you as soon as you commit to one you realize that if you just wait a little bit longer then you could have gotten a better model so this is great I'm not even sure this is Bible study appropriate but here you go the only way to get their attention is to turn them on sorry anyway but with a click of a button we can just get into Google and in like five seconds we can have every answer we ever wanted and I think it's funny because when I first started teaching we never had the computer so if I wanted to know something I had to actually go and buy a book or buy a commentary and read it and and now it's like Amazon Prime if you need something you just little it's delivered the next day we never had that 15 years ago when we first started I would have to if I didn't have money to buy a computer I would go sit in the store of Berean those of you that remember Berean and sit and open up all their commentaries to try to find an answer on the floor of a Christian bookstore like that's how we used to be and in 15 years everything has changed so much and there's so many like brilliant people who computer genius people there was a pastor and a Boy Scout in the computer genius and they were the only passengers on a plane and at this particular time the plane started going down and the pastor said or the the pilot said look the planes going down but there's only three what do they call them parachutes so he said I need one because I have a wife and three children at home so he took it and jumped out the the computer genius said I need one because I'm really smart and the world needs me so therefore I need you took one knee jumped out the pastor turned to the voice scout and he said I know you're really young and I'm old so I want you to go ahead and take the last to parachute because I've lived a long life and I know where I'm going so all is good and the Boy Scout said relax pastor the computer genius just picked up the backpack my backpack and jumped out he didn't even have the parachute so my point to the hat is that there's a lot of very smart intelligent people out there but here's what the world is lacking and that is wisdom and that is what this world is in desperate need of is being able to make wise choices in life and so our goal with this Bible study is to get people to open the book of and and read it consistently so that they will live different now what wisdom is it's actually having knowledge about something and then doing something making a good decision about what the knowledge that you have and you'll have choices to make but it's like this um over Christmas break I took our two little granddaughters to movies and as we were going to the movies I got pulled over by a police officer and he said do you know how fast you were going I said no I don't he said wrong answer and he gives me a ticket but in the process of this when I put my seatbelt on I don't put it over the top like normal I put under my arm because it's like it'll wrinkle and it'll do that all those things he looked at me he said this he said ma'am I just want to tell you this if in fact you got in a car accident right now and your seatbelt was under your arm II said you would probably die it does you absolutely no good now that's knowledge he has just given me knowledge about something but now I have a choice to either make a wise choice and listen to him or a foolish choice and not listen to him and so that's what we're gonna be talking about because the the problem with the world and the people in it today is that most people don't even want to know wisdom they just want to do what they want to do they don't really care what's wise or not and so we want to change that because foolishness is literally destroying this world so let's talk about a couple different places where foolishness is affecting the first one up here is is gonna be marriages marriages are falling apart and they are because nobody is opening the Bible and listening to what God has to say about how to have a really really good marriage and what's happening is you're listening to your friends maybe your non-christian friends maybe your Christian friends I'll never forget this when when and it's always stuck in my brain when Amy Grant's who was having problems with Gary Chapman she's on the beach and she's walking with her friends and all these guys are looking at her and her friend says you need to just leave your husband and I was so shocked I'm thinking that's not even a good friend okay so so what we're doing is we're hearing and we're listening to people that that we shouldn't be listening to they're telling you things like you need to give your husband the silent treatment you just need to ignore your husband you need to stand up for your rights and so we have all of this with people listening to things that are not wise and it's destroying our marriages there was a young husband who had a wife and she told him what to do all the time and he got so sick and tired of the whole thing and he goes to a psychiatrist he says I don't I don't like this my wife is just not very nice and she bosses me around all the time and and the secretary said you need to do something you need to go home and tell her who's boss he said go home hey and shake your fist in your wife's face and say I'm done with this you're gonna listen to everything that I have to say from here on when I come home from work I expect dinner on the table when I when I get ready for work my clothes are gonna be laid out if I want to go out with the guys I can and he said and by the way do you know who's gonna get up and tie my tie in the morning and she said yes the Undertaker I love that that always makes me laugh but that's the world that we live in today it's like it's like people just do they listen to people and that aren't even giving them truth the next place is that foolishness is affecting is is friendships is that the next one up there yeah friendships people honestly don't know how to be a friend you know you get a group of women women are the worst they're caddy and they talk behind your back and they gossip and they stab other women in the back that's just women and people do not know how to be a true friend they don't know how to not be jealous they don't know how to they don't know how to do that and so foolishness affects friendship here's the next place that it affects salvations like so many people are out there's preaching and teaching foolishness about how you get to know God they say there's all roads lead to God and and you can just anything you just be a good person you just go to church and you just do those things and you can get to God and it's foolishness because no one opens the Bible to realize what God says that Jesus is the only way to God that's it but nobody wants to do that and so we're there's just foolishness going on in that realm and what happens is at people's eternal life is at risk because of that the next place foolishness is effects is what teenagers you have teenagers making really really dumb decisions they're having sex with their boyfriends they're getting abortions they're getting pregnant they're doing all these crazy things and it's all because they're just making foolish decisions there was a teenage boy and his grandfather who were fishing one day in the and the grandson said his grandfather and said you know what's interesting we have all these sexually transmitted diseases now in our day and age but he said grandpa I don't think you had him in yours and he said we didn't and the the grandson said why is that he said why why am why did why did you not have to worry about this what did you do for safe sex and his grandfather said this a wedding ring okay you know art we people don't get that today they're like they just think they need to be having sex first and then they get married and because that's just what the foolishness of the world is teaching people and and that's what people are listening to here's the next one foolishness in in here young college adults in college it affects everyone making foolish decisions they're saying you know what I want to go to parties and I want to go hazing and I want to go do drugs and and drink too much and and and and whatever decisions they're making their foolish decisions are affecting the rest of their life and so we see it all over the place and I don't think we have to go too far to realize that this world is a disaster and it really is because people are not listening to wisdom here's what we need we need hope and we need hope to know that we can live differently than the rest of the world and where we're gonna find that hope is proverbs and so that's what we want to do is we want to show you that there's a different way to live a better way to live a way out of foolish living and that's why we're going to talk about proverbs because I think that in Proverbs it tells us how to do life and how to do it really really well so today what I want to do is kind of give you a 30,000 foot overview of of the book of Proverbs and and the main thing that we see in in the book of Proverbs there's two ways to live and proverbs talks about this all the time you're either gonna live foolish and make foolish decisions or live a white life of wisdom and make wise decisions and those will always always be your choices now we decided this background which I love I love the bright colors of this screen it's kind of awesome but the reason why we did this is because there's all these windows and if you saw the actual picture it's a huge picture of this this complex that has all these windows but but this is how wisdom it's like the red window is wisdom but you see all these other windows and it's as if wisdom is calling out to you it's saying no no don't make that stupid mistake don't make that decision that's not wise don't do it it's calling from that but if you saw this whole picture there's a whole bunch of other windows and that's foolishness and fools foolishness is also calling out to you saying no no listen to me and so this world were constantly bombarded with with with these voices in our that are calling to us and and wisdom of course wants you to make good choices and foolish just want you to make bad choices look at our verses in Proverbs 9 1 through 6 wisdom has built her house she has carved at seven columns she has prepared a great banquet she's mixed the wines and set the table she has sent her servants to invite everyone to come she calls out from the heights overlooking the city come in with me she urges a simple to those who lack good judgment she says come eat my food drink the wine I have mixed leave your simple ways behind and begin to live learn to use good judgment and that's what wisdom does it's constantly calling you now the interesting part about wisdom in Proverbs is she's always called a she and and wisdom is like this picture of this woman it's this elegant beautiful lady she's beautiful she's put together she's in fur her hair is done great and that is actually a picture of wisdom so when you have a choice to make in your life I always want you to think if I make a wise decision it's like making a choice that looks like her Solomon who wrote most of Proverbs he presents foolishness as a different kind of a woman look at this picture here as a prostitute so when you make wise decisions you can either look like like the lady that was elegant or if you make foolish Asians this is what your life is going to look like and both of those are calling out and honestly I think there's a lot more foolishness calling around than the one window of wisdom here's what I want to start with because wisdom starts with God a wise person the best thing that you can learn first off and when it comes to wisdom is is all about God and realizing that he's a creator and he created you and he created this world and he created everything with this great divine order when you start understanding that God is in control over everything and then what he does is he gives us his word he gives us the Bible he gives us the book of Proverbs because he wants to teach us how to live a very very successful life but a lot of people have this problems in Psalm 14:1 the fool says that his heart there is no God see wise people understand that they open their Bible and they learn John 14:6 but we just talked about jesus said I'm the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but through me you cannot get to God through joining a church or being religious or being a good person the Bible says it is only only through Jesus alone and then once you give your life to him you say alright I need to know what what how to live a wise life you're the first and most wise thing you can do is give your life to Jesus and then you open your Bible and see what he has to say and once you do that you realize this in John 10:10 the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy and I want you to know that the devil is also around and he wants to destroy your life and how the devil does that is by calling out from all these other windows no no go ahead and have that extra drink you'll be fine go ahead and have those extra pills you're fine the affair whatever go ahead and do it and so you're hearing all of these voices out there because Satan wants to destroy your life and he's destroying so many people's lives because they are making foolish decisions but calling out from the window is the rest of that verse but I Jesus have come that they may have life and have it to its fullness if you want to have a good life a peaceful life one that the things just work it is all about making wise choices and the wisest choice you can make is to give your life to Jesus if you don't know him now here's the interesting part is that if you're here and you're like I'm not a Christian I'm not interested in being a Christian I just want to know how to live a good life if you actually do what proverbs says you will have a much better life making wise choices the problem is is that you'll have a really good life here but you'll spend eternity separated from God in hell so there you go wisdom can help you on earth but ultimately over that it's all about knowing God through Jesus and that's where we start that's why refusing the offer of Jesus would be the most foolish decision you could ever make now God gives us his word and the principles to live by look at proverbs 8:35 for whoever finds me wisdom finds life and receive receives favor from the Lord that was what that that picture was of the beautiful woman right there whoever finds me that goes back to that I don't know if I even put it back in there the beautiful woman forever finds her finds life but verse 36 says but whoever fails to find me harms himself all who hate me love death that's the that's the woman the the prostitute so my desire for this whole study is proverbs 19 I'm sorry Psalms 9012 I want us to do this so teach us to number our days that we may cultivate and bring to you a heart of wisdom like that's what what I want us I want us to sit around and say okay life is short we only have so many years here how do I want to live my life and our prayer needs to be God I want to live my life in a wise manner the way you meant it to be lived so let's do a whole overview of proverbs this morning let's start with this question here what is the book of Proverbs now for those of you that are younger here's what it is it's kind of like ancient tweeting and and that's just the way it is look at this about twitter twitter for those of you that don't know this is an online social networking tool in which users post 140 character updates or tweets of what is going on in their lives along with links to things they think are interesting funny or useful to their followers it's just a quick short little thing and it's oh it's a one sentence that tells people what's going on in your life or what just happened or what's funny it's just it's a really simple way of communicating with people now we hear this a lot because apparently Donald Trump tweets a lot and and it's a big thing like oh why does he tweet so much because he's desperate to get his message out to the people and it's just a short sentence on on how and it's a very important way to communicate with people now that is kind of what proverbs is that's what Solomon was doing he whatever he felt was important he would write a proverbs or a one-sentence so that people would understand something that he needed to know now I found some really funny tweets from people so if you've never tweeted I don't really understand how to do it myself to be perfectly honest but some people write these things and they actually made me laugh this one so this is kind of I'll get an idea so they this is what they would tweet here's the first one my walk of shame is to the laundry room to rerun the same load of clothes I keep forgetting to drive for the third time now to me it's like okay I don't know that I'm sure that was people but someone thought that was interesting and and they so that's what they tweeted here's another one this actually made me laugh you're drunk and trying to outrun the cops on horseback but they eventually catch you because it turns out you're on a carousel I don't know why I thought that was funny okay now this one Rob I told Rob and he goes you are so not gonna put that on a Bible study I'm like no we're women they're gonna get this look at this one the next one tampon boxes sorry should come with a it's not safe to walk around naked with a tampon string hanging out of your own out of if you own a cat warning and he goes you're not gonna say that I hear I'm like yeah people will get that like if you're a woman you get that okay so apparently tampon boxes need a warning on there for and then this is just another one this people wrote like the hardest part of having multiple kids is explaining why only your first child has a baby okay and that's not sure so they're just cute little things because like I you look at that I get that might last two I don't even think I haven't made me look for them but but proverbs is like that it's not it's not random things that people say it's Solomon and he's giving you short sentences on how the best way to live your life is now why are they short sentences and the reason for it back then was because the average Jewish man did not have like access like you and I can open our Bibles they didn't have a lot of access to the Torah back then and so they had to depend a whole lot on their memory and if Solomon wanted to teach someone something about pride instead of writing a whole thesis on pride and then giving a two-hour lecture he knew no one would remember that but he knew if he could put this up proverbs 16:18 pride goes before destruction a haughty spirit for fall and he knew if he could if he could just get people to understand one liners get him in their brain memorize them then even a child could remember it and then you could teach your child these one-liners as they grow up this just happened with dusty like he had a couple issues in his life and and we're gonna bring them in in a couple of weeks but and he'll tell you how proverbs like my husband Rob always likes to teach the kids proverbs and and he learned things that helped him in his life is that he was in these situations and all of a sudden the Proverbs would come to his mind and he made a wise decision because he knew the Proverbs so that's kind of what what this is what we're trying to do so if you and I can learn key verses and proverbs it actually will change the way you and I live if we do what proverbs actually says now here's one really important thing we need to know on the next screen proverbs are generalized statements about life they are not guaranteed promises and I hear from so many people their kids will go off the rails and they're like but the Bible promises that if I raise my child in such a way that he will never depart from the faith that he finds that in proverbs the problem is as proverbs are not promises they are literally generalized statements and so we can't treat them like promises because that's not that wasn't Solomon's goal for writing this and Landers tells a funny story where a girl was writing about her aunt and uncle and and her uncle he was very very frugal and so every time he got a paycheck he'd take $20 put it under his bed $20 this went on for many many years he end up getting really sick and was gonna die and he made his wife promise the son with us this is about promising promise that when he died she would take all the money under the mattress and put in the cap off the casket so that he could take his money with him wherever he went and so she made that promise and then he ended up dying the girl writes to Ann Landers and said it was so funny because my my my aunt she went and she took all the money and she deposit it in the bank and then she wrote out a check to - uh - oh the uncle and then just stuck it in the casket ok so so that's that's a promise that she kept but it was kind of a weird promise and she kind of did it differently but proverbs are not like that they're not promises we know that by this look at proverbs 17:17 a friend loves at all times well you and I know that's not true ok we're women a friend does not love at all times ok we have issues with friends that's just the way it is friends have disagreements so that's not a that's not a promise that if you have a good friend you're gonna love them all the time it is a general generalized statement that says you need to pick out some good friends because if you find a good friend that the odds are better that that they will love at all times so it's not a promise you how that works look at this on proverbs 15:1 a gentle answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger now we know that to be pretty true but Jesus always gave soft answers and they hung him on a cross so it's a general generalised statement how about this one the did I forget that right next one I've got the wrong verse in there there's one about the righteous I don't know where that went - I gave you the wrong one anyway there's one about that nothing bad will happen to the righteous but it only happened to people who are unrighteous well we know that's not true because you see in Daniel you can see it with Mordecai like yes there are times in the Bible where we're we're righteous people bad things don't happen to them but then all you have to do is look around to other nations where people are in prison and dying for their faith to know that that's not really true but the point is is that that if you go out and get drunk on the weekends the odds that you're going to get into trouble and maybe kill someone on the road that that's that's what that thing is that you have to be very very careful your odds are better if you make wise choices in it it's not a promise that nothing bad will ever happen to you Dave Mathis from desiring God org says this he says the Proverbs commend certain paths to family members because they reflect the way God ordinarily distributes his blessings but ordinarily does not mean necessarily excellent wives have good reason to expect honor from their husbands and children fathers with integrity often enjoy seeing God's blessing on their children parents who train their children in the fear of the Lord follow the path that frequently brings children to saving faith but he says this excellent wives faithful husbands and conscientious parents often into her terrible hardships in their home because proverbs are not promises they are adages that direct us towards general principles that must be applied carefully in a fallen world where life is always somewhat out of kilter so that's we have to know that as we're studying proverbs now when I started looking at proverbs I thought oh this should be easy this happened in Revelation someone said hey I go what do you guys want to learn next year and someone said let's learn revelation I'm like oh that should be easy okay it was literally the hardest thing I've ever done in my life but I started thinking about this proverbs how hard could it be it's really hard and the reason why is because look at this it's all about this all these things adultery anger blessings children correction health debt diligence poverty parents justice pride trials trust trust our truth wealth wives just a few of them and so the question is where in the world do we begin because it's not even like everything set up like one chapters on adultery it's not like that it's like Solomon has all of these verses and they're just it's all over the place and so I didn't know where to start but I thought about this Rob and I are trying to sell our house and then we decided instead of just moving to now house we would build a house but we didn't know where and we realized that we had property that we had bought like 20 years ago with this partnership and it was so interesting we hadn't been up that it's north of Lake Pleasant so I hadn't been up there forever so we decided that we would we would go up there and look at the property now where I live we've lived on a dirt road for about 20 years they just paved the road about two years ago so my mind is I will never ever live on a dirt road ever ever ever again we go look at the property return to the left on this road and here we are for eight minutes on a dirt road and we get to the property and it just looks like this like mountain with desert and and and I looked at Rob and I said not doing it I won't move here I'm not going on a dirt road this is a disaster so they go home so a couple weeks later he comes home with a satellite view of the property and he had somebody take it and drew out the place where we would want to build the house and I'm like oh that's kind of cool I can kind of see that there but how do you get there so we had someone come in and draw roads so now suddenly what just look like a little piece of dirt now became a place for a house to be built and so but it took a lot of time to get to that point and that's what's gonna happen problems it's gonna seem very very daunting because it's a huge book with a lot of things but we're gonna do that we're gonna take it one section at a time so right now it looks big but we're gonna kind of section it off and hopefully all the puzzle pieces will come together in the end now why isn't proverbs set up as as sections like it would make some more sense if Solomon would have just been like today we're going to talk about anger and we're gonna do chapter 12 on anger and chapter 13 on how to be nice to your husband if he doesn't do that but here's here's why and I think it's brilliant of God everything that you and I read in the Bible the Bible says that that our God says that the Bible is god-breathed if you look at second Timothy 3:16 all Scripture is god-breathed every single thing when you open your Bible is not just from some man just writing some things God was involved directly with everything that he spoke to the authors and the author's wrote down which is kind of Awesome he said it's useful for teaching rebuking correcting and training in righteousness 2nd Peter 1:21 says this for no prophecy ever originated because some man willed to do it in other words he's saying nothing in the Bible is just like oh I think I want to tell people how to treat their wives no God specifically put that in Solomon's brain to write that down so it would help you and eyes of years later the rest that verse says but men spoke from God who were born along or moved and impelled by the Holy Spirit so you can know whenever you open your Bible you know this is awesome because God has written everything but the coolest part about proverbs is that that whoever set it up and chopped him into two chapters did it so that it was done in 31 chapters which means there's almost 31 days in every month except for a few that have 30 but but the greatest part about this is that you and I can read one chapter of Proverbs a day on the first you read chapter one on the second you read chapter two on the third and this goes on you would read the entire book of Proverbs twelve times a year the entire book if you just kept up with that schedule and so that's why I think that God did it this way so that you and I because every the first of every month your lives are gonna look different so let's just say this let's just say on the 15th of January or January you have this problem you kind of you're trying to make a decision and you don't really know what to do and you're frustrated and you're just like I don't know what to do and suddenly you're reading proverbs 15 because it's January 15th and you kind of praten this verse proverbs 15 22 where there is no counsel plans our purposes are frustrated but with many counselors there accomplished and so you read that it jumps off the page and you're like that's my problem I haven't talked to enough people I need to go to my pastor I need to go to someone who knows me I need to get more counsel for more people and that's how God speaks to you big because he's just spoken to you in this on the 15th of January now February 15th you're gonna have a completely different problem let's say you're frustrated with someone you need to go talk to them and you're gonna confront them and you just don't know if you should and so you're reading through proverbs 15 On February 15th and you come across verse to the town of the wise utters knowledge rightly but the mouth of the self-confident fool pours out folly and suddenly that jumps off the page you say wait a minute before I confront this person I think I might need to know the whole story maybe I don't know everything maybe I need to get some more facts I don't want to be a self-confident fool that just pours out whatever I want to say without knowing the facts so that's that's what happens on February now March you're gonna have a different problem you need to talk to your teenage son because they're just being a brat you don't really know how what to do and you want to talk to him you want to yell at them because they're just doing stupid stuff proverbs 15 4 jumps off the page of you because you're reading proverbs 15 on March 15 here's your verse on 4 a gentle tongue with its healing power is a tree of life but willful contrariness and it breaks down the spirit and when you read that you suddenly realize you can't barge into your teenage you know son's room and start screaming and yelling at him but instead you need to talk to your teenagers talk to your children's with children with a healing tongue with a training like here's why I need you to do this here's what I don't you want you to do this it's not because of me it's because I want you to make wise decisions and you have these conversations and you have a relationship with your child and you learn that from proverbs 15 for now on April 15th you're mad at your husband but you're just angry with him for whatever and you just can't wait till he gets home at work at night because you're going to just scream and yell at him and go off on him and then you read chapter 15 verse or verse 18 a hot-tempered man stirs up strife but he who is slow to anger appeases contention do you see how this works and suddenly you go oh I can't be hot-tempered I can't scream at my husband when he comes in the door I need to realize that I have to be slow to anger I need to pray about this I need to think God how should I talk you can talk to your husband's without screaming and yelling at them trust me it does better if you just sit down and try to have a conversation with them instead of getting all mad and angry but proverbs is going to teach us that and then we have those choices to make either the wise elegant one or the prostitute one that isn't this is why the Bible is so incredibly important for you to read and for me to read but because most people honestly do not know that this is even in Proverbs they don't even know anything about proverbs there was a Super Bowl 37 I think it was they ran a commercial that that spoof that movie castaway that Tom Hanks was in and and this was about a FedEx airplane that went down and here was a guy that you know survived but he and he had the FedEx package that he was gonna take to this this home that he so he was protecting this package it was on the island for five years he ended up getting off and and you see this picture of him going to the door he's all you know his beers grown out he's been on an island for five years he knocks on the door and he tells the lady says look I I was in a plane crash she says I've been holding on to this package for five years I'm I'm loved FedEx we're presenting this package to you she said thank you very much as justice gets ready to shut the door he said can you tell me what's in it for five years I never ever opened it because I wanted to just make sure that you know I protected it for you but I need to know what was in the package so she opens it and in front of him she said oh it's nothing it's just a satellite telephone a global positioning device a compass a water purifier and some seats okay now as sad as that is had he just open the package it would have basically like saved his life or gotten him off the island sooner but that's what the Bible does we don't want to open our Bible and so we're so confused we're just like I don't want to open it they don't know what's in here in Proverbs is this wealth of information on how you and I can live our life now let's go to the next question who wrote proverbs the writer for them the most of Proverbs was written by Solomon for those of you that know don't even know the Bible you probably have heard David and Bathsheba David and Goliath you've heard those stories well Solomon was the son of David and Bathsheba and after King saw King David died Solomon took over his throne now before I tell you Solomon's heart I must ask you one question if God came to you and said I want you to ask me for anything and I will give it to you anything like what would it be would it be like oh I want a million dollars I want to win the lottery I want like what is it that you would ask for here was what Solomon asked for second chronicles 1:7 that night God appeared to Solomon and said to him ask for whatever you want me to give you and Solomon answered God you have shown great kindness to David my father and have made me king in his place now Lord God let your promise to my father David be confirmed for you have made me king over a people who are as numerous as the dust of the earth give me wisdom and give me knowledge and that I may lead this people for who is able to govern this great people of yours Solomon was was getting ready to take over ruling Israel at this time and he's like God there's so many people and my dad was a great king but I don't know how to be King I just need you to help me to be able to have the wisdom to do this God said to Solomon since this is your heart's desire and you have not asked for wealth or riches or honor nor for the death of your enemies and since you have not asked for a long life but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I have made you King therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given you and I will also give you wealth riches and honor such as no king who was before you ever had a none after you have first Kings 429 says this about Solomon God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight a breath of understanding as measureless 'no sand on the seashore Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the east and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt he was wiser than any man he spoke 3000 proverbs which you and I are reading today his songs numbered a thousand and five men of all nations came to listen to him to hear his wisdom now here's what is the sad part about Solomon is that God gave him all of this incredible wisdom and yet what happened is eventually Solomon stopped living him he never lived his own advice and he ends up his life like like the the prostitute in the red dress and it's the saddest saddest story in the Bible because God gave Solomon wisdom but he also gave him wealth and riches at this particular time he gave him so much money that Solomon built this incredible temple Solomon's Temple we know of it and and and they were able to go in and and worship God there and do everything that that they needed to do in this temple and and God gave Solomon wisdom and peace in the land and favored all of these but but it was too much for Solomon and what happened is he turned and walked away from God and did everything he wasn't supposed to do as a king God always had instructions for the king and God said if you're gonna be my king I need you to obey me but sometimes in the case of Solomon we tend to apply rules that of our own we realized this in California this last summer Rob and I were in California and we had to go to Target in the morning we go right come into target about I don't know seven or eight what time they open no one's there okay there's like ten handicap parking places sitting there Rob pulls into the first one I jump out going to target where I'm gonna be in there for five minutes a lady comes around the corner and parks in front of Rob and now granted there's no one there okay so there's ten handicap parking places open or whatever it was so he's sitting in his car and he notices this woman and she comes up to his car and she's looking specifically for a handicap sign it's not a she's going around the car Rob doesn't know what to do so he he turns the music up really loud he's pretending to look at his phone he puts his hat down like this because he's like I'm just gonna ignore her well she walks around and he can see her on the corner of his eye she comes up to the window and she starts banging on the window cuz she's so angry with him that he's parking in a handicap parking spot and he doesn't have a handicapped license plate number so just that I walk out she sees me walk out and then she goes and jumps in her car and I looked and I said what was the hell about like who is she goes she scared me and I was laughing I was like oh poor little guy but apparently they they have Syria that rules that you really they expect you to listen to in California we were riding bikes then to go to another coffee place we pulled there's a section that has blue lines that says no parking Hey duh no parking for cars that bikes okay so we go and park there we're getting ready to leave this guy comes up and he starts screaming at us do you not know how to read English and we'll get in like what are you talking about no parking we're like it's a bike no parking okay got it I guess so that's the thing we made up our own rules because apparently we didn't really realize that this was kind of a big deal in California where you park but that's what Solomon was doing God gave him all of these rules to do and yet he said no thank you I'm just gonna do my own thing here's a couple things that God told him to do look at Deuteronomy 17 15 he said you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose but look at verse 16 only he must not acquire many horses for himself look what Solomon does in first Kings 426 Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots and twelve thousand horsemen wait a minute didn't God just save your king you're not supposed to have a bunch of horses because you do that's just not what you're supposed to do and solemn is like yeah that's a dumb rule God and we did the exact same thing and God says you know be careful about your marriage don't flirt with that guy and you're like oh it's just flirting it's no big deal that's like don't get drunk with wine oh it's just my tenth glass fine we're good to go and we just make up our own rules we do the exact same thing that Solomon does 417 God says this about the king he shall not acquire many wives for himself lest his Tartt heart turn away look at first Kings 1113 and what Solomon did Solomon had 700 wives princesses and 300 concubines and his wives turned his heart away everything the Solomon was teaching you and I to do he did the absolute opposite he refused to listen to God first first Kings 11 to says this they were from Nations these women that he married were which the Lord had told the Israelites you must not intermarry with them because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods nevertheless Solomon held fast to them in love in verse 17 the second half of that he said the other part to a king is nor shall you acquire for yourself excessive silver and gold and we read in Ecclesiastes 2:8 that Solomon says I am asked silver and gold for myself that Solomon did the exact opposite of what God told him to you and his life did nothing but spiral down Hill Solomon would have been much better off if he had listened to his own words in proverbs 22:3 a prudent and farsighted person sees the evil of sin and hides himself from it but the naive continue on and are punished by suffering the consequences he said in Proverbs to all of us you got to be farsighted you have to look and say okay if I flirt with this guy could turn into a fair could ruin my marriage and go down that road if I get drunk tonight and then I go and I get in a car and I kill a family I'm gonna end up in prison that's what wisdom says it's like you know what I'm gonna look at the situation I'm gonna get knowledge and I'm gonna make a wise decision that says I'm not doing that and I'm not doing that those are our options in life he would have also been good to remember proverbs 22 for the reward of humility that is having a realistic view of one's importance that's the problem with Solomon didn't have a realistic view of who he was he became arrogant and it was all about him instead of this this person that he was when God first called him to King where he was all about like God I'm so humble and grateful and so happy for what you've done for me and that just moved away proverbs Solomon gave us proffers but he never lived them which is so heartbreaking James tells us this in in in the Bible he says doers of the word and not just hearers only deceiving yourself Solomon heard his own words but never did them you can read what happened to Solomon at the very end of his life but here's what he realized that women money parties building projects kings having status having mansions horses and chariots would never ever satisfy him because when you go down a foolish path you're going down to because you think like this is gonna make me happy that guy's gonna make me happy that money's gonna make me happy all of this and then you realize in the end those were such foolish foolish decisions that I made ecclesiastics 2:13 oh here's what Ecclesiastes 2:11 said at the end of Solomon's life he says this but as I look around at everything I'd worked so hard to accomplish it was all meaningless like chasing the wind there was nothing really worthwhile anywhere and that is what proverbs is all about saying that your life will be meaningless if you make foolish decisions but your what life will be so awesome if you make wise choices Ecclesiastes 12:13 the last thing that we hear from Solomon he says this that's the whole story here's now my final conclusion fear God and obey his commands it is a sad ending for us and a sad legacy for a man who told us so many great things to do and yet never lived it out himself so ending here as we study proverbs for the next now twelve weeks we are gonna see that all of our life is built on making choices we can either read the Word of God and read proverbs and and do it and obey it and live a life of wisdom and peace or you can read it and disobey and have a life of foolishness and destruction that's your choice and that's my choice in everything we do foolish people know what to do they just don't do it and wise people know what to do and they actually do it and I want us on our death beds to be able to look back at our life and say you know what I did it right I loved God I did what he said and I'm ending my life in a really good place because I lived at making wise decisions so I just want to say I'm really glad you're with us today and those of you joining us however you found us because I think this might be one of the the most important series we ever do so here's your homework we don't normally have homework but here's what I want you to start doing now that we're doing proverbs I want you tomorrow is the 19th and I want you to go home and tomorrow morning wake up and read proverbs 19 Saturday the 20th read proverbs 20 and then 21 every single day from until next week and want you to read a chapter that correlates with the day and then by the end of these twelve weeks if we do it every day I think you're gonna see your marriages are different how you treat your children are different life is gonna be different and you won't be frustrated and angry but you're gonna be peaceful knowing that God is working in your life to change you to have a very successful life either thank you so much for today thank you for the study in Proverbs I pray that you will change us god that's what this is all about we want to learn to make wise decisions so we can have a good successful life good successful marriage good successful life and anything that we do and I pray for that with all of my heart for all these women here and for all of those watching us that you will change us from the inside out in Jesus name Amen a little super a during this strong and your life are not surprised to God type that whatever you're going through right now God is doing something up if you have no idea what is the reason why this is so important is because it's fire chief and the Bible does not say that so what I'm saying is we have to get that to be viable this is my one point that I want to make where mine this is all about that much

Channel: Women's Bible Study

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Keywords: Women’s bible study, Womens bible study, Lisa Laizure, Woman bible study, Women bible study, Bible studies for women, Christian women, Women’s study bible, Best women bible study, Bible study for women, Lifeway, Beth moore, Joyce meyer, Learning the bible, Bible study, Online bible study, Online women’s bible study, Online women bible study, Proverbs, right from wrong, Wisdom, wise, foolish, fool, wisdom for life, how to be wise, stop being foolish, wisdom from God

Id: oMc4vnVm3XI

Length: 49min 6sec (2946 seconds)

Published: Tue May 22 2018