The Many Ifs That Open Wisdom

A Personal Quest To Hear God

Wisdom Given, Shield Provided

Discernment Versus Mere Knowledge

Guarded By Discretion And Understanding

Warnings About Crooked Paths

Unease As Invitation To Listen

The Strange Woman And Protection

Upright Rootedness Versus Uprooting

Engaging Mind, Mouth, And Heart

From Religion To Relationship

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Okay, welcome back to the podcast. We just finished chapter one of Proverbs. How exciting and we only have thirty left. But man, wasn't there a lot in there to learn? Yeah, there was. So how exciting. Let's get on now to chapter two. We'll start with verse one and go all the way to verse six. My son, if you receive my sayings and treasure my commandments within you, make your ear attentive to wisdom, and incline your heart to understand, for if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her. As for hidden treasure, then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. Now what we have here is a very basic situation where if you do this then you'll get that, and man look at all these ifs if you receive my sayings, if you'll treasure my commands, if you make your ear attentive to wisdom, if you incline your heart to understand, if you cry for discernment, if you lift your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, if you search for her as for hidden treasure, and then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. And before we go any further, I really want to sit with verses one through four for a moment because Solomon keeps repeating the same word over and over again, and this word is if you receive, if you treasure, if you incline, if you cry out, if you seek, I want you to notice that none of these are passive nor are they accidental. You have to purposely focus and want it. And I don't know why it is. Some people really desire it, and others cast it off. And I'll be honest, that kind of hurts my heart, even while I'm saying it out loud. Because I have friends who do desire it, and they really try for a couple weeks or so going to church, listening to sermons, and then they kind of just let it drift off as the same old thing. And I don't know if you can really get this just by going to church and hearing a sermon. It might keep you motivated, but the way that I received it personally was in the quietness and alone. I wouldn't quit. I always pushed for it and pushed for it. I remember I was doing extremely well living at the beach in California, convertible corvette, until I got that thought. I wonder if you can know God personally. And then I remember being alone places after selling pretty much everything, walking the streets late at night, looking at the stars, saying, Come on, God, if you can create all these stars and this earth and everything, you should be able to talk to me. Man, I cried that out. I guess it's like it says in the Bible here, I cried it out. Come on, man, talk to me. And that went on for quite a long time, until finally I was getting close, pretty close to giving up like everybody else. I was just sitting there with my own thoughts one day, looking around, and I realized I was getting answers to all my thoughts. And then I'm like, Oh my gosh, is this the Lord? And I heard him say, Yes it is. And that freaked me out. Then we small talked some more, and then he told me to turn to certain verses in the Bible, and then I was scared to death thinking, Well, what if they're not there? I must be hearing things. But I would turn to it and it'd be there, and I'd be all excited, thinking, Wow, I finally hear the voice of the Lord. And then we would small talk some more, and then he would tell me to turn to another verse, and then I'd freak out in my heart and think, What if I'm going crazy again? And that's how it started personally for me. And here's what I want to encourage you with. When you see this writing here that you have to incline your heart, incline your ear, search for it like a hidden treasure. It's not joking around. You know how hard it is to search for treasure if you ever tried or start a business or be successful in anything. It takes focus, diligence, and effort, and I hate to say it, but it's the same way God expects you as a human being that he gave knowledge to to search for him. But here's the beautiful part. Solomon says, if you do it, you'll discover the knowledge of God. And it doesn't say you'll discover the knowledge about God. No, that's just somebody who reads the Bible and thinks they know about God because of what they already read. God is saying here that He will manifest Himself to you and give you His knowledge. And that is what this book of Proverbs is saying over and over again, that He wants to speak to you and give you His knowledge. Now let's go on with verse six, where it says For the Lord gives wisdom from His mouth come knowledge and understanding, He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice, and he preserves the way of his godly ones. That's verse six through eight. So if you do those things, then he'll give you his wisdom. Then from his mouth he will give you knowledge and understanding, sound wisdom, and he'll put a shield around you, he'll have you walk in integrity, he'll guard your paths, and he'll preserve your way. Now that is a promise. That is beautiful. And in verse seven where it says He stores up sound wisdom for the upright, that word sound wisdom means abiding success. And that is what you and I want, and that's why we're reading this book of Proverbs, because we want abiding success and we want it mixed with peace. We want to be prosperous and in peace. Now let's look at verse nine here. It says Then you would discern righteousness and justice and equity and every good course. You know this is what King Solomon asked for personally. Most people think he asked for wisdom, but this was not the case when God met Solomon and asked him what he wanted, he said in first Kings three nine, give thy servant a hearing heart to judge thy people to discern between good and evil. Now do you remember in the Garden of Eden the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? And as the devil whispered into Eve saying, Oh you want this, you want the knowledge of good and evil. And at first it looks like Solomon is asking the exact same thing, but actually there's a big difference. Adam and Eve received the knowledge of good and evil, but they didn't know how to discern between the two. And that's where so many of us, actually all of us, have the problem without hearing from the voice of the Lord. We think we know how to discern between good and evil, but we really don't unless God teaches us personally. So all those years before Christ came and died and gave us his spirit to hear him, to be able to discern between good and evil, everyone else who can't hear the voice of the Lord, they have the knowledge of good and evil, but they don't have the discernment. So their view keeps going deeper and deeper down the drain, making more excuses that this is okay or maybe it should be like this. So to them what they're deciding is true for them, but it's so far off from the reality of the way God really wants things to be. So as we see here back in Proverbs in verse nine, if we seek God and really want to hear his voice, he will reveal himself to us, and then we'll be able to discern righteousness and justice and equity and every good course. Now why is that? Well he goes on to say here in verse ten, for wisdom will enter your heart. Kind of like what King Solomon asked for when God spoke to him, I want a hearing heart, and you and I can have that same hearing heart once we hear from him, because back in verse ten it says and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul, and verse eleven says The discretion will guard you and understanding will watch over you. And I want you to feel the personal nature of that. Discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you, not just in a church setting, not just on Sundays in real life, in decisions, in relationships, in moments where you can't call a friend and you can't see the future and you're wondering which way to go, and Solomon keeps going. To deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness, walk in the ways of darkness who delight in doing evil, and rejoice in the perversity of evil, whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways. Now look at all these things that God will keep you from because there's a lot of smooth tongues out there talking all the time trying to get you to go down their path which leads to evil. And evil, remember, evil is hard work, labor, poverty, all of that is evil, and God is trying to protect you from it. And you can have that protection by hearing his voice personally. But let me add something here, because I think we misunderstand what evil does. Evil isn't only an outside thing, it's an inside thing too. It attacks your sleep, it attacks your brain. It's the things you dwell on, it's fear of bad things happening to you all the time. It's the inner pressure that makes you feel unsafe. And God wants to protect you. There's a scripture that says He will give you peace beyond understanding, and that's one of the greatest miracles of all. Peace that makes no sense in the middle of a world that is nonstop bombarding us, that it's unsafe, and at any minute the severity of this world is going to tear you apart with no lifeline. But God is saying not his children, and here's what's beautiful. When wisdom starts entering your heart, you don't just analyze situations like a classroom. You start sensing. You may not even be able to explain it at first. You just know, and a lot of times, that uneasy feeling, that uneasiness, that doesn't mean you're supposed to panic. That's the Spirit drawing you to get quiet and listen to what he has to say. It's like the Lord gently pulling you aside saying stop for a moment, listen, that uneasiness isn't condemnation, it's invitation. It's God creating space so he can speak and give clarity before you move forward. Let's continue now. Verse sixteen this gets more direct. It says To deliver you from the strange woman, from the adulteress who flatters with her words, that leaves the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God, for her house sinks down to death, and her tracks lead to the dead. None who go to her return again, nor do they reach the paths of life. We really don't need to expand on that, but you know how sweet talk can get you astray. So it's good to have the voice of the Lord speaking to you so you're like, Oh, I ain't falling for it. But really it's better when he puts the wall of protection around you, like we mentioned earlier, so that doesn't even come across your path. So you don't have to deal with those temptations. That's a blessing in itself. Now picking up on verse twenty through twenty two, the end of chapter two in Proverbs, when you learn to hear his voice because you sought him with your whole heart, he goes on to say, So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous, for the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be uprooted from it. Those are two pretty hard extremes. One, dwell in the land peacefully, safely, or be uprooted from it or cut off from it. It seems to me like the choice is pretty obvious, and it is when you look at it long term. But I can see how short term you're like you see all over the Bible Christians crying out Why are the wicked prospering? But then King Solomon says later on like he's seeing the end thereof it is not good. And I want to say something about that end thereof, because this is where people get confused. They look at a season, they look at a moment, they look at the short term appearance of success. But Solomon keeps talking about paths, paths have endings, and the end tells the truth. To live in the land isn't just geography, it's stability, it's being rooted, it's peace, it's security, it's being able to sleep at night. It's living a life that holds together. And to be uprooted, that's the opposite. A life that never settles, always reacting, always scrambling, always starting over, always rebuilding what could have been protected if wisdom had been listened to earlier. And here comes the part of the podcast where we talk more personally about what we just have read. Chapter two, verse one through four, it's all the ifs. And then verse five through six is what will happen if you do something. And a lot of us want to do things. We want to activate our brain and think that being a Christian is something where you shut the brain off, but it's actually the opposite of that. Proverbs is telling us right here that you have to activate your brain and your mouth and your heart and focus it on one thing that you want to hear the voice of the Lord. And I'll be honest, it's not a one and done thing. It's hard to hear his voice. I'm not going to put God in a box and say, This is just the way it is. I'm just speaking personally. It took me a long time. Of course I didn't know it at the time, I was hearing his voice when I felt in my heart, hey, I wonder if God is real and he can really talk to you. And that set me off on my path to basically give up everything thinking, look, this has got to be real or not, otherwise I'm just kidding myself. Well it turned out to be real, but it took a few months for me. So I just want to encourage you when you see this writing here that you have to incline your heart, incline your ear, search for it like a hidden treasure. It's not joking around. If you ever tried to start a business or be successful in anything, it takes a lot of work, focused diligence, and effort. And I hate to say it, but it's still the same way. God expects you as a human being that he gave knowledge to to search for him, but he guarantees it in verse six that not only will you know about him, you will know him. And as a side note, if that's a possibility, could anything be cooler in life than to know God personally? I mean, that was a thought that hit me years ago. Like, man, I can't think of anything cooler than actually knowing God personally. And Solomon is saying here you can now maybe this isn't the best time to tell you again about my book like I'm trying to sell something, but the Lord had me write a whole book available on Amazon on how to hear his voice. And I think it'll save you months if you get this book and read it, because it's the only one I know that teaches you how to hear his voice. In this podcast and going through this, you'll hear stories like what God said to me and how it worked, but that doesn't help you personally to hear God's voice, and I really, really want you to. Now you may be asking yourself, why do I want you to? Well, because there's more than just saying Jesus is the way. Jesus is the way to what? That you're not going to hell? Well yeah, but what? So you don't cuss or drink so much? That's not the point here. The point is he has a kingdom that he wants to give to you to be part of, which goes on to say in verses six through twenty two that his kingdom is a protection around you to guard you from evil. And I can't explain enough that the word evil isn't just an outside thing, it's an inside thing. He wants to protect you. And this is where I want to uh connect something from earlier in a clean way. There's something really important here that I don't want us to miss. And it's the difference between knowing about God and actually knowing him, because I was literally raised in a Christian home, and I was at the age of thirty when I had the idea about can you really know him personally? So let's just say I knew every Bible story, every theological angle, because I was the son of a Bible bookstore owner. So I knew all the famous authors that came through our store. I went to church almost every Sunday. I knew the system, I knew how to play the game, but it wasn't until I wanted to meet him personally and hear his voice, and then when that came to pass and it was true, I realized whoa, he is cool. And he met me just where I was. Even though in that state I was still no different than anybody else, still partying, still going out. The difference was desire, the difference was pursuit. Like most church goers, I didn't want to go to hell, so I accepted Christ. But there comes a point in your life where you realize and you ask yourself, is Jesus really the way? Because there's a lot of religions out there. And I think he has no problem with you finding out because until he reveals himself to you, like I've seen so many times, Christian people on their deathbeds, they freak out and they're all scared. It's like because they believed John 316 and they were taught that all they got to do is just say Christ is Lord and they get to go to heaven. It's like there's a difference between your mind saying, Yeah, this is true, and actually you knowing him. And that's the goal of Proverbs talking about wisdom. It's like let's take this out of the religious setting where you can't drink, smoke, or hang around those that do. And let's talk about meeting a God who will help you be prosperous and enlighten you to make wise decisions. And the beautiful thing is the scriptures back what we just talked about. For in John 17, verse 3, Jesus says, This is eternal life that they may know you. And if you can capture that in your heart, you're way ahead of most. Because most people think eternal life is dying and going to heaven, but no, it's knowing God. That's eternal life. And in Hebrews eight eleven it says that they will all know me from the least to the greatest. So whoever you are, if you turn and really don't let go, but with your mind, heart, soul, and your mouth, by what it says earlier, you cry out and say, I want this, he will reveal himself to you. And here's another thought that I want you to hear. God in Christ Jesus took away the sins of the world. It's not you that has to take the sins away because he did it, so we can meet him anytime, wherever you're at. You just have to believe that he's real so much that you don't let anything go until you meet him. And then once you begin to know him, not just know about him, then Proverbs starts becoming real in your life. Then discretion begins guarding you, then understanding begins watching over you, then the shield begins functioning, then the protection becomes personal, and you start seeing that the kingdom of God isn't just a religious idea, it's a real protection, a real covering, a real guidance, because this world is nonstop bombarding us that it's unsafe, and at any minute the severity of this world is going to just tear you apart with no lifeline. But God is saying, not his children, he will give you peace beyond understanding. He will guide you, he will warn you, he will protect you. And sometimes that protection is as simple as that little uneasiness that draws you into quiet, so you'll listen before you act. That's the beauty of what Solomon is giving us here. So as we close. out chapter two, the question isn't whether wisdom is available. Solomon has made that clear. The question is whether we're willing to seek him, cry out, search like hidden treasure, and stay with it long enough that we don't just learn about God. We actually know him. Because when you do, you don't just make better decisions. You build a life that remains. You walk in the way of good men, you keep to the paths of the righteous, you live rooted instead of uprooted, and that is the promise. Before we close, I just want to mention that if today's teaching resonated with you and you'd like to go deeper in learning how to recognize God's voice in everyday life, I've written a book called God Why Won't You Talk to Me, written by Edward L. Carpenter