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One of my all time favorite stories is The
Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe from
the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis.
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At one point in the story the girls, Susan and Lucy, are getting ready to meet
the lion, Aslan, who is the Christ figure of the story.
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The girls are talking with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver who have been helping them and
getting them ready for this meeting.
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Let's hear at a soundbite from the story when the children learn that Aslan is
a lion.
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"Ooh," said Susan, "I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I
shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."
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"That you will, dearie," said Mrs. Beaver. "And make no mistake,
it isn't anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking,
they're either braver than most or else just silly."
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"Then isn't he safe?" said Lucy.
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"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells
you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's
the King, I tell you."
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Lewis had amazing insight into the character of God. Is God safe? No, but God
is good, which is why he has given the book of Proverbs to us.
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God wants his children to know the right way to live, the safe way to live, and
it is not safe for us to ignore God's instructions about wisdom.
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The fear of the Lord, Proverbs tells us plainly, is the beginning of wisdom.
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Proverbs 1: 7 says, "The fear of
the Lord is the beginning of
knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction."
- Proverbs 9: 10 says, "The
fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight."
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Understanding that God is not safe, having a healthy respect for him, is the
basis for getting wisdom because it moves us to listen to him and do what he
says.
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Since God's in charge and I'm not, I'll live by his wisdom rather than mine.
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The Scriptures that we're about to look at show us that Proverbs are not just
smart directions for worldly success, but are based on a commitment to trust
and obey God, which is a large part of what following Jesus is about, trusting
and obeying God.
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We are going to look at a number of Proverbs that will show us three main ideas
that point to our take-home truth for today.
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First, God is God and I'm not, so I'll fear him.
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Second, God is God and I'm not, so I'll trust him.
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Third, God is God and I'm not, so I'll follow his purposes.
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As we begin, let's refresh in our memory the four interpretive keys we need for
unlocking our understanding of Proverbs.
- 1) Proverbs are basic
guidelines rather than guarantees;
- 2) Proverbs aren't designed
to be exactly literal;
- 3) Proverbs need to be
interpreted again for today's society;
- 4) Proverbs depend on imagery
to be memorable.
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Let's get started.
- First, God is God and I'm
not, so I'll fear him.
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Let's examine some Proverbs which support the idea that since God is God and
I'm not I need to fear him.
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Proverbs 10:27, "The fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the
wicked will be short."
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This proverb gives us a basic guideline that when we fear the Lord we will live
longer than if we are wicked.
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We may not be guaranteed a long life if we fear God, however, often because of
God's judgment or the consequences of sin wicked or foolish people are more
likely to have short-lived lives.
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Proverbs 14:2, "Whoever walks in
uprightness fears the Lord, but he
who is devious in his ways despises him."
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This proverb reminds me of the old adage: if it looks like a duck, walks like a
duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck.
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What's on the inside will show through on the outside.
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When a person acts honestly, decently, and respectably, then it shows a heart
which fears God.
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However, a person who acts deviously, deceitfully and dishonestly, shows a
heart which thinks so little of God that he or she is free to rebel against
him.
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Proverbs 28:14, "Blessed is the one
who fears the Lord always, but
whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity."
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The path to true success is through a life lived continually in the fear of the
Lord, always fearing the Lord.
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This proverb also reveals that the opposite of a healthy fear of God is a
hardened heart.
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Everywhere throughout the Bible when we read about the hardened heart it means
a lack of faith and a disobedient, rebellious spirit and also refers to the
stubborn, shameless, blocked state of the human heart.
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It is clear that it's better to fear God than to have a hardened heart.
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God is God and I'm not, so I'll fear him
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Since God's in charge and I'm not, I'll live by his wisdom rather than mine.
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That brings us to our second point...
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Second, God is God and I'm not, so I'll trust him.
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We begin our second point with Proverbs
3:5-8, "Trust in the Lord with
all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways
acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own
eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away
from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your
bones."
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Those who trust God, the proverb tells us, are to trust God with all your heart, all our feelings, all
our thoughts, all our wants and desires need to be aimed at trusting God.
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Proverbs is talking about a trust that is total and complete, perfect.
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When we rely on God completely, we will not rely on our personal sense of
what's right and wrong, but on how God defines right and wrong, learning to
know him in every part of our lives.
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When we are able to turn over every nook and cranny of our lives to God in full
trust following his wisdom, he will clear the problems from our paths or those
obstacles will not trip us up because our focus is on God, the One bigger than
life's problems.
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These verses also tell us, be not wise in
your own eyes, which reveals that we can't be both humble and arrogant at
the same time.
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Someone who fears God won't have a swelled head and will also steer clear of
evil.
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Because their lives are centered on obeying God, the wise are more likely to
enjoy good health than are the foolish or wicked who often behave recklessly
and show their lack of self-control through self-indulgence.
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Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25 are exactly the same likely
because Solomon is stressing their importance, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but it's end is the
way to death."
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This proverb pictures a person standing on a path that seems to be safe to
travel along, a path that from our limited human vision appears to be morally
acceptable, but without wisdom we cannot see from the very beginning that it's
a path that ends in death.
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If we want to follow the way that is right and not the way that seems right,
then we need to follow God's way rather than whatever way seems right to us
because God's way leads to eternal life, while our way leads to death.
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Proverbs 16:20, "Whoever gives
thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord."
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When we really trust God, then we will pay attention to what he says and be
blessed as a result.
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A person who truly trusts God thinks about the instructions that God gives.
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God is God and I'm not, so I'll trust him.
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Since God's in charge and I'm not, I'll live by his wisdom rather than mine.
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Now we come to our final point.
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Third, God is God and I'm not, so I'll
follow his purposes.
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Proverbs 15:3 says, "The eyes of
the Lord are in every place,
keeping watch on the evil and the good."
- God sees and knows all things, which is what
theologians call omniscience.
- The fact that God knows all things should be a
comfort to us because he knows our needs, but it should also strike fear into
our hearts because he also knows our every sin, even our secret sins.
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Proverbs19:21, "Many are the plans
in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand."
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We are always constantly making our own plans, but God's purposes decide the
outcome of our plans. His plans come out on top because he is God and he knows
what's best no matter what our plans are.
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Proverbs 27:1, "Do not boast about
tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring."
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It is foolish and arrogant to boast about the future because only God knows the
future.
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The wise look forward to whatever God's will may be.
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God is God and I'm not, so I'll follow his purposes.
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Since God's in charge and I'm not, I'll live by his wisdom rather than mine.
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God isn't a dictator. He only asks us to do what's best for us and others, and
not do what's bad for us and others.
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The Lord is not a 'my way or the highway' kind of God.
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His commands always come from his great love for us.
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We must learn to do things God's way because he knows what's best.
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Several years ago the story was published about a woman, called Garbage Mary,
who was picked up by patrol officers in a shopping mall in Delray Beach, Florida.
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"She appeared to be just another [abandoned] woman whose mind had faded.
Neighbors told of her scrounging around through garbage cans for food, which
she hoarded in her car and her two room apartment. There were mounds of
stinking stuff packed in the refrigerator, the stove, the sink, the cabinets,
the bathtub. Other than the kitchen, there were no chairs to sit on because
stuff was piled up on everything else.
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"Police finally identified her as the daughter of a well-to-do lawyer and
bank director from Illinois who had died several years earlier. In addition to
the garbage, police found Mobil Oil stock worth more than $400,000; documents
indicating ownership of oil fields in Kansas; stock from such firms as US
Steel, Uniroyal, and Squibb; as well as passbooks for eight large bank
accounts."
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Garbage Mary was a millionaire who lived like a penniless pauper.
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Often, we are just like Garbage Mary. But it is so much easier and better to go
to God's word for counsel and wisdom and to feed our souls, than to scrounge in
the trash for stinking stuff to feed our souls.
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It is better to fear him, trust him, and follow his purposes.
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We live in a media driven culture. It's also an information rich culture.
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Until about 1900 knowledge doubled every century.
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After World War II knowledge doubled every 25 years.
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With the advent of the Internet, the pace began to accelerate and knowledge for
the last decade has been doubling every 13 months, and it's only getting
faster.
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With so much knowledge out there available to us at our fingertips you would
think that we would be wiser, but we aren't.
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The main reason why we aren't is because we aren't spending time in God's Word.
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We are more likely to read books, watch TV, or read articles on the Internet
than we are to read the Bible.
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Even much of the so-called Christian media that's available to us is not really
all that Christian, but we can only know that if we are investing time studying
God's Word.
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In order to become wise, we have to stop living like Garbage Mary, scrounging
in the trash for stinking stuff to feed our souls, and instead turn to the
wealth of wisdom available in God's Word and feast on it.
- Since God's in charge and I'm
not, I'll live by his wisdom rather than mine.
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