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318 | Conversations - Lessons from Proverbs 1 · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

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Music.
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Hello, friends, and welcome back to another podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries,
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where we believe that all of us have to come to Jesus like the woman at the
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well in John chapter four.
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Our highest priority is making God real in your life.
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Whether you are listening in our app, in your favorite podcasting app,
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or on our website at watwm.org,
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we invite you to sit down with us as we look to the scriptures to learn more
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about God and to strengthen your daily walk with Jesus Christ.
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Living her life for Christ. She's a happy girl.
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Music.
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She's a happy girl.
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In this episode of the Woman at the Well Ministries podcast,
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join Kim Miller and Erica Close in a conversation as we walk with Jesus.
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In today's conversation, we kick off a series on the book of Proverbs.
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And in today's podcast, we discuss the lessons learned in Proverbs 1.
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Well, hello, everyone. My name is Erica Close, and I am here with Kimberly Miller.
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Hello, and thank you for joining us in this podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries.
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We are excited because in our conversation podcasts for the next number of weeks,
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we are going to be talking about the book of Proverbs.
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Proverbs is really an amazing book, and it's one that I'm sure many of you go
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back to again and again and again.
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And we've decided that we want to just stop and have some conversation about it.
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I love Proverbs because it gives us practical wisdom for everyday use.
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And when we look at the book of Proverbs in chapter 1, my Bible kind of divides
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it up into different sections.
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And so we see an important verse in verse 7, and it tells us that we are to
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fear God and regard our parents.
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And then in verse 20, it talks about wisdom complains of the contempt of scorners.
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So there's some tidbits of information in this beginning that just really starts
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setting us up for looking for wisdom and wanting wisdom.
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And God tells us to pray for wisdom.
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Absolutely. All right. Well, to kick us off, we're going to read all of Proverbs chapter one.
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I'm going to start and then Kim is going to close out the chapter.
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The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.
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To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding,
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to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity,
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to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.
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A wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a man of understanding
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shall attain unto wise counsels, to understand a proverb and the interpretation,
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the words of the wise and their dark sayings.
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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
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My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother.
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For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.
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My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
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If they say, Come with us, let us lay weight for blood, let us lurk privily
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for the innocent without cause.
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Let us swallow them up alive Verse 5.
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We shall find all precious substance. We shall fill our houses with spoil.
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Cast in thy lot among us. Let all have one purse.
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My son, walk not thou in the way with them.
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Refrain thy foot from their path, for their feet run to evil and make haste to shed blood.
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Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
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And they lay wait for their own blood. they lurk privily for their own lives.
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So are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain, which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
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Wisdom crieth without, she utters her voice in the streets.
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She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates,
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in the city she utters her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones,
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will ye love simplicity? complicity.
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And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge.
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Turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you.
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I will make known my words unto you.
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Because I have called and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded.
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But ye have said it not, all my counsel, and with none of my reproof.
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I also will laugh at your calamity.
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I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation and your
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destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you,
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then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer.
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They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.
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For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
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they would none of my counsel.
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They despise all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their
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own way, and be filled with their own devices.
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For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
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But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall the quiet.
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From fear of evil. There's a lot in that very first proverb.
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I love that the beginning of the book of Proverbs, I could say verses one through
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seven, talks about the use of the Proverbs, what they're for,
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and why they're important.
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And it's pretty clear that we do need to understand them.
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And he's asking us to really take a look at them and gain from them.
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But he sums it up in verse 7, in my mind, when he says, the fear of the Lord
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is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
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And what he's saying is that to understand Understand the omnipotent,
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omniscient power of the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
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To understand who he is and what he can do is the beginning of knowledge.
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That starts out being smart.
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But when you really want to get what God's asking you to do beyond the knowledge
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is the ability to use that knowledge, which is wisdom.
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Knowledge is knowing things. things wisdom is
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knowing how and when to use what it is that
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you know and he speaks of the fact that
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fools despise wisdom they don't want
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to be wise they don't care about
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being wise and they won't listen
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to instruction and we all know those people you just can't tell them anything
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because somehow they feel like they already know it they are completely sure
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of themselves and it is great to be confident in your knowledge and to know
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that you know the Lord and that you're seeking him.
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But we are born to live in community.
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And that means we learn from other people. And sometimes we learn what not to do.
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But other times we have people like our mentors who pour into us to help us
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see things that we otherwise would not see.
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And so when we begin to look at Proverbs, he's setting the stage that we have
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to be willing to learn and then be wanting to use that knowledge.
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And that's what he's asking us to do. I love that in verse 5,
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it sort of defines a wise man, right?
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A wise man is one who will hear, who will listen, who will increase learning,
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and a man of understanding will attain unto wise counsel.
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So wisdom comes from hearing. Wisdom must come from listening,
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and wisdom comes from one who never thinks they have it all figured out, right?
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They are willing to increase in their learning and to go for wise counsel.
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Like you said, it's not Not someone who's wise will learn. It's not someone
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that you can ever tell a new thing to.
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And it talks here specifically to those who are younger,
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especially when you see listening to what your parents have told you to not
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forsake the instructions of your mom and dad.
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And it says, because they will be grace unto your head and there'll be chains
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about thy neck. Like ornamental chains, not bad chains, but ornamental chains.
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But I also believe they will chain you to the right road. To the right word.
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I believe that when you get proper godly wisdom instruction from your parents,
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they will keep you within the boundaries of the word of God. That's good.
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And I believe wholeheartedly that that is the responsibility of every parent
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who's been given a child, is to teach them in the way they should go.
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And that's why they say, if you teach him in the way he should go when he's
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old, he will not depart from that.
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Because the chains of God's grace given to you by the words that their parents
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have spoken to you will keep you in your lane.
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I know this to be a fact.
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And when he says that we are to understand and we are to hear that instruction,
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because he says that we will need it.
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And we don't have to wonder, what do I do? Because our parents have taken their
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job seriously of raising us or our grandparents or whomever it is that is that.
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Adult in our life that sees something inside of us and says,
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I want you to know Jesus to the extent I want you to have a special relationship with him.
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I'm not a parent. I've never had any children, but I've had children in my life
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that I have poured my knowledge of who God is into them, because I want them
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to know God even better than I know them.
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And I pray that the words that I've spoken, the instructions that I have given
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them are instructions that will help them later on in life, because they will
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be around their neck where they can grab them quickly,
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and it will be something they are proud of, and something that not only looks
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wonderful like a chain, like an ornamental chain,
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but also one that helps them stay in the boundaries.
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I don't want them to have the freedom to step outside of God's will.
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God will give them that freedom because he doesn't make anyone choose.
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But I want them to know him so well in their youth that they never want to explore
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left or right of the center of his will. I love that.
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I think that one of my takeaways from this first part of the book of Proverbs,
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where it's talking about the fear of the Lord and also all of the use of the
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Proverbs, like their purpose,
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it makes me realize that all of the purposes that are found in the beginning
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of the book of Proverbs are also things that we can pray for more of.
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Like we can pray that the the Lord would give us wisdom. We can pray that we
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would receive understanding.
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That we would have spiritual discernment, that we would understand the things
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that look simple but really have more subtle meanings to them.
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That we would understand the knowledge of God, which begins with knowing who God is.
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And I love that you get all this wisdom, you get all this instruction.
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We're being told how to use that and how to desire it.
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And then he says, now, listen, when you're enticed by the world,
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don't have any part of it.
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Well, that's the thing. This book of Proverbs starts off and talks about all
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that. And then boom, it goes into, hey, sin is going to call, right?
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I mean, that's what sin is going to call, but you don't have to answer.
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Right. But that's what verse 10 is, right?
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Sin says, you know, when sinners entice you, right? So it tells you sinners
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are They're going to entice you.
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And it says, consent thou not. You've got a choice.
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There is no sin in being tempted.
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Jesus was tempted on the mount. The sin happens with how you choose to respond to that temptation.
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And with knowledge and wisdom that is given by God and instruction that godly
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parents have laid in the path of those of us who have been blessed to have them,
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when sin comes knocking, we go walking in the other direction.
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And that's what it's telling us to do.
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Refrain your foot from that path.
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Don't follow after flesh.
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Don't chase after sinful, wicked things.
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Don't allow yourself to pursue things that are contrary to the commandments of God.
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You know, I think we often talk about how the devil walketh about as a roaring lion.
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Seeking whom he may devour. You know, and we often use, you know,
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pictures like that in our minds for how the devil is enticing us to sin and is drawing us away. way.
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But I feel like the imagery that it's in this whole section,
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you can just see a bunch of people trying to entice a child of God away.
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Like so many of these phrases that are in here saying, whoo,
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casting your lot among us.
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You know, you can just hear how badly this group wants to entice that holy child away.
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You can hear it in these phrases, right?
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This is enticement. This is applauding, right?
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This is someone, a trap, trying to pull that child of God off the right road.
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It's not a big, scary lion.
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This is a whole bunch of small, little devils, right?
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Trying to entice someone to go down a path they were never intended to go down.
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But praise be to God, in verse 20, it begins to talk about how wisdom cries in the streets.
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Louder than the sinners enticed. And this is why he begins this chapter talking
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about the importance of wisdom and knowledge and instruction of godly foundation.
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Foundation because when you have that and.
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And when you employ that, it is louder than the enticement. It's louder than the devil.
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And greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.
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We know this from 1 John 4, 4.
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And so he says in verse 23, Turn you at my reproof.
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Knowledge and wisdom of God will not fail you.
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And the Holy Spirit within you will consistently and continually lay before
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you the knowledge of God and the wisdom if you have done 2 Timothy 2.15 and
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studied the Word of God so that you're able to rightly employ it in the exact
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situations that you need to.
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This knowledge and wisdom that he talks about in the beginning is going to be
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the key to our entire life, living godliness.
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This verse says, 23, says, turn you at my reproof. Turn when you hear the reproof of wisdom.
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Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you.
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That Holy Spirit that you just mentioned will be poured out and I will make
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known my words unto you. That's the wisdom.
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Wisdom is understanding all of the words of God's scripture and how they apply to that moment.
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But do you see the blessing that is bestowed upon every obedient believer who
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has attained the knowledge of God and wisdom.
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He says, look, at the very moment, at the very beginning,
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you turn when wisdom is tugging at your heart, when wisdom and the Holy Spirit
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are bringing to your mind, hey, don't go there. Don't do that. This is bad.
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That little nudge, just don't make him shove you. Don't make him do anything.
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But at the very moment, he says, then if you take one step towards him,
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he's going to pour his spirit all over you, and then he will give you the words that you need to say.
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In other words, he's going to enable you to have everything that you need in
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order to walk in his ways.
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He tells us in 1 Peter that he's given us everything that pertains to godliness.
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He tells He tells us in Philippians that he will supply our every need.
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He also tells us in Philippians 4 that we can do all things because he strengthens us.
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He will give us, but we must turn our eyes upon him.
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And when we do, the floodgates of heaven will enable us and we will know more
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and we will be stronger and closer to him than we've ever been before because we said no to the devil.
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And we turned. I think that's so huge in that there is power.
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In the turn, right? The moment you recognize that this is not where you're supposed
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to be, where you're supposed to go, whatever that is, like you said,
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you turn and then the spirit pours it out. And then you may not understand.
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You may not know anything else, but you know to turn around and go.
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And when you turn, you're no longer looking at the sin you were looking for.
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You are no longer being enticed because you can't see it and you can't,
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you're turning away from it. But if you just stand there and be still for a
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moment, there is a time to be still and know that he is God.
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But it's not when you're being enticed. You need to turn, look the other direction
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and continue moving down the road.
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Stop somewhere down the road and be still and let him be God in your life.
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But you have to turn and stop looking.
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Don't allow your thoughts to become a fantasy that turns into a desire that sinks your boat.
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The turning is diffusing the bomb, right? The turning diffuses the situation.
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It doesn't just diffuse it because diffuse it with sort of some, which is true, it does.
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It no longer has that kind of power over you, but it eliminates it because it's
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no longer in your vision.
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It's no longer in your path. When you turn and go a different direction,
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it is no longer in your path. So sin no more has dominion over you because you
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have given yourself over to the Holy Spirit who will give you the victory.
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If you look further in this chapter where we see in 25, it talks about what
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happens to those who didn't do it, you know, because they didn't turn and repent,
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they'll call on him and he's not going to answer because he can't hang out where there's sin.
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And David tells us in Psalms, I think it's like 68, 16 or 18 or something like that.
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He tells us that God will not hear the prayers of those that hold iniquity in
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their heart. And if you're walking down the path of sin, you've got iniquity.
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And verse 29 takes all of that back to what you started us with,
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with the fear of the Lord.
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Because 29 says, for that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.
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Those that didn't accept his counsel, those that did not accept his call,
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what they have done is they have chosen not to have that fear of the Lord.
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Which means they've chosen not to have the relationship with him. When we.
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Do what he says. We are close to him. As we draw closer to him, he draws closer to us.
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And the knowledge of the Lord will tell you that the world and flesh and the
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devil can't offer you anything that compares to the blessings of God,
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to the reward of living a holy life, to having that special relationship between
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you and God where you can hear him when he whispers,
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when holiness is a way of life, when the commandments of God are what you feed upon and you thirst for,
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when a relationship with him is what you long for.
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There is nothing this world can entice you with or can offer you that will compare.
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Jesus loves me. This I know. And that knowledge will propel you to greatness in him.
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And that's when you do what he says. And he does tell you, this is something
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a friend of mine was talking to me about the other day.
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You can do it your own way. That's what he tells us in 31.
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Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices.
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Be not deceived. God is not mocked whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap.
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He's a gentleman. He will allow you to take the reins from him.
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But oh, woe unto you that let that happen.
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You are walking outside the will of God and you're not living under his protection
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and you definitely don't have his peace.
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Oh, woe unto the one who forgets the knowledge of the most high God.
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But the one who remembers, what does it say in 33, Erica? But whoso hearkeneth
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unto me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
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There's a peacefulness in the center of God's will. Yeah. Because he says that he's greater.
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And those who know him and know the knowledge of God and the characteristics
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of God understand that he cannot fail.
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And he's never lost a battle and he's not going to start with yours.
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But you can throw up the white flag to
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the devil and you can go in your own way and you can go onto your own devices
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and you can cause yourself to live a life that is no ways near the abundant
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life he promises those who walk in his way in John 10 10 but Proverbs begins with telling us,
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that is important that we have the knowledge of the Lord and that we seek the wisdom him.
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And then he ends this chapter with, that reward is that you'll dwell in safety and have no fear of evil.
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Peace comes to the ones who truly know the Lord and walk in his ways.
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I think we found a lot of things that are applicable to our lives in Proverbs chapter one.
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Well, we certainly hope that you have been inspired to read it and study it
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next Wednesday when we do our next podcast.
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As a conversation, we will begin in Proverbs chapter two.
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But we are hoping that you are enjoying this journey through Proverbs as much
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as we are. and we are just buckling up with the Holy Spirit and anticipating
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amazing things through all 30 chapters found in the book of Proverbs.
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It is our prayer that you know him.
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If you do not know him, we ask that you would just contact us at Woman at the
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Well Ministries, and we will be happy to discuss with you and to help you meet
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the Savior that we know so personally, because he too wants to be your personal Savior.
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Please know that you are loved. Jesus loves you.
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Music.
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quotes from today's podcast and scripture references.
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Music.