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321 | Conversations - Lessons from Proverbs 2 · 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 and 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 continue a series on the book of Proverbs.
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In today's podcast, we discuss the lessons learned in Proverbs chapter 2.
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Well, hello, everyone. I am Erika Close, and I am here with Kimberly Miller.
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Hello, and thank you, each of you, for choosing to join us in this podcast.
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It is such a wonderful opportunity for us to just share what God puts in our heart and our minds.
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Today, it's in Proverbs 2, and I'm just excited to buckle up with the Holy Spirit
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and allow Him to just speak through us.
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And our prayer is that it inspires you and motivates you to study His Word,
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but that it also helps you to understand what God is asking of each of us,
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and the amazing promises, and the amazing rewards and blessings for following after Him.
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I love that you say to buckle up, because this really is one of my most favorite things that we do.
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I think we just buckle up, and we sit down, and we read a passage,
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and we talk about it, and we talk about what it means, and we talk about what
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stands out, and we talk about what the Lord is speaking to us about it.
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And I think it is just such a good practice, but it's also something you do
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need to be buckled up and sort of ready for.
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So we invite you to buckle up and we're gonna read Proverbs chapter two. All right.
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My son, if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments with thee,
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so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thine heart to understanding.
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Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding,
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if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures,
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then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.
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For the Lord giveth wisdom, out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
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He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous, He is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
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He keepeth the paths of judgment and preserveth the way of his saints.
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Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment and equity, yea, every good path.
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When wisdom entereth into thine heart and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul,
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discretion shall preserve thee and understanding shall keep thee.
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To deliver thee from the way of the evil man
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from the man that speaketh forward things who leave
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the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of
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darkness who rejoice to do evil and
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delight in the forwardness of the wicked whose ways are crooked and they forward
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in their paths to deliver thee from the strange woman even the stranger with
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flattereth with her which flattereth with her words which forsaketh the guide
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of her youth and forgetteth the covenant of her God.
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For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
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None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
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That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
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For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.
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But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
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I love, before we go through this
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in an expository manner, how chapter two reaches back into chapter one.
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And something that I feel necessary for us all to really understand is that
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the Word of God never contradicts itself.
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And the Word of God, when fully understood, weaves itself together to give us
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a perfect roadmap of how to live this life until He calls us home.
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But if we look in chapter 2, we're going to see that He's talking about wisdom.
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Again, and the importance of wisdom, and the value of wisdom.
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And he again brings up that the fear of the Lord is how we find knowledge,
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because when we have knowledge of God, then we fear him in a reverence way. I love him, Erica.
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I think he's the most gracious, merciful, amazing thing I can even contemplate.
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But at the same token, I know his power.
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I know that he said, be holy for I'm holy.
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And I know there are consequences, as you spoke about in our last conversation
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about chapter one, there are consequences for our behaviors.
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And the wrath of God and the judgment of God is one that I don't want to face,
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and I don't have to face it as to whether or not I'm going to heaven or hell,
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because I have been saved by the marvelous, precious, sinless blood of Jesus Christ.
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By his grace and his mercy, he has redeemed me.
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However, I'm going to give an account for my life. We're told that in Romans,
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and we must remember that.
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And when he says something, it's not a suggestion, Erika.
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It's a commandment. And I think that one of the things that's really important
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that's in this chapter of Proverbs, and I appreciate that this chapter of Proverbs
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does sort of explain that idea of the fear of the Lord like you did,
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but this chapter also starts with receiving God's Word,
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hiding His commandments in us, right?
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Inclining our ears to God's Word, applying our hearts to understanding God's Word.
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We know God when we know His Word.
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We fear God, like you said, with that knowledge of Him that we read in chapter 5.
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This section at the very beginning of Proverbs chapter 2 makes it so clear to
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me the value of knowing His Word and hiding it in our hearts.
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Which the psalmist David tells us that he hid his Word in his heart that he
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wouldn't sin sin against God.
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And that's the same thing that
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we do. But I also love that he says that we need to apply this wisdom,
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the application of the knowledge of who God is and what God is asking us to
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do and the nature of God, this knowledge,
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we are to apply it to our heart so that we have understanding and so that we
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are literally living it out because it's the heart that is the central.
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Distribution center of all that is inside of us.
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Our brain might be our central computer, but our heart is what distributes the
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blood and the life all through our body.
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And it's the blood that is life.
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And it's his blood in us and the knowledge of who he is and the personal relationship
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that he affords every believer that gives us his lifeblood,
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that gives us the understanding that we might live the life that he intends for us to live.
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And in John 10, 10, he says that he came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.
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So for living the life he intends for us to live, we are going to have the abundant
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life of Jesus Christ, his presence ever going with us.
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You know, when you talk about to the life that he gives us, the abundant life,
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We talk about living, having a walk, a godly walk.
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I think that the verses like six through nine, they talk about that application.
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The application is about walking uprightly, right?
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The beginning of chapter two is about learning and then understanding what it
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means to fear the Lord. And then it's about how.
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We walk. It's about the path that we choose. It's about staying on the path and being on a good path.
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And in verse six, he says, for the Lord giveth wisdom, out of his mouth cometh
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knowledge and understanding.
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In Matthew 7, 7, he says, ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find,
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knock and it shall be open unto you.
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In Jeremiah 29, 13, he says that you will find him when you You seek Him with your whole heart.
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The Lord isn't wanting to withhold who He is from you.
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He's not wanting to withhold His ways and the thoughts that He has towards you,
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like we're told in Jeremiah 29, 11, to prosper us and to give us a hope and an expected end.
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He has a plan for us, and He wants us to know it.
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And He tells us, if we'll just ask, out of His mouth comes understanding and wisdom.
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And we have the entire plan of our life that God has for us and for the plan
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of salvation and to know the character of God from Genesis to Revelations in
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the greatest love letter ever written.
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And he tells us that the righteous he gives good wisdom to and that he is a
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shield to them that walk uprightly.
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And he preserveth the way of the saints.
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I want to be preserved, shielded and protected and kept on a good path.
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I want to walk a good path. I want to have a good life. And I want that shield of protection.
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We talk about the armor of God, right? I want that shield of protection around
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me that is going to quench the fiery darts of the the wicked.
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I want to walk and live a good life and have all of God surrounding me,
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protecting me, and preserving me. That's the life I want.
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And he says that's for every good path, because the path you've taken in this life,
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though it is fundamentally the same as far as God's hand of protection about
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his directing, his guidance, he has taken you on a different journey than he's taken me.
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But it's always been on the good path when we are righteous.
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Now, that does not mean that things don't come into our life that are obstacles
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and troubles. We live in this world.
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In fact, it tells us in Ephesians 6 that we don't fight against people.
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We fight against the principalities of darkness in this world.
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But praise be to God, He who is in me is greater than he that is in the world.
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And I have the Holy Spirit to teach me, to guide me, to lead me, and to direct me.
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So every path that He has intended for each one of us to personally follow,
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because He's a personal God.
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And that's why we have to have a personal relationship with him.
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And in doing so, every path that includes being in the center of his will is one that is a good path.
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You know, I love to think about the so many benefits that come with knowing Jesus,
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the many benefits that come with having the Holy Spirit living in our hearts,
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the benefits of knowing God's word and being able to apply it to our lives.
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And I think that verses 10 and 11 of Proverbs chapter 2 have just like four
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huge things that come with that relationship with God, right?
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We develop wisdom. We can always gain wisdom.
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We develop the knowledge of who God is and knowledge of his scriptures.
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We gain discretion, right? Being able to discern good from evil,
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being able to see, being able to see the details, details, right,
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of what's going on, and then to have understanding.
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If I could think of like four things that I need to be asking for every day
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before I go out this door and into this world, Lord, give me wisdom.
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Lord, give me the knowledge that I need. Give me the discretion that I need
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in all of life's situation, and just give me the understanding so that I can
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see you as I go throughout my days.
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And you know, one of the things I see in verse 10 is he says,
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when wisdom entereth into thine heart and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul.
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He tells us in Psalms, I believe it's 37 something, he says,
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delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
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When Jesus is your delight.
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It's a game changer. That is full love, full devotion, and complete trusting in him.
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We'll see in the next chapter what happens when you trust in him and lean not
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on your own understanding.
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And that's incredible. That's just a sneak peek for the next time that we are
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together. Hard not to go to the other side of that page.
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But we must understand that until spending time with Jesus, until the precepts, the commandments,
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and the knowledge of God is not only important to you, you not only desire it, but you delight in it,
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then you're never going to know that perfect will of God and that peace and
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joy that comes from being in the center of his will.
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Absolutely. As we go on in this chapter, I think it's kind of similar to what
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we looked at in chapter one.
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There's this whole section instruction about how, as Christians,
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we are able to be delivered from evil.
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And I think it's important that these chapters in Proverbs call out that evil
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is out there, and evil is going to be attempting to entice the Christian onto the wrong path, right?
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The way of the evil man is there, right?
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And we are at, and the evil man is calling us to leave the paths of uprightness
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and to walk in the ways of darkness.
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The evil is calling us to rejoice, to do evil and to delight in doing things that are wicked.
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And the verses talk about a, compare evil to a person that is trying to just
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entice us away, almost seduce us away from what God would have us do.
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But the chapter also talks about how that just leads to destruction.
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Right? The sin, the one who is sinful, if we look at verse 17,
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has forsaken God who guided her in her youth and forgot the covenant that God had with her.
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And her house leads to death.
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I don't think anyone sets out to forget the covenant.
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So how do you suppose that happens? I think it happens when you start going
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down the wrong path and all that you can see is the results of the evil.
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All you can see are the things that are not of God.
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And I think that when we constantly cloud our vision with things that are not
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of God, things that are not holy,
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bit by bit, our view of God erodes and it gets clouded.
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And even more scary to me is that as I get further down the road,
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the more entrenched I become in the view I'm now looking at,
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which is that of the world in the flesh. And the devil's not stupid.
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He gets portrayed that way, but he's cunning.
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And he knows exactly, we give him that information because he cannot read our
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thoughts or the intents of our heart.
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Only the Holy Spirit can do that. But he does know where we tie our goat up, as I say.
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He knows how to go get what it is that's going to entice you.
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And what happens is we start neglecting, we don't jump off the cliff and go
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from I love Jesus going to church every day to...
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Jesus who? We don't do that. No, but you just start down the road.
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Right, which starts with not praying, maybe, or not reading his word,
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or the kind of friends that you have.
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We have to be careful who we surround ourselves with.
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This is wisdom and knowledge of who God is, is we want to take people who don't
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know Jesus, the light, and the gospel, but we want to bring them to where we
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are, which is walking in the light and with Jesus.
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We don't want to let people who are worldly and fleshly bring us to where they are.
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And if you don't understand that concept, take a good look at Mark chapter 2.
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Because Mark chapter 2 is the story or the account of the four friends who took
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the man with palsy to see Jesus.
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They brought a man who couldn't get there himself to him because of their faith.
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And what they knew Jesus would do, their friend with the palsy received healing.
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You want friends like that. You want friends that bring you the knowledge of God.
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You want friends that show you the wisdom of God. You want friends that are
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praying with you and praying for you and praying over you.
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This is what keeps you from going down that wrong path.
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And that's what gives you the strength and the courage to repent,
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like we were told in Proverbs 1, and turn away from the sin.
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So the sin and that path is no longer in your view. and I think that what's
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so important is that it's the path, right? It's the view.
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In Proverbs chapter 1, we read the verse that talked about turning, right?
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It was about verse 23, turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you.
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I will make known my words to you. If we turn around on that path,
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like you said, it's about what is in our view.
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There's always a point when we can turn around.
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The devil's going to say that there isn't a point of turning,
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but there is always a point of turning around.
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And if we turn and we turn out, and just as if we were to turn out of this section
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in Proverbs 2 that's talking about sin and we get to verse 20.
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There's a turn here, and we see the alternative to following the evil man, to being seduced by sin.
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Verse 20 says that thou mayest walk in the way of good men and keep the paths of the righteous.
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For the upright shall dwell in the land and the perfect shall remain in it.
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That is a description of a land that is filled with good, that's filled with
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good people, that's filled with good company, that is surrounded by goodness.
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It's the blessings of God. And the thing that you make, again,
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such an eloquent thought is that we can choose to turn away, choose to repent.
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God always makes a way of escape because he wishes that none should perish,
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but that all should come to repentance.
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And those who are his children, he has a plan for them to walk in light and not in darkness.
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But we see clearly what happens when you fall by the wayside and when you choose these crooked ways.
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What we see in verse 22 is this, but the wicked shall be cut off from the earth
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and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it or removed.
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There is a payday coming for those who walk with the Lord.
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And there's a day of reckoning coming for those who do not walk with the Lord.
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And those of us who know Jesus Christ as our Savior will make heaven our home
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because he has given us that ability to do so.
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But those who have not followed after Jesus, they're going to make hell their home.
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And it's a choice. He has sent no one to hell. It's a choice that they are making.
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But those of us who are called, those of us who have made our calling and election
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sure, and we are serving Jesus Christ,
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we must live as those who have made a choice to serve Jesus.
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It's not about saying that you love Jesus.
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It's about really loving him. And we don't work our way into salvation.
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It's the free gift we're told in Ephesians 2, 8, 9.
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But friends, if you don't have fruit, I would really check and see just how
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strong your commitment was.
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Well, Erica, this has been an amazing time walking through Proverbs chapter 2.
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And I can't wait until we walk through Proverbs chapter 3.
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But until then, it is our prayer that you are seeking knowledge of who God is
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and that you are asking for wisdom to apply that knowledge so you would have
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understanding of your heart.
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Remember, you are loved. Jesus loves you.
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Music.
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Music.