Trust, Truth, and Temptation // Wisdom That Works, Part 2

Christianityworks Official Podcast

Well this week we’re kicking on with our second message in a series called Wisdom that Works - looking at some of God’s mighty wisdom through the Book of Proverbs. And we’re going to be chatting this time around, about trust, truth … and temptation.

Trust and Honour God

Welcome to the programme again this week and yes, we are continuing in a series that I have called, "Wisdom that Works". Now wisdom is an amazing thing – a seductive concept. I mean, who doesn’t want to have more wisdom; who doesn’t want to be wise? That’s ridiculous isn’t it? Of course we all want wisdom; of course we all want to be wise, but wisdom ... well, it’s a double edged sword.

Sure, it’s about having the knowledge that comes from experience but theory is aren’t enough. Someone who knows that treating other people well and loving them and sacrificing for them; someone who knows that but spends most of their lives not doing it, well, we wouldn’t call them wise would we? In order for someone to be wise, they need to know it and do it. That’s wisdom! And the sort of wisdom that God shares with us is the sort of wisdom that actually works.

So we are spending some time again this week ransacking the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, written by King Solomon – one of the wisest men that ever walked the earth. And my encouragement to you is that we take this wisdom from God and actually apply it to our lives. Why? Because it works! Bottom line is that if we will take God’s wisdom to heart; if we will take God’s Word to heart it will make a real difference in our lives. God will make that difference in our lives through His Spirit and through His Word. And if we don’t take it to heart, He won’t! Can I say that again? If we don’t, He won’t!

So let’s get back into this great Book of wisdom; the Book of Proverbs and see what wisdom Solomon has for us about trusting and honouring God. Proverbs chapter 3, beginning at verse 1. He says:

My child, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you. Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favour and good repute in the sight of God and of people.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be a healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body.

Honour the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. My child, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves the one whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

So we’re chugging along through live, stuff happens and we get impatient and we want to head off our own way and here’s Solomon with the wisdom of age telling his sons, "Guys, this is just going to happen. You’ll want to drift away from God – you just will – but don’t do that. Don’t forget what I told you: be loyal, be faithful. I know it won’t always make sense to you but listen to me, write these words on your hearts."

So, stuff is happening and life is not going the way we planned it and it’s not making sense and so we have a wisdom decision point here in that place. We can flap around, we can carry on, we can head off our own way – most people do – or we can say, "Hang on a minute; hang on! Remember what God told me through Solomon?" That was wisdom that works:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding. In all you ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

You see how we have a decision to make? Either we can believe this stuff and take God at His Word or we treat it like some useless theory lesson. Here’s the promise: trust in God – don’t try and figure it all out because you can’t – just acknowledge God in how we live our lives. And listen, here’s the promise; here’s the dividend; here’s the return on investment: if you do that God will straighten it all out. Listen to me, if we just honour God through the difficult times in what we say and what we think and what we do, God will straighten it all out.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don’t rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.

Now, let me ask you: which bit of that don’t we get? Why do we have to make everything so complicated? Are we going to be like those people I was telling you about the other week? Are we going to spend hours and hours and hours studying the Bible for studying’s sake, as though it was some intellectual exercise, without ever really believing that it is meant to be true in our lives or are we going to take God at His Word? Are we going to take God’s wisdom to heart?

See, he goes on to tell us what it means to honour God:

Trust the Lord with all your heart, don’t rely on your own understanding, acknowledge him in all your ways and he will make straight all your paths. Don’t be wise in your own eyes – instead fear God and turn away from evil. It will be a healing to your flesh and refreshment to your body.

How often do people pierce themselves with many pains by turning away from God– by going and doing it their own way; by being proud; by being greedy; by being selfish?

Honour the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce.

In other words, put in first with all that you are and all that you have:

... and then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. My child, don’t despise God’s discipline and get weary of his reproof? He loves you! He reproves the one whom He loves as the father does the son in whom he delights.

See, this is such simple wisdom ... it is so simple. We want to go off and do it on our own and flap around and carry on and wander away from God and then we wonder why it is all falling apart. This is about trusting God and honouring Him – and the two go hand in hand. I absolutely love how practical God’s truth actually is!

And when we just simply put this into practice in the everyday things that happen in life – in the tense relationships, in just forgiving people, in moving on, in honouring God, in blessing other people when they curse us, in the simple things of life – they might be simple but often they are difficult – if we will just put this into action in our lives; when we choose to stop mucking around, flapping around, complaining, doing the "woe is me" bit and just sit down and decide, "God, come hell or high water, I am going to trust in You. I am just going to do the best I know how, I am going to honour You the best I can with what I have and who I am", do you know what happens? God honour that; God springs into action; He starts sorting out the mess.

My friend, this is not – let me say this in capital letters – N-O-T ... this is NOT a theory lesson. God’s wisdom is imparted into our lives when we take His truth into our hearts and live it out.

Don’t forget His teaching, let your heart keep His commandments because there is a blessing at the end of that – for length of days and years of live and abundant welfare they will give you. Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart so you will find favour and good repute in the sight of God. As you sow so shall you reap.

Do it God’s way and you reap the blessing – do it your own way and you reap the pain. This is not complex; this is not rocket science.

True Wealth

Now the next thing that Solomon talks about in the Book of Proverbs is money and wealth. Now a man that I have come to have a lot of respect for is a guy by the name of David Bussau. For a good many years we have attended the same church as David and his wife Carol. He is the founder of a ministry called Opportunity International; an organisation that now creates a new job in the developing world, something like every twenty second, or something outrageous like that.

I heard David one day talking about the "economics of enough". Now he lives in a comfortable home and they constantly have people staying who are visiting for ministry reasons. He drives an ordinary car, dresses in ordinary everyday clothes. And he said he came to the conclusion many years ago that he had more than enough "stuff" – he just didn’t need any more. It was the "economics of enough".

Remember we are talking this week and the next few weeks about God’s wisdom; wisdom that works. And we are doing that by taking a step through some of the powerful wisdom that we discover in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs which was written by King Solomon to capture the wisdom that he was handing down to his sons. And not surprisingly, fairly early on in the piece he talks about money – not so much money but wealth. Have a listen to what he says – Proverbs chapter 3, beginning at verse 13. He says:

Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy.

Now, there was a time in my life, in fact, for much of my life where I would have scoffed at this suggestion. "Aw, give me a break please. How can wisdom possibly be better than silver or gold and precious jewels? How can wisdom be better than anything that my little heart desires? No, I’ll just have the cash thanks – show me the money."

And for all that to make sense there are two things we need to know about Solomon. Not only was he blessed with great wisdom – he was one of the wisest men that ever lived – but he was also one of the richest men in all of history. And it all comes to Solomon when he prays to God – have a listen – as a young man. It comes from First Kings chapter 3, verse 5 right through to verse 13, so grab your Bible. First Kings chapter 3, beginning at verse 5:

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask what I should give you.” And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted.

Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?” It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked for, both riches and honour all the days of your life; no other king shall compare with you.

Right from the beginning, as a young man, Solomon had preferred wisdom over riches so he asked God for wisdom. What a brilliant thing to ask for! I wonder what you and I would have asked for if God had said to us, “Ask what I should give you?” So, all of his adult life, Solomon had both great wisdom and great riches. And having lived his life with both, out of his experience he was able to say to his sons: wisdom is so much better than anything else that you can imagine. Why? Why did he say that? Because the dividend; the return that this wisdom gave him was huge.

Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy.

You know, that’s a dividend statement that Solomon makes after a life of wisdom. As much as we try and kid ourselves, we know – we know through experience, we know deep in our hearts – that riches can never deliver that sort of dividend. We chase after money alone and it’s a lonely, unhappy life. Believe you me, I’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt and I can tell you ABSOLUTELY that wealth simply doesn’t deliver that sort of dividend – a dividend of riches and peace and pleasantness and joy and happiness.

Wisdom ... wisdom means that we learn God’s truth and we put it into action in our lives. Even though sometimes; in fact, most times it involves sacrifice up front, like any other investment. We live out God’s truth in our lives – that’s what wisdom is – and we reap the rewards – peace, life, joy. Why? Because we know how to avoid the dumb things we used to do that caused us so much pain; because we know how to make good choices that bear good fruit.

True wealth is living a life of abundance in Christ. True wealth is having the wisdom to build strong relationships and enjoy serving others and getting over our pride and our stupid tantrums. Wisdom is about ultimately enjoying life – whatever life throws our way.

Friend, this is such great advice! But it only becomes true wisdom in our lives when we put it into action and the thing to put into action here is to seek after wisdom above and before riches, because nothing ... NOTHING compares to the dividends paid by wisdom; God’s wisdom. The sort of wisdom that works!

Impurity and Infidelity

I remember back in college one of our lecturers in a subject about, I guess, the foundational issues of Christian living – said to each one of us who were training for some form of ministry or another - he said: there are three things that can bring you unstuck: girls, gold and glory (or in the case of women, guys, gold and glory.) In other words, people whom God calls to serve Him, often stumble in infidelity or because they start loving wealth too much. We spoke about that last week. Or because they seek the glory and they fall to pride. It’s not a bad executive summary, is it? Girls or guys, as the case may be, gold and glory.

Well as we roll on to the next piece of wisdom from Solomon in the Book of Proverbs, we are going to chat a bit about the girls, guys thing, or impurity and infidelity, because it’s huge. Statistically, almost half of all marriages fall apart – and in fact, of those that remain, only fraction are what you would call happy marriages – the sorts of marriages where people really thrive.

The facts about marital infidelity – sexual unfaithfulness to a spouse are astounding. Polls in the U.S. show that, although ninety percent of married people disapprove of extramarital affairs, fifteen percent of wives and twenty five percent of husbands have experienced extramarital sex. Now those numbers increase a further twenty percent when emotional affairs and sexual relationships without intercourse are included - so thirty five percent of women and forty five percent of men have been unfaithful to their spouse. That’s frightening, isn’t it?

Marriage is supposed to be the most wonderful relationship - fulfilling, lifelong soul mates and yet, almost half of all men and over a third of all women have some sort of extramarital affair. That blows me away! But it’s nothing new! Almost three thousand years ago Solomon, when instructing his young sons with the wisdom of his years, spends a whole chapter, in fact, a couple of chapters – the 5th chapter and another chapter in the Book of Proverbs, on this very subject.

It’s one of the first subjects he deals with comprehensively – maybe the stats were pretty much the same back then as they are today. Let’s have a listen to what he had to say to his sons about infidelity. Proverbs chapter 5, beginning at verse 1:

My child, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, so that you may hold on to prudence, and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a loose woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her steps follow the path to Sheol. She does not keep straight to the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.

In other words, the grass may well appear greener on the other side, guys, but this seduction that promises so much is going to kill you. Even though the thought of an affair may be oh so seductive, oh so tempting, it leads only to bitterness, pain and destruction.

I remember a man I used to work with back in my days in the I.T. industry and he had two affairs outside his marriage – two that I know of anyway. I knew the husband and the wife quite well. He was lured into this trap; he followed his desires and his emotions and it almost destroyed both of them. By God’s grace his wife was a godly woman and strong and with great faith and their marriage weathered the storm. But the pain and of course, as much as all may be forgiven, the memory never, ever, ever, goes away. And the crazy thing was, they had everything.

And here’s the advice that Solomon has for his sons – here’s the wisdom that really works – Proverbs 5, beginning at verse 7:

And now, my child, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your ways far from her, and do not go near the door of her house; or you will give your honour to others, and your years to the merciless, and strangers will take their fill of your wealth, and your labours will go to the house of another; and at the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. Now I am at the point of utter ruin in the public assembly.

The advice - the wisdom that works? Keep away from relationships that can lead to infidelity. “My child, listen to me, keep away from her door.” Don’t go there! Don’t put yourself in a position of temptation. Don’t spend time alone with members of the opposite sex. Don’t form close bonds and relationships that could head in the wrong direction. Keep yourself to yourself – just don’t go there or it will ruin you and you will spend the rest of your life regretting it.

And the alternative? Well, it’s pretty obvious – Proverbs chapter 5, verse 15:

Drink water from your own cistern; flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for sharing with strangers. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always by her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord, and he examines all their paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them, and they are caught in the toils of their sin. They die for lack of discipline, and because of their great folly they are lost.

My friend, if you have a wife, enjoy her – if you are a woman with a husband, enjoy him. Do not be enticed into an extramarital affair, like almost half of all men and over a third of all women who are married are. Enjoy each other – God has given the wife to the husband and the husband to the wife so that they may truly enjoy each other, emotionally and physically and spiritually and be the best of friends and live their lives together for one another. Find fulfilment husbands, in arms of your wives; wives find fulfilment in the arms of your husbands.

Sure, they are not perfect! Let’s get a revelation here today – they never will be, ever – but they are the lifelong soul mate that God has given you and that ... that is the right place, the only place in God’s eyes, to discover and to experience and to enjoy and to revel in the beauty of intimacy.

Remember, forty five percent of men and thirty five percent of women – now you may think this is an odd subject for us to be discussing today but judging from the statistics, Solomon was right to make this one a high priority.

My prayer is that you will never; never know the pain and the bitter regret of adultery. Please listen to God’s Word today; please heed His warning! This is God’s wisdom - it is wisdom that works.