The One Thing That Can Make Everything Make Perfect Sense.

So, if you're anything like me, you find yourself wondering how, just how people can do and think some of the things that we hear about in the news or on social media.

And to take it a step further, just how this world and this country could end up in the shape that they're in today. And, truth be told, I can, we can waste a lot of time and energy trying to figure it out if we're not coming at it from a biblical perspective.

I could, and I catch myself saying things like, can you believe that so-and-so did this or that? And, the truth is, there's almost always a very, very simple explanation or simple reason why people do the crazy things that they do in our world.

And, why this country is kind of in the state that it's in. And, today we're going to talk about the one thing that can make everything make perfect sense.

And, to do that, we're going to start in the book of Proverbs. Now, if you were to look up the word proverb in a dictionary, it would tell you that it's a short, traditional saying that expresses a general truth.

Or, a practical advice based on common human experience. And, you have to keep in mind that in the book of Proverbs, they are sayings that are generally true.

They're not necessarily promises. But, let's jump into them here. Proverbs 1.1. The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.

So, verse 1 starts right out by identifying who the author is, at least for the majority of the book. Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.

And, many say he was the wisest man who ever lived, so, who better to write it, huh? Verse 2. To know wisdom and instruction.

To understand words of insight. And, verse 2 tells us the purpose of the book. To know wisdom and instruction. To understand words of insight.

Basically, to be able to build a disciplined skill in right living. Verse 3. To receive instruction in wise dealing.

In righteousness, justice, and equity. And, the next few verses, they kind of go on to give specific examples of qualities that a person should acquire to be able to lead a wise life.

Verse 4. To give prudence to the simple. Knowledge and discretion to the youth. Now, the simple that verse 4 is talking about here is basically someone who's naive.

Okay? It's someone who simply hasn't been taught and doesn't have enough life experience to have gained wisdom. It's not a fool who knows better and just chooses to ignore wisdom.

It's the simple they're talking about here is just someone that we'll say is a little bit gullible. Okay? Verse 5.

Let the wise hear and increase in learning. And the one who understands obtain guidance. So, verse 5 is saying that even those who are already wise, those who already know what is right, need to keep learning or to obtain guidance in how to keep their life moving in the right direction.

To understand a proverb and a saying. The words of the wise and their riddles. Then we get to verse 7. Which is basically the theme of the entire book of Proverbs.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord, Solomon says, is the beginning of knowledge. It's where true knowledge has to start.

A person can't gain knowledge of spiritual things if they start at the wrong point and don't recognize who God is. And choose to revere and worship and submit to him and obey him.

Solomon would say that the fear of the Lord is basically the essence of knowledge. Now look at the second half of the verse.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Let's look at the word despise first.

We're told that it means to hold in contempt or to belittle or to ridicule. And there are three different kinds of fool that the word proverb talks, the book of Proverbs talks about.

The first and the most common is the person with just a dull and closed mind. It's someone who's stubborn, who's lazy and short-sighted and just simply doesn't want to listen to instruction from other people.

The second is the person who is spiritually, who lacks spiritual perception. And the third, the one that verse 7 is talking about, is the person who is arrogant and flippant toward God.

It's the person who, in his hard heart, just flat-out rejects God and his wisdom. So, verse 7 is contrasting those who humbly fear God and gain true knowledge, and arrogant fools who, by refusing to fear God, show that they hold wisdom and discipline in contempt.

And much of the rest of the book of Proverbs goes on to contrast these two different people. The book of Proverbs is made up of several different sections, if you will.

And the first section is chapters 1 through 9. And near the end of chapter 9 is a verse that kind of reiterates the theme of the book that we saw in 1-7, with a little bit of a twist.

1-7 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Chapter 9, verse 10 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

So, Solomon is saying that not only is the fear of the Lord the beginning of knowledge, it's also the beginning of wisdom. And he says, he also says that knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

What is, what's insight? Simply put, it's being able to see inside of something, right?

It's being able to see more than just what's on the surface. The dictionary says it's the ability to see the true nature of a thing.

And it also, the dictionary also mentions the word discernment. The better that we know the Lord, the better we're going to be able to understand what's going on in the world around us, right?

We actually prayed for knowledge of the Holy One this morning in one of the songs that we sang, didn't we? I want to know you, Jesus, my Lord.

King of the heavens, king of my soul. I trade my treasures and all my rewards. Jesus to know you, Jesus to know you, and then know you more.

And I love that last line. That last line. Jesus to know you, and then know you more. Because there's always something more that we can learn about him if we're simply in the word, if we're simply trying to find it.

So, the wisest man who ever lived said, knowledge of the Holy One is insight. I want to take a quick leap now out of the Old Testament into the New Testament.

And I want to look at something that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians that sounds pretty similar to what Solomon has been saying in Proverbs here. Look one more time at that theme verse.

Proverbs 1-7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Then look at Paul's words.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

And basically, we have two Testaments addressing the same problem here. The problem that the human heart in its fallen state just doesn't just struggle with true wisdom.

It actively resists it. Now, Proverbs, from the Old Testament, was written to God's people under the Old Covenant.

Paul, on the other hand, is writing to the church in Corinth, to believers under the New Covenant. So, what additional advantage to gaining wisdom and knowledge did these believers have that the people in Proverbs didn't?

Had the Holy Spirit, right? Proverbs was written to God's people under the Old Covenant, warning them not to live like fools.

Paul's writing to the church, and he's explaining why the world can't grasp the gospel at all. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

We sang about this, too, in Holy, Holy, Holy. Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see. So, Paul is saying that things that are spiritually discerned are only understandable when you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, and you're spiritually mature.

And when we go a few verses further, we can see from what Paul says to the Corinthians that it is possible to be saved, but to still not be very spiritually mature or spiritually discerning.

Verse 15 goes on. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. In other words, the saved person, who is spiritually mature, judges all things, but he himself is to be judged by no one.

Goes on. For who has understood the mind of the Lord as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Now watch this. But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Now, these people were obviously saved.

They were members of the Corinthian church, and when Paul had originally come and preached Christ to them, they believed. By faith, they were justified and granted peace with God.

But at that time, their way of thinking and living was only just beginning to be transformed. They were still greatly influenced by worldly thinking and behavior.

Like Paul said, they were infants in Christ. They didn't understand that the message of the cross included more than justification only.

It also includes sanctification. Now, it is definitely true that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Jesus Christ alone.

There's nothing we could ever do to earn it. Nothing we could ever do to deserve it. It is simply the free gift of God. And the instant, the instant that we accept that incredible gift, we are indwelt with the Holy Spirit.

But, but, once we've accepted that incredible gift, then comes the hard part, right? Then comes this fancy seminary word called sanctification.

Then comes the process of letting go of the things that the Holy Spirit and God's word convict us that we need to let go of. And a lot of the Corinthian believers were not ready, and they were not willing to do that.

As are an awful lot of Christians in our present day and age, right? But when we commit to not being conformed to this world, but being led by the Spirit, and we allow our minds to be transformed by the word of God on a daily basis, something pretty incredible happens, doesn't it?

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

that you may discern what is the will of God. Or, in other words, that you may be spiritually mature.

That you may gain wisdom and knowledge and gain insight. And it's not something that happens overnight. It's an ongoing process, and it's something that we will all wrestle with from the moment we're saved until whenever it is that the Lord takes us home.

And it is the one thing that can make everything else make perfect sense. If we daily commit to be led by the Spirit, and we continually look to God's word for guidance, there is nothing that his word won't address.

There's nothing that his word won't help us to make sense of. In the time that I have left here, I'd like to touch on just a few things in the recent news that when I take my eyes off of Scripture, I really struggle with.

One is what happened to Charlie Kirk. We, you know, we just hit the year anniversary of his murder. And Charlie Kirk was gunned down a little over a year ago on the grounds of an institution of higher learning.

simply because he was committed to speaking the truth about God. Let that sink in for a minute.

Okay? He was gunned down at an institution of higher learning for speaking the truth about God.

The very thing that Scripture tells us makes knowledge or higher learning even possible. And on the year anniversary of that terrible day, we had people around the country celebrating in the streets, talking about how he deserved what he got.

And people vandalizing, desecrating, spray painting monuments to him that people that loved him put up in his honor.

It'll kind of make your head spin if you let it, won't it? What does Scripture say that can help us?

Well, for one, it says, that we saw earlier, fools despise wisdom and instruction. It also says this.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Indeed, they will. We would be hard-pressed to find a public figure in this day and age that desired to live a godly life in Christ Jesus more than Charlie Kirk did, wouldn't we?

And there's this from John's Gospel. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. I've got to be careful here.

Not that I would ever recommend anyone here take spiritual advice from Elon Musk, but he said something at Charlie Kirk's memorial that was so right on.

I saw this clip. He was walking in, and a reporter kind of grabbed a hold of him and said, Elon, why did they kill Charlie?

And he said, he was killed because his words made a difference, because he was showing people the light, and he was killed by the darkness.

Pretty well said, Elon. Pretty well said. Everyone who does evil hates the light. Doesn't make it any easier to stomach, but it does make it make sense, doesn't it?

Another thing that I've been scratching my head has made me scratch my head as of late, and I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but I just have to.

It's the amount of support around the area that I'm seeing for a candidate who's running for U.S. Senate in the state of Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed is a Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, and though he won't come right out and say it, he won't come right out and say that he's a Democratic socialist, he's good friends with and has repeatedly campaigned with a guy named Hassan Piker.

Anybody familiar with Hassan Piker? Hassan Piker is a dues-paying member of Democratic Socialists of America who has said, among other things, that the United States completely deserved 9-11.

And what gets me is that you can drive past the homes of retired school teachers, of retired history teachers, of retired college professors for that fact, and see signs supporting a candidate who, if he had his way, would do away with so many of the things that have made this country great.

So many of the very things that have made it possible for them to be a teacher and to have a career and to have a good lifestyle. It reminds me of a phrase that Paul uses in 2 Timothy.

Always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. And I think it's just it's proof that just because you are intellectually active, just because you have a lot of initials in front of your name, just because you may have spent your entire career in the academic world.

It doesn't mean that you can't completely miss basic, underlying, foundational truth because it's spiritually discerned.

the last snapshot I'll call it of how crazy our world has become that I'll mention this morning is the Lindsay Clancy trial.

How is it possible that a woman who admittedly murders her three children has a fan base that has raised millions of dollars to support her?

How is it possible that one person one person on the whole jury had the courage had the courage to say no I think she needs to be held accountable in some way did?

How is it possible that the news media the news media leaks the lone holdout jurors address to the public so that they can find him and harass him and threaten him and basically ruin him?

and again scriptures have an answer but understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty times of difficulty a little bit of an understatement Paul verse 2 for people will be lovers of self lovers of money proud arrogant abusive disobedient to their parents ungrateful unholy verse 3 heartless unappeasable slanderous without self-control brutal not loving good verse 4 treacherous reckless swollen with conceit lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God can I just stop there do I have to go any further scripture tells us that it's going to get really really bad and it has it shouldn't surprise us one bit it should make perfect sense and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better think about this since 1973

Roe versus Wade there have been over 65 million legal abortions in the United States legal abortions Jews over 10 times the number of Jews that were slaughtered in the Holocaust is it any wonder that a country whose people would allow 65 million babies to be aborted is it hard to imagine that they would somehow find a way to justify a mother killing three children no not really there was there was a point in the trial where and it was long before jury deliberation that the defense actually petitioned the court for a mistrial because one of the prosecution witnesses brought up the subject of mortal sin and the defense argued that religious terminology and the idea of sin has no business being in a court of law really we're going to completely do away with the whole idea of sin now and the devil kicks up his heels doesn't he because anyone anywhere to come to a saving knowledge of

Jesus Christ the first thing that you have to realize is that you are that we all are sinners who are in desperate need of a savior how many generations of parents telling their kids you know I don't really agree with what's going on I don't really agree with what they're doing but you know it's it's not affecting me directly you know so I don't want to make a fuss how how many generations of that will it take until the whole idea of sin just floats away on the breeze

I I'm gonna steal a quote that I saw that Jeff posted on Facebook a few days ago from J.C.

Ryle when a generation tolerates sin the next generation will celebrate it and the generation after them won't even know it's sin and that's where we're headed if we're not already there and that's why now more than ever we need to be spiritually mature and the only way that we can do that is to be renewing our minds every day with the truth of the word of God amen let's pray Lord we need you so much we need your word so much we live in a world that grows more hostile to you every day and every day we see the fruit of a society that rejects your authority but it shouldn't surprise us

Lord your word tells us in so many different places that it was coming but your word also tells us how to navigate it and Lord I pray that we would choose to be in your word daily so that we can gain the wisdom and knowledge and insight that we need to do just that Lord help us to be spiritually mature not just so that we can make sense of a world that has gone crazy but also so that we can recognize the opportunities to share your truth as they arise right in front of us Lord may it be our goal to know you a little bit better every day and the next day to know you more thank you for saving us thank you for the promise of the day that is coming when all of this present darkness will be gone and every tear will be wiped away we love you Lord and we could never thank you enough amen may