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[0:00] your Bibles and turn to 1 Kings chapter 3. If I can sort of preface this reading just a little bit, you might remember that we did a message on Philemon where we addressed the issue of justice, true justice. We addressed the issue of the death penalty and, you know, these issues that are, well, in America they're issues of real concern, over here not in the same way. But in that message we addressed Solomon's decision and also the decision of one mother in particular of the child that was still alive. And so with this in mind we come to that reading now and it's 1 Kings 3 verses 16 through to the end of chapter 3. Now this is quite a familiar story.

[1:03] It's one that I don't think that many of us would have not heard about and it is the very test of Solomon's wisdom. So now hear God's word. Let me just set the context. Solomon has asked God for wisdom. God is granted him wisdom and many other things and sure enough in the following day and time he is faced with a situation that requires immediate wisdom. Okay, so this is wisdom put on trial or wisdom put to the test. So we pick it up in verse 16. Now hear God's word.

[1:42] Then two prostitutes came over to the king and stood before him. The one woman said, Oh my lord, this woman and I live in the same house and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth and we were all alone.

[2:07] There was no one else with us in the house. Only we two were in the house. And this woman's son died in the night because she lay on him. And she rose at midnight and took my son from beside me while your servant slept and laid him at her breast and laid her dead son at my breast. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he was not the child that I had born. But the other woman said, No, the living child is mine and the dead child is yours. The first said, No, the dead child is yours and the living child is mine.

[2:59] Thus they spoke before the king. Then the king said, One says, This is my son that is alive and your son is dead. And the other says, No, but your son is dead and my son is the living one. And the king said, Bring me a sword. So a sword was brought before the king and the king said, Divide the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other. Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, Oh, my Lord, give her the living child as by no means put him to death. But the other said, He shall neither be mine nor yours. Divide him. Then the king answered and said, Give the living child to the first woman and by no means put him to death, for she is his mother.

[3:57] And all Israel heard of his judgment and the king had rendered, that the king had rendered. And they stood in awe of the king because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.

[4:15] Well, may God bless his word to us. It may be found in Sunday school material, but it really is an adult situation that needs dealing with. We're going to come back to that after this next song. So we'll do that now. Thank you. Well, if you have God's word before you, that'll be helpful. It is a fairly memorable account, one that most people will, at least once they've heard once, probably wouldn't forget about. It might forget some of the details, but you're not likely to forget the general gist of the story. Last week, we addressed the issue of guidance. The issue was an important issue because it considered how God guides with the four external guides that God uses, which are God's power to transform and to change things on the go. God is not just a God who plans, but God is a God who constantly interacts with the world. It's known as providence. He continually cares. And for that reason, nothing ever takes God by surprise, and God can take care of things on the go, multiple things at once. Well, that's crucial for guidance, but also what's crucial for guidance are the three internal qualities or the three qualities that the person needs, okay? So there's external guidance, and then there is internal guidance. And the way that God guides a person through is that these externals and internals marry up. And when they marry up and they gel, then guidance becomes easy, okay? Guidance generally is fairly straightforward. But when the external matches with the internal, when the qualities that God has given you match with his external guides and they come together, then paths are straight, okay? God makes straight paths for those who acknowledge him. And that's how he does it, okay? The proverb says, God makes your paths straight if you acknowledge him, and that's how he makes the paths straight. Now, simply put, this means that we should have no reason to be anxious, right? We have no reason to worry about anything. That means anything at all. But for some of us, even though we know that to be true, we find it hard to be convinced by the truth. Okay, I want to say that again. Just because you know something to be true, it doesn't mean that you are convinced by that truth. And that's where the difficulty lies, okay? God tells you not to be anxious about anything. He tells you all the reasons why you shouldn't be anxious. You know it's true. You know deep down in your heart that it's true.

[7:25] But on a daily basis, you're not convinced by the truth. You're not convinced. And that's where the difficulty lies. Now, God's not angry at you for that, okay? Because God is gracious and caring. But it is one of those difficulties that we really ought to discern. That I am able to be convinced, I am able to know the truth and not be convinced by it in my daily life. It seems an oxymoron. It seems like a strange mix. But it is a mix found in every Christian's life. To know the truth and to not be convinced by it or convicted by it. So when you think, what am I going to do next? And many of you have thought that, okay? Pre-retirement, in retirement, okay? Pre-marriage, post-marriage, wherever you are, okay? There always comes the question of what do I do now? What do I do next?

[8:22] Okay? And the moment you're doing that, you're determining, you're weighing up pros and cons. You're weighing up the four areas that God gives. You're weighing up the three abilities that correspond with them. You're trying to pick out the indicators that God has given you, and so that you can be guided all along. Now, on top of this, God gives you the knowledge of what is right and wrong. So that should make things a lot easier. You're not allowed to advance your life in this world by doing wrong things.

[8:51] Even if it does get you ahead, okay? The Christian who does the lottery, okay? There's two things wrong with a Christian that does the lottery. One, they're not very good at mass, okay? That's the first thing.

[9:05] The first thing. The second thing is, is that they're trying to get ahead by luck. They're trying to get ahead in life by a quick momentary, you know, boom, done it. I'm just flush with cash all of a sudden, okay? Now, that is the bigger issue. The issue of trying to grab for things ahead of time when you're not mature enough to handle them. That is the very thing that caused the world to fall into sin, okay? That's the very thing to cause the world to fall into sin. And then God gives us his Holy Spirit to guide us through right and wrong, okay? So that we would walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. Now, that's fine when you're making decisions for you. But here we have a situation where someone has to make a decision for somebody else. Therefore, last week it was about personal guidance. This week, in many ways, it is about how wisdom guides a person to make a wise decision concerning one or two or more other people. Now, biblically speaking, the person who gets authority from God is the person who takes responsibility, okay? You don't get authority by being given a position. Now, sometimes that happens. But in God's economy, the way a person receives authority from God is by the amount of responsibility they take in the home, in the church, wherever it is.

[10:38] So authority always flows to the person who always takes responsibility. This is why, you know, titles alone convey nothing. What conveys authority is the fact that the person in that position takes responsibility. Now, when you're taking responsibility in any situation for yourself, okay, the consequences become your own, okay? But when there's other people to consider, such as Elimelech, not considering his wife and his children, okay, that was, he made a terrible situation, made worse by making a terrible decision to leave God's people and where God wanted him. He died, his two children died, and he left his wife all alone in the world, okay? Bad decision. But it's not just a bad decision, it was a wrong decision.

[11:35] It was a wrong, right from the beginning, it was wrong, because he was considering nothing more than being motivated by his own unfaithfulness towards God, and that affected everyone else around him. Well, Solomon finds himself in a position of authority because he's king.

[11:56] David was the king, and now he recognizes in his prayer to God that if I have this authority, or at least I have the position of authority in a king, that responsibility comes with that.

[12:09] responsibility comes with that. Now, responsibility is something that you grow into, okay? This is crucially important because the sin that Adam and Eve committed by grabbing for more ahead of time, before they were mature enough to have it, is a sin spotted in every teenager growing up.

[12:31] And PJ O'Rourke, I've mentioned this before, highlights it brilliantly. He says this, every kid wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mum with the dishes, okay? Everyone wants to save the world, but nobody wants to help mum with the dishes. The temptation to, I want the big and great things, because they come with status, okay, is grabbing for something over your maturity limit.

[12:57] You're not there, you're not able to handle that responsibility because you haven't gone up through the stages, okay? Jesus nailed it when he says, first be faithful in the little things, okay? Be faithful there. Be faithful where no one can see. Be faithful where only I can take notice of it.

[13:17] And when you're faithful there, then suddenly all these other things will start, you know, the kind of status that you might want, I may not give to you. But nevertheless, if you're faithful in the small things, I know, I know that when the day comes, you will be faithful in the big things.

[13:33] People who think that they can jump over the little things and automatically be able to handle big things are in for a rude awakening, because they do not have the necessary maturity, which happens over a period of time to be able to handle that kind of responsibility. What they really want, what they're really looking for, is often the position, not the responsibility that comes with it, okay? I'd love to be in that person's position, but when I look at that person in his position or her in her position, I'm probably not thinking at all of the amount of responsibility that person has for why they have that position, okay? And we've all come across people who find themselves in positions of power and then crumble immediately because they were never ready for it, or they were not the right person for it. You know, this can be as simple as people getting married before they're ready to get married. You know, this could be a number of other things before you're ready to handle it. So here we have Solomon. He has a position of authority.

[14:44] He has to take responsibility. And now he has to take responsibility for something that he didn't even witness. He is trying to understand what's gone on. He's trying to understand what has happened.

[14:56] And he doesn't know what he does know, but he doesn't know what happened and who did what until he's told. Now, he is already at this point prayed for God, to God to give him wisdom. And God rightly has given him so much more, okay? God in his rightness, in his justice, in his goodness, is just poured out blessing upon blessing upon Solomon because Solomon didn't ask for money, didn't ask for riches. He asks for wisdom, lots of wisdom. Why? Because he understands that the position that he has is going to require it. I'm going to have to judge between right and wrong.

[15:38] I'm going to have to make decisions for other people when the differences may not be all that clear. Now, there is always a right and a wrong, okay? But there are different measures of right and wrong because we live in a world where things are complicated. But when Solomon asks for wisdom rather than the riches, he understands his own proverb, which he writes at a point in his life, where he says, a fool in his money is easily parted, okay? Solomon knows that wisdom is a greater wealth than money. Because if you don't have the necessary wisdom to handle the money, then a fool in his money are easily parted, okay? Solomon understands which is the greater wealth. And I said before, on a practical note for you Christians, for me as a Christian as well, there are some blessings that only arrive in your life when they can arrive into an area that can contain them, when they can arrive into an area that can have them, okay? In other words, there are some blessings that can only be handled by prayer, okay? You need to be a praying person to be able to handle these blessings.

[16:51] And God, in his absolute knowledge, will withhold those blessings because he knows if he gives them to you, even though they're good, they won't be good for you because you won't be able to handle them, okay? We've all known children who, I can remember the first money problem I ever had. I was about eight years old and I had like birthday money, I had five pounds. It's the first time I'd ever come across line money, paper money. It's the first, I've actually got money that's paper this time.

[17:25] I mean, you know, the card isn't heavy, it's light. This is exciting, you know? And then my nan says, you're going to have to keep your money safe. Let's go ahead and buy a wallet. And the trouble was, the wallet was five pounds. And so my money problem disappeared, okay? Right? Because, so these levels of maturity kick in over time, you begin to learn different things, okay? And wallets are good for containing when you've got the wealth to contain them. And in many ways, God wants you to be mature enough to be able to handle the blessings that he wants to pour out on your life. So there's a real responsibility for you and for me and for all of us to keep growing, to keep growing. Because as we grow more and more, we're able to handle more and more, okay? Never be content to no longer strive for greater godliness. Never be content with that. Always continue to grow. So Solomon is here. He's in the position where he has been given wisdom and now this wisdom is going to be tested. He has to apply it to a real life situation. And there are several things here to consider. How is he going to demonstrate his wisdom? What is he going to do? What levels of discernment will he need? Now, there's one thing that needs pointing out right off the get-go, that Solomon already knows on a human level, because he's been brought up by people, the difference between right and wrong. And I also want to point out, as by way of illustration, that Adam and Eve knew the difference between good and evil before they ate from the knowledge of tree of the good and evil.

[19:10] They had to have. This is something that Hebrews points to, okay? If Adam didn't know the difference between what was good and bad, then when he took from the tree of knowledge of the good and bad, he couldn't have known whether or not he was doing anything wrong. If he didn't have a pre-understanding of what was right and what was wrong, he couldn't have known upon taking that he was doing anything wrong. He had to have had a general knowledge, a basic knowledge of what is right and wrong, and he got it from God when he says, do not eat, okay? And the reason we know that to be the case is because when they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God doesn't say, oh, they've become like the devil. He says, oh, they've become like one of us, okay? The tree of knowledge of good and evil was a good thing. It was prohibited, but it was a prohibited good thing.

[20:06] It was something that Adam and Eve were to grow into. They were to grow into that knowledge of good and evil, but what they did was grab for it ahead of time when they were not ready for it.

[20:18] And Hebrews highlights this when it says, you know, the mature one is able to handle mature things so that they can discern the difference between good and evil. So Solomon already knows the difference between good and evil, but what he doesn't know is the wisdom that only God can give. If you look at this situation and think, I could have figured that out, okay, because I'm smart, you're missing the point. The point here is that this particular situation here could not have been figured out without Solomon receiving the wisdom that God had for him. And the reason being is because it's a difficult situation the more you think about it. Solomon understands that many things in this world run the way God has ordered them. Well, all of them run the way God has ordered them.

[21:15] And so he knows that my natural ability alone, his natural ability alone, is not enough to get things right. Okay? What God's wisdom gives to Solomon is how to get something right in a situation that he could not get right all by himself. And that's the reason you should cry out for wisdom.

[21:36] It's the reason I should cry out for wisdom. What do you do when you don't know what to do? Okay? What do you do when you don't know what to do? Well, what you do is you don't try and sit down with a notepad and figure it out. Because all you're figuring out is the reality that you don't know. You're going to go around in circles. What you need to do is, like Solomon does, is ask God for wisdom. That there's a knowledge outside of myself that I need to handle this situation. Because with my own ability, my own powers of discernment means that I'm going to mess it up. I'm going to get it wrong. He knows that he needs a greater knowledge. He knows that he needs a greater sense of wisdom.

[22:21] And God will give it to the person who asks. That's what James says. Just ask and I'll give it to you. But ask. It's there for the taking. But ask for it. So what do you do when you don't know what to do?

[22:34] Well, ask for wisdom. Okay? And God gives. Now, the first thing to notice here, it's clear from verse 19 that the woman who laid on her son and killed him either did it via an accident and that her son was sleeping too close to her in the same bed and she's a deep sleeper, you know, a real heavy sleeper. She's not woken by her child crying for milk at two or three in the morning and she rolls over. And as an accident, he passes away. Well, that could be, but it could also be negligence. If she knows that she's a heavy sleeper and she knows that she, right, then she should have also known that I can't have my child in the same bed as me. I can't have them that close because, right, something wrong could go.

[23:35] But at this point, nobody knows. Is it an accident or is it negligence? Okay? Nobody knows. Now, you would imagine that if it was an accident, that certain things would accompany that. Grief, guilt. What have I done? What have I done? How stupid am I? How am I going to live with this? You would imagine a mother who rolled over onto her child purely by accident that those type of emotions would probably stir.

[24:07] You would kind of, right, your natural levels of discernment would probably lead you to that. But here, it doesn't lead to any of that, only deception. One of the mothers is claiming that this is her son when it's not her son. There's no grief here. There's no sense of guilt, not even for claiming a child be hers when it isn't. And so, immediately, you have to deal with two people with deception. There's nothing clear here. There's nothing plain and simple. And so, from reactions alone, simply by looking at these two women and judging their reactions, from their reactions alone, Solomon knows that it's impossible to tell which one is the real mother.

[24:55] And yet, how often do we, how often do we make judgments based on reactions? I know what's going on there. Now, some of us, by God, have been given certain levels, I truly believe, of wisdom, that discernment, as it says in the scriptures. To be able to look into another person's life and hit the nail on the head every time. Some people have got that, not too many, because it is a gift given by God. But Solomon, at this stage, doesn't know simply by looking at them. He recognizes that it's simply one mother's word against another. Who do I believe? You say this, she says that, she says this, you say that. Where do I stand? Or where do you stand? Well, Solomon does something that none of us would imagine doing. Right? Bring me a sword. Now, the issue that Solomon's trying to get to by asking for a sword is not, he's not at this point trying to discover the truth. It's quite obvious, later on, that he already knows which one is the real mother. But I think he knows that, not because of what he's witnessing, but because of the wisdom given to him. But what he's doing now is, I think he's validating his conviction. He's trying to validate, can I get the truth out? If my wisdom that God has given me is the ability to discern the difference between good and evil, then somewhere along the line, one mother is going to be acting for the goodness, and the other mother is going to demonstrate levels of evilness or badness, whatever it may be.

[26:35] This is going to come out, the further we go down this road, there's going to be a break somewhere. One of them's going to break. And so bring me a sword, not to determine the truth, but rather to validate what I think he already knows. Trying to discern which mother's heart is full of goodness, and which mother's heart is full of that which is evil. Now, the real mother, we know, speaks up.

[27:01] And she says, don't kill my baby. Don't give the child to the other woman. Don't divide him. Do not kill him. Now, on this level, we can clearly see that this is a mother who puts her child's interest before her own, even at the cost of her never having the child again. Okay, such is her love for the child, that she wants the child to stay alive. Very similar to Moses' mother, putting him in a basket and sending him on the Nile, rather than him be dead. So, in the circumstance, she's making the good decision. It's not good that mothers give their children away, but given this circumstance, it's a very good thing. Okay? In the same today, some mothers, okay, who are not able to look after their children and give them away, okay, are acting in the best interest of the child. Okay, that is a good thing. Is it a good thing that a child is away from their real mother? Probably not.

[27:59] Probably not. But given the circumstance, which is the good thing? And here, this mother is willing for the other woman to have her child, even though she knows, even though she knows that the other woman has laid on her child, and the child's died. But she knows that at this momentary moment, I know that I have a way of at least extending the lifespan of my child so that the truth may come out in the end. Let the other woman have the child. She is putting the child's interest before her own, and she is willing to suffer the injustice of not being believed. Okay. But now, this is where Solomon needs to be careful, because we want to go, well, it's easy. Now we know who the real mother is.

[28:49] No. How can you know who the real mother is? Well, because only a real mother would speak like that. You sure about that? You see, Solomon understands that if there's already deception in the camp, and that one mother has already lied, how do you know that this isn't the lying mother simply to double bluff you?

[29:15] Because if she knows, if she's deceitful enough to know that a real mother would speak like that, how do you not know she got there first? Or let the other woman have her, right? How do you know she's not double bluffing you? Because if she's the deceitful type, she's the type to do that sort of thing. So Solomon knows it's not a straightforward situation here. People do do that. People do do the double bluff, because if their heart is full of deception to begin with, they know how to deceive further down the line. Okay. So she could have got there first. A real mother would say this, so guess what? I'm going to say it before she does. Right? Because we all know, don't we, that the person who speaks first is the one that's often believed. Right? This is why Proverbs says, you know, don't listen just to one person, but to the one who speaks first seems right until the next person comes along and says something different. Okay? So when you're dealing with people who are like that, how does Solomon know? If Solomon is faced with a mother, at least, who's already deceived him, in the sense she's told a lie that this is my son when it isn't my son, the truth only comes out in verse 26, where the envy is seen. She does not want the other woman to have the child. She would rather have the child divided than the child stay alive.

[30:53] Well, she sort of reveals her heart, doesn't she? Her interests are not actually in the child. And therefore, is it quite possible that she didn't actually lay on her own child accidentally, but it was an act of negligence? In other words, you begin to build a picture here now.

[31:18] Now, I understand that grief and sorrow can make people do silly things. But this is beyond that now.

[31:29] This is beyond any kind of grief or sorrow. What you're witnessing now in verse 26 is a mother who is envy. You know the difference between jealousy and envy, don't you? Jealousy is wanting what somebody else has. Okay? That is human jealousy. When it says that God is jealous, God is wanting that which belongs to him. So it's not the same kind of jealousy. But human jealousy is wanting something that someone else has. But envy is not wanting the other person to have it.

[32:04] So when you're envious, it's beyond jealousy. You've gone beyond the point of wanting what they have to the point where you now don't want them to have it. And this is where this woman is. Whatever reason she is envious, who knows? But the fact is, she would rather have the child die than the other woman have her. And only at this point does Solomon say, keep the child alive and give her to the first woman, for she is the real mother. Here's a few considerations as we close. The thing to notice about all of this is that wisdom is a gift from God. Wisdom is not part of your natural ability. In other words, there are some things that you could never ever get right without God's wisdom. Okay? God's wisdom is the additional ability given to men and women, boys and girls, those who ask for it, so that they can use it in everyday life. Especially when you have to use it when you're making decisions and other people are involved. Jesus is described as the power and the wisdom of God, and therefore to become like Jesus is to become wise. But a distinction needs to be made here, because when God is wise,

[33:32] God is not relying on wisdom. God is wisdom. God is not relying on something that he is lacking in himself. God is wisdom. But when we rely on wisdom, we are relying on God. We are relying on the very necessary ingredient that we need to make decisions. This is why we are to ask God for it.

[33:57] So the distinction that we then have to make is this one. How do I tell the difference between the two? God wants me to keep my mind and heart filled with his wisdom. He wants me to ask for it so that when I need it, it's there to use. I know how to use it. But how do I know whether or not my heart's full of wisdom? How do I know whether or not my mind and heart is full of wisdom together? If I'm unable to tell the difference between what I think and what God thinks, if I'm unable to tell the difference between my words and God's words, if I'm unable to tell the difference between my level of wisdom and God's wisdom, how am I ever to tell the difference whether or not my life is full of God's wisdom or my own? Okay, if I can't tell the difference, I can't actually tell whether or not these are good thoughts, these are wise thoughts from God, or if these are just my own clever concoctions. And that's all that they are. So there's a level of wisdom here that's needed even before you begin to practice it. And that is the ability to be able to tell the difference between your cleverness and God's wisdom. Okay, a clever person is not necessarily a wise person. A person who reads a lot of books is not necessarily a wise person. Okay, a person who's got several PhDs is not necessarily a wise person. They're not the things that make a person wise. Why? Because wisdom, you can't sit a course for wisdom. You can't go to college and learn, do three years in God's wisdom because wisdom is a gift. It is a gift that works like manna, that you use it when it has been given to you, but if you store it up and think, well, I'll just keep it and it'll be there when I need it, and yet my heart can drift far from God, it will not work. Wisdom is like a waterfall. It has to be constantly flowing into your life so that it can be used all the time. It is to be stored, but it's to be stored in that way, like a constant flowing river, like a constant flowing waterfall.

[36:12] Your life is to continually be filled with it because you're to continually live wisely in this world. So let's conclude. It is possible for you to leave here this evening or to leave any congregation at any point and struggle with God's wisdom. In other words, one of the things that God's wisdom does the moment it comes into your life is that it begins to tell you off for all those areas that you thought were gray that are actually black and white. Now, I understand that there are complex difficult, there are complex issues that require carefulness. You know, was it good that Moses, was it good that Moses' mother put him in a basket and send him down the Nile? Well, in comparison to the alternative, it was very good. Okay, there are those differences. We say, well, that's a gray area.

[37:04] Well, not really. Not really. It was a straightforward, simple one, given God's wisdom and your desire to keep a person alive. But when wisdom resides in the heart, okay, we can be quite defensive because we want to maintain that's a gray area. And God's saying it's not a gray area. And one of the difficulties that you can have in the church is the difficulty of the distinctions that people make. Well, that's a gray area, so we can't do anything about it. Well, actually, it's a black and white issue. You can easily do something about it. Solomon, when he has been given wisdom, it is wisdom to discern the difference between two. And God's wisdom is not just the ability to be able to tell the difference between black and white. It's the ability to be able to tell the difference between white and off-white.

[37:59] Okay, it's that kind of wisdom. Now, that doesn't mean that if you speak wisdom to someone, they will listen. Okay, Proverbs is full of that. It constantly speaks to a people who choose not to listen. But what it does mean is this, that when you make decisions and you have God's wisdom, they're hardly ever going to be pragmatic ones. In the sense is, I'm doing this because it works.

[38:27] I'm doing it because it's convenient. The reason you will do it is because it's either right or wrong. Okay, Solomon's wisdom allows him to act in accordance, not with what is pragmatically beneficial here, not we'll keep the peace in the long run or in the short run, not what is convenient for me at this particular time because I can't be bothered to deal with these two women right now.

[38:52] Okay, true biblical wisdom received from God will always operate along the lines of what is good and evil. Will always cause you to respond to everything in the context of what is right and what is wrong.

[39:07] Imagine it like this, and with this I'll finish. When people or a person or even a pastor or whoever it might be sees difficulties on the horizon, okay, the storm clouds are coming, there are always two responses. Do I put on my all-weather gear and get ready to fight this storm? Or do I shut the doors and pretend it's going to blow over? Or do I get on a plane and go somewhere where it's nice?

[39:37] Okay, the three options are there for all of us in everyday life. Do I face it face on? Okay, do I lock myself away pretending that it'll blow over? Or do I leave? Now, without God's wisdom, okay, without God's wisdom, they all get worse very, very quickly. Very, very quickly. People's feet begin to move out of convenience, not out of conviction. Okay, if I don't have to face it, okay, then I don't have to face it. But do you know what that's called? That's called not taking responsibility.

[40:16] That's called stepping back into immaturity rather than stepping forward into the maturity that God has given you. Do you know what? It's easy not to deal with things, isn't it? It's easy to leave it to the next person, okay? It's really easy to do that. But the trouble is, is if the next person isn't like you who has left it, then he has more to pick up. He has more to deal with. And therefore, more wisdom is needed. So if you, depending on what type of person you are, it really doesn't matter. Both of you, both type of people need God's wisdom. And so wherever you are, ask for it. Ask God for wisdom. Amen.