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1:19
Welcome back to The Forging Table.
1:27
The mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
1:30
forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:33
At The Forging Table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience
1:36
by digging into God's Word, and we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey with
1:40
us.
1:41
That's Matt.
1:42
That's Eric.
1:43
That's Caleb.
1:44
But before we dig into Provers 1, Caleb, I noticed something before we started recording.
1:47
Could you? Yeah, let's just keep this spot in your Bible.
1:50
I just want to turn it over and wait a minute.
1:53
That is your wife's name.
1:54
I don't know if we're allowed to say her name on this show because we don't need anybody
1:57
looking her up.
1:59
But is there a reason why you don't have a Bible?
2:01
Is your wife running the spiritualness of your household?
2:06
Help me understand.
2:07
And then give me my pin back because I use it as a marker inside of there.
2:10
It depends on mine.
2:11
What's going on?
2:12
Mine is missing a lot of pages.
2:13
You know, it's been through a lot over the years.
2:15
When you say missing pages, OK, I'm the cult, man.
2:18
He couldn't be coming to read some of that, so I didn't share it now.
2:21
Yeah, for those of you that don't get that joke, go back a couple of months ago because
2:25
Caleb used to be in a cult with his entire family.
2:28
But I mean, you do know they have like stores with Bibles where you can get like your name
2:33
on it and stuff like that.
2:34
So guys, we're going to be putting a GoFundMe together so that we can get Caleb his own Bible
2:38
with his name on it.
2:40
We can certainly make that happen.
2:41
But we're digging into Provers 1 today.
2:43
So we are going to announce a little bit later, but we're going to do a couple of different
2:48
Proverbs and then we got something big and special for you guys, which we'll announce
2:52
next week on the show, but we're going to do Proverbs 1 today.
2:56
And the thing that's interesting about the Proverbs, guys, is not only could you just
2:59
like flip through Proverbs and just stop your finger on one chapter, you can kind of do that
3:05
with one verse inside of the Proverbs.
3:08
And so it's different than if you're reading a gospel or a prophet or something like that.
3:14
And so I don't know how Proverbs was treated as you guys were growing up because again,
3:18
I didn't grow up in the church.
3:20
But Proverbs was always like that if you just hate reading the Bible or you've never read
3:24
it before, it's like read John or read Proverbs.
3:26
And so I don't know, it seems more profound than that, but it does seem like kind of an
3:31
easy place to land for the Bible.
3:33
Yeah, one of the things that I took away from this as I was studying is as I read this,
3:39
I was like, well, are these are these promises or what and as I found out, God's character
3:48
is what gives us his promises.
3:50
But the interesting thing about Proverbs is it kind of deals more with probabilities.
3:56
If you behave this way, then this is likely to happen, but it's not always, but growing
4:02
up, you know, this was treated kind of to be, well, to be quite honest, we didn't read
4:06
it a whole lot.
4:07
But it was, as you said, it's like just open it up and put your finger in and picks on
4:12
the, you know, because it's almost all applicable.
4:14
Very, very practical.
4:15
I agree.
4:16
I think it's very easy to read.
4:18
And like you said, you could literally just open up and point to one and you're going
4:21
to get something out of that.
4:23
But as I was preparing for this, I really like what Charles Spurgeon says about the
4:28
Proverbs.
4:29
And he says, to sum up what he thinks about it, he says, listen to the wise words of Solomon,
4:33
one of the wisest men to ever live.
4:35
And he says, they're not merely jewels from earthly minds, but they are also precious
4:39
treasures from the heavenly hills.
4:41
So that the advice we have here is not only the counsel of a wise man, but the advice of
4:48
the incarnate wisdom who speaks to us out of the word of God.
4:51
And I just thought that was like, this isn't just Solomon talking to us.
4:55
This is God saying, here are things to keep in mind.
4:58
Here is some advice for you to take with you always.
5:02
Well, and this is, you mentioned the word wisdom.
5:05
This is in the wisdom literature section.
5:07
So you got Proverbs, then you have Job, you have Ecclesiastes, you have Song of Solomon.
5:12
And the thing that I have to remind myself, because I, to be frank before I started preparing
5:15
for this episode, I didn't know what the word Proverbs meant.
5:18
I didn't know it was like, so to be like or wisdom in a nutshell, but that's kind of
5:23
what this is to that point I was making from the beginning, whether you do it at a chapter
5:26
at a time or a verse at a time.
5:28
It's wisdom in a nutshell, and one singular verse, there's one here coming up in this
5:32
first section that it's like, you can spend a week just thinking about that and trying
5:37
to figure that out.
5:38
And when you get into the dating of Proverbs and, you know, the first 24 chapters, we're
5:44
looking at like almost 1000 BC, okay, roughly.
5:49
And then again, again, because some people are like Solomon wrote it all, but others
5:52
are like, you know, King Hezekiah is a man kind of gathered them all the wise people.
5:56
For the oracles, there were some, let me well, I think was another one like, we don't exactly
6:02
know all of these, but we're looking at somewhere between 2500 and 3000 years ago.
6:08
And I didn't read anything in the preparation for this section, where I was like, ah, that's
6:12
not really timely to me today in 2023.
6:15
I mean, how many times have we mentioned on the forging table, it's like, we're just
6:19
like these people.
6:20
We're just as dumb and we have 2000 years more of technology.
6:24
It simply just doesn't matter, but let's go and dig into Proverbs one.
6:28
And we're just going to take the person with the silky smoothness voice and man, you're
6:31
right across from me, try to keep your mustache off the microphone though, because it creates
6:35
a little friction.
6:36
If you can read one through seven versus one through seven of Proverbs one, you got it.
6:42
The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel to know wisdom and instruction to
6:48
understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing in righteousness, justice
6:54
and equity, to give prudence to the simple knowledge and discretion to the youth, let
7:00
the wise hear and increase in learning and the one who understands obtain guidance to
7:05
understand a proverb and saying the words of the wise and their riddles.
7:10
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction.
7:16
Okay, there's a whole lot there, but I want to kick us off by talking about verse five.
7:21
So let the wise hear and increase in learning and the one who understands obtain guidance
7:27
and then it goes on from there in verse six.
7:30
But I guess the thing that I wrote down as I was writing in my nifty note Bible being
7:36
wise doesn't mean that you've arrived.
7:39
And so if you're wise, because I think all of us have been around somebody that's wise
7:43
that we would consider to be wise regardless of their age, but they have capacity for more
7:48
wisdom.
7:49
Like it's not a, I guess it's not really a destination, you know, Browning you and I
7:53
were talking at church today about, you know, our fastest miles we've ever ran or something
7:56
like that.
7:57
And so if you attain a certain time, that doesn't mean your capacity for running is now complete.
8:04
Like there, there's more there, you may not be able to get any faster.
8:07
You may have ran as fast as your legs will ever carry you, but you have more capacity
8:11
for that. So that was the first thing I thought of to where it's like never stop trying to
8:15
attain wisdom.
8:16
That's the same thing I wrote. The need for learning never fades is what I wrote there.
8:21
That's so true. We should always be seeking knowledge and understanding wisdom.
8:25
Yeah, like at work, you know, one of the things that I really like about my job is I get to
8:30
interact with people consistently. And so people think, well, is this boring after a while?
8:35
I'm like, no, I didn't get boring after a while because I approach everybody that I
8:38
work with as an opportunity to learn something. I was like, you know, everybody's different.
8:43
Some people are kind of odd, but I feel like I can learn something from everyone.
8:46
So I take that into my workplace. And I think the Bible, it's the same way. We should go
8:51
into the Bible. It's not a book that we should read once and put away. Maybe we read it again
8:55
five or 10 years later. It's something that has something practical every single day for
9:00
every single day of your life forever, right? And something that can grow you in wisdom.
9:05
Something I thought about whenever you said that is I remember the first time I read How
9:09
to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Guys, it's on our 100 books, every
9:13
modern Christian man should read lists. It's on our website. It's on to that like backslash
9:16
book list. But even in the the intro of that book, they say, hey, you need to dust us off
9:22
and read it once a year. And I'm going to be honest with you, if you're a big reader,
9:25
do that. Like it's got such practical wisdom. But your point is spot on to where it's like,
9:32
it's not like every day wisdom in an every setting wisdom. It may be in your business
9:37
wisdom, maybe a little bit in your family wisdom. Maybe you could take some of that to
9:41
church or your Sunday school or something. But there is wisdom in the Bible to be found
9:46
and you don't have to search hard for it. Because I think some people they look at the
9:50
thickness of a Bible and they're like, Oh, man, I just don't even know where to start.
9:53
It's like you could literally start by flipping through it and just putting your finger down.
9:57
Like you may land on something random. But at the same time, there's wisdom to be gleaned
10:02
from all those different situations. And that's probably why like you've got Bible
10:06
plans that have a reading from the Old Testament, New Testament and then either Psalms or problems,
10:11
right? So you're getting a little bit of everything because they know it's so practical.
10:15
When I think of wisdom also, I think of it comes with a couple of things. And one of
10:19
those is like, typically, if you think of the person that you may think of as wise, it usually
10:23
is not an arrogant person. I think like if you look at that, verse five right there is
10:27
that they'll hear an increase in learning. And we know that people with who are arrogant
10:32
don't want to listen, right? And they think they already know everything. So I mean,
10:36
I think it comes with humility as well. And that's just kind of one of the things that
10:41
stands out to me about about wisdom and kind of the precursor to it, something that it comes
10:46
along with.
10:47
Yeah, I read a read about good to great forever ago. But I remember, you know, they were interviewing
10:51
these CEOs at companies that had done so very, very well forever. And one of the things that
10:57
they asked them is just, you know, what they, you know, what it was that they did that made
11:02
it happen. And they said that the consistent team with all these CEOs and owners was that
11:07
they, they were very humble. Like they didn't be like, yeah, yeah, I did this. I did that.
11:12
And I was kind of like, I was, I was there at the right time at the right place and, you
11:15
know, just it worked out.
11:17
Right.
11:18
And I know we'll get to it in verse seven. That's what I want to hear from you guys
11:21
about too, is just what you think of that. But, you know, it's also, you've heard, maybe
11:26
I don't know where it comes from, but like the first step to being wise is admitting that
11:29
you're not wise. Right. And that, and that is kind of the understanding that you don't
11:34
understand everything.
11:35
Well, let's go there now. Yeah, let's go there now because I think I described it this
11:39
way where every time I find a new subject matter, whether it's because of a book I'm reading
11:46
or I get a new injury. Eric is the guy that every time I break or hurt something, he's
11:51
the one to put it back together and fix it. But it's like, there's an entire world that
11:56
you didn't even know existed. And then you find this world and it's like, wait a minute,
12:00
10,000 people in the world have a PhD in this subject that I didn't know existed 24 hours
12:04
ago. And so the more you learn, the more you realize how ignorant you are. And, but then
12:10
you have so many guys, Caleb, to your point, walking through life thinking, you know, I
12:14
got my job figured out. I got my golf swing figured out. I got I got these things figured
12:18
out. Like I got it going on. I'm smart. And it's like, you're not you're not turning over
12:22
enough rocks. But when we go back to verse seven, it really is the hinge point of this
12:26
entire chapter. And because even if you go to the ESV, even before verse one, it says
12:32
the beginning of knowledge as like the section header, but the fear of the Lord is the beginning
12:38
or the foundation of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction. And I want you to
12:44
keep fools in mind when we get over to verses 2021 and 22. But the whole time I'm reading
12:50
that it's not going to be a shocked anybody. I mentioned this book a lot, but my buddy,
12:53
Maddie Montgomery, pastor out of Tennessee wrote a book called scary God. And you hear
12:59
these quotes before I forget who said it, but they said it recently. It's like, we don't
13:03
scare, we're not scared of God. We're not afraid of God anymore. Like we're afraid of
13:07
the we're afraid of the devil. I was, I think it was Jim Cavisele, whenever he was on the
13:11
Sean Ryan show, that's what it was. But he goes like, we're so scared of the devil and
13:15
we don't realize that God is infinitely more powerful than the devil. Why are we so scared
13:19
of the darkness? Like we should be scared of the light that God brings. Cause when you're
13:24
in God's presence, you can't even stand the light. That's why you can't stand in God's
13:28
presence. And so, I mean, verse seven, I mean highlight that star that, but I did there's
13:34
so much there, but just the fear of the Lord is something where I think goes back to what
13:39
I talk about all the time. When a pastor never talks about the lion and Judah, you're not
13:43
really going to have a proper fear of the Lord. When the pastor only talks about grace and
13:47
ever talks about judgment or truth, it's really going to put you in a place where you're not
13:52
in a right ordering of God. God is not your boyfriend. He's not your buddy. He's not your
13:56
homeboy. Like he is the God creator of the universe that would not even have to move
14:01
to obliterate your entire family tree. We just don't treat it that way.
14:04
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think verse seven expands beyond that too. Like that could be
14:08
a theme of almost all of, of Proverbs just in general. And if you were to pick out a
14:13
life verse that you could pick worse than Proverbs one verse seven, but I look at that
14:19
and see the fear of the Lord is a being of knowledge. And then the, the opposite of that
14:25
fools despise wisdom and instruction, a little bit of homework for people who are listening
14:30
or watching. Like if you have a concordance, Bible or excuse me, a Bible concordance,
14:36
I wonder how many times in the book of Proverbs, the word wise or wisdom or fool and foolish
14:44
is used in contrast to each other. And the reason I bring that up is because I think God is very
14:49
specific in how he talks about that in his language is precise because he's also talking
14:55
about salvation here. I think you can find salvation even in Proverbs. And I love to look for that
15:02
because there's basically two camps of people. There's people who are given up to wrath and then
15:07
there's people who are covered in Christ's righteousness, right? God would say the people
15:10
that are covered in Christ's righteousness are the wise who are seeking after God. And if you're
15:14
seeking after God, you are seeking after the right and true knowledge. If you are foolish,
15:19
God gives you up Romans 1. God gives you up. You are foolish. You are set for destruction
15:25
if you remain foolish. And keep that in mind when we get to the very end of Proverbs 1 because that
15:31
is a direct correlation to Romans 1. Yeah. And you notice how black and white it is. It's either
15:36
you're wise or you're a fool. There's no middle ground. We know in Revelation how God said,
15:41
you know, I wish you had been hot or cold, but you're neither. You're lukewarm. So I'm going to spit
15:46
you out of my mouth. And I think go ahead. I was going to say that. I mean, I feel like I,
15:51
if I'm being honest, I have more questions than answers when it comes to verse 7.
15:55
Just on like, we have tons of answers over here. So just ask us man. I mean, come on.
15:59
So I'm in the right place. Okay. So.
16:01
I mean, you know, you hear fear and you think of it. Like I've heard it described as like, it's,
16:08
are we, is it fearing a tyrant? Is it fearing? Is it more like standing in awe of something that
16:13
you know is powerful? You know, what is something in between? I mean, I don't, I'm not, you know,
16:20
I don't, I feel like in my spirit, I know what it means to fear the Lord, but articulate it.
16:25
It's, it's difficult. Well, I'll give an answer. But as we established before we started recording
16:28
today, I'll say something that sounds smart. And then Matt is going to probably hop in and say
16:33
something that sounds smarter. But you know, hey, guys, just just kind of follow along.
16:36
Eventually, you know, we'll just kind of phase me out of my own show. It's okay.
16:40
Never that can never happen. This is what came to mind as you described that Caleb.
16:44
Like when you're a little boy, because I have a three year old and a one year old. And James,
16:49
my, my three year old has just now discovered muscles. And he's like, I want muscles and I
16:53
make him flex all the time. And you know, if he gets hurt, it's like, Hey, show me your muscles,
16:56
show me how tough you are. You know, go to my gym and I'll try to pick up my dumbbells and
17:00
they're adjustable. So I'll adjust it down to like, you know, 10 pounds. And so he can,
17:03
you know, lift it up. But then I'll, you know, throw it all the way to the heaviest setting and
17:07
he can't do it. And the dad just, you know, lifts it up. Nobody goes, Oh my gosh, dad.
17:10
So when I think of fear, I think James isn't there yet, because he's three. But one day,
17:17
he will have a healthy reverence for dad's strength, because he's going to realize the
17:23
difference between mine and his and what that could do to him. So he's not scared because he
17:29
thinks dad dad's going to use that strength on him to hurt him. But it's like, wow, like the force,
17:35
like I remember if you watch people like go on safari or whatever, some of my favorite videos to
17:40
watch or when people are watching predations happen. But there's one in particular of a lion
17:44
that I think was taking down an impala. And the impala is running unbelievably fast.
17:50
But then the lion is running so much faster. And they literally collide right by one of these
17:57
like excursion vehicles. And it just like the dirt that flies. And it's that it's that power
18:02
that you don't experience. It's like when you're when you're, you know, field level at a high school
18:07
football game with, you know, these freak beast kids. And it's like the power is so much different
18:12
whenever you can kind of feel it, when you can like see it and sense it. And so that's kind of
18:17
where I go when I think about that to where it's just like, I am me and he is God and the
18:23
chasm between our power and ability to control anything is so wide. And so that's where I kind
18:28
of revert back to when I was three and thought about my daddy's muscles or something like that.
18:32
But Matt, do you want to go ahead and hop in and say something better?
18:35
I don't know that.
18:37
Yeah, I would love your break. I mean, because I'm browning looks like he's
18:42
got something. I would love to say like, I think of of Exodus when, you know, Pharaoh is telling
18:48
Moses, I don't know who this God is. I know who these gods are. I know who the gods of my,
18:54
you know, my nation is and God's God, God literally sends plagues and we're going through this in
19:01
my Sunday school class. So this is just really fun to talk through. He sends plagues in direct
19:08
contrast to humble and humiliate the Egyptian gods and things that like turning water into blood,
19:17
they have a river God that is supposed to control the river and bring life and bring
19:22
freshness to their society. And God says it's blood. You can't do anything with it turning turning
19:29
their like reliance on a God that's not real into nothing. And now it's like that that God is
19:39
humbled because I am the one true God. I am I'm the only one that exists. And that's why God says
19:44
in Deuteronomy, like the Shamah, Shamah, Israel, Yahweh, Elohenna, Yahweh, Ihad. Hero Israel, the Lord
19:53
our God, the Lord is one. Like I'm it. And I'm going to humble those who are proud who stand
20:01
against that. And we should have that same fear and reverence and submission to the God of the
20:09
universe is where I kind of look at that verse there. It's just like it's kind of giving me goosebumps
20:15
to even think and talk about it. Well, Eric, when you give your feedback, just know if you do it
20:19
in multi languages, it'll come off even better. So throw out some ancient already second best in
20:25
this. Holy smokes. Listen, if you like, Crossway is a great resource. And I started to look at
20:35
the Hebrew and the Greek and they have a really good resource that gives you line by line what
20:39
that is. And one of the things I wanted to learn was the Shamah because that's something that
20:45
that the Israelites would pray two times a day. And like it's it's very very powerful to learn
20:50
those things that, you know, God's ancient people were saying or are still saying today and to
20:56
understand, you know, where that all comes from. So like I'm not smart. I just love seeking knowledge
21:01
and that is just a really cool thing. So Crossway. Also, if you're listening, send Caleb a Bible,
21:06
that'd be cool. Yeah, we'll provide that address in the show notes guys. It's a desperate time in
21:11
the Martin household. We need to bet we need to just come together around this emergency that's
21:16
going on. But running what we're gonna say. Yeah, I'll try to be quick here. I mean, the
21:20
verse I think about is, you know, don't fear men who can kill the flesh for your God who can kill
21:25
both the flesh and the soul and hell, you know, and I think about that. And in my natural unsaved state,
21:30
that should be a very fearful thing. So I mean, you can wake and look at creation, just the
21:35
expansiveness of creation and realize, gosh, there's no way I can go and even like halfway.
21:40
Yeah, I've tried to go. Oh, yeah, we totally make this and be like, wait a second. The only
21:44
reason I know about that is because God created my brain to do that. You know, so just just even
21:48
that is fearful. And then we'll add this one thing's a little bit outside the box. But I believe it
21:53
was at a Moses when he lied, he lied about his his wife being a sister.
21:58
That was Abraham. Yeah, thank you. And whenever he was confirmed about that,
22:05
he said something like, I didn't think that the fear of the Lord was here. There's this kind of
22:09
this idea that, you know, if we just think about it from a social media standpoint,
22:13
people put all their stuff out there these days, all their personal things on social media to
22:20
people that one, maybe don't care, or two, don't don't share the same, you know, they're just not,
22:27
they're not in the same spot. So they're throwing their pearls at people that are going to trample
22:31
them. And so that I think that was what was going on there is he was fearful and that was,
22:36
it was bad. Shouldn't have done that, but he's fearful of the rulers because he didn't think
22:40
that the fear of God was there and that something would befall them as a result of that.
22:45
Caleb, do we answer your questions? Yeah, that's helpful. I did, I mean, when I was
22:49
doing some research, there was a couple of things that I heard that I thought were helpful too,
22:53
was just that, you know, when it comes to accountability, like we can, we can have a great Bible study,
22:58
we can have great conversations like this, we can have, you know, filters on our computer and
23:03
things set up in such a way that we won't fall into sin, right? But until we actually have a
23:08
healthy fear of the Lord, then nothing's going to change. Yeah, I think, I think you probably summed
23:12
it up there just by saying healthy fear of the Lord, because if you're so scared of God that you
23:16
can't move, first of all, that's probably correct. But at the same time, like if you can't operate as
23:21
a human, like that's probably not something that's going to be healthy for the people around you,
23:25
it's going to stop you from sharing the gospel or anything like that. It's going to make people
23:29
kind of, you know, freaked out by you. And so I think that that's a helpful thing to think about.
23:33
There's certainly more that we could camp on on that first section, but there's some other
23:36
great stuff in Proverbs one. Caleb, we go and read just eight and nine real quick. I just had a
23:40
quick point on eight and nine. You've got to listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not
23:46
ignore your mother's teaching. They're graceful wreath around your head and necklaces for your neck.
23:51
So when I was reading the Moody commentary on this, I thought that they made a great point
23:57
that I never heard before. But Solomon intended to transmit his wisdom to the youth of Israel
24:05
by putting his Proverbs in the mouths of godly parents. And then one word came to mind, and that
24:13
was catechism, because if you're a godly parent and you're wanting to bestow godly wisdom on your
24:20
child, you help catechize them. And I know I've used that word a lot. And some people are, I'll
24:24
get emails like, Hey, what's that word? What does that mean? And I'm like, here, let me Google for you.
24:28
And then tell you, because apparently, like I'm the one that has to do that. But like, ultimately,
24:32
it's like, we catechize by accident, right? So Matt, your eldest son will not be able to be a fan of
24:40
any other soccer team than Manchester United, because it's just, you know, in my voice, will not
24:45
support another baseball team other than the St. Louis Cardinals. And we do that just by accident,
24:50
because dad doesn't have a bunch of different teams hats. He has 30 of the same hat of the same
24:55
team. And so we just kind of catechize them into that the Cardinals are the best, you know, the Red
24:59
Devils are the best, the whoever's are the best. But when you're catechizing them in the ways of
25:03
the Lord, you're you're helping them to understand deep theological context. That is appropriate for
25:10
their age. And so I thought that was so interesting to where it's just like, okay, yeah, wisdom
25:15
and literature, we get it. It's like, no, no, what was Solomon's point for even putting these things
25:20
down because they were probably already age old wisdom during his day 3000 years ago, 2500 years
25:25
ago, wherever, you know, you get these coming together. But that's how you pass down wisdom
25:30
is by putting these proverbs, these wisdoms in a nutshell, in the minds and in the mouths of
25:36
godly parents. These are set up in a way that you can remember them. They're set up in kind of a
25:41
cadence to where you can recite them. And same as like what you would get with a catechism, we use
25:48
the new city catechism. It's it's great. But it's it's really set up to like you can recite these
25:54
pretty easily. And you can you can hear one. But the idea is put it in your heart, memorize it,
26:00
and look to Jesus's example. I mean, when he goes out into the desert, he's reciting. I mean, he uses
26:06
Deuteronomy more than anything, but he's reciting scripture because he knows it. And when you're
26:13
faced with a situation and your kids are faced with a situation, you can fall back on that. And so
26:18
the idea that it's easy to read and easy to remember is important. And you know, you looked
26:23
thousands of years ago, ancient people, they probably didn't have a bunch of books while they
26:26
didn't have a bunch of books laying around. So they had to memorize this stuff. They had to
26:31
have this at the ready. When something happened, they could recite that and then boom, then they're
26:38
then they're in a better place. Yeah, now I would I'd add to that too. One of the things that
26:43
allowed me to have really good, important conversations with my kids has been taking some of the wisdom
26:52
and sharing it alongside of some of my personal experiences. Now some of them are embarrassing.
27:00
And some of them, you know, I had had the wisdom to not get into some problem where I had to,
27:07
you know, confess sin or whatever. But the nice thing is, is that when we can learn this,
27:12
we can memorize things and we can tell our kids about it. But it's also such a wonderful thing
27:17
for a kid to be like, yeah, my dad had a similar situation. And this is how he dealt with it using
27:23
the word of God. Or my dad had the situation, he fell into sin over it, but he was redeemed out of
27:30
it. And this is now what he's teaching me so that I don't fall into the same trap. You could follow
27:35
that path upward to because the Bible, I mean, the Bible is full of mistakeers, right? To use a
27:41
weird word, but like people who do bad things and God still puts them in his story. If he loves David
27:47
so much that he is going to have the Messiah's, the Messiah come through his line. And he, I mean,
27:55
he doesn't pretty awful things. Like how much does he love us as well to say, okay, yes, even though
28:03
you did that, they're, they're still grace, they're still love, like come to me, rest in me. And like,
28:10
it's a great example for us. It's a great example for our kids. But yeah, I think adding our own
28:14
personal struggles and stumbles is paramount, especially for our kids. Like Trafford went through a
28:21
phase where he thought I could do no wrong. And I had the same thing with my dad. And I'll never
28:26
forget the first time my dad messed up and I was shattered, not because he wanted to set up that
28:32
he was perfect. But I thought he was this perfect person who never did anything wrong. And that,
28:39
you know, I think I've said this on the part or we've talked about this on the podcast before,
28:42
never meet your heroes, because they'll disappoint you. And me and my wife have been very intentional
28:48
about, okay, we want our kids to see us even when we do wrong things. We want to be open about that
28:55
because there's only one, one perfect person. And we are all redeemed by the same God, even though
29:00
we do messed up stuff. There's a word that comes to mind based on what the things y'all were saying,
29:04
and that's for a place. So if you go back to the book, Manhood by Josh Holly, he was on the show
29:09
a couple months back, Senator Josh Holly from Missouri. In his section that where he talks about
29:13
being a father, he talks about a good father replaces himself. In our current culture,
29:18
when do we replace something? We replace something because the something we have now is broken,
29:23
or the something we could get as a replacement is significantly better. And so if you are a
29:30
father and you are replacing yourself, you're hopefully replacing yourself with an upgrade.
29:36
So I want my sons to be a significantly better version of a man than me. And I'm trying to set
29:42
the bar as high as humanly possible, right, or high spiritually possible.
29:47
Yeah. And I just love John Tyson's description of how he gets that done. I love this little
29:53
little step by step. He says, when we approach something new, we'll do you watch and I do,
30:01
and then we'll talk. And then it's, I'll do you help, then we'll talk, then it's, you do,
30:08
I'll help, we talk, and then eventually it's, you just do, and then we'll talk about it.
30:13
But the next time it's all on you, I love that, how that trans transferred on step by step,
30:18
very intentional. I think this is very practical.
30:21
And I, there's so much more and like, I'm looking at the clock and it's like,
30:25
here's Proverbs for you, because it's like, we're, we're not even close to halfway to where I
30:30
wanted to get to, but that there's a whole lot of great stuff there. But I wanted to camp out on,
30:34
well, just real quick, 15 and 16. Brownie, would you read 15 and 16 just real quick?
30:40
Sure. My son do not walk in the way with them. Hold back your foot from their paths
30:46
for their feet, run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.
30:50
So this is kind of like me lecturing people about smoking. But this section to me is like,
30:54
if you run with idiots that love to get in fights and kind of have this bloodlust for drama,
31:00
and that type of thing, and for the ladies listening, these women that are just,
31:03
they suck the life out of you with the drama that they create around them,
31:07
avoid those people like the plague. Like I literally talked to my voice coach,
31:11
right? He's helping me rebuild my voice. He's a huge human being. And he's like,
31:16
yeah, I've only been in a couple of fights. And it was because of my idiot friends,
31:19
right? Because his idiot friends are like, Hey, we got our, our big friend with us.
31:23
So let's start mouthing off with the bar. Why? Because we got our big friend with us.
31:27
It's like, those are guys that get you shanked, right? It's always a small sky, too.
31:31
Got it. They're just the ones like, yeah, yeah. Look at me now. And then they're always hiding
31:35
behind the big guy's shoulder under his armpit or something like that. So that's just kind of basic
31:39
wisdom. At this point, if you're still running with morons that get in fights, stop running with
31:43
those morons. But Browning, if you wouldn't mind read 2021 and 22, there's, there's some really good
31:48
stuff here. Wisdom cries allowed in the street. In the markets, she raises her voice. At the head
31:55
of the noisy streets, she cries out. At the entrance of the city gates, she speaks. How long those
32:01
simple ones will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools
32:07
hate knowledge? So there's a lot here. So first of all, correct me if I'm wrong, because in my research,
32:14
there was no tremendous significance to the personification of the female pronouns here,
32:19
the use of she. It's like, it's like giving a name to your boat. Right. It's like the personification
32:24
of wisdom. It's like kind of a thing. And so if anyone has a problem with that, send me an email
32:28
and I won't read it. But like verse, the thing that's so funny is the beginning of verse 22,
32:33
how long oh, simple ones will you love being simple? And I immediately wrote in my margins,
32:39
my translation is how long how much longer are you going to love being done? And that's that's
32:44
kind of the thing. But this, just since I've been studying this guys, it has helped me to put
32:50
people into categories, which I know is dangerous. But guys, follow me as you're listening to this,
32:55
because it provides three categories that people can fall into, the simple, the scoffers and the
33:01
fools. And so these are loose definitions here and y'all feel free to add to it. But the simple,
33:07
those are people that are naive. They're very, very ignorant. They don't know any better would
33:13
probably be how we would describe the simple people. Then you have the scoffers, they love to mock,
33:19
they love to criticize, you know, they'll commit serious acts like in their just, they're very
33:24
arrogant about their critiques, right? Then you have the fools, the fools do know better,
33:31
they know better, but they're smug, they're thick headed, they're opposed to God's covenant
33:36
and they become unteachable. Of all these categories, whenever you talk about it's just pearls before
33:42
swine, you get there with fools the quickest, because I've said this a lot and then I'd love
33:47
to hear you guys jump in. There's one question you can ask somebody at the beginning of a debate
33:53
or the beginning of an argument that will save you a lot of time and energy and it's,
33:58
hey, if you were wrong about this, would you want to know? Would you want me to let you know
34:03
that you were wrong? Because if someone were like, well, yeah, like if I was presenting myself in
34:10
a factually and accurate way, I would love to know that that's a great person to have a conversation
34:14
with. But if they're like, well, I'm not wrong. So what a stupid thing to even suggest, like,
34:19
who are you change the subject immediately or just walk away? But again, when you're looking at people
34:25
in your life that you struggle with, maybe even people you share a house with, there are three
34:30
categories of people like they're simple scoffers and fools. And then there's those are the negative
34:37
categories, I guess I should say there are positive categories, but those difficult people in your
34:41
life, you can more easily deal with them when you appropriately label them. So I tried to
34:47
express that as diplomatically as possible. But there you go.
34:50
I think what gives you those categories, too, is what I love about this section we just read was that
34:54
wisdom is not it's not hidden. You know, it's not a secret. Like it's it's right there in front of
35:00
you, right? No, I mean, my my brother-in-law talks about how he's like, I'm not a conspiracy
35:06
theorist. I'm a it's obvious theorist. And it's it's real similar, right? That's like, it's right
35:12
in front of you, you know, just just humble yourself and seek the knowledge, like what like your point,
35:17
like be open to being wrong every now and then. So I mean, I love that about this, these three
35:22
verses right here. Yeah, wisdom has nothing to hide because it's true, right? And it's available to
35:28
anyone and everyone, whereas deceit and darkness, like it wants to operate in secret. And wisdom is
35:35
not something that you ever have to be ashamed of. And to your point about the, you know, the fool
35:41
or the simple scoffers in the, I wrote down simple scoffers and fools. It's a path of downward
35:51
progression. And I mean, I know we're going to get there as we get to the end, but the fools who
35:56
are just so sure. And again, there's there's another is there anything more annoying than a
36:01
dumb person that is super sure of themselves. Like, let's just, you know what I mean? Like,
36:06
yeah, they're so sure, but they're so dumb, like, help me. Yeah, I think it's, I think that's a very,
36:11
it's a very hard thing to deal with, because I think our flesh wants to just be angry and annoyed.
36:15
But I mean, we should, we should pray for them. We should pray that God would not harden their
36:20
heart as you would as you would do to Pharaoh, but that they would be opened up not by anything
36:25
that we would do. Because like, I think sometimes we make it our mission to make people understand
36:30
and come to our side of the table, whether it's somewhat like an unbeliever, like in my,
36:35
in my commentary, it talks about the fool as being an unbeliever who has completely
36:41
denounced God and biblical wisdom. And we should pray for those people because, because God,
36:48
God can do things. He can impart their his wisdom to them. But we, but we shouldn't hold ourselves
36:55
accountable to people who don't want to hear wisdom and truth. Yeah. And I actually think that it's
37:02
almost more frustrating to the, for the simpleton to deal with simpletons. What I, what I look at,
37:10
or how I would define those folks are the people that will go and they'll receive things,
37:15
but they're not willing to put any effort in. So it's like, I'll go to church and I'll listen to
37:19
my pastor preach, but then I'm not going to go home. I'm not going to check, check, you know,
37:23
on what he said to see if it was true or not. I'm just going to accept it. But also I may not even
37:29
consider how that could be remotely applicable to my life. I'm just going to say I did it. I went to
37:35
church and you asked me two days later what, what he talked about. I'm probably not going to remember.
37:40
Well, and also, and I wrote this, my notes, a simple person is easily misled because it's easy
37:47
to sit in our chair and to watch a documentary about a cult that came together in the sixties
37:51
and watch what these people are doing and being like, how, how, how did you think that this guy
37:57
that you've handed your wives over to on a nightly basis, like this, this is, this, this is the
38:02
second coming, like this is the guy. But I wrote this down. I heard this and I haven't been able
38:07
substantiated. So I'll just be vague. But it was the statistic that a sizable percentage of the
38:13
population of the world has no internal dialogue. Meaning they're not sitting there at night before
38:21
they fall asleep. Yeah, yeah, I'm looking at your face, Matt. Yes. So I need to substantiate this and
38:26
maybe I can do it during the break and help you with that. Okay, thank you. But they have no
38:30
internal dialogue. They're not running through the scenarios of that day. So for instance, let's
38:35
make it simple. So when I get home from jujitsu, right, whether I do well or do poorly or somewhere
38:39
in the middle, before I fall asleep, I am rerunning all of the positions I was in, the things I should
38:45
have done, the things I did that were good. So I can reinforce that. And then I think about, oh man,
38:49
I can't believe I misspoke when I was on the podcast or crap. I thought I was going to read
38:53
two chapters a day and I read half of one. It's just internal dialogue. And that's why it's hard to
38:57
shut off. There are people walking around that have none of that. No, it's just not that's hard
39:03
for me. Sounds good. Yeah, I have to be a fan of that. No, listen, listen, it's not hard. It's not
39:08
hard. It's because our society has made it so difficult for us to slow down. We have no solitude.
39:14
You know, what do we do? Well, I mean, what's the average length of a conversation? It takes,
39:19
I think somewhere between seven or eight minutes to go from surface level to even medium level.
39:23
But most conversations stop before it gets to the seven minute, you know, and it's one of a number
39:28
of things. There's like a two or three second law and then what do you do? You pick up your phone
39:33
and you start looking at your phone, you have no chance. What do you do the last 10 or 15
39:37
minutes for your to bed? No, I'm not saying it's you, but many people are watching their veg
39:41
and out watching TV or they're playing their candy crush or whatever. And then all of a sudden,
39:45
they just they're they're dosing and so they lay it down. That's that's interesting. I guess it makes
39:50
sense when I when I go to bed, a lot of times I'll listen to a sermon by Alistair bag or Sinclair
39:54
Ferguson because they're Scottish and I'm listening to him preach the word of God. It's very good. But
40:00
I guess that makes sense. Like when you're when you're like when you're doing classes for social media,
40:05
like, or you're, you know, people are teaching how to run a successful social media. They teach you
40:10
seven seconds to 21 seconds. If you go any longer than 21 seconds on a video, they're gone. You're
40:18
losing people. And so like, I guess to your point, that makes sense that like, well, I think you've
40:24
softened my point a little bit because my point is that even when they're not distracted, they
40:29
could be sitting in a meadow. You just think they're idiots. What I'm saying is like nothing there.
40:35
Well, it's like we've heard the expression that lights wrong, but no one's home. It's kind of like
40:39
that. They could be sitting in the middle of a meadow on a tree stump with no iPod iPod. What
40:44
year did I just go back to this podcast? But they have no iPhone. They've got no, you know,
40:48
Bluetooth speaker, nothing. And they're just sitting there just thinking about nothing.
40:52
They're just they're looking at Oh, there's a bird. Oh, there's the sky is blue, I think. Like,
40:57
so it's just we can't always assume people are chewing on things. Yeah, as we might be.
41:03
I mean, when you first said it, that was my thought was like, there's just there's no room
41:07
anymore for because it's all external dialogue, right? Yeah, they're being like, they're consuming
41:11
something all the time constantly bombarded. But anyway, so I think that's helpful. When you
41:17
again, you can categorize people in your life. It's like, okay, this person is simple. But Matt,
41:21
I think you made the most mature point at the table, which is basically like, that doesn't mean
41:25
you should write that person off. They're missing something that you likely can't put there for them.
41:31
But if there's a corrective action that you can take, softly asking them, hey, if you're if you
41:38
were wrong about, oh, you know, before the baby's born, it's not even alive. Okay. Hey, if you were
41:44
wrong about that thing that you just said, if that were not factual, would you want to know?
41:49
Well, no, I obviously know I'm right. Like it's just a blob. It's just, I mean, well, that's a person
41:54
that's probably not like their sponge is completely saturated at that point. They can't take in
41:58
anything else. But if they show even a modicum of openness to being wrong, not only does that go
42:04
back to humility, but it's just a it's a good indication that there's probably some fruit there
42:10
that you can help with. Well, I think like, like extra biblical sources, like, are very good in,
42:16
in this way, Greg Coco's tactics is it comes to mind, like, ask the question, put the put the rock
42:20
in the shoe. Like in going to first Corinthians, like love is not proud. Love does not bow. So like,
42:27
we're not we're not to beat people over the head with love or truth, but we can ask questions
42:34
and love them that way. So like, to your point, like, let's love in the way we should. And maybe
42:40
it maybe it is a question. But sometimes it's just a okay. Yeah, I can't have an argument with
42:45
I got to move on my day before this goes crazy. I want to move on to verse 26 and 27 and Browning,
42:50
I want you to read I just read some. But when in our group text before this one,
42:55
you literally sent these two verses to me. And you're like, I bet this is going to be Kyle's
43:01
favorite part of Proverbs one. And the funny thing about it is I, as you can see, I didn't
43:05
write any notes. There was no highlights on that section. And so I read it, I remembered it,
43:11
but it wasn't like, Oh my gosh, we definitely got to talk about that. But apparently,
43:15
Eric Browning thinks that that's going to be where I would kind of go to. So you get to read 26 and 27,
43:20
then I will get to defend myself. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror
43:28
strikes you when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind when
43:33
distress and anguish come upon you. So this is again, the personification of wisdom speaking here.
43:42
And I will say, after you sent that message to me, I went back and reread it. Oh, and I giggled.
43:47
And I was just kind of like, because there is a healthy part of me that when somebody reaps exactly
43:53
what they sow, I'm just like, you know, if around and find out is kind of one of those things where
43:59
it's like, and there's a bill bird joke in there somewhere where he's talking about someone that
44:03
gets bit by a rattlesnake. And it's like, wait, can we not ask questions? It's like, were you
44:07
messing with it? Like, what were you like? We just assumed this, you know, this rattlesnake fell
44:11
out of the sky and attacked this person like, no, there's more to this story than that. And so
44:15
anyway, that was kind of like my defense. Like, I definitely read it, but then I went back and it's
44:19
like, that is interesting that the female personification of wisdom as written by the most wisdom
44:25
filled person ever. It's like, almost like, well, let me ask you, does this give us permission to
44:30
even like internally snicker when somebody gets exactly the fruits of what their preactions would
44:38
have, you know, led to? What do you think? I think that's a, it's, that's a dangerous place to be. I
44:45
think we can revel in God's glory and God saying vengeance is mine. And in a real sense, the wrath
44:56
of God has continuously poured out. And you know, we talked about Romans one, and this is, this is
45:01
what I wrote in mine is, this is, this is very much a Romans one situation. But yeah, I think
45:08
that's a dangerous place to be. I don't think we should, I don't think we should be cheerful
45:15
because of that person. I think we should celebrate that God's truth is God's truth, no matter what.
45:22
But again, that's a, that's a tricky, that's a tricky place to be. Like, you shouldn't go,
45:27
yeah, I'm so, but not, not, not against you. Just, I'm celebrating God. It's like, you probably
45:31
shouldn't say that. Well, I mean, I've had, I, and you can tell me if I was wrong, but I had a
45:36
friend that was just hell bent on doing, and just sinning, you know, and he, he was a roommate of mine
45:42
and I had to deal with it. And, but I, but I had compassion for him, like I really wanted him to
45:47
figure it out, but I remember like struggling with my prayers for him because I would pray for him.
45:53
But it was like, gosh, you know, Lord, get his attention, do whatever is necessary. It felt like
45:58
he needed to be smacked in the face by God. And I don't know that the end result, I wasn't looking
46:04
to go, oh, so I can laugh at him, be like, don't do so, you know, or whatever. But it, it was,
46:09
he needed some kind of, you know, slap in the face, you know, to get, to get his attention.
46:13
I think it's just like being a parent, right? Like you, you tell your kids something and they,
46:17
they don't listen, they don't listen. And then something happens and you're not, you're not
46:21
celebrating that something bad happened to your kid. But most of the time, at least in my fatherhood
46:28
journey, when something happens to Traffer, because he's, he's eight Hollins three. So it's not like,
46:33
you know, he's had more experience to do this stuff. Like, you can see that look on their face
46:37
where they're like, Oh, that's why dad or mom said, don't do this. And I did. And now I'm having
46:44
this external punishment. Here I am. And I'm sure you've laughed. Yeah. So Caleb, earlier in this
46:49
conversation, you talked about, you know, the most wisdom filled people being the most humble.
46:52
One of the most humble men that I know, Dr. Dwight Adams, he's about to be
46:55
ducked in the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. He is the scientist that first, um, yeah,
47:01
testified in court using DNA evidence, like he and his team at the FBI figured that process out.
47:06
So he's from Edmund. Good, good buddy of mine. Well, his wife was talking about,
47:10
she was talking to my wife about just wisdom being married so long. Like what are some things to
47:16
remember? And her answer was, sometimes you just got a laugh. And so it's like, when you have a kid
47:23
that you've told, Hey, don't touch that. That's hot. Hey, don't touch that. It's super hot. Hey,
47:27
if you touch, that's going to burn you. Hey, remember that thing over there? It's super hot.
47:29
And then they go over there and touch it like a moron. Like you could chastise them and you can
47:34
freak out and you can do all that or you can just laugh and be like, Hey man, natural consequences.
47:38
That you're never going to do that again. Right. If only you knew, if only when someone had told
47:41
you, right? Yeah, if it was, yeah, you just go go completely and start asking about a thing to you
47:46
there. So Matt, if you wouldn't mind a reading as we kind of get towards the end here, 28 through 33,
47:52
because this goes back into the discussion you were talking about earlier about Romans one.
47:56
There's a lot here and it kind of puts, you know, verses 26 and 27 and a little bit of a different
48:01
light. So just read 28 through the end there. This is good. Then they call upon me, but I will not
48:06
answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me because they hated knowledge and did not
48:11
choose the fear of the Lord would have none of my counsel and despised all of my reproof.
48:17
Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices,
48:23
for the simple are killed by their turning away and the complacency of fools destroys them,
48:28
but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease without dread of disaster.
48:35
Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their feel of their own devices.
48:42
So I'm reminded of a quote by C.S. Lewis, where he was basically describing what hell is.
48:49
And people would say, you know, kind of a natural objection.
48:55
Excuse me. People would say, why would a good God send, you know, someone to hell? And C.S.
49:02
Lewis would be like, well, he didn't do that. He gave these people exactly what they wanted.
49:06
They wanted a life completely devoid of God. And he said, I will be done, right? And so it's like,
49:14
that's the wages of sin, right? When you get into verses 28 through 33, those are the wages.
49:21
And it's helped me think about that more easily in an apologetics context. How could a good God
49:28
possibly do that before I even get to the, well, what does good mean? What's the difference between
49:33
good and evil? What's the moral law with which to differentiate between the two before you even
49:37
get there? It's like God is allowing you to have what you want. Matt, you mentioned the hardening
49:42
of Pharaoh's heart earlier. Forever, I thought God hardened his heart, where he's like, God made
49:49
Pharaoh act that way. That's it was the wrong way of understanding that God took how Pharaoh was
49:55
already acting and solidified it and said, you got it, buddy. This is how you want to act. And this
50:02
is how you want to put yourself in reference to me. Great. I'm going to go ahead and set that in
50:08
concrete. Yeah. No, I think I, and we could probably spend like hours talking about this,
50:12
but this is, this is why I love going to the Sunday school class that I go to because I have,
50:16
I have, you know, teachers who are a teacher that just, it goes so much into detail about Terry
50:22
Fakes. Terry Fakes. He's amazing. But, but even the guys he's put into place to come sub for him.
50:26
And there's some amazing people that, that teach them, teach the word to our class.
50:29
We were learning about, you know, we're learning about the plagues. And the hardening of Pharaoh's
50:33
heart is, is something, and we shouldn't miss the details that God puts into his story.
50:37
When the pharaohs die, the, the custom was that their final judgment would, before they got to go
50:44
onto their final glory, was their heart would be removed and it would be weighed. If it's light,
50:51
you get to go through. If it's not, if it, if it weighs down the scale, they're, they're
50:57
obliterated. They're done. And so the hardening of the heart was to say, your heart is hard. It
51:03
is hardest stone. It will weigh down the scales, even in what you think you have to do. It, like,
51:09
the tension to detail that God puts in, and I, I can't explain that the way that Terry Fakes would
51:14
explain that. But it's a really, really cool way to think like God even uses, like what they were
51:20
to know, what they would know is what their Pharaoh would go through is, is his heart light,
51:26
or is it, does it weigh down the scales? And so he was weighing his own heart down to where in his,
51:33
in his religion, when he got to that final judgment, his heart would be like a rock and it would be
51:39
wet. And he would, he would, he would be the, he would receive the consequence for what he
51:44
actually wanted. That's a very interesting place to be. But I wanted to make another point.
51:49
This, this reminds me of Psalm 2. It ends the same way Psalm 2 ends.
51:54
Now therefore, O kings be wise, be warned, O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and
51:59
rejoice with trembling, kiss the sun, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath
52:07
is quickly kindled. And then it ends with blessed are all who take refuge in him. And that just very,
52:15
very similar, very similar. I think this also, I mean, these last eight verses just breaks your
52:20
heart, in my opinion, on, on, I mean, I feel like it's just a microcosm of the distortion of the
52:25
truth that we see right now. You know, just with the, I mean, the way that everything is just being,
52:31
it's all, it's all relative, you know, it's just distorted. And it breaks your heart to see that this
52:36
is how it's going to end, right? Yeah. Yeah. And if you go back to like 23, I knew we skipped over,
52:40
but it says, if you will turn to my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you. I will
52:45
make my words known to you. So there was still hope, you know, it is, this is even after Lady
52:50
Wilsoms like, come on, guys, you listen in or not, you know, but you're right. And so I was just
52:55
thinking too, it's like everybody has a bottom, like, what is your, some people go rock bottom,
53:02
and some people have shallow bottoms. And so I think, you know, praying for my kids, I know that
53:07
they're going to go through trials. I know they're going to mess up. I want their bottom to be shallow,
53:12
though. I want them to go, if they're going to go do something, do something and be like, well,
53:16
I'm never doing that again. And, and then get straight with the Lord on that and, and, and never,
53:21
you know, continue down that path. You know, but there are these people that hit rock bottom,
53:25
and, and fortunately rock bottom is not the deepest, you know, bottom, you can have the hell,
53:30
hell is. And so you hear a lot of people that, that hit rock bottom, and then they kind of
53:35
drug themselves out or been lifted out by the Lord. I mean, there's a lot of testimony from,
53:40
from that. And I know Matt Chandler, I was listening to something from him recently, he's like, I,
53:45
he's like, I praise the Lord that none of my kids have these crazy testimonies. Like,
53:50
why should they have to have these crazy testimonies of them hitting some rock bottom? You know,
53:54
they don't, you don't need to have that in order to, to have a testimony. So I think that's a great
53:59
point because a lot of people will diminish their, their own story because they grew up in a Christian
54:03
family and they were saying they ever did was still a piece of bubblegum and that type of thing.
54:06
You can still understand the depravity of your life. And you haven't had to like trip and fall
54:12
and land on some random stranger's penis, like to be like, Oh, well, that's a different level
54:16
depravity. Sorry. Is that a little, is that too much? I did not expect that.
54:20
Well, I was not expecting that at all. Hey, guys, expect the unexpected
54:23
on a ton of life. People trip a fall different ways. Right. I'd see. Yeah, there's scraping your knees. And anyway,
54:28
we can leave that there internal dialogue tonight. It's going to be one of the good thing about the
54:32
edit of this is it's in black and white. So you can't see that I'm blushing, but I can feel that
54:36
I'm blushing at this exact moment. Now I'm watching for you. Well, Matt, I do have a question on this.
54:41
And if this is going to take too long to unpack as we're here right at the end,
54:45
but I wrote a note on on verse 31, therefore they say eat their fruits of their way and have their
54:51
fill of their own devices. How does this how does this correlate with election, right? And I because
54:57
election is like, okay, who's going to be chosen to be written in the landscape of life he chose
55:00
them before time? Because in verse 31, the very first thing I wrote down was this is not God's fault
55:06
that you acted this way. But then I was like, where does election come in? And guys, if you're if
55:10
you're slowing the uptick here, Matt is kind of either he's the resident Calvinist at the table
55:15
today. And so as I'm trying to like work through that philosophy or that theology, I'm like, okay,
55:21
how does this relate to our decision to go left or go right or our decision to act in a way that
55:28
we know is wrong or to avoid acting in that way? If that's too big, I mean, I probably we probably
55:34
could talk about this forever. So the I think it's important to establish some some definition.
55:40
So election isn't just God saying, Caleb, you're in, no matter what you do, congrats. It's it's a
55:48
call to our heart. It is a revealing it is an opening of our eyes. It is a direct confrontation
55:55
of the truth. God is the one that that turns our heart. He's the one that pulls on us. He draws us
56:02
to him. It is still our responsibility to act in accordance. And again, I will say this until the
56:12
day I die, and I go home to see the Lord, like this is one of those twin truths, pillars of twin
56:19
truths that God elects, but we are responsible for our own actions. And so God reveals himself or
56:28
reveals the truth to us. We are we are to we are still to answer that call. And we we can not.
56:35
I mean, Romans one is a great example of God giving giving us up to our own passions.
56:42
Pharaoh is a perfect example. He had the truth revealed to him. He had his firstborn son taken
56:48
from him. Yet he still pardoned his heart and did not turn to the Lord. So God said, okay,
56:57
I'm going to give you up to destruction goes back to okay. It's, you know, all right,
57:01
you're will be done. That's God telling us you're will be done. So there's certainly more that we
57:04
talk about there. But guys, how much do we skip over in Proverbs one? And we still filled up an
57:09
hour, but we got to move on. But guys, come back here next Sunday where we are going to dig into
57:13
Proverbs 23. So make sure that you are ready to go to talk about Proverbs 23. But before we let
57:19
you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost and a daunting life our mission is equipping
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Just go to www dot undaunted life. And also, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual,
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