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Raul Ries: My question to you this morning is what is real wisdom? To really possess it, wisdom is the attribute of God by which he created, sustains, and controls all things. He's creator of heaven and earth. He created your mind as he created my mind.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. It is good to have you with us today for our focus on the blessings of spiritual wisdom. Today, Raul will underscore the value of listening as he exhorts us to spend daily time in the word of God, allowing God to counsel our hearts and minds. Stay with us for assurance that the wisdom of the Holy Spirit will equip you to confidently walk in holiness, while rejecting God's word will direct you down foolish paths. Here is Raul Ries with today's study.

Raul Ries: If you have your Bibles, turn to the Book of Proverbs, chapter 3, verses 13 through 18. We don't see too much of wisdom today, but we want to talk about this morning the value of wisdom in the life of the believer. If you want to be a wise person, then you need for sure to actually read the Proverbs daily.

There are 31 Proverbs for 31 days, or if it's a 30-day month, you can take two Proverbs in one day. I made it a habit in my life to take the Proverbs and not only to read them, but to look for key verses that God may be speaking to you, situations, problems that you may be facing where Solomon gives you tremendous answers to your problems. He brings solutions to those problems that you may be encountering as a child of God.

Wisdom is very valuable in the life of every believer. First of all, it brings happiness to each one of us. Happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. Then something else about wisdom is that the value of wisdom also keeps you from evil.

In Proverbs 5, verses 1 through 6, it says, "My son, pay attention to my wisdom, lend your ear to my understanding, that you may preserve discretion and your lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of an immoral woman drip like honey and her mouth is smoother than oil, but the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharper than a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell. Lest you ponder her path of life, her ways are unstable and you don't even know them."

Wisdom gives us insight into those kind of situations. Of course, wisdom again gives a person life. Ecclesiastes 7:12 says, "For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense, but the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it, to those that acquire it."

Fourthly, wisdom makes a person very strong in their commitment. Ecclesiastes 7:19 says, "Wisdom strengthens the wise more than ten rulers of a city." Of course, wisdom produces fruit in the life of a person, good fruit. James 3:17 says, "But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy, good fruits, without partiality and without any hypocrisy."

How we thank God for the wisdom that God has made available for each one of us individually. Look at chapter 3 beginning with verse 13 through 17. Happy is that man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver and she is better than gaining of gold. She is more precious than rubies and all things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is in her right hand and the left hand riches and honor. Her ways are the ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take a hold of her and happy are all those that retain her.

God desires that as we come into the Proverbs, that we would seek after knowledge and after true wisdom. The book is so filled with not only problems that can be solved in the life of the believer as he gives you the answers to those solutions that we are looking for. I believe that the practical wisdom of Proverbs can change any person's life here this morning if you really seek it as God says.

The problem is that many times we are lacking in that insight to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. This is why it's so important to make it a habit in your life to read the Scriptures daily. As you go back into the Old Testament and you begin to read the 39 books of the Old Testament, you're going to learn by wisdom as wisdom shares with you how Abraham and Jacob and Moses and all these men of the Old Testament not only called upon the name of the Lord.

As they read the Scriptures and the Scriptures gave them the knowledge and the wisdom that they applied to their own problems and situations. This is what God desires that we would learn from them. These things have been written for our examples. It's looked upon as the wisdom of God. Why? Because wisdom is personified as Jesus Christ as a "she."

It is Jesus that speaks. It is Jesus that gives the knowledge and the wisdom that we need. In Proverbs 1, it says to perceive the words of understanding, to perceive instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, equity. To give prudence to the simple, to the young men knowledge and discretion and a wise man will hear and increase and can learn, but a man of understanding will attain wise counsel. To understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and the riddles, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

How many times have I and you and every one of us here have rejected wisdom and became fools? One thing is for sure: there is a way of the wise and there is a way of the fool. There is the way of the righteous, there is the way of the wicked. There is the way of the Lord and there is the way of the world. You have to choose who you want to follow.

You will never find such stark contrast in your thinking or even in your feelings as when you study the book of Proverbs when he speaks to your own heart. There have been times in my personal life that I needed to make a decision and I didn't know what to do. As I just began to read the Proverbs, all of a sudden the Holy Spirit stops me in some of the verses and begins to give me the solution and the answer to my prayer.

That's how God works. He speaks to us through the Scriptures as we spend time in study, as we spend time in meditation and thinking of what God says through His word. My question to you this morning is what is real wisdom? To really possess it, wisdom is the attribute of God by which he created, sustains, and controls all things. He's creator of heaven and earth. He created your mind as he created my mind.

In Proverbs 3:19-20, listen to what Solomon said. "The Lord by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he established the heavens and by his knowledge the depths were broken up and clouds drop down the dew." What does the wisdom of the world say? They believe in evolution. They don't believe in creation.

Yet the Scripture says that God created the heavens and the earth even before the foundations of the world, before the earth was ever brought into existence already Jesus Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit already have existed for all eternity. They've always been. The wisdom of God, the way he created and founded the whole earth by understanding he established the heavens.

Everything has an order. It's incredible how everything has order in the universe when you study it. It's not by coincidence, it's not through the Big Bang Theory. It's amazing how the world doesn't really understand the wisdom of God, they discredit the wisdom of God, but they become the fools. That's why it says God gave them over to a reprobate mind to believe the lie rather than the truth. When a person rejects the knowledge of the truth of God, God will give them over to become a fool.

When we observe the laws of the universe, we see a reflection of the attributes and the character of God himself. That's wisdom. Proverbs 8:22-31, "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his way before his works of old. I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning before there was ever an earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth while as yet he had not made the earth or the fields or the primeval dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep. When he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limits." Notice the limits of the sea, the seashores.

Guest (Male): This is Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. Browse somebodylovesyou.com for biblical resources to anchor your faith and guide you in God's ways. You can also join Raul for Straight Talk on the Somebody Loves You worldwide YouTube channel every Tuesday at 10 a.m. West Coast time. Now back to more with Raul Ries.

Raul Ries: Are you pursuing after wisdom personally in your life? Do you need it? Yes, we need it. In Proverbs chapter 3:13-18, happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. For her proceeds are better than profit of silver and her gain as fine gold. She is more precious than rubies.

Some woman will not agree with that, but it is true. Gold, silver, rubies and all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace and she is a tree of life to those who take a hold of her and happy are all those who retain her.

Retaining the wisdom of God in our minds, in our hearts. Then wisdom is also an application of God's holiness. It makes you separate from the world, it brings holiness to your life when you get real wisdom. Proverbs 3:7 says, "Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil."

Proverbs 4:11-19 says, "I have taught you the way of wisdom, I have led you the right paths. When you walk your steps are not hindered and when you run you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction and do not let her go. Keep her, for she is your life and do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it and do not travel on it, to turn away from it and to pass on. For they do not sleep unless they have done evil and their sleep is taken away unless they have someone to fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness and they drink the wine of violence. But the path of the just is like the shining sun that shines ever brighter unto a perfect day. And the way of the wicked is like darkness and they do not know what makes them stumble."

Now where do we get this wisdom? According to the Bible, wisdom comes from God. The Lord is the one that gives us wisdom. It doesn't come from going to a university or getting a degree, that's secular wisdom. But godly wisdom only can come from God and the only one that possess that kind of wisdom is a child of God, one that has been born again of the Holy Spirit.

In Proverbs 2:6, he says, "For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding." God is the one that gives you, gives me the wisdom. Secondly, wisdom comes through the word of God as you spend time in God's word. Paul the Apostle in talking to Timothy, this is what he said to him in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

"Timothy, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, it is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and for instruction in righteousness." Notice the purpose: "That the man of God may be complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work." That's the reason for wisdom in the word of God.

2 Peter 3:15-16 says, "And consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, as also our beloved Paul the Apostle brother, according to the wisdom given to him has written for us and also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things in which some things are hard to understand which untaught and unstable people are twisting to their own destruction as they do also the rest of the Scriptures."

The importance of allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to us as we read the Scriptures, the word of God, Paul's letters to Timothy and to Titus and to all these people. Then James 1:5-8, James the brother of Jesus said this: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, not wavering or doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven tossed to by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, he is a double-minded man unstable in all his ways."

God expects us to come to his word and to read it and then to expect to receive the wisdom and the knowledge of God within our own lives. Now why don't we have wisdom as believers, some of us? Why do we not possess the wisdom of God? Well, first of all, it's because many of us are wise in our own eyes, self-righteousness.

Listen to what Proverbs 3:7 says: "Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil." That is, too many people think they know it all and they don't need correction, they don't need instruction. They are the law of God in their own personal lives, but that's not what the Scripture teaches.

People that don't have wisdom is because they don't think that they need wisdom and knowledge to do what's right or what's wrong. They don't depend on God, they depend on their own self and their own knowledge. Secondly, we have no wisdom because we refuse it. We refuse it willingly against God.

This is why Solomon said this: "Wisdom calls out loud outside. She raises her voice in the open square, she cries out in the chief concourse, at the opening of the gates in the city she speaks out her words. How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge."

Fools hate knowledge because they will not turn at wisdom's rebuke. Wisdom rebukes them and they don't accept it. We have to deal with the issue and a lot of us don't really pay attention to the price that wisdom has paid in her own price when Jesus Christ came and died on the cross. Wisdom cries out and says, "Stop, I cannot help you if you will not listen to me." You have to be able to listen to the wisdom of God and then apply the principles of wisdom so that God can bless you.

How do we know when we have this wisdom? Well, first of all, we become wise when we obey the word of God. Whatever God says, we do it. That's wisdom. We know we have wisdom when we have the fear of the Lord abiding within our lives personally. I don't do things because I don't want to do them, I don't do them because I don't want to offend God. I want peace of mind in my life.

Wisdom tells you that: that if you come to the fear of the Lord, if you reverence the name of God and you come to that place where you're not only reverencing God's name, but you're reverencing God's word, then wisdom brings peace. Wisdom not only enhances your walk in Jesus Christ, but like Proverbs 9:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of true wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is true understanding."

To know God is everything when you're really taking upon yourself the wisdom of God. Proverbs 15:33 says, "The fear of the Lord is instruction of wisdom and before honor there is true humility." We know we are wise when we do not hate someone who comes to rebuke you.

How many times can you take counsel from somebody else when you're wrong? They come to say, "You know what, brother, I think that what you're doing is wrong," and you go, "Hey, it's none of your business. Mind your own business." But yet wisdom says you need to listen to your brother. You need to listen to those that are wise.

Listen to Proverbs 9:8, "Do not correct a scoffer lest he hate you, you rebuke a wise man and he will love you." When you rebuke someone in the word of God and you come in love to them, then he will love you. But if he's a fool, he will reject you and he will hate you. He will not stand by.

Proverbs 15:31 says, "The ear that hears the rebuke of life will abide among the wise." To be rebuked is to become wiser because you're listening, you're paying attention. You know you are wise when you get wiser by receiving more information from others and of course more information from the word of God.

"Give instruction to a wise man and he'll still be wiser, teach a just man and he will continually increase in learning." That's Proverbs 9:9. Those that really want open to the Holy Spirit and that are open to God, they will continue to increase and will continue to grow. Proverbs 19:20 says, "Listen to counsel and receive instruction that you may be wise in your last days as you get older." If you don't take counsel when you're young, how are you going to become wiser when you're old if you don't listen now? That's why in the Book of Revelation it says, "He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the church." We need to have a sensitive ear to hear.

Guest (Male): It is wonderful to know that when we ask God for his direction and discernment, he's faithful to equip us with everything that we need. You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. Today's lesson was titled The Value Of Wisdom. We've made a complete unedited version available to you for a donation of $5 or more. Just call us at 800-634-9165.

To further assure you of the sovereign instruction you can receive from the Lord, we'd like to tell you about Raul's 4-part series simply titled Wisdom. It's available on CD and flash drive with each lesson illuminating the rich counsel God has provided in His word and challenging you to daily fill your heart and mind with its truth. You'll also be inspired to set aside your personal agenda, walking in humble submission to God's will.

To order Raul's 4-message Wisdom series, just visit somebodylovesyou.com or call 800-634-9165. We'll send you the CD set for $18 or, if you'd like, the thumb drive for just $10. That's 800-634-9165. To order by writing us, our mailing address is Somebody Loves You Radio, Post Office Box 4440, Diamond Bar, California 91765. Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries is entirely listener-supported. You're a blessing to us and we're always grateful for your partnership. Next time, we'll continue with more in this Spiritual Wisdom series with assurance that God's perfect insight is always available to you, especially in your role as a parent. When you commit to nurturing your kids in righteousness, you can trust the Lord to lead the way. Here is Raul once again with a closing comment.

Raul Ries: And then finally we are wise when we are prudent and discerning. Proverbs 10:13 says, "Wisdom is found in the lips of him who has understanding, but a rod is for the back of him who is devoid of understanding." Proverbs 14:6, "A scoffer seeks wisdom and does not find it, but knowledge is easy to him who understands."

And then Proverbs 14:33, "Wisdom rest in the heart of him who has understanding, but what is the heart of a fool that is made known." And then finally Proverbs 16:21, "The wise in heart will be called prudent, a sweetness of the lips increase in learning." Oh, how we need this morning to come to that place within our own lives that if you need the wisdom of God this morning, all you have to do, James said, ask and you shall receive.

Guest (Male): This program is sponsored by Somebody Loves You Radio in Diamond Bar, California.