Studies In The Book Of Proverbs?

I’m so glad that you’re joining us for this journey through the book of Proverbs. This study of exploring the book of Proverbs is a thrilling study that I just had no idea what a blessing it was going to be until I started preparing for it.

Actually, it’s the most important part of the

study, how to take what we’re learning in the Bible and through adding to it your own personal studies that you write down in a Note Book.

This is the most powerful

deepening process for our minds by combining, actually the tactile work of writing, with processing, and then putting it on paper, and then looking at it, adding to it little notes here and there – that deepens it the most. Whether you use electronic or paper, you study the word of God, the book of Proverbs and you mark it, as you’ll see all the way through this lesson.

You do what Jeremiah said. Thy words were found, and I did eat them. This whole intro to the Proverbs lesson is how to eat, how to digest, how to know God personally.

In a sanctifying way.

Proverbs is all about life change and those devotionals we’re going to do are all about sanctification.

Look in your Bibles look with me, down at chapter 1, verse 7

The topic of Proverbs is

wisdom, godly wisdom, wisdom from God. Many think of that as a topic, it’s not a topic, it is the topic. It’s what the entire Bible is about. There are only two types of people on the planet, there are wise and fools.

Wise – know the Lord, have been born again. Have the wisdom that is from above.

Fools – we’re born that way. Everyone in the world in God’s sight is foolish. In the dark.

Headed toward destruction. Most of them are resisting God. They are hardening their hearts and living in the darkness.

What does the Bible say? Look at verse 7, it says,

7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

This whole Proverbs class Lesson, which I want to introduce

to you today is looking at the difference between God’s way and man’s way. God’s way is all about what the Bible teaches us. Man’s way is what I was born with.

So, how do we learn God’s way?

 That’s basically what we’re going to do as we learn how to do.

Do you want to have the most powerful impact that God wants to make on your life? Then open your heart to Him through, number one, inviting Him to open your eyes. So, let’s do that now. I’m going to pray. If you want to know what I’m praying, it’s psalm 119 verse 18, which is actually the words of this prayer.

18 Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

Let’s pray.

Father in Heaven, we invite you to open our eyes, the eyes of our understanding, our hearts, our minds, to understand your law. You are the lawgiver, your law is your truth, the way you want us to live. Wisdom. We submit to you and ask you to open our eyes and see truth from your word. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Let’s get down to looking at the elements of our Lessons of Proverbs is, what we’re studying.

The whole book of Proverbs is contrasting God’s way with man’s

way. That’s really why this book is so fascinating.

God’s Way—————Man’s Way

Wisdom                  Foolishness

Saved                     Lost

Mind of Christ         Empty Minds

Spiritually Alive       Spiritually Dead

Sensitive                 Callous

Worship God           Worship Self

Flee Sin                    Mock Sin

Being Saved             Perishing

Path Brighter            Path darker

 Each Day                 Each Day

. If we were to summarize the book of Proverbs, we’d say that the fools, and this is a fool, are on this side and the wise are on this side. Fools are everyone who doesn’t know God. The wise are everyone that does know God. When you’re talking about wisdom, you’re not talking about a subject, you’re talking about the subject of the Bible. You’re talking about the most defining reality that can be declared about any of us who know God. We, God’s  word says, are the wise.

The word fool,

this word is used 42 times in the book of Proverbs. There’s a lot in the book of Proverbs about it. God’s promise is in verse 23 of Proverbs chapter 1.

23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

 This wonderful declaration, that all throughout human history wisdom is going to be crying in the streets.

What is wisdom crying? Wisdom cries, God offers salvation. When He saves us, He gives us the mind of Christ. When we have the mind of Christ, we’re spiritually alive. We become sensitive to God. We who are saved are those, who worship God. See, salvation is equated with worshiping God. What begins to happen in our life is, more and more and more we flee sin.

Now, Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians 1:18. You who are being saved.

“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”

See, there’s an element of future salvation. Where we’re in Heaven and perfected, but presently God is transforming us. We have eternal life, but we’re being saved more and more and more from

the power of sin. Then, I love what Proverbs chapter 4 says so beautifully. Proverbs 4, starting verse 18.

But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

By the way if you’ll take a moment and grab your Bibles, all the way through and as I read these scriptures you should have your Bible open.

You’ll notice that anything that’s really important. I am putting a note on it or I’ve highlighted it.

Just makes your Bible a little snapshot of your whole spiritual pilgrimage.

If you would look in your Bibles, look at Proverbs chapter 4 and verse 18, and this is what it says,

“But the path of the just,” that’s the wise, that’s the saved, that’s the born again, that’s those who are going God’s way, “is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.”

Verse 19,

19 The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.

Why? They’re spiritually dead, empty minded, callous. They want their own way, which is another way of worshiping self. They mock at sin. God says that there’s only two groups in the world, those who are being saved and those who are perishing. That’s the lost, that’s the fools. For an unsaved person, their path is getting darker every day. Every day, the pathway of the lost, of the fool gets harder, more difficult, and they just can’t understand what’s

going on, why it’s so hard, and what is happening.

We will start Lesson One next

Suggestion: Read the Book of Proverb.

 Sanctification:

1 Thessalonians 4:3

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:

1 Thessalonians 4:4

That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;

1 Corinthians 1:30

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and

sanctification, and redemption:

1 Peter 1:2

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit,

 unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

2 Thessalonians 2:13

But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: