Bhanu Gadde: Good evening, family.
Bhanu Gadde: It's always a challenge and an honor to stand here and to open the word of God with all of you.
Bhanu Gadde: To stand here and to open the word of God with all of you.
Bhanu Gadde: And Proverbs.
Bhanu Gadde: I did not even realize that I volunteered for this until four weeks ago and Micah reminded me that, oh yeah, it is Proverbs, july 28th.
Bhanu Gadde: Well, that's been my life for the past 10 years or so where my calendar has not been kept and I'm forgetting more things than I can remember.
Bhanu Gadde: So that is the season of life that we are in, then again.
Bhanu Gadde: So for four weeks of time, I spoke to Pastor Doug about Proverbs and he has given me some pointers, and that's wonderful, and it's such a wonderful book.
Bhanu Gadde: And let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Bhanu Gadde: Heavenly Father, we bow before you this evening, father, as we seek to understand your wisdom from the book of Proverbs.
Bhanu Gadde: Father, we pray that you would, your Holy Spirit, would, shed light on this wonderful, wonderful portion of the scripture and enlighten our hearts.
Bhanu Gadde: Father, for your glory, and Father, we pray that everything that is said tonight, father, will serve to honor you and Father, use it for your glory.
Bhanu Gadde: We pray in Jesus' name.
Bhanu Gadde: Last night I went to get my haircut barber shop next to our house.
Bhanu Gadde: This barber is an Indian man and I was talking to him about his you know whereabouts and where he was born, and he asked me about you know my whereabouts and where I was born and this man and he after he's, you know saying everything, and he said this you know, for the past 30 years or so, I have made choices that were unwise, and he was lamenting about his life and he was lamenting about how his life turned out and he you know, he was lamenting about how his work did not produce success and he has been working all this while without finding much success at all.
Bhanu Gadde: And and he was, and there was a despair in his voice.
Bhanu Gadde: And after that we continued the conversation and he asked me you know, he sees me walking around the neighborhood with my ear headphones on and he asked me what are you listening to?
Bhanu Gadde: So I said I listen to some songs and I listen to the Bible to.
Bhanu Gadde: So I said I listened to some songs and I listened to the Bible.
Bhanu Gadde: And his face lit up and he started saying I have listened to everything, all the religious books, and I have listened to Hinduism.
Bhanu Gadde: I have listened to this and Bhagwan Rajneesh.
Bhanu Gadde: He brought up and he said I want to listen to the Bible.
Bhanu Gadde: Would you send me?
Bhanu Gadde: Is there an audio Bible, audio version of a Hindi Bible?
Bhanu Gadde: I said, yes, there is an audio version of Hindi Bible.
Bhanu Gadde: He requested he begged that I send it to him.
Bhanu Gadde: He has listened to everything and that is one thing that he has not listened to listen to.
Bhanu Gadde: So I was thinking you know how this conversation, how it went from his disappointment in his life and how he did not make wise choices, to you know him asking about the book of books, and it was, yeah, we were, I was pleased and we were praying for him last night and I would urge all of you to remember him in your prayers as he listens to, as this brother listens to, the scripture.
Bhanu Gadde: So if we look at the wisdom literature, you know Pastor Doug preached from a book of Job and you have the Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs and Psalms we heard of Brother Parker preached from last week, and in Ecclesiastes is the same lament that we see again.
Bhanu Gadde: What I heard from this person yesterday, it is all vanity.
Bhanu Gadde: And the book of Ecclesiastes I don't know if I don't think we covered that right, it's not yet been preached on.
Bhanu Gadde: Okay, and in the book of Ecclesiastes, the author, he's lamenting about how things were supposed to be and how God designed us to be and how things turned out.
Bhanu Gadde: And in that he starts saying you know, the men come and men go, the earth stands forever and man was supposed to be an eternal being forever.
Bhanu Gadde: And man was supposed to be an eternal being.
Bhanu Gadde: Unfortunately, touched by this curse, man became a temporal being and the stage that he was supposed to be on it continues on and on and on.
Bhanu Gadde: And he was lamenting about that.
Bhanu Gadde: And you know most of the.
Bhanu Gadde: If we consider all of our lives and if we look at the totality of our lives and our existence here, and the thing is we, you know, at some point we will lament about.
Bhanu Gadde: You know so many things Just like that person was lamenting about.
Bhanu Gadde: And here in Proverbs, see, the thing is goal of wisdom, literature.
Bhanu Gadde: Is God intended for humanity to prosper?
Bhanu Gadde: And this, especially in Proverbs, it is what we see.
Bhanu Gadde: Here is the word proverb typically refers to a short, clever saying that offers wisdom in some way, saying that offers wisdom in some way.
Bhanu Gadde: While this book contains hundreds of proverbs, most of them are found in the center of this book, and there are.
Bhanu Gadde: You know, if we consider the structure of this book, from chapters one through nine, there are about 10 speeches about wisdom, 10 speeches about wisdom, and you have the Proverbs 30 and 31, and in 30 we hear from Agur and his wisdom and in 31 we hear from King Lemuel.
Bhanu Gadde: And if you ask most people to define wisdom, particularly in reference to knowledge, they will say that knowledge, this wisdom, had to do with knowing.
Bhanu Gadde: Knowledge is particularly in reference to knowledge.
Bhanu Gadde: They will say that knowledge this, you know, the wisdom had to do with knowing a lot of knowledge is knowing a lot of facts, and the wisdom involves the ability to use that knowledge in useful ways.
Bhanu Gadde: So, according to dictionarycom, the definition of this word is you know.
Bhanu Gadde: The wisdom is the applied knowledge.
Bhanu Gadde: When Bible speaks about wisdom, it means far more than what we usually understand wisdom to be.
Bhanu Gadde: And in the 21st century BC, the people, when they understood wisdom, they understood it like this it is almost a universal search to learn, by observation of the world and human experience, how the creator designed the creation to function and then ordering one's behavior in accordance with that plan to achieve life as it is intended.
Bhanu Gadde: I think they have it.
Bhanu Gadde: They have a much deeper understanding of wisdom than we do Right Than we do Right.
Bhanu Gadde: And Solomon Wrote the book of Proverbs and most of it anyway.
Bhanu Gadde: When we go to 1st Kings, third chapter, we see the story of Solomon Having a dream.
Bhanu Gadde: Solomon becomes the king and he has a dream and in that the Lord asks him to make what he wants.
Bhanu Gadde: And he asked for wisdom.
Bhanu Gadde: And the Lord granted him wisdom and everything else.
Bhanu Gadde: And he wakes up from that dream and he says if you walk in my ways and keep my statutes and commands, just as your father David did, I will give you a long life along with all these things.
Bhanu Gadde: And in 1 Kings 4, 29 to 33, he says Now God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of mind.
Bhanu Gadde: Like the sand that is on the seashore, solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he is wiser than all men.
Bhanu Gadde: And he says he also spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs were 1,005.
Bhanu Gadde: And he spoke of trees.
Bhanu Gadde: He spoke of cedar, that is in Lebanon, even to the hyssop that grows on the wall.
Bhanu Gadde: He spoke also of animals and birds and creeping things and fish.
Bhanu Gadde: He was the first botanist and biologist, it looks like, and he collected.
Bhanu Gadde: Not only he wrote his own proverbs, but he collected a lot of other proverbs as well.
Bhanu Gadde: Solomon's writings became the source of Israel's wisdom literature.
Bhanu Gadde: The Hebrew word chokmah means more than knowledge.
Bhanu Gadde: It says it is applied knowledge and this can be applied to all created order.
Bhanu Gadde: These are the principles and the order God built into the universe With all the wisdom and experience.
Bhanu Gadde: Solomon penned these proverbs.
Bhanu Gadde: This talks about the way generally things work in the universe.
Bhanu Gadde: After observing so many things, after living for such a long time, this is how the universe is, and let's read Proverbs 1 through 7.
Bhanu Gadde: The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, for learning, wisdom and discipline, for understanding insightful sayings, for receiving prudent instruction in righteousness, justice and integrity, for teaching shrewdness to the inexperienced, knowledge and discretion to the young man.
Bhanu Gadde: Let a wise person listen and increase learning and let a discerning person obtain guidance For understanding a proverb or a parable, the words of the wise and their riddles.
Bhanu Gadde: And the seventh verse the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
Bhanu Gadde: Fools despise wisdom and discipline.
Bhanu Gadde: This is the seventh verse.
Bhanu Gadde: We see this theme is repeated again in Proverbs, chapter 9.
Bhanu Gadde: The main section of this book is chapters 1 through 9.
Bhanu Gadde: As I said, there are 10 speeches from father to son.
Bhanu Gadde: The father tells the son that he should listen to wisdom and cultivate fear of the Lord.
Bhanu Gadde: Talks about a life of virtue, integrity, generosity.
Bhanu Gadde: All of these will lead to success and peace.
Bhanu Gadde: Father wants the son about folly and evil, about short-sighted, selfish decisions and pride.
Bhanu Gadde: All of this will lead to ruin and shame.
Bhanu Gadde: And you have the Solomonic proverbs in chapter 10, for the first verse, through chapter 22, 16, you have proverbs by solomon and after again 25, 1 through 29, 7, you have solomon's proverbs and the remaining are 22, 17 through 24, 34.
Bhanu Gadde: These are the proverbs by other wise men.
Bhanu Gadde: And chapter 30, as I said, these are the sayings of Agur.
Bhanu Gadde: Then in chapter 31, we have sayings of King Lemuel this we all know.
Bhanu Gadde: To describe a virtuous woman, proverbs 31 is always quoted, and in chapter 31.
Bhanu Gadde: Verses 10 through 31.
Bhanu Gadde: That is how many?
Bhanu Gadde: 22 verses Describing a virtuous woman.
Bhanu Gadde: And here this is an acrostic.
Bhanu Gadde: What is an acrostic?
Bhanu Gadde: Every verse begins with Different Hebrew letter, from Aleph to the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Bhanu Gadde: So it says about the wisdom of this virtuous woman.
Bhanu Gadde: When somebody, a Hebrew poet, writes this as an acrostic, that means as we have exhausted the alphabet, so have we exhausted the subject.
Bhanu Gadde: And again in Proverbs 9, 10, it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Bhanu Gadde: In other non-wisdom literature of the Bible there are this is, that is, about 61 other books.
Bhanu Gadde: God always gives his revelation to a person who writes it down in the Bible, who can then say with authority does say the Lord.
Bhanu Gadde: This is how all the prophets and Matthew, mark and John and Paul and Peter and everybody who wrote that's how they did it.
Bhanu Gadde: In wisdom literature it works a little differently.
Bhanu Gadde: The general revelation of God's wisdom that is woven into his creation and the universe and the observed patterns by wise men are recorded in the wisdom literature as proverbs.
Bhanu Gadde: For instance, proverbs 10.1,.
Bhanu Gadde: A wise child brings joy to his parents.
Bhanu Gadde: This is not necessarily always true.
Bhanu Gadde: It is almost.
Bhanu Gadde: Usually it is true, but not necessarily always true.
Bhanu Gadde: As an example, a child who was born in Garden City, new York, miraculously is found by God and you know who I am talking about.
Bhanu Gadde: And when he tells his parents Dad, I want to invest my life on a mission field, turning lost people to Christ.
Bhanu Gadde: Obviously, their parents have so many ambitions towards their son.
Bhanu Gadde: That proclamation by Kevin Cooney did not bring joy to his parents.
Bhanu Gadde: But wisdom, literature, by definition, describes the way world generally runs, and sometimes these exceptions do happen.
Bhanu Gadde: If we try to understand this book logically, one could conclude erroneously that one's highest goal should be pursue what is virtuous and avoid what is vile, and thereby achieve success.
Bhanu Gadde: If the success is the goal of this pursuit, then that pursuit will come short of what is intended.
Bhanu Gadde: There are many books written about this precise thing from the principles that are outlined in Proverbs.
Bhanu Gadde: Apply these principles from Proverbs and achieve success in life.
Bhanu Gadde: If we get only that from this book, it would be a shame, because that only leads one in the pursuit of moralism.
Bhanu Gadde: If we want to understand this book, we must understand chapter 1, verse 7.
Bhanu Gadde: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
Bhanu Gadde: Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Bhanu Gadde: The term here, the phrase here, is the fear of the Lord, and we use this right.
Bhanu Gadde: We talk about being a God-fearing person.
Bhanu Gadde: See, the thing is in every culture in humanity this thing, about this definition of this God-fearing person, especially coming from a Hindu culture.
Bhanu Gadde: Okay, and this is very highly regarded.
Bhanu Gadde: You know God-fearing, the fear of God, and you know for a Hindu, you know to be good is to take care of others and to be, you know not to.
Bhanu Gadde: I mean all these virtuous things that are described in Proverbs.
Bhanu Gadde: I think a God-fearing person in a Hindu culture will always try to do, try to follow that.
Bhanu Gadde: And the thing is, unfortunately, for the most part, when people use this phrase of being a God-fearing person, all they mean is to be a moral person.
Bhanu Gadde: There are many God-fearing, moral people whose goal it is to live a good and a moral life and not harm anyone and to give to the poor, and in almost all the world religions it is a virtue to do all these things and in some religions it is a requirement also.
Bhanu Gadde: Well, this is not what the book of Proverbs is referring to when it says it is the fear of the Lord.
Bhanu Gadde: It is not referring to someone who does not know God, to someone who does not have A saving, covenantal relationship With God, and it is not referring to Someone who lives their life Outside God and yet acknowledges and recognizes.
Bhanu Gadde: The thing is, you know if some people don't we see that, see this on television always and you know when they.
Bhanu Gadde: When we talk about God, yeah, we have.
Bhanu Gadde: Everybody agrees that there is this power out there and who is controlling or who they revere or who they you know they think is running the universe.
Bhanu Gadde: But that understanding lacks a relationship with God.
Bhanu Gadde: And the thing is, if you lack relationship with a God, how do you fear such a?
Bhanu Gadde: What does this even mean?
Bhanu Gadde: The fear of God?
Bhanu Gadde: Many God-fearing, moral people whose goal it is to live a virtuous life and to earn favor with God.
Bhanu Gadde: And if we read Proverbs just like that, as a set of moral principles, a set of rules, we will always come short of the intended purpose of this book.
Bhanu Gadde: So, god fearing person, this is not what the book of Proverbs mean.
Bhanu Gadde: When we read this, we come to understand that this fear of the Lord is this reverence of God.
Bhanu Gadde: Reverence for God is actually the evidence of a covenant relationship with him.
Bhanu Gadde: We understand who God is and we fear and revere God and serve God because we know who God is.
Bhanu Gadde: It is not an outward acknowledgement that God perhaps exists out there somewhere, but what he says is the fear, the intimate knowledge, the reverence that is coming from the intimate knowledge of God.
Bhanu Gadde: That is the beginning of knowledge, beginning of knowledge.
Bhanu Gadde: So, as I said in Proverbs, book of Proverbs covers everything from economics, from romance, from relationships, from the society, how kings ought to behave, how the society is supposed to be, everything it covers the whole gamut.
Bhanu Gadde: And when we look at economics, you know, when there is so much that we have heard of so many companies which have gone belly up because of the misbehavior of its leadership.
Bhanu Gadde: Yes, the thing is definitely the work produces prosperity and, as according to book of Proverbs and God intended for the humanity to flourish.
Bhanu Gadde: But if you take shortcuts and there is ruin, and that is what we see.
Bhanu Gadde: There are examples of that in our society.
Bhanu Gadde: We see that in so many examples here in our society and also here we see, as we continue from verse 8 and forward Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and don't reject your mother's teaching, and for there will be garland of favor on your head and pendants around your neck.
Bhanu Gadde: My son, when, if sinners entice you, don't be persuaded if they say come with us, let us set an ambush and kill someone, let us attack some innocent person just for fun, let us swallow them alive likeol, while like those who go down to the pit.
Bhanu Gadde: What he is referring to here is a heart of folly.
Bhanu Gadde: This is not how friends entice friends.
Bhanu Gadde: This is a hyperbole.
Bhanu Gadde: This is not.
Bhanu Gadde: This is a hyperbully, this is poetry.
Bhanu Gadde: And in this he says when the problem is, you know, when you see, you know from the beginning when we are, when the universe is touched by this curse, from the beginning everybody is trying to, everybody is trying to enslave somebody else.
Bhanu Gadde: And that is what we see here in every society in the world.
Bhanu Gadde: And here it says avoid the path of the violent.
Bhanu Gadde: And yes, there are certain truths, universal truths, that happen and there are some exceptions.
Bhanu Gadde: But here the instruction to the sun it talks about avoid some things like plague.
Bhanu Gadde: And here it is cautioning against this heart.
Bhanu Gadde: Don't even go, don't even entertain the thought of setting foot into such paths, because their feet run toward evil and they hurry towards to shed blood.
Bhanu Gadde: It is useless to spread a net where a bird can see it, but they set an ambush to kill themselves.
Bhanu Gadde: This is how thing is.
Bhanu Gadde: Suddenly he is talking about hunting for birds.
Bhanu Gadde: It is not hunting for birds.
Bhanu Gadde: What it says is when the bird is seeing, if you set out a net and bird will escape.
Bhanu Gadde: But here these people.
Bhanu Gadde: If the heart is overcome with wickedness and foolishness, they set a trap and a snare for themselves and they fall in it and they are killed.
Bhanu Gadde: Such are the paths of all who make profit dishonestly.
Bhanu Gadde: It takes the lives of those who receive it.
Bhanu Gadde: And we just go back to the theme verse.
Bhanu Gadde: The fear of the knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding, knowing God and through that knowledge, having an awe of his person and his glory, his character.
Bhanu Gadde: That is what is the fear of the Lord.
Bhanu Gadde: And the book of Proverbs is referring to the books written on this subject do not emphasize this part and that success can.
Bhanu Gadde: And they say that success can be achieved without the fear of the Lord.
Bhanu Gadde: And in his book, michael Horton, christless Christianity, he talks about Donald Gray Barnhouse.
Bhanu Gadde: When he preached a weekly sermon which was broadcast on CBS radio, barnhouse speculated that if Satan took over Philadelphia, he was speculating what happens if Satan takes over a city.
Bhanu Gadde: Satan takes over a city and he says he speculated that all the bars in Philadelphia would be closed, pornography will be banished and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other.
Bhanu Gadde: There would be no swearing, children would say yes, sir, no ma'am, and the churches would be full every Sunday where Christ is never preached.
Bhanu Gadde: Did you get that?
Bhanu Gadde: The thing is, when we look at proverbs like a list of things to do, as a list of laws that we need to follow, that leads to legalism.
Bhanu Gadde: And if we look at these as moral principles, and that leads us to moralism, both of which, in both of which, there is no gospel.
Bhanu Gadde: So that's what Pastor Barnhouse, who was the pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and this is the perfect city Any one of us would be longing to live in, but where Christ is never preached Is it possible to achieve success without the fear of the Lord and without the knowledge of the Holy One?
Bhanu Gadde: Yes, more than likely.
Bhanu Gadde: If all these principles are followed, the success can be achieved, but with that success, we will be living in the city that DJ Bond has described.
Bhanu Gadde: When we look at the book of Proverbs, it has two main stories.
Bhanu Gadde: One is the story of two sons, one wise and one foolish, and over and over again we hear about these two sons, the wise one and the foolish one, and it is also a story of two women, lady Wisdom and Lady Folly.
Bhanu Gadde: Wisdom is personified as a woman and Folly is personified as Folly.
Bhanu Gadde: And the Lady Folly is a harlot.
Bhanu Gadde: These are the literary tools used in this book.
Bhanu Gadde: And here is the lady wisdom crying in the streets.
Bhanu Gadde: And in Proverbs 3, 18, it says, those who embrace wisdom embrace life.
Bhanu Gadde: Moreover, the horrible truth about the lady folly is she is murderous.
Bhanu Gadde: The lady folly is she is murderous.
Bhanu Gadde: And chapter 9, verse 13.
Bhanu Gadde: Folly is a rowdy woman.
Bhanu Gadde: She is gullible and knows nothing.
Bhanu Gadde: She sits by the doorway of her house on the seat at the highest point of the city, calling those who pass by, who go straight ahead on their paths.
Bhanu Gadde: Whoever is inexperienced, enter here.
Bhanu Gadde: To the one who lacks sense, she says stolen water is sweet, the bread eaten secretly is tasty, but he does not know that the departed spirits are there and her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
Bhanu Gadde: She invites people for a dinner and they never come out.
Bhanu Gadde: So this is not a story, not just a story about successful, achieving success in business or anything else.
Bhanu Gadde: This is not the story of successful businessmen, this is a story of.
Bhanu Gadde: This is a matter of life and death.
Bhanu Gadde: This is a matter of knowing God or not knowing God.
Bhanu Gadde: This is a matter of being right with God versus being an enemy of God.
Bhanu Gadde: This is the matter of being saved or being lost.
Bhanu Gadde: So how do we study the book of Proverbs in this light?
Bhanu Gadde: You know there are so many, yes, there are so many Proverbs that are so wonderful and universal truths, like in Proverbs 25, 6, in Proverbs 28.
Bhanu Gadde: It talks about a destitute leader.
Bhanu Gadde: Destitute leader who oppresses the poor Is like driving rain Driving rain that leaves no food.
Bhanu Gadde: The one who reject the law Praise the wicked, but those who keep the law pit themselves against them.
Bhanu Gadde: So there are in the first nine chapters.
Bhanu Gadde: There is this there's ten speeches about wisdom and from father to son, and there are some loosely said proverbs from chapter 10 through chapter 29.
Bhanu Gadde: But these proverbs must be understood in the context of the first nine chapters.
Bhanu Gadde: See, the thing is, you know wherever in the Bible when we talk about you know, do not take words out of it.
Bhanu Gadde: You know out of context and talk from it.
Bhanu Gadde: But here, here in the Proverbs, there is a temptation from you know, from you know from chapters 10 through 29.
Bhanu Gadde: You know, these are wonderful, wonderful Proverbs, but these Proverbs must be understood from the vantage point of the first nine chapters, and the key verse in those chapters, key verses in those chapters, is the fear of the Lord Is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One Is understanding.
Bhanu Gadde: And also so how to study Proverbs.
Bhanu Gadde: I'd like to, before concluding, I'd like to give you a few points here.
Bhanu Gadde: The first point is this is not a list of do's and don'ts.
Bhanu Gadde: And if it is a list of do's and don'ts, and if it is a list of do's and don'ts and then it becomes, if we look at these as laws, as I told you before, that leads to legalism.
Bhanu Gadde: And second, these are not moral principles to be followed to earn God's favor.
Bhanu Gadde: That leads to moralism.
Bhanu Gadde: All these proverbs must lead us to the realization that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Bhanu Gadde: See, you know, if I just told you this is the story of two sons, one is wise and one is foolish.
Bhanu Gadde: And it is not like, by instruction, by instructing, in these proverbs, and you know, expecting our, our sons are even us, to become wise is that is not the, that is not the goal of this, this book and the.
Bhanu Gadde: And what we need to understand is this is the fourth point Christ is the wise son of the Proverbs.
Bhanu Gadde: In Colossians 2, 1 and 3 we see, for I want you to know how greatly I am struggling with you for those in love this year and for all who have not seen me in person.
Bhanu Gadde: I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery, christ.
Bhanu Gadde: In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Bhanu Gadde: All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ.
Bhanu Gadde: So the recognition that Christ is the wise son of the Proverbs, you know, we don't.
Bhanu Gadde: By following these Proverbs we do not become, you know, the wise son of the Proverbs.
Bhanu Gadde: But as God is forming this wise son of the Proverbs that is Christ in us and as he is bringing us into the conformity, into his image, that is how our life must be transformed and that is how that is a daily pursuit and that is how we must instruct our children and must instruct ourselves from the book of Proverbs and five pursuit of riches and success without the knowledge of God will lead to pride and does not address the heart of folly.
Bhanu Gadde: Proverbs 3, the Lord's curse is on the household of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the righteous.
Bhanu Gadde: He mocks those who mock but gives grace to the humble.
Bhanu Gadde: And in James he picks it up in two places.
Bhanu Gadde: Again, god raises the proud and gives grace to the humble.
Bhanu Gadde: And if this Pursuit of moralism and pursuit of legalism will lead us to for us to be, you know, to play one-upmanship with our neighbors or with ourselves or with somebody else, and which leads to pride.
Bhanu Gadde: And here it says God resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble.
Bhanu Gadde: And Proverbs 16, 18, it says pride comes before destruction, the proud and he gives grace to the humble.
Bhanu Gadde: And Proverbs 16, 18, it says pride comes before destruction and an arrogant spirit before a fall.
Bhanu Gadde: And here Christ's wisdom is described like this in 1 Corinthians 1, verses 26 onwards Brothers and sisters, consider your calling.
Bhanu Gadde: Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.
Bhanu Gadde: Instead, god has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
Bhanu Gadde: God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world, what is viewed as nothing to bring to nothing, what is viewed as something so that no one may boast in his presence.
Bhanu Gadde: It is from him that you are, in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us, our righteousness, sanctification and redemption.
Bhanu Gadde: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and this wisdom is personified and it is in Christ Jesus and Christ for us.
Bhanu Gadde: He became the wisdom of God and he became our redemption and our righteousness and sanctification.
Bhanu Gadde: And this is the message that we need to get from the book of Proverbs, because the book of Proverbs, the wise son of Proverbs, is Christ Jesus himself.
Bhanu Gadde: Ultimately, the gospel implication of Proverbs is that Christ is our only hope.
Bhanu Gadde: Here in Proverbs 28, it says the one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
Bhanu Gadde: And where do we find mercy?
Bhanu Gadde: We find mercy at the foot of the cross.
Bhanu Gadde: We find mercy In the wise son of the Proverbs who is Jesus Christ.
Bhanu Gadde: And we find mercy In the redeeming work Of Christ Jesus on the cross.
Bhanu Gadde: And if we can be wise if we can be wise with our pursuits and Christ has died in vain and if we think by following these principles we will become closer to God.
Bhanu Gadde: That is the folly that we must avoid.
Bhanu Gadde: Yes, this is, I think.
Bhanu Gadde: Once we know, once we understand it is the wise son of the book of Proverbs is the Christ Jesus himself, then our reading of my perspective and I think my way of reading Proverbs has changed completely.
Bhanu Gadde: And may God bless each one of us with divine knowledge and wisdom from above and may form this Christ in us, the wise son of the Proverbs in us, in an increasing measure, on a daily basis.
Bhanu Gadde: Thank you,