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This morning, as we continue in our series, The Big Picture, if you haven't been with us, let me just really quickly catch you up. We are taking 12 weeks to walk through the high-level view of the Bible, okay? From Genesis to Revelation, 12 weeks. Say we're flying. Okay, that means we can't really cover a lot of the details. We can't really jump in at a deep level and really unpack every little thing that's there, because obviously we'll be doing that for the rest of our lives. Okay? But here's the thing. We do believe that in every passage of scripture, every scripture, maybe you see it on uh maybe you've got scriptures on your wall in your house, maybe you've got scriptures um that you uh that you write on a card and you stick it on your mirror, or maybe you've seen scriptures uh on the wall in stores. I I don't know. I mean, anymore, uh you you might see scriptures some some places um that totally surprise you, and then you won't see it anymore in places where it used to be because people have stripped that away. But whatever it is, when you see those scriptures and when you read the scripture, that scripture, just catch this real fast, that scripture has a micro context and it has a macro context. Now let me explain what I mean by that. When you read a verse, you can get meaning from that verse by just simply looking at some of the verses right around it and understand that it has a meaning to our lives, right? It has a meaning that we can translate what's being said, we can interpret what's being said, and we can apply it to our lives practically. But here's what I want to caution you on when you come to the Bible. You've got to catch this, okay? This is really, really important. Because there are so many people who take the Bible and they only look at the micro context of it. They only look at the Bible by going to a chapter and verse that maybe they've heard when they were growing up, or maybe they just opened their Bibles and they saw a verse and they went, oh, this is a great verse. And they took that verse and they just started to say, man, I love this verse, apply it, whatever that verse might be for you. Maybe it's Philippians 4.13, which says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Heard that verse before? Okay, great verse, right? But here's the thing: most people don't realize that a lot of times they're using that verse out of context. Like if you look in the context of Philippians 4, what you'll find is Paul saying, I can be content in all circumstances. I can be content whether I have a lot or whether I have a little. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I'm not saying you can't put it on your iPad when you play football, okay? I'm just saying, that's not that's not a jab at anyone, okay? I'm just saying, I see that. I see people use that verse in different contexts, but even in its micro context, it means something more than just simply I can get through a bad day. Or I can deal with not having enough money or whatever it is. I can learn to be content in all things, what he says. But here's the thing while a verse has a micro context, it also has a macro context that you need to understand and interpret that verse through. What that means is that when you look at verses in the Bible, you've got to think about what's the big storyline of scripture. And how does that verse fit into the bigger story, specifically the redemptive narrative, that tells us that we as human beings are broken and we are in a destitute state before a holy righteous God. And if it wasn't for Jesus Christ's work on the cross on our behalf, his sufficient acts of service and sacrifice to give himself willingly for our lives, we would have no hope of ever fulfilling any of those verses that we sometimes look to and say, oh, this is a great verse. It is a great verse, but listen, if it doesn't point us to Jesus, we're missing the bigger point. Right? If it doesn't call us to need Jesus more than we think we need him, then there's then we're missing the bigger, the macro context of that verse. Does that make sense? So as we're going through the Bible, what we want you to understand is that it helps us to look at the big picture. You see these different icons here. We've gone through creation and fall. We've looked at the Exodus when the people of Israel were in slavery in Egypt and how they were building uh the pyramids and they were working for the Egyptians, and then God used Moses and called them out. We looked at the conquest and judges and how the people kept rebelling against God. Even though God was good and kept drawing them back, they just kept rebelling. Every time the judge would die, they would turn away, and they'd go worship idols and worship these other false gods. So God would raise up another leader to kind of pull them back. And then we went through the kings last week and we looked at these different kings because they said we want to be like every other nation. We want a king, we want someone who will tell us what to do, and someone honestly who we can hold accountable, you know, when things go wrong, and somebody who will protect us, but we found out pretty fast it doesn't work that way. The king doesn't protect the people, the people end up protecting the king. And so when you get what you think you want, it's not always what you thought, you know, it's not always what you thought it was, right? And so we just said last week that we've got to be really careful in that. And then so this week we're actually gonna be right in the middle of that section, and we're gonna switch gears a little bit. And let me help you again with some of the context, in that um, there's three different types of books in the Old Testament. There's three different types, okay? Um here's a way to look at them, just in terms of looking at the books and where they fall in what category. And in your listening guide that you got handed when you came in, uh, you'll see some blanks there. The first one is the historical books, and that's what we've been working through is the historical books. I'm gonna do a little bit of teaching and then we're gonna come back to some application on how this all fits together. But this historical books really tells the story of the people from the time of creation to the time ultimately of exile, okay, in return. And this is the Old Testament, these books all include in that, and you can see how as we've been working through this, there's just been kind of this one continuous narrative about this chosen people that God pulls Abraham, Abram at the time, he pulls him aside and he says, I am going to bless you, not because of who you are, but just because I am so good. I'm gonna bless you, and I'm gonna give you descendants that number the sands on the shore and the stars in the sky, and I'm gonna use all the people that come after you that are descendants of you to point others to me. I'm gonna use you to bring my name glory, right? To reflect my goodness to the nation. So that's what we've been working through. We've got this storyline going. But then today we're gonna actually look at the poetical books. There's five books that fall here. And those books, um, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, are a little bit different, actually a lot different than what we've been working through. And then the final set of books that we'll start uh into a little bit next week, but primarily finish up some of the story, is uh the prophetical. And that's Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations. You can see them all there. I won't read them all to you. But prophetical uh books, which are speaking about the coming of Christ, but also they give us a good framework for understanding how God was speaking truth to his people uh even then and telling them things that were going to happen if they didn't turn back from their evil ways, if they didn't stop rebelling, and guess what? They didn't stop rebelling. And so they did have to be punished by God because God is holy and he's just. So if you only get God's grace and truth, and we'll talk more about this in coming weeks, if you only get God's grace and all this mercy and his love, you're missing a whole aspect of who God is. We don't want to give people the false idea that God just thinks that our sin doesn't matter. That we can do whatever we want and he doesn't really care. Listen, God is holy, he is righteous, and he cares. In fact, it means a lot to him because it cost his son his life. Our sin is serious to God. And so we see that play out in the Bibles. We understand that God would lead these men, he would call these men, set them apart, and give them a message, and these messages were not easy messages to hear. They weren't pretty messages, they weren't, they weren't uh nice and fluffy, uh, they weren't just all, you know, hey, follow God and everything will be great. They were like, you need to turn away from your sin. So historical, poetical, and prophetical. Now, today, since we're going to talk about poetical, there's actually three types of poetry that we're gonna look at in these five books. Okay? So here, hang with me. Number one, lyrical poetry or lyric poetry. Um, and this is to be accompanied by music like a song. So anybody know which book I'm talking about here? Psalms, right? Okay, the book of Psalms. Uh, these were for public worship. These were designed to be used in a public worship place uh to really sing these songs. And somebody anybody know who primarily wrote the Psalms? David, that's right. But did he write all of them? No, no. If you go through the Psalms, a lot of people think David wrote the whole book of Psalms, but he actually didn't. Uh there were other writers, uh, ASAP and others that if you'll go through, you'll see periodically, it'll say a psalm of ASAP. And and so, uh, but what you'll notice is that those psalms, those songs, were designed for public worship. Now, they didn't use uh baby pianos like they used this morning in their worship experience. Um I don't know if y'all saw that, but I thought that was kind of cute. Um but uh they didn't use these uh baby pianos, they didn't use uh they didn't use uh you know rock guitars, they they used harps and they used uh cymbals and they used trumpets and these other things, uh shofars. If you don't know if you've ever seen one of those, uh if you've ever gone to a prayer service, you've probably seen a shofar, right? Uh they they come out at prayer services. And uh and so but we get we get these these different uh things musically that are there. Then we get instructional poetry to teach the principles of living through pithy maxims, uh the kind of these sayings, these phrases. And of course, Christians are not the only ones who have these proverbs or these kind of uh uh just helpful, practical, wise sayings. Uh when I was in school, I was studying the Bible, but we had to read religion, other, other texts from other religions, and you'll find similar texts uh among other world religions that they'll have these lists of proverbs, and uh, and even uh every now and then you'll hear uh Chinese proverbs will come out. Or if you ever go to go to Chinese, good Chinese food, you get your fortune cookie, right? And you get your little your little saying. Half of them I have no idea what they're trying to say, but um you know, you read those. So instructional poetry is there, and then last is dramatic poetry. Uh, this is a narrative that tells a story in a poetic form. And so the first book we're actually going to look at today is one of these, which is the book of Job. Now, if you've ever read the book of Job, uh let's just acknowledge right up on the front end, it's it's a difficult book to read because it really messes with our view of God. Which, again, if you read the Bible and you're not wrestling, if you're not wrestling with who God is, uh, you're probably not reading it and absorbing it as it's saying, God, whatever your idea is, I'm gonna go with your idea, not my idea. Let me explain what I mean by that. A lot of times we take our ideas and our thoughts about who God is and we read it into the Bible, rather than saying, okay, God, you use the, you use your word to shape my life. There's a difference. We call that in theological terms. I know uh you guys may not may not find this interesting and kind of nerdy of me, but there's eisegesis and there's exegesis in the in when we study the Bible. Eisegesis is when we read our meaning into the Bible, and exegesis is when we try to draw the meaning out of the Bible. Okay? What we want to be is a people who draw the meaning out of the Bible called exegesis, because when we do eisegesis, you can make the Bible say a lot of things it doesn't mean. In fact, we've said this before, but people used to use the Bible to say that slavery was okay. Or people will use the Bible to, you know, I've even heard people use the Bible to say that polygamy is okay. They'll take Old Testament passages and say, oh, look, I mean, I don't, I don't know, I love my wife, I don't want more than one, okay? Um these guys would use this. It's not a slam on her. I just know I can't keep up with trying to be a, you know, I need God's help every day to be a good enough husband to one wife, all right? So, but what I'm saying, people will use the Bible to do a lot of things, and they'll they'll take it out of context and they'll do all these things that aren't helpful. And so we need to be exegetical type people, and we need to say, God, what do you want to say to me through the Bible? Well, that creates tension because God's gonna say some things to you that you're not gonna agree with. You know what? He's gonna say some things at times, and you're gonna go, ooh, I don't like that. Or it doesn't feel good. It doesn't give me warm fuzzies. You know, I don't feel like I'm so in love with God now. If anything, I feel really kind of gross, like, wow, I'm broken. I messed up. Um, something's wrong with me. And you know what? It's in that that then we get to turn to the grace of God. It's when we confront the fact that the Bible is a mirror that shows us the true us, that shows us just how broken we are, that we can turn to his grace and his mercy and find hope and restoration and redemption of all that stuff. So that's why when you come here, we don't want to just try to uh kind of just move past the hard verses. We've got to teach the full counsel of the Bible and trust that God will use the Bible to shape us and push us closer to Him. Does that make sense? So if you feel beat down by the Bible, that's all you feel, you're not getting the full counsel of the Bible. But if you don't ever feel convicted when you read the Bible, you're not getting the full counsel of the Bible. We don't want to fall on either of those extremes, right? So, as we look at the book of Job, we see this book that talks about suffering and the sovereignty of God. Suffering and the sovereignty of God. Um, in Job, let me just read a couple of sections to you. This will help, and we're just gonna do an overview of these books because I want to make sure that we have a handle on um each one of these books, and hopefully what this will do is push us to go and spend some time reading them, because we can't get through all of the details that are in each book, like I said earlier. The first book of Job, um, in Job 1, verse 6, it says this. One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord asked Satan, Where have you come from? From roaming through the earth, Satan answered him, and walking around on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil. Now, who in here would like God to speak up on your behalf? How many of you would like Satan? This is a very interesting picture here, okay? Because Satan comes before God, which that right there, what does that look like theologically? I don't know. But we just know this story says he comes before God, and he's been out in the earth, and God says, Hey, have you considered my servant Job? Job has lived such a great life, such a godly life, such a righteous life, that God brings him up in the conversation. I pray my life is even like remotely worthy of God's, you know, paying attention to, right? I know God, I know God knows everything, he sees everything, and he's very well aware of the details of our life. But just think about that. He brings him up. But here's the thing. You would think it'd be a really good thing that he brought him up, but Satan says, Does Job fear God for nothing? This is verse 9. Haven't you placed a hedge around him and his household and everything he owns? He's saying, he's got it easy because you've protected everything. Everything's been good for Job. He hasn't had any hardship. So those no wonder he worships you all the time. No wonder he follows you. No wonder he leads his family to trust you because he hasn't gone through any hard stuff. You ever feel like there's people in your life, you're like, man, yeah, they worship God, but look, they've had it so easy. Things have been so good for them. And even Satan's saying that about Job. He says, You've blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he owns, and he will surely curse you to your face. Satan says, he'll blow it, he'll totally turn away from you if things go bad in his life. If you take away everything, then he'll turn away from you because it's all just about your gifts right now. He's just happy because you've given him all these good things. Very well, the Lord told Satan, verse 12. Everything he owns is in your power. However, you must not lay a hand on Job himself. So Satan left the Lord's presence. So without getting too bogged down in the story, from this point forward, things go terrible for Job. God allows Satan to tempt him by taking away everything. He loses his entire family, he loses his family. I mean, things, these services start to come to him and they say, hey, your sons, they were having a party and they just got wiped out by this tornado. I mean, things just start happening and his family members start dying, and he loses all of his possessions, he loses his relationships. And in the midst of all that, I mean, I don't know what your response would be, but in the midst of all that, Job never curses God. He never shakes his fist at God and says, God, why did you do this to me? I'm blown away. Like just how he has this amazing righteous faith. And in the midst of that, um, we see this man Job rise up. But here's the point that I want us to see in this in this story is that as we move through the book of Job, we're confronted with the fact that all of us in our lives are going to face hardship, and some people are going to try to explain that to us. They're going to try to give us uh little their little perspective, their commentary on what we're going through. And it's not always true, and it's not always good, is it? And so sometimes people will struggle with that. And uh people I will struggle with people trying to tell me what's going on and try to follow uh their wisdom or their advice or their counsel. Job just keeps his eyes fixed on God through the whole thing, and he says, I'm gonna keep worshiping God. He's literally sitting in a pile of ashes with sores all over his body, and he still has refused to curse God. In fact, his friends, his family, and they say, like, I curse God and die. And he says, No, I'm gonna worship God. And you get to the very end of Job. Again, I can't read the whole section to you, but Job 38. This is what it says in Job 38. If you're following along, if you want to read with me there. I'm just gonna read a little bit to you, not all of it. Job has now been confronted by his friends who said, You must be a sinner, you must be messed up, you must send them something to make God angry. Um, and he's there wrestling. And I love this section. I have to read it every now and then for myself, to give me perspective. Because in Job 38, verse 1 it says, Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind, Who is this who obscures my counsel with ignorant words? Yet ready to answer me like a man. When I question you, you will inform me. Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me if you have the understanding, who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know. Who stretched a measuring line across it? Who supports its foundations or laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together? And all the sons of God shouted for joy. Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst from the womb? When I made the cloud its garment and thick darkness its blanket, when I determined its boundaries and put its bars and doors in place, when I declared, you may only come this far and no further, you proud waves, stop here. I could go on and on, but do you hear what God's saying? He's saying, Why does man think that you've got the right to question me, God? Were you there when I when I created this whole thing? When I spoke it into being, when I said seas, you know, I just kind of, that's yeah, that's enough ocean. Yeah, that's about how wide the universe needs to be. Isn't that fascinating? He's given Job perspective to say, Job, you're so tiny, you're so small, you don't see the whole picture. He's telling us that same thing today. So here's what I want you to hear in the midst of the suffering. One thing that we know the book of Job reminds us is that first and foremost, that we suffer not because God doesn't care. It's not because God doesn't care, and it's not because God isn't there, right? But God has a plan and a purpose, and it's far greater than what we can understand. And what we need, some of you have heard me say this before, what we need in the midst of suffering is not explanation for our suffering, but we need an encounter with the living God who's over all of our suffering. I know as we've suffered in our own lives, and I know my suffering, I could say it hells in comparison to many others, whether that's through sickness, whether that's through we've lost uh babies uh in the womb along the way, had a couple miscarriages, different things that we've dealt with in life, sickness uh personally, sickness with our kids. Whatever becomes in our life, we know that God is faithful and he's good. And who am I? This little human. I mean, have you ever flown in an airplane? Everybody's probably flown an airplane by now, right? If you haven't flown an airplane, there's something that happens when you get up in the air and you look down on the earth and you just see all those little cars down there, those little people. What does it remind you of? It reminds us of just how small that we are. And here's this guy who's over all that. So the book of Job is a really challenging and helpful book when it comes to God and his sovereignty in the midst of our suffering. The next book you come to is Psalms, maybe one of my favorite books in the Bible. Anybody like Psalms? Um, it's a it's a great book of the Bible. And as I said a while ago, when we're thinking about the type of uh poetry, this is lyrical poetry, these are songs, and I want to read just a psalm to you, Psalm 23. It's probably one of the most famous psalms, and it's read a lot of times at weddings, at funerals, um, just in different worship contexts, we read this. I want you to hear the words of this psalm. The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I lack. He lets me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he renews my life, he leads me along the right paths for his name's sake. Even though I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger. For you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me. Your your you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, and my cup overflows. Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord. As long as I live. Now, I really like to read it in the King James Version. Anybody have a King James Bible with you? It's absolutely beautiful to listen to the language. But here's the thing what he could have said, what the psalmist could have written is God loves you, he cares about you, he's with you, and one day he's going to come and take you home. Done deal. Right? That's it. I mean, that really captures the heart of this psalm. But when you hear that he is our shepherd, it's an image, it's a picture that sticks with us, right? It helps us understand he's a shepherd and that we're sheep. Now that's a little bit insulting, but it's true. But we're just sheep and we struggle. And we're helpless in many ways. But he's our shepherd. He's a good shepherd, and he takes care of us and he watches over us. Even that where he says, When you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you'll fear no evil because he's with us. And so this morning, think about that imagery that's there, and think about other images that are in the book of Psalms, things like when it says, as far as the east is from the west, he has removed our sin from us. Doesn't that encourage you? It's better than just saying he forgives our sin. It's good. I get that. But as far as the east is from the west, what is he saying? Like, he won't remember it anymore. It's gone. He separated that sin from us. We are no longer sinners. We are now sanctified saints. Even though we don't always live like it. Even though we don't always follow and obey him. He's saying he forgives our sin, right? What about the Psalms where it says that He, that the name of the Lord is a strong coward? What when it says He's a shield? What about when it says that He is the lifter of our heads? What about when it says that He's like a mountain? Those images, those pictures, they help us, don't they? They capture us, they remind us that God is so much greater and so much better than we can even begin to imagine. And those things stick with us. And we see these passages in psalms that we resonate with because one moment the psalmist sounds like he's like depressed and he's in the dumps and he's just having a terrible day and things are going really bad, and the next moment he's excited and he's just elated to be worshiping God. And you just, there's days you resonate with those depressing psalms, and there's days you resonate with those psalms where he's really excited and passionate, huh? And so reading through the Psalms is really helpful to get the full range of emotions, but also to get these images and these pictures. I don't know if any of you in here are U2 fans, uh, as in U2, the band, but Bono, uh, the lead singer there, and writes a lot of these songs, he talks a little bit about the Psalms and how much of an impact they had. You may not know this, but Bono is actually a believer. And uh and so he has used the Psalms uh as the foundation for many of his lyrics. And as a kid, he says that when he was 12 years old, he would he became a fan of David and just reading the Psalms. And it's really what captured his mind and it captured his heart, captured his attention in this in these uh creative psalms that David wrote. In fact, he says things, before David could fulfill the prophecy and become the king of Israel, he had to take quite a beating. He was forced into exile and ended up in a cave in some no-name border town, facing the collapse of his ego and abandonment by God. But this is where the soap opera got interesting. This is where David was said to have composed his first psalm, a blues. And so he says this, that what's a lot of the psalm, that's what a lot of the psalms feel like to me, is the blues. A man shouting to God, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And why are you so far from helping me? Does that sound familiar? From Psalm 22, which is also what Jesus declared from the cross. He cried out as he was about to breathe his last breath. But he goes on to say, these Psalms, they introduced me to God, not belief in God, more an experiential sense of God over art, literature, girls, my mates. He's basically saying I wasn't even a believer at the time, but he was captured by these imageries, captured by these insights into God and the way they expressed some of the things that he felt in his own soul. The way into my spirit was a combination of words and music, and as a result, the book of Psalms always felt open to me, and it led me to the poetry of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon and the book of John. My religion could not be fictional, but it had to have transcendent facts. It could be mystical, but not mythical. See, for many people who don't even believe in God, they can read the Psalms and they can just feel there's a connection there, but there's a there's a there's an interesting correlation with the emotions that the psalmist is declaring and that they feel in their souls as they go through the ups and downs of life relationally and just the hardships of doing things on this planet. So uh Ibn Bono speaks to that. The next book that we come to after Psalms is the book of Proverbs. Now, if you want a practical book that just gives you some very clear instructions, go to the book of Proverbs, right? There's some great stuff here in Proverbs, some great nuggets of wisdom. But Proverbs 1.7 gets us kicked off right because he says this in Proverbs 1.7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and discipline. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Now, let me tell you, the person who's writing the Proverbs is the king that we talked about last week, Solomon. And if you remember Solomon's life, he didn't end well, did he? He started out good, but then he did not end well. And so here's the thing. Even though he was the wisest man to ever live because he asked God specifically for wisdom, he struggled to actually apply that wisdom. Here's the thing about the book of Proverbs. There's a lot of great truth there, a lot of great instruction for us in our lives. But here's the question. You can sit in church all your life and never actually do what you're taught. Did you know that? You can sit in church, you can go to services every week, and you can walk out the door and never do anything different. You can live just like everyone else. God's hope for us is that we will understand that his wisdom, true wisdom, is not just hearing, but doing, right? It's applying these things. And so even in the Proverbs, he says, apply these things to your heart. Don't ignore instruction, don't ignore discipline, but do something about it. Apply it to your life, and you will be blessed. But there's some other just practical pieces of wisdom in the Proverbs, and I've said this to you before, but there's 31 Proverbs. So I'd encourage you, if you don't have a Bible reading plan, or even if you do, like every day, just wake up and read a proverb a day. Just kind of matching it up with the month. I know not every month has 31 days, but just kind of read through a proverb a day, and I promise you you'll find great truths that will apply to your everyday life. Things like men in the room. Proverbs 7. Okay? Let me just tell you why you need to be pure, men. Because Proverbs 7 says that the one who is seduced by an adulteress is like an ox going to slaughter. Isn't that a great image? No, it's not a great image, but it's a helpful image because it tells us that if you follow this path, guess what's going to happen? You're going to die. It's going to destroy you. And so instead of just saying, don't commit adultery, it says if you do that, if you allow yourself to follow that path, you're going to end up dead. It's going to destroy your. You're just like an ox going to the slaughter. He even goes on to say it's like getting ensnared in a trap, or uh it's like a it's like an animal whose heart's been pierced with an arrow. But let's not just pick on the men. Women, here's one for you. Uh Proverbs 27, 15. A nagging wife is like a drippy faucet. Right? Here's what the Bible, in fact, the HCSV, the Holman Christian, which is what I use, it says like a dripping on a rainy day. It's a wife who who's nagging. You know? And so uh, you know, if you go outside right now, we've got this like kind of drizzle thing coming down, and you hear that drip? Right outside of my my uh window, uh where our house is situated, uh, there's there's you know the overhangs there and it's just dripping. And when it rains, I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll just hear this drip, drip, drip, drip, and I can't go back to sleep and it's driving me crazy. And it says that's what a that's what a nagging wife is like, okay? But thankfully that God has given me a wife who's not a nag. Okay. But that that's what that's what it's like, women. Proverbs 16, one of my favorite proverbs, where it just says that we should commit our ways to the Lord and our plans will succeed. It says that a haughty spirit comes before destruction. Listen, there's so much good truth. Actually, there's a passage in that um that when you speak gossip, it's like throwing wood on the fire. It's like you're just causing more problems by throwing wood on the fire. You want to know how to end conflict a lot of times? Quit talking. Just be quiet. But every time you talk and every time you you gossip, and every time you slander, and every time you speak up, you just continue to fuel the fire, right? Proverbs is so good. It's so rich, it's so helpful. I encourage you to spend some time there. So not only did Song of Solid Solomon write Proverbs, but he also wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. That's the next book you come to. And this one's really all about the futility of temporal pursuits. Now, if you were with us back earlier in the fall, we taught through uh explore God, and the first question we came through is does life have meaning? And here's what the writer of Ecclesiastes says. This guy is super excited here, okay? Let me just tell you what he says. This is one of the most positive books in the Bible, right? Here's what he says in uh in chapter 1, in verse 12. I, the teacher, have been king over Israel and Jerusalem. I applied my mind to seek and explore wisdom through all that is done under heaven. God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied. I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and I have found everything to be a futile pursuit of the wind. I mean, that's encouraging, isn't it? I mean, he says, I went after all these things in life. You know, I got wealth, I got wisdom, I got, I got, uh, I got women, I got wine, I got all these pleasure things, and what happens? It's all futility, it's all just a waste of time. Just chasing after the wind. Now, thankfully, that's not where he landed the book. Thankfully that's not where he left us. Because he actually says in chapter 3, in verse 11, he has made everything appropriate in its time. He has put eternity in the hearts of man. But man cannot discover the work of God has done from beginning to end, meaning man has a limited perspective of all of life. But thankfully, God has, you know, he's got a plan, he's got a purpose, and it's eternal. But he goes on to say, I know that there is nothing better for them to rejoice and to enjoy the good life. It is also the gift of God when everyone, when anyone eats and drinks, and enjoys all of his efforts, those are gifts from God. I know that all that God does will last forever. There is no adding to it or taking away from it. God works so that people will be in awe of him. I could read more, but here's what you know: God fills up our lives with meaning, doesn't he? He gives us purpose. And so the book of Ecclesiastes, even though it's very depressing and it feels like, man, this guy is just down on everything. He ultimately lands and says, no, God gives life meaning and it has purpose. Because he's transcendent above all this stuff. Temporary stuff is exactly that, temporary. It's not going to last. But God will last forever. And he's put that eternity in our hearts so that we'll seek him and we'll be with him forever, enjoy him forever. It's an awesome thought, isn't it? So the last book we come to is the book of Song of Solomon. Now, all the men, they love this book, right? It's their favorite book in the Bible. If you haven't read this book in the Bible, let me just tell you. Uh, it'll make you blush. And this is a book of the Bible that a lot of people don't realize it's there. And they're kind of shocked when they go and read this book of the Bible. But in this book of the Bible, we see that God is pro-sex, he's pro-marriage, he's pro-romance. That God actually created this stuff. Did you know that? I talk to people sometimes and they act like they the human beings created sex. They act like human beings are the ones who came up with romance. No, God is the author of all that. And so we we let people get robbed into thinking that if we follow man's ways of handling relationships, that it's going to go well for them. And it's not. See, God has a plan and he has a purpose. And he has a purpose for our sexuality. And so many women are used and abused by men who don't understand that God has a plan for this. And so it's every sex and romance and all this stuff is all self-centered, self-seeking rather than giving. It should be life-giving. It should be a gift, really seen as a gift and a treasure from God. And I want to just say on behalf of men, I am so sorry when I look around and understand the statistics that show us how many women have been battered, beaten, and abused by men who don't understand this area. Or maybe they do, and they just have chosen in their depravity to use it against women. If statistics are true, one in every five women have been sexually abused. That is so sad to me. It's not just sad, it's just heartwrenching to know how many of our women are walking around this planet. They are broken because of what has happened to them, because men didn't understand it. And that book of Song of Solomon, it doesn't just speak to this issue, but it does remind us that again, it is a gift from God. But also, let me just say to you, after speaking to teenagers for years, um, this was a great book to always teach. We always had more teenagers show up to this series than any other series. You can imagine that. We'd say we're going to talk about sex, and it's like they just came from everywhere, right? But here's why, because there's so much confusion about it. And there's so much woundedness, and so much uh just so much hurt comes. And so I would also tell teenagers that the one of the things that the Song of Solomon shows us is that sex and romance is it's a process, and once you start the process, it's hard to stop the process. Let me say it different. It's like a train on the tracks, and once the train has started down the tracks, it has a hard time stopping. Right? Because there's a point to where you're that's trying to take us physically about intimacy between a man and a woman. And so what I tell teenagers is listen, don't put the train on the tracks. Because if you put it on the tracks, you're asking for all kinds of difficulties and you're asking for all kinds of hardship. I've actually seen guys before uh stand up in a room and make a list of things, and here's the things you can do sexually that are okay, and here's the things you can't do. Let me just tell you, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Don't do that. And here's why. Because you don't know, you you don't know when to stop. You don't have control. Because God wired you for intimacy. He wired you for physical relationship. And so if you start down that train, the way I like to say it is this it's like, that's that's my line right there. Here's what we do as people, right? We're like, okay, I want to see how close I can get without really touching it. I'm gonna do these things, but not just, I won't cross over that line. Problem is we can't control ourselves once we're there. And so we have to pre-decide we want purity. We have to pre-decide we're gonna follow God's plan. Because if we don't, we're going to fall into temptation. We're weak. Our spirit may be willing. Even godly Christian kids and godly Christian adults, they want purity. But we have to ask God for wisdom and protection before we ever get to those moments where our physical process has to take over, right? So I just encourage you with that. In this book of Song of Solomon, we've got to read just a little bit, right? Just a little bit. Song of Solomon. And here's what it says in Song of Solomon chapter 1. We just start in verse 2. Oh, that he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. For your love is more delightful than wine. The fragrance of your perfume is intoxicating. Your name is perfume poured out. No wonder young women adore you. Now, this is the woman talking to the man. And by the way, the man's wearing perfume. So, okay, men, so I guess it's no, don't wear perfume, men, please, okay? But but you've got to understand that back in that day, men really stunk. They smelled really, really bad. So if you could find one that smelled good, like that was a good thing, right? That was a really, really, I mean, it would be a shocker, first off, but it was a really good thing if you could find one that actually smelled good. She said she smells good, right? And she says, take me with you. Let us hurry. Oh, the king would bring me to his chambers. What's she asking? She wants to have sex with this guy. She wants to, she wants to make love with this guy. Women don't do this to men. Not all of them are going to be as self-controlled as Solomon was here, okay? It's the the one consistent verse you hear in the in the book of Song of Solomon is don't awaken love. Don't put the train on the track until the time. Okay? And God will use that to protect you. And if you're, again, if you're a married person, listen, God's given you the gift of sex to bring you together, to unify you, to have intimacy together. And so a lot of times, just as a side note, this may embarrass some of you. I don't really care. This is where we are. For some married couples, they come to me and they say they're having issues. Like as in communication issues, they're not on the same page. Y'all are gonna think this is weird, but let me just tell you what I ask them. How's your sex life? How's it going? Are you guys physically connected to one another? Are you single people? You can go, ah la la la la, right? But I ask them that question because here's what I can tell you. Sex, it's a thermometer to tell you what's going on in the relationship. I've heard that from many people along the way, and so I'm just telling you that God designed for sex to be a gift between a man and a woman, and that it really does bring you together as a couple. It's powerful, powerful glue that God intended. That's why also when you have divorced and you have other issues and separation, and you have people that their lives are broken apart and what they were sexually active, and then they try to move away from that, it's very difficult and painful because God didn't intend that to be a separation. It was supposed to be permanent. Right? And for those of you that are going through that hardship, that's not a statement of judgment, that's a statement of, hey, listen, I know that's hard. Because God, this is how God made it. And God can heal and God can redeem and he can restore because he's that good. But I want to close out just by simply reminding you, encouraging you, these books of poetry that are in the Bible, they're really helpful for us. They're really good for us. Um, the storyline that was in your section there, I don't know if you guys filled in that blank, but if you're one of those people who are anal and you really need to get that in, uh, is just simply that the Hebrew poets they wanted mental pictures. You can throw that slide up there for just a sec. They wanted these mental pictures to pop into the readers' minds by creating visual images, which they accomplished with vivid figures of speech, okay? Because they wanted to use these images to help teach. And we need that only. We need to not just be connected with at a head level but at a heart level.