The Benefits Of Wisdom (Eccl. 7:11-29)

Good morning. Good to see you. Good to see this good number here today. Yes, it is about a half full maybe or something like that. That's nice. I like that. It's good to see everyone. We are glad that you're a pretty day in it. I hope everyone had a good week. We're coming up on Easter shortly. I think the 17th. Of April. And so probably what we'll do is we'll just have our regular service of course. And I probably won't be finished with this series at that time, but we'll do a Resurrection sermon or something like that on that morning, then we'll jump back in this sand and finish the Book of Ecclesiastes. So what's good to see you? Good to see all you do fans with a smile on your face. I see that everybody just smiling and look happy at all. So glad that Coach K is going to his final four and it is his final four in it.

Celeste all pool for Carolina today and then Carolina, you can play next Saturday. I'll let be be good. Be very good to see Coach K to lose his final game. So well, we don't know that they do with it. If I was a betting man, I'd probably better that. He wouldn't lose it, but I don't know, but we'll just have to wait and see. Well, if you have your Bibles today, I want you to turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Now, you know, where in this is our series searching for heaven on Earth. And we have gone through the first seven chapters. And today's sermon is very important. I think the benefits of wisdom and what we going to talk about the perspective and power to live wisely. I want you to think about your own life right now. And maybe. In the past. Would you say that you've made wise decisions in your life? Everybody? No one's going to be able to say, yes every season. I've always made has been wise. Well, that's not true. Of course, but overall you feel like you are a A wise person. Do you have the right perspective on life? Well, remember, last week. I think, I think I have this up the quiz that I gave the next flight. Remember, I gave this quiz last week. Would you rather laugh or cry? We all said laugh? Would you rather be complimented or criticize? We all said complement, it? Would you rather go the long way of the shortcut? We said the shortcut and would you rather live or die? We all said live and I gave you 100 and Solomon gave me what a zero A0i answer. Yes, why I answered laughing complement in, in short, cut and live. And we saw last week that, at times. No, it's the opposite of that. And we talked about The paradoxes of life. Now. The reason I'm showing you this again is because wisdom flows right into this. So this is a paradox, a seemingly absurd or self contradictory statement that is opposed to Common Sense, like it's better to die than to live. No supposed to Common Sense is better to take the long hard way, then it is too short by a motor, supposed to Common Sense. But when investigated or explained may prove to be true. So that's a paradox things that are hard to believe or strange. So, what I want to say is we need wisdom to be able to see the paradoxes of life and respond in a Biblical way, not a worldly way. It takes wisdom to do that. You say what what is with? Well, I'm glad you asked because I have a definition of that. Also today wisdom. I look at this, the root meaning of wisdom is the idea of skill. The Old Testament, root word for wisdom is how come which is connected to Craftsman in the Bible designers. And even ants and spiders and Proverbs Solomon said that the ants are exceedingly wise because they store their food in the summer. You ever seen a squirrel go and get a nut and buried in the ground. Why is he doing that? So, that's right. Save me from he's exceedingly wise. All right, and I look bad for applying hot cam or wisdom to life becomes the skill of living skillful in living. We fashion a life of beauty and honor. By making wise choices. Are you still full in living? That's what wisdom is. It's not this intellectual. I can name all 50 capitals. I promise, it's not that. It's not an intellectual. It's not the worldly sense of wisdom of stepping on everybody to get to the top. If skillful living is what wisdom is, its ability to make the right choices, that will form a beautiful life and honor God at the same time. That's what wisdom is. So Solomon is going to convey. That wisdom is found and not trying to know what you cannot know. Or to say it differently is found in being content. With what, you know. That's what wisdom is. You see only God has the entire manuscript of our life. We only have the front page in the back page, maybe, but he has it all in. So what I want to do today is just give you two points. And they are simply this. Wisdom brings perspective to life. In other words. If you are wise person, you know, how to look at life. Most people fail at this. We don't know how to look. We don't understand the paradoxes of life. No, I don't understand how you can the more you give away, the more you have, that doesn't make sense. The more we keep, the more we have that's worldly sense, but many times, that's the way we think. So it gives us wisdom brings a perspective to life. That helps us in our skill for living and not only that wisdom. We're going to see will bring power to our life. The ability to Terry on and to do the things that God would have us do even though the world say no that's backwards. You shouldn't do it that way. Well, let's look at at the Ferdinand. Here's what we going to do. This covers verses 11 through 29. I'm not going to read it all now, that'll take too long. I don't want to be here before the Carolina game. Sorry. So, you know, hit until then. So what we'll do is we'll just look at these scriptures as we come to him. Here's the first point, wisdom brings perspective. It gives us perspective in life. Now. We seeing verse 11 and 12. It helps us when we dealing with prosperity and I'll look at it in verse 11 and 12. This wisdom is good with an inheritance and profitable to those who see the song for wisdom and I watch wisdom is a defense as money is a defense, but the Excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it. It is better to have wisdom. Been a great fortune or inheritance why? Well, because wisdom is not subject to the fluctuations of the economy. You may have great. Great. Well, and you may have it invested. But if your money say is in the stock market or something like that, there's fluctuations there. You can gain a lot of money or if you can lose a lot of money, you see there's fluctuations, but if you have wisdom and wealth, the Bible says that you are doubly blessed. Solomon wrote in Proverbs that define wisdom is to find life and obtain favor from God. Not a fact. He also says the beginning of wisdom is the fear of what the fear of the Lord James says, if any man lacks wisdom, which we all do, let him ask of God who gives to all men liberally and without reproach One of the one of the very important things that you should pray for each day in your daily prayer is wisdom. You should pray. You should pray for Godly with not wisdom of the world, but Godly wisdom. And it says here, that wisdom is like a shelter, a star, a strong Fortress like money. Well, in a sense, money is a defense and a fortress. Is it? I mean, if you get in trouble or if you lose your job, if you have 6 months to a year of money saved up within you can live. It's just not like you were living paycheck-to-paycheck. So in a sense money can be a defense as well, but it's interesting to me to see how few people Are wealthy and wise, you know, it's really hard to find people who are both wealthy and wise wealth without wisdom will lead to misery. We are seeing all these people who win the lottery and they don't know how to handle their money and what happens, they Louis Vuitton. They leave it all. Lose it or they take their own life. This person. Just won 15 million. Why would he kill himself? Didn't know how to handle it. Lost it all. Wealth without wisdom leads to misery because wisdom can give the right perspective on how to use wealth. How does the Bible say to use? Well, the liberal soul is made fat better to give than to receive. The Bible. Says, the more you give the more God's going to bless you and give you more why? Cuz you give it out, you're helping people. You start hoarding it and keeping it for yourself. What happened? At least a misery? Why? Because you're not, you're not using wisdom. You you don't know how to handle that money in a wise way. And it leads to misery, just think of all the sports stars and all the movie stars who have been multi-millionaires and all the sudden they lose every bit of it had to file for bankruptcy. They had well, but they didn't have wisdom. It's better to be poor than to have wealth in the wisdom. That's what Solomon is saying. So wisdom brains perspective when we dealing with prosperity. Here's an important one. I want you to get this look at number two or be. When we dealing with Providence. You say, what do you mean by that dealing with God's Providence? Look at it in verse 13 and 14. He says consider the work of God. For who can make straight, what he has made crooked. In the day of prosperity, be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider surely, God has appointed the one as well as the other. So that man can find out nothing that will come after him, who can straighten, what God has made crooked nobody. You can't, you can't straighten what God has made crooked. Would you like to straighten out some things in your life right now that are crooked some afflictions, maybe Financial worry or relationship or vocation? But when we see that we can't make straight what God has made crooked, but here's the good part. It's good to know that God is with us in the Crooked places of life in it. It's good to know when life gets crooked when it turns sideways, when there's a bend in the road that God is with us, but given a choice, we would rather not go through the crooked. Things of life. We would rather everything to be straight and and not go through it. We would like to straighten every crooked thing. This is what one Bible scholar wrote. And I wrote this now listen to this. He said, look in Wonder at Meijer and silently. Wait, for the result of God's work. The contrast of Life are deliberately Allowed by God. So that men should ultimately developed a simple trust Independence. In God for prosperity and the goods from God's hand be thankful and rejoice. But in adversity in the crookedness of Life, think, reflect on the goodness of God and the comprehensiveness of his plan. For you. Just think about you, say, you got to have the right perspective. It's easy to think good things about God, when life is going well, but then I was. So when it turns crooked, we either want to blame God or we may get angry at God. He said, no, don't do that. Just think of what God has done for you. You'd be quick to thank him be quick to thinking. Lord. I'm going through a crooked place in my life, but I want to thank you right now for the things that you going to teach me in this crooked path. For that because he's going to teach you something. You see, wisdom can help us be consistent when we're dealing with God's Providence. We all we don't know everything. Why it happens to us. We don't know why we have to go through certain things. I lost a job or something physical physical or something like that. Jenny, that probably didn't know. Well, why do I have to go through a heart transplant in a long dress while I was out? Why am I being like this? As a child, you may not have all those answers, but we can thank God that he's going to teach us and show us things and that he's with this in the Crooked places of Life. Think about Jobe for MoMA. He lost everything in one Fell Swoop and then he lost his health. All his children were gone. All of his flocks were gone. And what did his wonderful wife and courage him to do Curse? God and die. Why don't you just go just Curse. God and die is. His fault will blame God on this. And what Joe said, said the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. Blessed, be the name of the Lord. He bless the Lord in the Crooked places of Life, friends. That's wisdom. Joe had the perspective on Providence. He didn't curse God instead. He dealt with what he knew not with what he didn't know. Let me say something about wisdom.

Wisdom is the ability. To admit that you don't know everything. That's what will you show me a man that will tell me, Mike. I don't know everything about this, but let me show you how I do this and how this works. I'll listen to it. But you give me a man says all I've done this my whole life. I know exactly what's going to happen. I'm not going to listen to you. If you notice on the news, when you watch the news now every time, somebody comes on Belsay, let's listen to what the experts say friends. They are no experts, you think there's experts these people in the medical field has been telling us to where I'm a snot Ware, Mass, get a booster. Don't get a booster, get a shot. Don't get a shot, give it to children. Don't give it to get changes every single day. There's no expert. This is never happened before. There's no precedent for, how can they be an expert? But everybody is an expert know. There's one expert, is name is God. He knows it. All. He has the full manuscript. We only have a few pages, only. God knows it all. Listen, what Warren wiersbe, who I followed him a lot over the years. He died. Several years ago. He was a great Bible Expositor. Look what he says about this. He says God balance is our lives by giving us enough blessings to keep us happy and enough burdens to keep us humble and not great. He gives us enough blessings to make us happy. But he gives us enough Birds to keep us humble. Then he says that, if all we had were blessings in our hands, we would fall right over. All you had was just up. All you can hold a blessing. You know, what you do you fall flat on your face cuz it would just weigh you down. You fall flat on your face. He says, so the Lord balances the blessings in our hands with the burdens on her back, that way, it keeps us up. Right? I'm holding my blessings. So, I got some burden on my back. So now I can walk upright. I'm not going to fall on my face. You say God balances by his Providence, the blessings and burdens that come in our life. What did we learn? And please ask you three? There's a Time For Peace. There's a time for. There's a time to be happy and there's a time to be sad. There's a time to cry. There's a time to W. Laugh. There's a time to live. There's a time to watch die. You see how he balances it all in our life's. Well, let's move on. I can say on that one all day. See wisdom brains perspective. How do you think about dealing with prosperity dealing with the Providence of God and then lastly? And I put it like this dealing with a puzzling life, you know life is like a puzzle. Everyday, we wake up. We don't know what's going to happen. We want to put this piece over here and it won't fit. We put a square piece in a round hole. Just will not fit life is like a puzzled look at it in verses, 15 through 18. Now, remember, this is the smartest, man in the world talkin. I've seen everything in my days of vanity. There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness. There is a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness. Everything that You're saying a just man do, what is right? Get killed in automobile accident at 35. In an unjust man who robbed Steals and just as ornery as he be live to be 95 years old.

Father's Day. That's not right. Something's wrong.

Then he says, do not listen to this. These are some of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible. So I'm only playing them here in a second. Do not be overly righteous. It's following saying don't be holy, don't live righteously. No, he just said don't be overly righteous. That means don't be a Jesus Freak. Don't talk about church all the time. Don't go to church on Sunday and Wednesday. I'm in good. Graces. You. Can live life balance it out. Don't be overly righteous. Is that what he's saying? Look, what he says nor be overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself? What in the world do not be overly Wicked? Well, we understand that, but I can be a little bit Wicked. Nor be foolish. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp this and also not remove your hand from the other. For he who fears God will escape them all. So everybody's life is busy and complicated. And every day we have things that we can't figure out by ourselves. So we need God's wisdom, daily. Define the pieces of the puzzle to put it together and Simon list here to things. He said this just I just can't understand. The first one is what I called the puzzle of reversed rewards. He notices the righteous are perishing but the wicked are prospering. Does it seem like the wicked get away with stuff? You look at it in politics. Are you look at in the end? They do anything they want to inside, they get away with it. And if we do anything, we go 56, we get a speeding ticket. I mean if we just don't understand that was fine. When, you know, he dealt with this a lot. But listen to what he says in Ecclesiastes 11 5. Now, this is what he said. As you do not know. What is the way of the wind. We don't know, the wind blows east west north. We don't know. As you don't know. What is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her, who is with child? So you do not know the works of God. Who makes everything. We don't understand everything. We don't understand why the wicked prosper and the righteous. Our suffering. We don't understand that. We don't and can't know all the works of God. Did you hear what? I just said? You can't know the answers to everything. God is doing in your life. You can't know it. Now Solomon search for it, but he could not was the Bible say God's ways are what higher than our ways are higher than our ways. That's why we come to church and that's why we worship him. If I can figure out everything about God, I wouldn't be in all willing. I can just sit home and wash it myself cuz I would be God. I mean what did the surface to eat this apple? And you'll be like who God with your like God when you come to church. If you know everything just like God knows everything. We would have all the answers. But father says, you can't do that if we're awards are reverse now, so I don't mind saying, one day, that's probably going to be soft because God's going to balance the scales of judgment when he comes back. That's when everything is going to be made, right? So we see good people suffer. We see, bad people, Prosper, all around us. To be wise in this is not to agonize over while this is happening. We can't just sit around and I'm over here and I'm trying to live for God. And I here, I am sick. I don't have enough money. I can't keep a job. I mean, what do agonize over that? We can't know all of that. We commit all these things to the sovereignty of God. And then we wait for God to finish his purposes. God is both loving, and he is both powerful. So, reverse rewards don't exist because God doesn't care, or he's not powerful enough to do it. There's another reason. Now, we remember. The mystery of his will and his ways. We only see a page or fragment God sees the whole story. Don't agonize over things that you don't understand. Because God is God, and I'm not So we're not going to understand it off, then. Here's another one, the puzzle of righteous. Rhetoric. Look what he says in verse 16. He says do not be overly righteous. Nor be overly wise. Well, well, that's a paradox for sure. Now liberal interpreters. What they believe Solomon is saying is, Well, there's just no need for extreme Holiness. No, need to be overly righteous. No need to go to church every Sunday and Wednesday night. I mean, just find a middle ground live a little relaxed and enjoy life. No one's perfect. Well, that sounds reasonable. Net. And phylum is already said many times look, just enjoy life and you don't understand it off, but enjoy it. But freeze we can enjoy life.

We can we can do that but not at the expense of righteousness or holding a mediocrity is not going to get you to heaven. Just being half-hearted about God is not going to do any good. We don't we don't get to Heaven by being a little better than the next guy. Solomon is making this point here. Don't go around.

Flaunting your righteousness, in humility. What he's talkin about is being self-righteous. Don't go around thinking that you're Superior to everybody because you go to church and read your Bible. You pray, you give money. You do this. Don't fall into this trap of self-righteousness. That's why he says here, do not be overly righteous. What he's talkin about is being self-righteous. Don't think you're better than everyone else. We're to be righteous but not in a self-promoting way. He's not warning us, not to live a holy life. He's saying you just make sure your life backs up what you say. You've heard me before say many people is confessional, theology does not match with their practical theology. This is what Simon said, you make sure you're practical theology. The way you live life. You make sure it matches what you say, you believe. Don't you be overly righteous? Don't don't be here saying you ought to do this. You all y'all shouldn't do that and it's same time. You doing it yourself. You're being a hypocrite romance to don't do that. This is what he saying. Don't get caught up and self-righteousness or false humility. Walk in the fear of God and have a balance between these two extremes. Look what we've said, wisdom brings perspective dealing with prosperity. Dealing with Providence. Dealing with a puzzling life number 2 and the last one. Wisdom breeds power hustle through this verse 19, wisdom, Breeze, power. When we're dealing with the problems of life. Look at it in verse 19. Wisdom strengthens the wise more than 10 rulers of the city. The Bible says, the beginning of wisdom, is the fear of the Lord. When we fear the lord, we will not fear any man or 10 rulers in the city. The Bible says, here in verse 19. Did you know that there is power?

And not living in fear, you know, that, you know, many people live in fear.

But there's power in not living in fear. Remember, Shadrach Meshach in a Bendigo. Remember what happened to them in the Book of Daniel? They were threatened to death by fire going to throw him in the fiery. Furnace. And what they tell, tell Keen everything, go ahead and God, God will rescue us and if his if he doesn't, then that means it's his will for us to die this way. So far, you go right ahead and throw us on in there because we're not going to bow down to you friend. There is strength. There is power in knowing god. Do you know that there's power annoying. There's power in dealing with the problems of life, but I only that wisdom will bring power in dealing with people. Here's another fear. How many of you have the fear of, man? Raise your hand if you feel your man. Well, two of us. 3. Everybody raise your hand. All of us all stand up. Actually. What we do you say, what do you mean about the fear of, man? You are afraid of what people say or think about you? You want everybody to like you? You, we don't want, we want to be complimented, not criticized. That's the fear of man right there. I'll do everything I can if you will just like me. I'll do that. Look at Solomon says in verse 21 and 22. He said my look also, do not take to heart. Everything people say. Lest you hear your servant cursing, you. And look what he said for many times. Also, your own heart has known that, even you have cursed others, or when you hate to hear what people say about you or somebody was cursing, you were talking about you. I would just kill most of it. We was awful. Why does he think of me? That way? I got to go do something. So I'mma says, no, you don't do anything. Don't take that to heart. Think about your own self. What you said about the others. Wonder if they knew it. That's what Solomon is safe. We cannot live on emotional roller coaster. Based on what people say about us. We think Pastors in a church have to do you think they going to listen to what everybody in the church say about? You think everybody likes the pastor and all everything that he does all the time. Charles Burton said a pastor out. When he's at church. He ought to have one eye open and one eye closed in one ear, open in one ear closed. He said because half the things you here or not, right? And have two things. You see, you're not what you think you see. And that's exactly right. We can't take the heart every negative criticism that we hear. Now. That doesn't mean that we disregard the opinions of others. It just means that I don't live my life based on public opinion, polls. What people think about me. Listen for God's words to you. And if he says something in your heart and he confirms it, then wisdom will give you the power to carry it out. Even if it's against what everybody else says. So wisdom gives us. Power in dealing with problem in dealing with people. But I'll leave that in dealing with perplexities. Look at it verse 23, 24, all this. I have proved by wisdom. I said I will be wise and again he was the wisest man in the world. But look what he says. It was far from me. He said it was far from it. Ask for that, Which is far off and exceedingly, deep talkin about the Deep things of God, who can find it out. He says, who can know it. I was the wisest man in the world and I failed to find wisdom because of the perplexities of life. You ever heard someone say, I don't know the future, but I know who holds the future. PetSmart. I don't know. Do you know the future? We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow? I have, I have guys called me all the time. They want to, they want to start. Investing and trading in the stock market. And I say, I want to stop it and I want to, I want to start that, you know, that's going up. I said, listen to me. I said, let me tell you what I know about the stock market. It opens at 9:30 and closes at 4. That's all. I know. That's what I know. That's all. I, I don't know if something's going to go up or down. I don't know that. I mean, I can look at it and try to find a little Ed. I don't know it and this is what Solomon is saying here. We don't know, he's warning us again, not to obsess about things that we can't understand in like the perplexities of life. What? I don't know about. Here's what I know. Remember, we have sermon on this. God's plan is good. Right? His plan is always good. His his purpose is always clear. But his program is a mystery. I don't understand how God put things here and there and why he does what he does, but I do know this that he is good and just like you trust a good friend to watch your house while you go on vacation. We ought to trust a good God to look out for us. If you can trust a person as a friend, Shirley we can trust God, we ought to be able to do that. How much more trustworthy is he. And then one more? Wisdom gives us the power when we're dealing. With the pitfalls of life. You know what your pitfalls are. You said, what are you talking about? I'm talking about your Temptation. Do you know what they are? Do you know where you are more liable to succumb to The Flash and Satan than another area of your life. Do you know what your pitfalls are? Now this last Point might seem to be out of context, but it's on target as far as power needed today, especially and listen to me carefully, especially if you are a man. I want you to listen carefully. Look at verses 26 through 29. And I find more bitter than death. The woman whose heart is snares and Nets, whose hands are Fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her. But the Shannon Center she'll be trapped by her.

Here is what I have found says the preacher adding one thing to the other to find out the reason which my soul still seeks, but I cannot find one man. I'm on the files and I have found but a woman among all these, I have not found. What is Solomon saying? He saying this that I tried to find pleasure. In sexual immorality. In free and I went out with this woman and I went out with that woman and let me tell you in the end. None of it satisfied. Other than a few moments of sexual pleasure. And after that, it was shame and guilt. And I felt awful Solomon is talkin about himself, right here. You say, what how do you know that he's talkin about himself?

Look at 1st Kings 11:3. This is what the Bible says about Solomon. He had 700 wives, princesses and 300 concubines in his wives way his heart. How many wives did he have? All right, how many you men want, 700 wives? And the go along with that, 300 Mistresses. How would you like to deal with that? And what did it say? Two wives did turned away his heart from God. Well, if 700 wives turned away is Hart. Shortly 300 misters, Miss Mistresses, turn something. I just think about swallowing his talking about himself. He's talking from experience guys that this will not. This is not the way to go. This is what phylum is say now if you are wise You would know that and if you are wise, you will also know 1st Corinthians, 10:13. No, temptation has overtaken you except such as common to man. But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you were able. But with the Temptation will also make the way. Open Skype. Friends, if you are wise this morning, if you have the right perspective, if wisdom will bring perspective to you, and if it will breed power in you, when you fall into that pit fall, when you come to that bend in the road, when you come to that Temptation, you will be able to find the Escape every time because God has provided it. What did Joseph do when he when he was? When Miss part of her, come to him and said live with me, will Joseph cook. He split, you know what? You know what, his tool was a good pair of running shoes. Sometimes, all you need is a good pair of running shoes. Sometimes you just need to say no. Sometimes you just need not to go to this place. Whatever It Is, God will always provide a way of in dealing with the pitfalls of like a wise person is not going to fall for this. This is what Solomon is say, and thankfully we don't have to have our own wisdom. We can have the wisdom of God when we know Christ only through him, will we gain the right perspective and have the power of God to live life wisely? So let me ask you this morning and closing. Do you have the power and the perspective? Adequately for the life that you are living right now. Just think about your own life things. You're going through things. You do things. You think things you say, do you have the right perspective in dealing with wealth? Can you handle money? In dealing with God's Providence, when things go. Downhill in your life. Can you deal with it or do you start blaming and criticizing? You blessed God when things are going well. Do you bless him and things are going good. Do you think him for what you going to learn in the troubles and tribulations of life or filling out the puzzling? Why do you think him for that? You have the power to deal with problems and people in perplexities and the pitfalls of light. If you're a wise person, you do, if you have Christ, you do gaining Christ is the wisest thing that you ever do. Amen. Let's pray. Father. We thank you today. Praise you today. Lord for this message, that Solomon is giving us. The wisest man in the world is telling us.

That he really didn't know anything. He didn't have all the answers. Lord. That's the type of people. I want to listen to. Not the self-righteous, not the ones who say, I know what? All I can show you this. I can tell you that. I know what you need to do. Lord, we pray right now, from wisdom, from above, the fall down upon us in each. And every heart, especially the young people that are here today in school, having all these difficult choices and situations in their life, when we pray that you would pour wisdom out upon them, that you would give them the ability to deal with the issues of Life. Lord. Help us all the deal with prosperity in and your Providence. And the perplexities of life that we don't understand, give us the wisdom to deal with that. Lord. James says, if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. We're asking this morning that you would pour out your wisdom upon us and help us to live wisely in an unwise World. Help us to never compromise our conviction in a compromising culture. In Christ name. I do pray. Amen. All right. Well, thank you for being here today. And glad that you were here. Remember now, Wednesday night. We will be back with continue in our study in the Book of Romans, if you want.