Episode Transcript
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If you would turn your attention with
me now to psalm one hundred and four.
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Want to begin this morning preaching series
on wisdom. Do we begin with
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Psalm one o four. Bless the
Lord, Oh my soul, oh Lord,
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my God, you are very great. You are clothed with splendor and
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majesty, covering yourself with light,
as with a garment, stretching out the
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heavens like a tent. He lays
the beams of his chambers on the waters.
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He makes the clouds his chariot.
He writhes on the wings of the
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wind. He makes his messengers winds, his ministers, a flaming fire.
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He set the earth on its foundation
so that it should never be moved.
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You covered it with the deep,
as with a garment. The waters stood
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above the mountains at your rebuke,
they fled. At the sound of your
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thunder, they took to flight.
The mountains rose, the valley sank down
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to the place that you appointed for
them. You set a boundary that they
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may not pass, so that they
might not again cover the earth. You
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Make Springs Gush forth in the valleys, they flow between the hills, they
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give drink to every east of the
field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst.
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Besides them, the birds of the
heavens dwell. They sing among the
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branches. From your lofty abode,
you water the mountains. The Earth is
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satisfied with the fruit of your work. You cause the grass to grow for
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the livestock and plants for man to
cultivate, that he may bring forth food
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from the earth and wine to gladden
the heart of man, oil to make
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his face shine and bread to strengthen
man's heart. The trees of the Lord
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are watered abundantly, the Cedars of
Lebanon that he planted in them the birds
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build their nests. The stork has
her home in the fir trees. The
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high mountains are for the wild goats. The rocks are refuge for the Rock
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Badgers. He made the moon to
mark the seasons. The Sun knows it's
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time for setting. You make darkness
and it is night when all the beal
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beasts of the forest creep out.
The young lions roar for their prey,
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seeking their food from God. When
the sun rises, they steal away and
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lie down in their dens. Man
Goes out to his work and to his
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Labor until the evening. Oh Lord, how manifold. Are Your works in
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wisdom? Have you made them?
All? The Earth is full of your
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creed truths. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with
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creatures, innumerable living things, both
small and great. There go the ships
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and Leviathan which you formed to play
in it. These all look to you
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to give them their food in due
season. When you give it to them,
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they gather it up. When you
open your hand, they are filled
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with good things. When you hide
your face, they are dismayed. When
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you take away their breath, they
die and return to their dust. When
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you send forth your spirit, they
are created and you renew the face on
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the ground. May The glory of
the Lord Endure Forever. May The Lord
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rejoice in his works. Who looks
on the Earth and it trembles? Who
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touches the mountains and they smoke?
I will sing to the Lord as long
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as I live. I will sing
praise to my God while I have being.
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May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.
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Let sinners be consumed from the earth
and let the wicked be no more.
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Bless the Lord, Oh my soul. Praise the Lord, and he
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may be seated. What a wonderful
song. God's Word is good. I
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want to introduce you today to the
theme of Wisdom, and there are many,
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many reasons why that might be a
good thing to do. Want to
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mention just two quick ones. One
is that to understand something about wisdom is
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to understand something about God. Wisdom
is first and foremost an attribute of God.
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As Roman twenty seven says, he
is the only wise God. To
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say that he is all wise or
even only wise, is to say that
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God is special. It's to say
that anything that we can perceive about wisdom,
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anything that is ultimately going to tell
us something true about our world and
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it's patterns and many other things,
ultimately does tell us something about God himself.
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In other words, you can't abstract
wisdom from God, and so to
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study wisdom is to study God.
A second thing to think about is about
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wisdom, is that God tells us
to think about wisdom. It's a good
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thing to think about, because God
tells us to. Throughout proverbs and especially
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in many other places in scripture.
We are called to seek it, to
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pursue it, like a person might
seek great wealth or honor. Our strike,
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our quest for wisdom, should be
one of of striving, of perseverance.
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It is a desirable thing, and
of course, not only to scripture
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tell us this, but you know
it inherently. That's because, in the
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wisdom of God, you were made
in his image and you were made also
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to be a wise person, and
that means when you lack it, you
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feel it. I want to ask
you to raise your hands, but I
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would guess if I did and said
how many of you were in a situation
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this week where you could have really
used wisdom, you would all raise your
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hands. Week to week, day
to day, sometimes four months and years
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at a time, we find in
ourselves and situations where we need wisdom.
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We need to be able to perceive
not only a knowledge about a particular thing,
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but how it fits in with the
whole, how the means meet with
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the ends, how it fits rightly
within the world, what is the right
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thing to do. And so in
God's word we are given this promise and
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command in James, a book that
is very much like proverbs and James Five,
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God says, if any of you
lacks wisdom, let him ask God,
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who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given into
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him. So here are some great
reasons, as I said, to seek
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wisdom. There are many, many
others, and I would encourage you,
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as we think about this and as
you pursue and seek wisdom in your own
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life, that you think about these
reasons create a little bit of a store
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house in your mind on why pursuing
wisdom is a good thing. With that
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being said, let's turn to psalm
one O four. We begin our quest,
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or will we've begun our quest,
but we begin the sermon series anyway
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with a look at this psalm.
Psalmone o four teaches a very simple truth
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about wisdom, and that's found in
verse Twenty Four. Verse Twenty Four explicitly
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says o Lord, how manifold are
your works in wisdom, you have made
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them all. The Earth is full
of your creatures. But to read both
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before and after this verse, we
realize that God is not only found in
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the wisdom of God is not only
found in his creation or the creation of
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the creatures. In other words,
it's not just in the specific things that
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we look at that we see the
wisdom of God, but also in the
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way that they're all held together.
So another words, not just in the
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creation do we see God's wisdom,
but in preservation we see God's wisdom.
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Take a look, for example,
at Verse Twenty Seven. These all look
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to you, all these creatures,
to give them their food in due season.
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Right, do season? That means
the appropriate season at the right time,
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and that's often what wisdom is about. Right it's about doing things in
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the proper order, at the proper
place, at the right time. You
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think about proverbs, which talks about
a word spoken in season is a fitting
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thing, a good thing, like
apples in a setting of silver. When
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you give it to them, it
says, they gather it up. When
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you open your hand, they are
filled with good things. When you hide
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your face, they are dismayed.
When you take away their breath, they
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die and return to dust. You
See, God doesn't just create the world
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and we look at it and we
say wow, that is wise, that
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is impressive. It is, but
it's even more than that. In the
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preservation of the world and the due
appointment of all things, in the orderliness
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of it, in the beauty of
it and the way it all holds together,
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God makes his wisdom manifest. God
takes care of the whole creation,
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each act done according to his perfect
time. I'Ming Maximus the confessor says this.
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We do not know God from his
being, but from the magnificence of
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his handiwork and his providence for creation. Through these all as, through mirrors,
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we perceive his infinite goodness and wisdom
and power. We can't climb up
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into the heavens and see God as
he knows himself. We can't perceive and
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know about God in his being,
but we can know God in his revelation,
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in the way that he reveals himself
to us. And where do we
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find it? Well, different places, but one is the creation, his
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creation and his preservation. Of course, as I mentioned, Maximus the confessor
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says this, many, many others, all good theologians say this, but
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more importantly, the Apostle Paul says
it, as we read earlier, in
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Romans One nineteen through twenty. For
what can be known about God is plain.
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Why? Because God has shown it. That's why it's plain right.
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If I, if I show you
my Bible, it's plain to you that
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it's here. Why? Because I
showed it to you. It's as simple
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as that. And it's that way
for creation. Paul continues for his invisible
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attributes, namely is eternal power and
divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since
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the creation of the world, where
in the things that have been made.
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That's how we see the wisdom of
God. Now Psalm one hundred four tells
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us that you can add wisdom to
this list of things that Paul mentions.
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Wisdom is also clearly perceived in the
things that have been made. In a
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way, it's one reason that the
things are clearly perceived, because wisdom involves
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revelation it. Wisdom is often about
making things known. Well, Paul's thesis
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in Romans One, in a way
you might say, is argued and given
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all kinds of proofs. In Psalm
Four, God displays his wisdom before us
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in this psalm by causing us to
pay attention to all these different things about
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our world. We come to see
that wisdom is not only an attribute of
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God, something we can know about
him, something we can say about him,
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but wisdom, the wisdom of God, is fundamental to our very existence.
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Without God's wisdom we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't be sustained, maimed
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and preserved. So, whether or
not you or I have wisdom, we
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should be glad that God does.
would be maybe one one thought to draw
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from that. So let's take a
look at Psalm one, O four and
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consider the wisdom of God, the
proof of the things that Paul says they're
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and insult and Romans. One,
this psalm of praise to God begins with
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a call to praise him, bless
the Lord, Oh my soul, oh
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Lord, my God, you are
very great. Then, from the second
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half of verse one, we are
given a perspective, I. A A
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way of looking at things, and
the perspective is from the heavens, from
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the skies, from the heavenly places, and to see so see them in
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relation to God. What do we
see? Well, these first four verses
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we see that the things that are
highest above us, the things that called
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many cultures and societies and people have
worshiped, the Sun, the moon,
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the stars, these things are but
the clothing of God. They are not
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God himself, as impressive and as
magnificent they are, we do not worship
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the sun or the moon or the
stars, because we worship their maker,
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the one who wears these things as
a man wears a garment. You are
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clothed with splendor and majesty. The
Psalm says, covering yourself with light as
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with a garment. Note also the
orderliness of these things and the activity that
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is described here. God is not
haphazardly or randomly doing this thing or that
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thing. He is stretching out the
heavens like a tent. Have you ever
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tried to build a tent? You
ever tried to do it in a random
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or haphazard way? You can't build
a tent that way. It's a just
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be a big mess on the floor
or on the ground. God stretches out
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the heavens like a tent. He
lays its beams. He's riding on the
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clouds, a picture that's used in
scripture of his judgment and his power,
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clouds and wins that are also identified
with his servants, the angels, imagery
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that's picked up in his Zekiel,
these flaming, fiery creatures that are not
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his lords and his masters, as
magnificent in as powerful as they are,
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but these angels, these messengers of
him, are of him, they are
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but his servants, his messengers,
yet more creatures designed to proclaim his word,
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to bring forth the message of God. Next, in verses five and
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following five through nine, we see
that God's careful and master building not only
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applies up in the skies but also
down below. In verses five through nine,
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he lays the strong foundations of the
earth. He commands the water this
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way and that way and they all
move, just as he would on the
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boat in the Gospels when he commands
the sea to be still, and in
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a moment it stops. This Mountain
Raises Up, that Mountain sinks down.
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You and I struggle to predict the
rain. We get caught and downpours,
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we forget our umbrellas, or we
think and we depend on the rain,
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and then it doesn't and our plants
die. God, on the other hand,
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knows every drop. The Psalm says, he sets the boundaries of the
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flood and he keeps his promise to
Noah to preserve the world. Next,
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in verses ten through twelve and in
sixteen through eighteen, we read how he
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uses the earth that he is set
in place to provide for the animals that
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he is filled with them, the
seas and the seas and the lands,
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the Badger, the stork, the
Rock are, I'm sorry, the go
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to, the donkey. All of
them do not live alone and apart from
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him, they live in him and
buy him and through him and for him,
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He provides their food in due season. He gives them their perfect place
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right as he says, let me
find it here right the high mount verse
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a team. The high mountains are
for the wild goats. The rocks are
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a refuge for the rock badgers.
Seems like a simple point until perhaps you
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go to the pet store wanting to
buy a new pet. And what do
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you do? You ask them and
you say, how do I create a
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habitable place for my new little thing, whether that's a dog or a lizard
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or a bird? There's a they
take you to the right aisle and they
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said, well, you're going to
need this, and you're going to need
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this and you're going to need this, and there's a wisdom right there.
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There's a wisdom that is imparted to
you so that you can act properly to
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care for this animal that you are
bringing into your house. We struggle to
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manage a few. Most of US
struggle to manage faithfully even a few pets
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at home. A few of US
are skilled enough to master a great number
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of animals, but no one is
like God, who creates and fills this
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world in these magnificent ways. Fills
it with his creature and doesn't accidentally put
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the Rock Badger in the ocean,
but puts the Rock Badger in the rocks
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and the wild goats on the mountains
and the birds in the trees. We
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assume these things and they're so orderly, they're so perfectly place that we get
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used to it. That's simply the
way it is. But would that be
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the way it is if you tried
to do it or if I tried to
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do it? Do you think you
might make a mistake here or there in
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your design and the way that you
set things? Of course you would.
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As I mentioned, we struggle to
manage our own little tiny houses. God
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manages, he preserves, the whole
world. The Earth is satisfied, it
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says, with the fruit of his
work. Verses Fourteen through sixteen tells us
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that the greatest of God's creatures,
US mankind, also receives our blessings from
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him, unlike the rock badgers and
the storks. We tend to think ourselves
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as God's yet clearly not. We
are alike the other parts of creation,
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the plants and the animals, in
that all everything we have and need is
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provided for us by God. But
we're all so different from them as well,
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and that God gives this earth to
us for our blessing and for our
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enjoyment. We are called to rule
in it, to keep it, to
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to work in it, and God
is very gracious in this way. As
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it says, he not only gives
us bread for strength or oil for our
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our bodies that we might be radiant, but even the joys of life,
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wine, he says, that we
might drink and be merry. Surely God
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is good. Well, shall we
go on? I think we must.
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Versus Nineteen and twenty three, which
brings us up to the verse that circles
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in on Wisdom in Verse Twenty Four. These verses right before that, tells
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us how all of these things were
probably made, and then leads us to
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this point. Oh Lord, how
manifold are your works? It wisdom.
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You have made them all. The
Earth is full of your creatures, and
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for all this the rightly, the
Psalm rightly concludes then, in Verse Thirty
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One, by saying may the glory
of the Lord Endure Forever. May The
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Lord rejoice in his works indeed.
Well, what about you? Will you
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rejoice in his works? As Verse
Thirty Three says, Sing to the Lord
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as long as you live, sing
to praise my God. I while I
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have my breat my being, I
will sing to the Lord as long as
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I live. I will sing praise
to God while I have my being.
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How long will you have your being? Well, that depends. How long
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will you live? It depends.
God will enjoy the fruit of his works
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for all eternity, because God is
eternal and eternally blessed. He will always
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rejoice in his works. He will
glory and rest in himself, as he
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always has and always will. But
what about you? Will you rest and
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enjoy and have pleasure in the wisdom
of God? It depends. After all
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of this glory, in this praise, PSALM ONE AFORD does end with a
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sober reminder that not all is well
in God's house, but it will be
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one day. We read in a
verse Thirty Five, the very last verse
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of the Psalm. Let sinners be
consumed from the earth and let the wicked
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be no more. There is sin
and these sinners in the world and in
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the glory and the power and in
the wisdom of God, they will be
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consumed from the earth. Earth.
If you have something in your life that
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is out of place, that is
not in its proper spot, that is
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not in its right order or is
not being done well. What do you
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do? Typically, try to fix
it right. Your air conditioning breaks on
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your car, you have a different
route on the way to work, you
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find that you don't have the ingredient
that you need for the recipe. What
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do you do? You fix it. It's how wisdom works, right you
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you create a situation in which things
then work properly. Would we expect any
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letther thing less of God when he
has a world that is as good as
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it is, a world that was
made to glorify him and rejoicing him,
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and when God looks down on the
world and sees sin and death and curse
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that has been brought into the world
through our sin, what ought God to
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do? What does God say?
He ought to do to fix it,
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and he promises to do that.
And so this prayer of the psalmist will
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indeed be fulfilled. One day sinners
will be consumed from the earth, that
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wicked will be no more. Sin
Has disrupted the order. That's what sin
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does. It misses the mark,
it causes frustration, it brings curse where
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there was blessing. Confusion where there
was order, death where there was life.
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Now, as you know, each
one of us is born with a
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sinful nature. Though we see the
wisdom of the world, we clearly perceive
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it, Paul says, we plainly
perceive it, we suppress that truth,
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we push it down in unrighteousness and
exchange that wisdom for foolishness, for sin.
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And this exchange, this foolish exchange, deserves punishment. We deserve to
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be among those who are consumed by
the glory and the wisdom of God and
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placed in a state of punishment and
wrath. Now, Psalm one, O
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four only hints at it here,
but the rest of the Bible makes it
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very clear that God's revelation, God's
wisdom, is not only revealed here in
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creation, but it's also revealed in
a new creation that God brings about in
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the world, a new creation that
comes through a different great exchange. Our
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sinful exchange is exchanging the glow glory
for the of the Immortal God for Mortal
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Creatures Worshiping Them. God's great exchange
is becoming a creature in be taking on
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humanity to himself, in Jesus Christ, to save us, to save us
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from our sins to save us from
this wrath to come, this being consumed
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from the earth. This wonderful life
that God has created and promises one day
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we can rest in through obedience,
is achieved for us, not by our
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obedience but by his. This,
the Bible says, is another aspect,
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and indeed the most important aspect for
US anyway, of the wisdom of God.
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In Him we can have eternal life, we can have the blessings of
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the new heavens and the new earth. We can live and enjoy the blessing
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of God forever. The psalmist sings
and says and praise in verse thirty three,
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I will sing to the Lord as
long as I live. I will
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sing praise to God, my God, while I have my being, and
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I believe, he says that,
in faith, believing that that praise will
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go on eternally. Why? Because
his faith is not only in the God
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who made him, but then in
the God who saved him, in Jesus
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Christ, God who became men.
Are Sins can be forgiven, your sins
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can be forgiven and instead of being
consumed by the wisdom of God, you
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are raised up by the wisdom of
God. Resurrected by the wisdom of God.
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Instead of being drawn down into a
cursed earth which is passing away,
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you are raised up into the heavenly
places which last forever. Our bodies will
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be consummated and made to belong to
the new heavens and the new earth.
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You won't be standing in the glory
of the Kingdom of God going I don't
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fit here, this is not good. No, your body will be made
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in wisdom to fit perfectly with that
order. You will not feel out of
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place, you will not feel like
you to belong. Don't belong, no
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impostor syndrome. In Heaven. You
will be exactly right, exactly fitted for
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that place. Why? Because you
are in Christ. And who better,
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or who would you say, is
more fitted for the heavenly places, then
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God himself? In him you have
this new life and you will sing beloved
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forever because of the wisdom of God. In creation we see God's most amazing
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wisdom. We find our call to
live according to it, and in it
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we also see our fall in it, the ways in which we have utterly
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failed to do the things God has
called us to do. We must study
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the world, we must give him
praise but if you desire more than that
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and eternal that, if you desire
not merely to wonder at the works of
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this world but to sing and glory
in the praise of God forever, then
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you must learn to study and have
faith not only in the God who created
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this world, but the God who
preserves it and the God who is saving
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us into a new world, a
new heavens and a new earth. And
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that comes only through the fear of
him, through faith in Jesus Christ.
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Put Your trust in him. There's
true wisdom there. Let us pray
