Spiritual Wisdom: Proverbs 14:1-35

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Hey, Chris, good morning, good morning. We talked

a whole night, good morning, good morning to you.

Oh. I like how you went the whole time. That's great.

That was that was a percussion right there.

Oh it's so happy. Yeah, we're so happy when you

sing that. No, it's oh we are that. That's everybody's

second favorite. It's not true segment yet at all.

Hey, but I do like to sing good morning because,

by the way, you know why I like kids? Oh

my gosh, you're kidding me all my life.

Hey, the the reason why I like that little segment

is because I love that movie.

We watched that movie time and time all the time,

all the time.

My son started dating somebody, uh you know, uh two

girlfriends ago, and and said something about Seeing in the

Rain and she says, what are you talking about, because

you know, she's all like twenty five years old whatever, And.

He says, what are you talking You've never seen it.

So they sat down. One of the first things he

did is he said, you have to see this movie.

And then she hated it. And so they don't, right, right, right,

she loved it. So do your kids like it when

you talk about them on a podcast from stage?

You're so used to it that I honestly don't think

it is a negative, Nora positive.

It's just a thing.

So both of my sons will go, I can't believe

you told that story, right, So they're not mad at me.

They're just like, oh my gosh, dad. Right, yeah, but

my daughter loves it. So I dropped her off today, right,

We were sharing a car today, so I dropped her

off at work before I came here. And she's twenty,

and she goes, hey, you can say anything about me

today on the podcast, And I said, I don't know.

Come on, it's been a while, right, yeah, okay.

So yeah, so you talked about Jenna, about her talking

about you talking about it, you're talking about it.

That's funny, that's funny.

All right, Okay, Today we're moving into a segment that

desert is prepared.

For us called would you Rather?

Okay, there's there's the new slogan for would you rather,

just screaming would you rather?

Okay?

So we're just gonna pick uh pick one? So here

we go.

Would you rather sip hot cocoa by a cozy fire

every evening?

Yes?

Or spend the day skiing down a mountain?

Oh?

I do like skiing, but one requires efforts and one

is super lazy.

And I just I love doing nothing.

You love doing nothing and coco buy a cozy fire?

Yeah, I mean it is nice. Scheme requires cold too.

Yeah wow, right, except yourself you're kind of sweaty. It

takes a lot of work. So you know, I've never

snow skied.

Oh wow, Ever, I think you've passed your prime.

Buddy, I lived, I lived on water skis, but I

never snow skied.

Yeah, you may. You may have missed the window there.

Yeah.

Well hey, which, by the way, I'm totally kidding. Fifty

three is not missing the window. But look at this.

It says, would you rather sit pot cocoa by a

fire every evening or spend one day skiing down the mountain?

Yeah? Or is it meaning spent the day the day?

Or is it meaning the day?

She doesn't say every day every day? That is singular.

That's weird.

Then yeah, then you're committing to every evening with hot

cocoa or one day skiing all of a sudden.

That makes it like weird.

Decision like that.

I don't like that.

Yeah, I think.

I think.

My only decision is I have to sit by the

fire drinking hot cocoa because I've never skied before.

But I could try it for one day. That doesn't

mean you can't try it.

Okay, I want to try it. I want to try skiing.

Okay for one day, you break your break your knee.

I don't know.

So Number two, would you rather have your holiday lights

up all year long?

No, thank you? Or never have to untangle them again?

Well, of course I'd want to never have to untangle

them again.

Are you literally saying you're that person where you're going

to leave your Christmas lights up in July?

It doesn't say I have to leave them up. These

are two different opportunities.

It says have your holiday lights up all year long, or.

It doesn't say or leave them up. She's giving us

two choices.

Oh, I see what you're saying. You're saying.

The way the sentence structure is, that's that little lawyer

in my head again. The way the sentence structure is

is she's giving us two choices. It's not one or

the other.

Hey by the way.

That's weird too, because I know it's a negative in

the first one.

Yes, she's writing it like it's a positive.

Yes, would you rather? Do you think it'd be great

to keep your Christmas lights up?

No, it's like not have to hang them.

I'm going to give you one of two choices. You

can leave your Christmas lights up forever, yay, or you

can never have to untangle your your Christmas lights again.

But yeah, but I read the first as a massive

negative because then you're the jerk in the sub with

Christmas lights in July, which we have one of those.

By the way, we have a guy.

You know who you are.

And by the way, they weren't just like like you know,

those like really nice lights along the trim, which sometimes

you can't see those. These were I'm not even kidding you,

icic no icicle lights. They kind of hang down like this.

And then here's what's even worse. I'm trying to be

dramatic here. They weren't hung correctly. They droop so so

droopy icicle lights all the way year long.

I literally that should be an episode of What makes

Chris Mad?

Right, maybe save it.

I'm gonna talk about this guy.

Do we have that this week? Oh? It's coming up

this Friday, is it? Yeah?

Okay, you're gonna hear that again, folks.

Okay, he's gonna be irate.

I'm gonna I'm gonna expand on it.

Okay. Would you rather be a professional ice skater or

champion snowboarder for the winter season? Well, I wouldn't want

to be a champion snowboarder for the summer season.

Uh, professional ice skater or a champion snowboarder. Between those two,

I think I would rather be a professional ice skater.

I thought you'd say that. I was gonna say snowboarder.

Oh, yeah, well you've never even skied.

I think I think you liked the idea of wearing tight,

shiny clothes.

Spinning will Pharaoh played that, played that one? Whatever it was. No,

here's the reason why.

It's the costumes. That's why.

Oh my gosh, really, that's where you went to.

The singing and dancing. It's the secret. We know, we

know it's And it's the singing and dancing. We know,

we know all about you.

No, it is it is way more impressive in my

mind to watch the performance of a professional ice skater

than it is to watch somebody navigate a hill like

like they're like, oh look another swish, Oh look.

Oh.

I think the professional snowboarders are unbelievable.

Of course they are, but they didn't say tricks.

I get so when the snowboarders are going, I sit

down and watch the snowboarders, and I get drug in

to watch the ice skating by the females in my family.

Wait a minute, so anyways, we need to move on.

Okay, okay, but now, tricks are one thing. Snowboarders who

do tricks on pipes and things like half pipes, that'd

be I would choose.

Well, I'm a champion snowboarder, so I can do all

tricks I want to do.

All right? Fine? Number four?

Okay, would you rather have a winter holiday every year

in a tropical destination or somewhere cold with tons of

snow and winter activities? Let me think which one. Let

me pray about this one. It would have to be

the number one topical destination. Yes, oh, I would rather

have a winter holiday with lots of snow.

Yeah, not mebe I love it now. I want the

snow to go away three days after Christmas, right by

New year. I wish all the snow was gone, but

for that little stretch between like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I

love the snow on the trees and the.

But they say, they say a winter holiday and a

tropical destination. So it's assuming that you're having to put

up with the cold all winter long because it says

winter activities.

But it's a winter holiday. Yeah, it's holiday. Holiday is the.

Word tons of snow and winter activities the.

Holiday for the holiday? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So

for like, let's let's pick a winter holiday. How about Christmas?

I would like to have way more snow and fewer

palm trees for Christmas holidays.

I do you realize, lawyer, that what this is saying.

Is it saying, would you rather have be somewhere where

it's completely tropical and you have to celebrate a winter

holiday or somewhere where you have to endure the entire

season of tons of snow?

That's what It's not the entire season, it's the holiday.

So yeah, no, the holiday refers to having to put

up with a winter holiday in a tropical season, That's

what it's meaning.

Oh, you're saying that because she didn't say winter high

day somewhere cold. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not reading it

that way, but that's okay. Yeah.

So anyway, the point is I would I went down

a year ago and I skipped Christmas and I did

Christmas with the Cranks, and I did Disney and Universal

with my family in Saint Pete with with with where where.

My daughter lives.

We only went down for a week. We only did

Universal for a day, Disney for a day. But I

got to tell you something.

I loved it.

Heaven, I love Disney. Yeah, I get it. I would

rather have it be the other way. I love Okay.

Would you rather be able to create winter wonderland scenes

wherever you go? Or control how much snowfalls in your

yard for the perfect snowman building conditions?

That's that's a random question.

Create winter wonderland scenes wherever you go? First of all,

how does that even look? I don't know, or control

how much snowfalls for the perfect snowman.

In your yard in the yard, I'd want the first

one be able to create winter wonderland scenes wherever I

Oh yeah, you'd.

Be a magical wizard. People be like dude again right

literally just like it's like.

You'd be like Gandolf with the fireworks.

Yeah, you could just do anything you want everywhere and

it'd be amazing, this amazing like it. Yeah, I would

choose the first one too. Okay, yep, well that was fun.

I think you got a couple of those answers right, Good.

Job, Yeah, thanks, Jeff, appreciate it.

Okay.

Uh.

Speaking of getting some things right, Solomon got a lot

of things right with his why sayings. Ooh nice, why

sayings is what he likes to call them.

Yeah, and I would say that those are right right, Yeah,

that's right. Yeah.

Okay. So its in Proverbs chapter fourteen. We're continuing on

this theme, just going through these one liner why statements,

and he says, a wise woman builds her home, but

a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.

Those who follow the right path fear the Lord. Those

who take the wrong path despise him. A fool's talk

becomes a rod that beats him. But the words of

the wires keep them safe. Without oxen, a stable stays clean,

but you need strong ox for a large harvest. An

honest witness does not lie, A false witness breathes lies.

A mocker seeks wisdom and never finds it. But knowledge

comes easily to those with understanding. Stay away from fools,

for you won't find knowledge in their lips. The prudent

understand where they're going, but fools deceive themselves. Fools make

fun of guilt, but the godly acknowledge it and seek reconciliation.

Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else

can fully share its joy. The house of the wicked

will be destroyed, but the tent of the godly will flourish.

There is a path before each person that seems right,

but it ends in death. Laughter can conceal a heavy heart,

but when the laughter ends, the grief remains. Backsliders get

what they deserve. Good people receive their reward. Only simpletons

believe everything they're told. The prudent carefully consider their steaf

is he implying that not everything on the internet is true?

Oh, my goodness.

The wise are cautious and avoid danger. Fools plunge ahead

with reckless confidence. Short tempered people do foolish things, and

schemers are hated. Simpletons are clothed with foolishness, but the

prudent are crowned with knowledge. Evil people will bow before

good people. The wicked will bow at the gates of

the godly. The poor are despised even by their neighbors,

while the rich have many friends. Quote unquote, it is

a sin to belittle one's neighbor. Blessed are those who

help the poor. If you plan to do evil, you

will be lost. If you plan to do good, you

will receive unfailing love and faithfulness. Work brings profit, but

mere talk leads to poverty. Wealth is a crown for

the wise. The effort of fools yields only foolishness. A

truthful witness saves lives lives, but a false witness is

a traitor. Those who fear the Lord are secure. He

will be a refuge for their children. Fear of the

Lord is a life giving fountain. It offers escape from

the snares of death. A growing population is a king's glory.

A prince without subjects has nothing. People with understanding control

their anger. A hot temper shows great foolishness. A peaceful

heart leads to a healthy body. Jealousy is like cancer

in the bones. I love that one. Those who oppress

the poor insalt their maker, but helping the poor honors him.

The wicked are crushed by disaster, but the godly have

a refuge when they die. Wisdom is enshrined in an

understanding heart. Wisdom is not found among fools. Godliness makes

a nation great, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

A king rejoices in wise servants, but is angry with

those who disgrace him.

There you go, there you go. Yeah, so thirty five

verses of nuggets of wisdom.

I like to call them wise sayings. That's what they

they're they're wise wise sayings.

Yeah, good job, Jeff, that's that's accurate.

Hey guy, let me write this down to Yeah, why

w I s?

I slow down, professor.

So when you said in verse number fifteen, only simpletons

believe everything they're told, and you said, are they saying

everything on the internet, it's not true.

I was going to say, or CNN. Yeah, yeah, right,

so yeah, pretty much. It's it's so funny, how it's

so funny.

How my father, who is eighty he was born in

thirty nine, so he's eighty five, right, And I was

trying to tell him, uh, and again I wasn't trying

to get political at all. Right, I wasn't trying. I

was trying to avoid that whole you know, everything else.

I was just simply trying to tell him that it's

interesting how I've been you know, I've been to Cuba, right,

i' I've been there four times, so, you know, I

used to think that Cuba was so radically different than

America and then and now I'm like, huh, I mean

I know that obviously we're leap years away from uh,

you know, Cuba, but I never thought that that people would,

you know, just sort of control the information that they

wanted to give to their people, which is exactly what

you know, Castro was famous for doing, just controlling the

information that came in. And I said, I do believe

some of that. You know, I'm not a conspiracy theorist

to the maximum degree, right, but I do believe that

some of that happens.

Right, You're talking about the just between the Cuban government

the Cuban people. We had a belief that the Cuban

people hated us, right, Is that what you're saying, No, no, no,

I'm saying times that the Cuban people are really nice people.

No, no, no, you know what I'm saying is I never

thought that America would behave like Cubans. I'm saying, like

I'm saying, like I thought we had.

Like, oh control, complete government control. Yeah, yeah, completely, Like.

I thought the news was completely impartial, right, And now

now I'm understanding that, like, oh, there is an agenda.

You know, people in power, they give you the news

that they want you to hear.

You know.

Now again it's not it's not anywhere near. But I

was trying to tell my dad this, and I said.

I said, yeah, I said that controlling of information.

Controlling of information, I said, I said, yeah. I said,

we're a little bit more like Cuban than I than

I want us to be.

And my dad says, what are you talking about?

And I said, and so he started naming all these

different things, and he couldn't wrap his mind around the

fact that that, you know, that the people in the

news could give us the news that they wanted us

to give us, and so he was just absolutely refused

to believe that. And I said, and so he started

naming things, and I said so, and I was just

thinking of this verse.

Only simpletons believe everything they're told, right, I mean, I.

Mean, like, you know, I love my dad but I'm like,

you got to be kidding me, right, So anyway, and

he also didn't understand algorithms, and he's like the only

thing on the internet is this, And I'm like, oh

my gosh, Dad, it's algorithms, right, But he has no clue.

You know, it's different generation.

Yeah, different generations.

Hey, this is I'm gonna My wife already knows exactly

what I'm going to say, because as you were reading this,

she's listening to this while getting her makeup on and hi, LISU.

So she already knows that.

Proverbs fourteen, verse number four, when it talks about this

without auction, the stable stays clean.

It's one of my favorite verses.

But you need a strong ox for the large harvest.

Why is it one of your favorite verses? Why is

it one of your favorite.

Go ahead and say what you're going to say, and

then i'll tell you.

Okay, So my youth pastor said that that was a

youth ministry verse.

Did Iver say this?

Okay?

So he said, uh, without auction, the stable stays clean.

He said, you know what, he goes without teenagers. Your

carpet stays clean without teenagers. He said, teenagers are messy.

And when you have like a really thriving youth ministry

in a church, and our church was a smaller church,

it was a couple hundred people. So he said, you know,

without teenagers, he said, everything would be you know, there's

not butter stuck on.

The ceiling from a gay right.

He's you know, he says, you know, without without ox,

and the crib is clean, right, he said, imagine in

a farm, he said, you had no ox, he said,

there'd be nothing to clean in the stall. He said,

it'd be perfect, and you would have a nice, perfect stall.

He said, but much increase comes from the strength of

the ox. And he talked about the driving force of

a youth ministry because when a youth ministry is on

fire and it's strong and it's going forward, he said, yeah,

it's messy, but how much can it do for the

Kingdom of God? Because teenagers on fire from God can

light the world on fire.

Yeah, So that was it. That's that's essentially my view

of it as well. Only I was thinking of it

as the big picture, the whole ministry in general. Anything

worth doing is probably going to be a little messy, right,

And so there there's the kind of person who wants

control first, managed first, and and and you and I

know people who tend to take every idea and scale

it back to what is manageable right, to keep it

neat and buttoned up just right, all this kind of stuff.

And I'm almost exactly the opposite. I'm gonna take any

idea and maximize it out as far as possible. Well,

that's less. Management's gonna be messier, for sure, but that

large harvest comes because we're maximizing. And so you know,

it's it's you know, everything worth doing in my world

gets a little messy, and that's okay. Just we'll clean

up the mess keep going. Otherwise, the best thing to

do is sell the ox and just you can do

it all by hand, right right, And so that ox

is what is the force multiplier. So for those of

you that are in business, and if you've ever read

anything like for instance, Special Forces, they I was just

in Coronado where they train the Navy Seals. Of course,

my wife and I were rented some electric bikes and

we went out riding all around the island and we

rode past where they were out training on their ropes

courses and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were out training.

It's kind of neat, right, So there's this and and

I like the spec Forces stuff. I read a lot

about generals and kernels that are helping train our special forces.

I love that stuff. And they talk about this idea

of having a force multiplier. So if we have soldiers

in the bag and the you know, the enemy has soldiers,

then what we're looking for is how do we multiply

the impact of the soldiers that we have to overcome

the impact of soldiers they have. And that's going to

be through vehicles, it's going to be through superior weapons,

it's going to be through superior training, whatever. Right, So

the Oxen here is the force multiplier. So you can

go do the work. If you want to go ahead,

get your little hoe out, get your little pick axe out,

smash up your ground. If you want to go ahead,

get get out your little grinder and try to smash

up all of the wheat that you want to and

you're going to get you know, after a long day

of hard work, you're going to get a little bushel

of flour. Great or you can go ahead and pay

the price of having a mess maker that is also

a force multiplier that then we'll be able to let

you do bushels and bushels of flower today instead of

a bushel of flower through hard work of your own right.

Or you can do that force multiplier and you can

plow the entire field today and the field next to

it instead of just trying to carve out this a

little bit with your own pickaxe. Right. So I'm constantly

trying to figure out I think the best leaders don't

just try to figure out how to maximize their work.

They're trying to figure out how to find the force

multipliers that will take you way further. There's the mess

in that, the management of that. You hire highly talented people,

there's always I've said this before. You know, genius has

an equal and opposite corresponding deficit always, and so the

more genius you hire, the more trouble you're also hiring

on the other side of that, Right, there's always that difficulty.

But those kind of people become great force multipliers. You

just have to be willing to clean up the pen

every once in a while. Wow, I love that.

So you know what I thought of immediately is that

at the end of World War Two, as the Germans

were losing the war, they wanted, therefore multiplier to be

in the research that they were doing with this poisonous

gas until Wonder Woman along, Oh no, and then uh

and then finally took out you know, uh, you know,

the evil scientists.

I don't I don't think that's what he's talking about here.

And did you also know that in the Marvel universe,

the Red Skull thought the force multiplier for his German army,

German Army in World War Two was going to be

the test erect, so he created all sorts of weapons

you know that have blue rag guns.

Well, in Indiana Jones, they thought it was going to

be the Lost Arc.

That's right, the force multiplier that's also Germans.

I say, yeah, wow, how about that?

So thank you.

So none of those things it is for a wonder

Woman in Captain America and Harrison Ford.

Yeah, that's right, Indiana Jones. So that's not what he's

talking about here. But this this idea that just understand,

the greater the work, the more you're gonna have to

have a force multiplier. Those force multipliers create a mess,

which creates other work, right right, But that's okay, Yeah,

that's great because what you're working for and this verse

really is all about impact. That's really what I's talking about.

Instead of don't just do work, do work for impact,

have the greatest impact the most effective things, not the

most efficient things. So there's a predisposition and a lot

of especially among a lot of my engineer friends, to

work for efficiency. And I say, let's work for effectiveness first.

Efficiency second. So once we figure out the effective thing,

now let's make that as efficient as possible without changing effectiveness.

But if you start the other way, let's do the

thing as effectively or as efficiently as possible. A lot

of times you then throttle back effectiveness. And that's really

what this verse is about. That's how it is a

genius that's great.

Also turns out I think he's a wise man, which

is hence.

Why says Professor so verse of her twelve says, there's

a path before each person that seems right, but it

ends in death, and it is. Remember several podcasts ago,

you'd made mention about somebody who sort of wakes up

and says, what was I thinking? You know, if you've

ever done that, it's like it's like there's there's a

path that is before you know, a man or a woman,

and and and they think that's it's it seems right,

it seems like it's the right thing in the moment.

And then you look back and you realize, man, that

was taking me down the wrong road right. And and

people do this obviously with addiction all the time. They

do this with inappropriate relationships all the time. You know,

they step out thinking, oh, this is the right thing,

this feels good, this is this is what's best for me.

And then or they just weren't thinking.

They were just thinking the thrill of things, right, and

they were just thinking, well, it's it's not good, but

it's thrilling and I can control it, or it's a

harmless or it's not going to cause damage.

And then and then on the other end they go,

what was I thinking? And I always think of this verse.

There's a ray.

That you know, and we learned it in the King James.

There's a way that seemeth right to.

A man, an unto.

A man, but it ends in death and uh, and.

It is true in the end. It leadeth to death.

Leadeth to death, all jeeves, all the old English talk.

But anyway, the point is is that it is important

to recognize that sometimes when you're convinced of something. We

need to be open to the fact that we're not

thinking correctly. We need to be open to the fact

that there's wisdom and council. There's wisdom in those around us,

and it's not the thing that we want to hear

in the moment because we want.

What we want. Stop telling me to stop wanting what

I want.

Right, Yeah, the implication there is and we'll have to

wrap up here, but there is a path for each

person that seems right. This is another one of those

heart things, right right, So he's always telling you don'trust

your heart. Get wise, counsel wise, counsel from God comes

from God's word and God's people, right that, that's what

he's saying there, don't just trust your gut again. That's good.

That well, there's probably more to unpack and we had

we had a big long session here if that's our time,

so hopefully we'll see you next time on the Bible, guys,