Need Some Advice?: Proverbs 1:1-33

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

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Hey, everybody. Uh, for some reason, I had

this desire to do this. I don't know why. Well,

thank you, but hey, welcome to the Bible guys.

Hey. I was going to mention that roll in you're

like half the man you used to be. And so

are you watching that rollin?

Yeah?

Yeah we were, we were portly.

Yeah, if really, if if you're watching, of course, a

lot of people listen, more than more than half listen, yes, right,

but if you're actually watching it on YouTube, then there's

a video rollin that goes along with that audio rollin.

And uh and yeah, but.

Looking good, selt, so are you booking?

Felt? Well? Actually, this sweatshirt that I have on today

I just mentioned between the takes it's an extra large

and I'm swimming swimming. Good for you, buddy, but.

Are you well I'm not down to an extra large yet.

Okay, but you know compared to the rolling.

Well compare rolling, I'm out of the fours and out

of the threes, right right.

That's right. Yeah, So that's great. So hey, we're going

to open up with a segment today and uh and

by the way, that probably means we should do a

different rolling sometime soon.

Yeah yeah, yeah, well let's let's let's bottom out. Make

sure we don't add it back, otherwise we just waste

the time.

Right, So here is this is a fun one.

Yes, it is super excited about this segment.

Holiday draft list with Thanksgiving being next week. As Ray says,

let's do a holiday draft list. Go back and forth

picking your favorite holidays. They can even be funny. Go

into you each have four. It doesn't say so, but

I think we should do rock paper scissors to see first.

Rock paper scissors. Al right, free, shoot?

Ready?

One, two, three? Shoot? Oh I did rock he did scissors. Now,

for those listeners that have been with us for a while,

you know that zar Ball was on like a twenty

rock paper scissors streak, Yeah, streak. But these last couple

you've won, I know, yeah, you've won. Okay, so I

think I started figuring out your pattern.

I won twenty and you won like three three.

I know, but I'm feeling good the last three, the

most important three.

I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good about it.

Okay, so I get to pick first, my first and hey,

you remember remember National Chris Day? Yes, yeah, I was

going to say that's my favorite, but it's not. Bubble

Wrap Appreciation Day is a real day.

Yeah? Is it really?

It is? Yeah? Yeah, I just looked it up. It's

the last day and Monday, the last I'm sorry, the

last Monday in January there, and it's a day for

anyone who loves the therapeutic act of popping bubble wrap bubbles.

That's an actual day, I know.

Do you love it? Yes? You love popping bubble wrap reubbles?

Me too, man, it's the best part of Christmas.

That's so funny.

You get all those bubblep pop poppy.

By the way, just in case the listeners are wondering,

we decided to go funny with this segment instead of

just drafting holidays, the actualavorite holiday, right right, we decided

to I know, that.

Might be my new favorite holiday to bounce with you.

So we looked up in chat GPT. Yes some so

I taped in the question give me a list of

strangest national holidays. Okay, so here's the one I'm gonna

pick for my first one World Naked Gardening Day.

Oh, that's one of your favorite.

Well, do you know why I chose it? Adam and Eve?

Oh, I see right.

Yes, so this is the first Saturday in May.

It didn't turn out well for them. Just in case

you were wondering, Well, this.

Is people are encouraged to garden in the nude while

respecting local laws. Apparently this is an actual thing.

Okay, well be carefully, snippers. Good luck with that one.

Let me just tell you good luck with that one.

Here we go. So this is a real one. And

and I've celebrated this one before. And in fact, we

had a time in the office back when the office

was smaller, we had fewer people in office. Yes, and

we celebrated this day international talk like a pirate day.

Have you ever celebrated a day I've never Yeah, September

nineteenth every year. Wow is international talk like people around

the world channel their innerpirate with ours and away eighties?

Wow.

Yeah, and Buried Treasurer and Jeremy Timmy Yes, absolutely wow.

Okay. My second choice on my draft, Jeff is January sixteenth.

This is a national holiday, and it is I think

this actually is maybe my favorite holiday. Okay, ready, It's

called National Nothing Day.

Yeah, yeah, I have that on my list too.

A day where no holidays, celebration or events are recognized,

designed to be a day to do nothing, to do nothing,

which is my absolutely favorite thing.

To do nothing.

Yes, nothing, it's collect I love I love doing nothing.

So I don't know that you should say that to

the person who had advocates for your paycheck.

Advocates for your paycheck. I love you, I love doing

I do nothing nothing. I lie doing nothing so much

in the office.

This is a great one. I didn't know this was

a deal, but I think I'm going to take advantage

of it. Yes, August eighth is National Sneak some Zucchini

on your neighbor's porch Day.

Are you kidding me?

Yeah, it's a day for gardeners with an overabundance of

zucchini to anonymously leave some for their neighbors.

That can't be a day.

I think it must be. I'm totally taking advantage of it.

I'm going to do it.

If that's an actual day, then we need more days,

like we need more days to fill the ridiculous things

that deserve.

Okay, a day over that I have a better one

next time. Okay, but that's a good one. Have you

ever grown a garden with zucchini and it no, not

with zucchini. If you grow zucchini, yes, you grew too

many zucchinis. Is what happens. It just happens, and so

you got to get rid of them somehow. It's great.

Let's have a day and give them to people who

don't have gardens.

Okay, a good idea. I here's my third choice. Okay,

is World UFO Day's second day to raise awareness of

UFO sightings at extraterrestrial life.

Wow.

Do you remember a while back when the guys in

the courtroom.

When you got abducted, I thought, weren't talking about that anymore?

Go ahead? It was it was it was Darren, you're

going to make some jokes about the World Naked Gardening Day.

I got aducted. Yeah, right, the UH Do you remember

a while back when the guy, when one of the

old UH government guys went on the what was it

like six months ago? He went on the news and

said that he, uh, the reports were real, that the

sightings were right. There was no evidence, mind you.

He just said made a declaration.

He just made a declaration that they believed that UFOs

were real, and remember, the world didn't care.

Didn't even make the news hardly. Yeah.

Yeah, And by the way, it's because number one, nobody

believes media anymore. Nobody believes it. So it's like they

weren't real just because those two guys said they were real.

But if Jake Paul went out on TikTok and said

I got abducted last night, half the world to believe it, right, right,

that's what's ridiculous.

That is ridiculous crazy.

Okay, here we go this This may be my favorite

one and I just found it on the list. The

first Friday, the thirteenth of the year is blame someone

Else's Day. Wow, it's a guilt free day to pass

the blame mind to someone else. Is that amazing?

I would love that?

Yeah, the first So let's find out when it is.

Walk around and just say your fault.

Let's find out when the first Friday, the thirteenth of

the year is next year. Ooh, I'll find it all right.

Well, while you're looking that up, Jeff, let me go

ahead and do the last one.

It's June, June of twenty twenty five, the first Friday

the thirteenth. Just so you know. It's the first Friday,

the thirteenth in June. Blame someone else Day.

By the way, if we forget to celebrate that, it's

your fault.

Okay, great, very good, Thank you.

To tche Okay. My last pick is August eighth, apparently

is International Cat Day, a day to celebrate our feline friends,

including a variety of events dedicated to cats.

Wow, I like it. Okay, you like that one.

Well, you know I when I got married, I wanted dogs,

my wife wanted cats. We compromised and get cats. But

I like my cats. Yeah, I love them. Actually, I

love my cats.

Well that's nice. Yeah, it's super super sweet.

So I do defend cats. Yes, yes, to those who

don't like them.

I actually prefer cats overdogs, even though we compromise and

got dogs. So wow yeah, okay. April twenty fifth is

National Hug a Plumber Day.

Five It said four, did it?

Well, here's the bonus bonus. It's the bonus material. It's

an appreciation day for plumbers and all the work they do.

But maybe skip the actual hug.

Okay, well, the cheese that I'll choose. My last one.

Cheese Lover's Day. January twentieth is a day dedicated entirely

to appreciation of cheese.

Well that's my day. Let me just tell you right now,

Cheese Day. Okay, all right, thank you very much.

We're at eight minutes, so we need to move on.

So one of my favorite books in the Bible talking

about a national day. We used to have holidays. Every

day we would read the Book of Proverbs. So every

day was a holiday of Proverbs reading.

Wow? Wow?

Was it was rough? Okay, so we're trying to find

you know, silly segues into yes, the out of the

game and into the thing the reading. So Solomon wrote

most of the Book of Proverbs, as my fact that

mentioned just a couple days ago. In reading that he

wrote over three thousand proverbs. Many of them are included

in the Book of Proverbs, and then you also picked

them up in Ecclesiastes and in song. Soundon a little bit.

But so Solomon or Solomon wrote Proverbs chapter one, and

we're going to read are we reading the whole chapter?

Some of them? Okay? Wow? Seven? Why man? The whole

chapter is pretty great.

Let's read the whole chapter. Let's do it.

It's a long chapter. What Okay, These are the proverbs

of Solomon, David's son, King of Israel. Their purpose is

to teach people wisdom and discipline, to help them understand

the insights of the wise. Their purpose is to teach

people to live disciplined in successful lives, to help them

do what is right, just and fair. These proverbs will

give insight to the simple knowledge and discernment to the young.

Let the wise men listen to these proverbs and become

even wiser. Let those with understanding receive guidance by exploring

the meaning in these proverbs and parables, the words of

the wise and the riddles. Fear of the Lord is

the foundation of true knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and discipline.

I'm really glad that we decided to read the rest.

My child, listen, when your father corrects you, don't neglect

your mother's instruction. What you learn from them will crown

you with grace and be a chain of honor around

your neck. My child, if sinners entice you turn your

back on them, they may say, come and join us.

Let's hide and kill someone just for fun. Let's ambush

the innocent. Let's swallow them alive like the grave. Let's

swallow them whole, like those who go down into the

pit of death. Think of the great things we'll get.

We'll fill our houses with all the stuff we take,

and we'll throw our lot in with us. Come throw

your lot in with us, and we'll share all the loot.

My child, don't go along with them. Stay far away

from their paths. They rush to commit evil deeds. They

hurry to commit murder. If a bird sees the trap

being set, it knows to stay away. But these people

set an ambush from them for themselves. They're trying to

get themselves killed. Such as the fate of all who

are greedy for money. It robs them of life. That's

Solomon trying to talk his son into joining the gangs.

Wisdom shouts in the streets. She cries out in the

public square. She calls to the crowds along the main street,

to those gathered in front of the city gate, how

long you simpletons will you insist on being simple minded?

How long will you, you mockers, relish your mocking? How long

will you fools hate knowledge? Come and listen to my counsel.

I'll share my heart with you and make you wise.

I called you so often but you wouldn't come. I

reached out to you, but you paid no attention. You

ignored my advice and rejected the correction I offered. So

I'll laugh when you're in trouble. I will mock when

you disaster overtakes you, when calamity overtakes you like a storm,

when disaster engulfs you like a cyclone, and anguish and

distress overwhelm you. When they cry for help, I will

not answer. Though they anxiously search for me, they will

not find me, for they hated knowledge and chose not

to fear the Lord. They rejected my advice and paid

no attention when I corrected them. Therefore they must eat

the bitter fruit of living their own way, choking on

their own schemes. For simpletons turn away from me to death.

Fools are destroyed by their own complacency. But all who

listen to me will live in peace, untrouble by fear

of harm.

Well that's a strong way of saying what you deserve, right, yeah,

you it's coming to you.

Well, it's a strong way of saying there's a point

when there's no coming back. The fact that you've thrown

off all the wise counsels. You've ever been given right.

You're free to make your choices, just not free to

choose the consequences, right, right, Because this isn't God saying

these words, this is wisdom right. Verse twenty says wisdom

shouts in the streets. She cries out in the public square.

Wisdom is available to all of us, but we don't

all avail take avail of it. And so then there's

times then when we reject wisdom, we do the foolish thing.

Then when we're in the middle of the consequences the

foolish thing we're doing, we start crying out, Oh, please

help me, please help me. At that point, wisdoms is

too late. Wisdm can't do anything. Wisdom is always usually preventative.

It's before the decision, right, it's not after. But when

you do the wrong thing and then go, oh, wish

that turned out better.

I should have done this.

Yeah, yeah, you know what I should have done Monday

morning quarterback and that kind of a thing. Yep, right.

And I love how he refers wisdom to as a

she yeh, she calls out into the streets. And Solomon

does that, and I love it because he creates almost

like a character of wisdom. Yes, right, and refers to

wisdom as something to be obtained and something to be

followed and listened to. He makes He makes wisdom to

be a treasure, right, more more precious than rubies and gold,

he says about wisdom. He makes wisdom to be a

woman to be desired and listen to. And but I

love it so much. And you know what. He starts

off by saying, my child, listen to your when your

father corrects you, don't neglect your mother's instruction. And when

you when you learn from them, they will crown you

with grace, be a chain of honor around your neck.

I love how as a parent you're like, that's right, yeah,

listen to me. But think about when you were a

child too, all the wisdom that you just don't understand yet, right,

isn't that cool? And And that's really Solomon's posture always

because God has given him the gift to be the

wisest person who has ever or will ever live, which

means everybody he talks to or like children, compared to him.

He understands his wisdom fully, right, But nobody understands the

wisdom like he understands the wisdom. And that is so interesting,

isn't it, Because as parents or those who have experience, right,

those who I mean, listen, this whole chapter is about

somebody who has given wisdom and uh and says, I'm

telling you what it's going to happen, and then when

it does happen to you, I'm going to tell you,

I'm not gonna I'm not going to be there for

you because I told you, because I know what's going

to happen. I understand what's going to happen. And from

the position of understanding, when you give wisdom to somebody

who doesn't understand it is just like what he says

here after the introduction of wisdom. He says, this is

going to help you. This is going to help you.

That's going to help you. He postures you like a

child hearing wisdom from a father and mother. But honestly,

that's everybody, no matter how old you are. If you

don't fully understand the wisdom that's given to you, then

we need to maybe pause and consider the fact that

wisdom goes beyond our understanding or appreciation.

Yeah, well almost always always, yeah, you know this is

this The premise of this show is very much what

I grew up on in the Book of Proverbs, where

we read Book of Proverbs every night. Yep. So there's

thirty one chapters in the Book of Proverbs. Holiday every day, Yeah,

every day, every day. And so my mom and dad

decided early on that they wanted us to spend time

in the Word every day. In the Book of Proverbs,

Saloma says, wisdom is the most important thing, So get it,

get all that you can, you know, do whatever it takes.

And so my dad thought, you know what, I want

to pass on God's wisdom as much as possible. So

in the morning, he would whatever his devotional was that day,

whatever he read, he would write it down a piece

of paper, leave a little note and ask us one

or two questions that he left with from you know,

having read in the Bible. So we'd read that at breakfast.

But then in the evening before we go to bed,

we would read whatever the date was, we'd read that proverb.

And so then we would just go through in all

of us. So me and my dad and my brother

and my mom, sitting in a living room, we would

read through and then each of us would pick something

that jumps off the page. To us, which is essentially

what you and I are doing now in every single

episode where a five hundred and some odd episodes, what

one is this? I don't know, five hundred and sixty

nine of the Bible, guys, and then we had one

hundred and seventy something of HD Daily, right, And that's

all this is. It really is. We're taking that principle

that I grew up on reading the Book of Proverbs

looking for something and saying what on this page is

speaking to me and what I think it means. And

so when you have a good study Bible, that gives

you more to dig into and maybe you get a

different insight. But the thing on this page that jumps

off to me is Solomon says, the purpose of these

proverbs as he's writing to his son right, is to

teach people to live dissipate and successful lives, to help

them do what is right, just and fair. And these

proverbs will give insight to the simple knowledge and discernment

to the young, and so let the wise listen and

become wiser. But then on the other end, he says,

but fools despise wisdom and discipline, right, and so what

you see is this contrast all through the Book of

Proverbs of him saying, hey, if you're wise, pay attention

to this. If you're fool, you're going to despise it.

And he draws a contrast between wise people. He always

refers to godly people as wise people and ungodly people

choose to be fools. And it's because, and almost always

it's connected to the fact that they've despised God's teaching.

They despise the wisdom and the discipline that comes with

knowing more. And so you know that's my desire, man,

I want to be successful. There aren't very very many

times in the Bible that God says, do this and

you'll be successful. Right, He tells Joshua, if you keep

walking in my ways and you pay attention to my

laws and you honor me, then I'll make you successful.

And then a couple of times with Solomon, Solomon says,

the whole purpose behind my proverbs is to help you

be successful. And the way that you're going to know

that you're successful is that you're going to live a

disciplined life. That discipline will lead to success, and the

success is going to be measured by the fact that

you do what is right? What is just? What is fair?

Yeah? Right, that's honest.

The kind of person I want to be right And so, hey,

what better thing could you do but spend a little

bit of time every day reading through, you know, some

of the best thoughts of the wisest person that's ever lived.

Yeah, And so, a couple of podcasts ago, it might

have been the last podcast I mentioned that I had

met with somebody at a restaurant and they were going

through some hard times. And my first question for this

person was, who are you surrounding yourself with? What kind

of wisdom are you, you know, hearing from people around you.

I even talked to you know, his wife on the

phone as well, and uh sort of asked for the

same thing. Who do you have in your life that's

you know, giving you advice? And do you have Christian influences?

You know, meaning you know, there's people who give advice

that seems like a worldly advice, but it's very different

if the advice is based and rooted in the Word

of God. That's right, because because you know, you know,

in this case, it's a marriage, right, so there's there's

a marriage counseling I did, and uh, you know, some

advice could be, well, you just want to make sure

that you're happy, yeah, you know, and and by the way,

that's that is advice, you know, I mean, that's you know,

there's nothing wrong with wanting to be happy, right, but uh,

you know, to decide your course of action based on

that is not good advice.

Well, God says that the only way to truly be

happy is to go his way, right, right, right. But

what they're saying is do it makes you feel good, don't.

They don't mean really find real happiness. What they mean

is do it feels good to you. What feels good

to you, Often it's going to take you in the

wrong path, right yeah, and so yeah, that's dangerous.

Yeah and so yeah, and so my question for this

person was, I said, do you have to the wife?

I said, do you have godly wisdom? And and you know,

she said, well, no, my counselor isn't a Christian counselor.

You know that doesn't not a person of faith. But

there are other people in my life who do speak

into it, who are people of faith. I was like, well,

lean into them.

Yeah, you know, get your wisdom from godly people.

Right.

I had a guy here recently that I had an

opportunity to talk with and he was asking me several questions,

and just naturally, I would say, well, you know the

Bible says this, or Jesus taught us this, or you

know God told us this in the word. He goes, man,

I'm asking for your opinion. What do you think? And

I said, what do you mean? He said, what do

you believe? I said what I've told you. I believe

what God says. I believe what Jesus said. I believe that.

And I said, I'm not saying that that I'm God.

I'm not saying that or that I'm as good as God.

I am saying that I'm absolutely convinced that God's ways

are better than my ways. And so when you're asking

me hard questions of what should I do, I don't

know that I can give you a better answer than

what God says. He'll bless right, So just do that.

Just do that. And he looked at me like confused

for a minute, and he goes, so, you like, you

actually believe those words? I said. He goes why, I said,

because they're true in my life, and he went okay, okay,

I said, I've spent my life in this book, and

I've lived my life as best I'm not a perfect person,

but as best as I can. I try to live

these words Solomon says, run away from these temptations, get

away from these kinds of situations. So I've tried to

not that I think every single thing is a sin,

but I try to stay away from a lot of

those things as much as possible, because I want to

be as wise as I don't want to be a simpleton.

When he talks about a simpleton here, he's not talking

about somebody the mental efficiency. He's talking about people with

character deficiencies. Always, whenever he talks about that, I don't

want to be that person. I want to live my

life that says God, I want to be as wise

as possible. I don't always understand why you say those things,

but I'm going to do it your way. And all

I can tell you is my life has been blessed

beyond my own comprehension. I can tell you this. You

know my story well. I often when I drive home,

my mom will make fun of me, saying, I don't

know how you've gotten where you're at. You can't get

there from here, right And it's true. What God has done.

My life is beyond comprehension. Is because my parents poured

wisdom into me and then I just became convinced of

the importance of living God's words. And so it's not

a perfect life, but I can't think of a better life.

And so, man, when your friends are asking you questions,

it's why you need to know God's word. Unless you

are the wisest person in the world, maybe your opinions

aren't as significant as I don't know the wisest guy

whoever lived. Let's go and know what he says. I mean,

God gave it to us. Why don't we know it.

It's because we don't read it. And it's not hard, dude.

We just read these past so it's not hard. It's

not hard to understand. It's just our character sometimes is

not at the level that we need in order to

be able to lean into what God has to say.

And so we're just going by the seat of our pants.

And so much of your Facebook friend's opinions are just

by the seat of their pants and all that kind

of stuff. Man, I would rather go by the seat

of Solomon's pants than my own. Right, he forgot more

wise stuff than I've ever learned, and so let's let's

learn it.

Yeah, that's great. All right. Well, hey listen, that's about

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