Sunday Sermon - Wisdom for Life

Wisdom changes your life. Without wisdom you can’t be successful. An example of the Wisdom of God is in Proverbs: 27:12 (KJV) which states, “A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, the simple pass on and are punished.” If you are on a trip and you see a “Road Closed” sign, you obediently turn around, but the simple continue to their detriment. Foolishness is a bad thing. Proverbs 22:12 states the same thing. Having the same advice twice in the bible shows its importance.

Trouble doesn’t announce itself before it comes. People often don’t have a premonition before something bad occurs. No matter how good your heart is or your intentions are, your directions determine your destiny. Your steps tell how you will end up, not your words. A simple person is naïve to this.

For example, if a wise and simple person start out on a journey at the same time and are armed with the same information, so neither one has an advantage over the other, but based on the information they received, the wise does something the simple doesn’t do, the simple is punished for it. The prudent know that how you lay your bed is how you lay on it. They understand that life is connected and that you can’t live alone. For every action or inaction, there’s a result. The choices of today are the harvest of tomorrow. For example, if you don’t study ahead of time, you won’t pass your exam, even if you try to cram in all the information at the last minute. Life takes planning and preparation. It is the foolish that see trouble and walk right into it. The wise draw from their experiences and from the experiences of others. For example, when gossip is brewing, the prudent foresee evil and hide while the simple engage in it and are punished

The wise anticipate the future and plan accordingly. For example, a woman doesn’t just have a baby after 9 months of pregnancy. Nine months isn’t suddenly. The wise know how to plan and follow through. The simple are naïve and untaught by not accepting what was taught. The naïve live life like everything is disconnected, not realizing that the choices of today are connected with the results of tomorrow. They live like they are the exception to the rule, the say, “mine is different”. They live life like it is not connected.

The difference between the wise and the prudent is not their challenge; it is their response to it. In Luke 19:1, when Jesus was passing by in Jericho, everyone knew, including all the short men but it was only Zacchaeus, who had sought to see him knowing he was going to pass that way, knew his constraints but found a way around it by running ahead and climbing a tree to be able to see Jesus. He knew that as a tax collector, a “sinner,” he had to do something about his situation. Jesus saw his efforts and Jesus told him to come down from the tree and that he must stay at his house. This is an example showing that positive confession alone can’t override inactivity. When Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “I’ll come and eat at your house,” everyone was talking.

Zacchaeus got information and acted on it, but often we get information, but not everyone acts on it. In Mark 2:1-7 the scenario is about Jesus and the paralytic. The paralytic had probably seen Jesus passing through before. He was not the only paralytic; however he was the only one who four men took up to the top of a house and was let down to be seen by Jesus. It’s obvious that time and effort went into the planning and execution of the plan. The paralytic must have solicited the four men’s help to help him get to Jesus. They must have agreed to help him and thought about how to execute his request. They must’ve surveyed the place first and thought through how they would execute the plan with the pressure of having to think on their feet, because they had to uncover the roof of the building Jesus was in and let down the bed the paralytic was lying on. The bible states in verse 5, “When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven you.” Your faith makes you work hard and go to any length to resolve your problem. This example also illustrates that it is how we react to information that determines how we end up in life because verse 1 states, “it was heard that He was in the house,” so the paralytic was one of the people who heard, but he was prudent not simple, so he used the opportunity to resolve his problem, while other paralytics may not have heard or even if they heard, couldn’t be bothered to act on the information to resolve their problem. Many people have been to a location to find a solution to their problems. Many have been there and left without a solution, but some seek God till they get their solution.

Prudent people plan. Always think ahead for your future. I was talking to a man who is retiring next year, February 2011. He didn’t have a plan for his future. When I asked him what he is planning to do, he said, “I am thinking.” It’s too late to be thinking in the fall of 2010 about what you will do February of 2011. Don’t live life without a plan. Don’t say, “One way or the other, God will sort me out.” Psalm 1:1-2 refers to the righteous man. He was holy, read scriptures, loved God but must’ve been the husband of the widow with two sons in 2nd Kings 4:1 which states “Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the LORD; and the creditor is come to take unto him my twos sons to be bondmen.”

The key to prosperity is in Psalm 1:3, “What he does, prospers.” God prospers what you do. Blessings require activity. Quoting scriptures, fasting and praying are good, but if you don’t do something, there’s no platform for God to bless you. Proverbs 6: 6-8 talks about the ant which as small at it is knows there’s a time he can’t work, so in the summer when it can work, it works hard, because in the winter time there’s no opportunity to work.

If you don’t save, you are foolish. Saving is a lifestyle. If you can’t afford something, don’t buy it. For example, if you can’t afford a 2 bedroom apartment, don’t foolishly sign a two year lease on one. For example, a man returned from America to Nigeria with a lot of money. He moved into a $45,000 per year apartment in an exclusive estate where he lived among the rich. However, the businesses he was banking on to come didn’t come as he thought and later, he ran out of money. He couldn’t afford to pay his rent and his landlord seized his furniture as collateral. He had to move in with his younger brother who is a better planner than him. That is humiliating. Plan for the future; don’t base your life on luck.

In Proverbs 7: 6-24, an old man sat at his window watching, the young man devoid of understanding passing along. Today, these are the young boys with their pants sagging. The old man was looking and saw the young man passing through the street near her corner and he went to her house. The old man knew where he would end up. If you take the path of sin, your reward is death. The deception is high out there. Sex sells, so they push it. It is used to sell anything. You can say, “The days of sleeping around is here, but we know people suffer for it. The simple suffer because they refuse to act on what is seen.

When a dating couple is told not to marry each other by an objective third party such as a pastor and they say no and go ahead and get married, they regret it because there’s a side they don’t see that the third party sees. Then they ask, “Why did God allow this to happen to me?” When the simple man of Proverbs: 27:12 pass on and is punished and the man devoid of understanding in Proverbs 7: 6-247 went to the harlot, where was God? He was there. He is always there, but he gives us free will. Some say, this Christianity isn’t working for me and stop going to church. Some talk about God’s love and forgiveness but there are also consequences. Sin is like an ice slope, rolling you along. Once you start, you can’t stop. You can confess your sins and apologize to God, but you are not shielded from the consequences of sin. In 2nd Samuel 11: 1-26 David was at home in Jerusalem, when he should’ve been at the war front, because the passage states that it was the time kings went to war. He was where he shouldn’t have been, on the roof of his palace, parading, that’s why he saw what he shouldn’t have seen. Bathsheba was also bathing at a place which wasn’t covered, so she couldn’t be seen, in the evening, a time when she shouldn’t have been bathing. They were both wrong by doing what they shouldn’t have been doing, when the shouldn’t have been doing it..

In Samuel’s mind after seeing Bathesheba, he probably tried to resist the devil, quoted scriptures like, “The devil is a liar, I will not die young but live….., By his stripes, I am healed, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” However, he didn’t do what the bible says, which is to flee every appearance of evil. But David didn’t flee, after feasting his eyes, he enquired, he wanted to know who she was, he knew she was someone else’s wife, she was his own soldier, Uriah’s wife, before going to her. So it was a well thought out, premeditated plan, fuelled by his lust to sin. He then sinned and went through all the motions to cover his sin. He cried, rolled on the earth all night, confessed his sins, and besought God to spare the child’s life to no avail. God forgave him, but the child had to die. This was one consequence. God also cursed him that the sword will never depart from his house and it hasn’t for centuries. Now President, Obama can have as many meetings as he likes between Israel and Palestine, but the issues can’t be resolved, because what is occurring there is biblical, the sword is in David’s house. In Luke 17: 26-37 Jesus was talking of the time of Noah when people were living their lives, no one expected the flood, but it came. In the time of Lot, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was also unexpected.

God is a just God, a consuming fire. The prudent see trouble and take cover. Whenever you see trouble, take cover, like the prudent. Don’t run into it like the simple. Don’t get carried away by distractions. Jesus is coming soon.

As preached by Pastor Tola Odutola of Jesus House Baltimore
Written and edited by Susan Majekodunmi