What is the best book available on the market ?

 

                               "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not

                                     unto thine own understanding." Proverbs 3:5

We've been studying the book of Proverbs for quite some time now and we're slowly working our way through it. I prefer to think that we're making sure that we're getting everything out of it, but I sometimes get the impression that my class thinks we're stuck in low gear at the rate we're going through the book. I just tell them that I have two speeds of teaching and, if they don't like this one, they sure ain't gonna like the next one.

But, really I love this study because what we're seeing in Proverbs is the wisdom of God shown to us in everyday, practical situations. Situations that we all encounter while living in this plane called earth. And one of the things continually pointed to by Solomon, the writer of the book, is the difference between God's wisdom and the wisdom of man and in the noting of the difference, he shows us why God's is so much better. Both as to the physical (temporal) aspects and the spiritual (eternal).

I'd like to discuss some of these differences with you for a few moments today and I appreciate your consideration of my thoughts. Of course, there are many, many "differences" we could look at, but I'm just going to cover one of them in this lesson. However, it's a "big one."

The "difference" I'd like to study today is knowing what the "truth" is and how important it is for us to know the difference between God's "truth" (wisdom) and man's "truth" (wisdom). In taking the second clause first - the importance of it - let me just succinctly put it this way: it's the difference between eternal life and eternal death. Between residing forever in paradise or living forever in hell. I'd say that's pretty important, wouldn't you?

But you see, there are multitudes of people on this earth that "lean" more to their own or some other person's "truth" than of following God's "truth." And, sad to say, they have been here since God created the earth and put man on it in "His image" and gave him "dominion" over all other creatures. In other words, and in keeping with our lesson today, God bestowed on mankind the ability to choose his paths in life. One being the path of God's wisdom and the other, the path of man's wisdom. And, as we know from the previous paragraph, these paths lead to two distinctly different locations.

The one thing that we need to understand at this point is, that whether we're following our own "wisdom" or the "wisdom" of another person, we're following an "untruth." Any "wisdom" or "truth" different from God's is a false guide because it leads us down the wrong path. If we think that by following it we'll end up in heaven (paradise), we're following a false hope.

In the little book of Jude is found a phrase that so aptly describes those who are false guides (the Bible calls them "false teachers" in 2Pet. 2:1). Actually, most of the book of Jude is warning us about those who teach in opposition to God's wisdom and the writer provides us with several descriptors of them, but the one I like is the one that says that they are like "raging waves of the sea." (Vs. 13)

Anyone who has ever witnessed the raging and destructive nature of the ocean during a storm can easily understand the metaphor used there in Jude. I have seen that phenomenon more than once and I have no trouble relating to the comparison made by Jude of the "raging waves of the sea" to the destructive nature of "false teachers."

Well, let's go back to our first clause, the knowing of God's "truth." A man once asked another man what he thought the best book available on the market was for recognizing the many false religions (wisdom) surrounding us today. The answer he was given surprised him. The man simply answered, "The Word of God."

Do you know how the Secret Service trains it's agents to recognize counterfeit bills? How to know the difference between phoney money and the real thing? They just study the genuine bill because if they know what's real, what's genuine, they'll recognize a phoney. Is that any different than the answer given in the above paragraph? Absolutely not.

Here's another little illustration of that principle: A man who was a passenger on a steamboat was watching closely the pilot of the boat as he was steering it through an intricate channel. The passenger asked the man at the wheel how long he had been a pilot on the river and was told "I have been a pilot on these waters for over thirty years."

The passenger was impressed and replied, "Then you must know by now where every rock and bar and shoal is on this whole river." The pilot's answer to that is what fits with the principle of our lesson here. He said, "No, I don't. Not by a long ways." The passenger asked him, "Well then, what do you know?" The pilot told him, "I know where the deep water is."

Doesn't that little story bring home our lesson principle to us? We don't have to study and know about all of the false doctrines and their teachers that abound in the world today. All we have to study and know in order to recognize a false teacher, and untruth, is God's wisdom, His "truth." If we know it, we'll know something that isn't.

Let me close this little study today with these final thoughts. In John 18:38, Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?" Pilate didn't realize it but, at that moment, he was looking directly at "truth." In responding to those who were believers in Him, Jesus said these words: "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)

And then, reading in John 14:6, in response to a question by Thomas, Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Here's the equation in a nutshell: Whatever God says is "truth." His "truth" came to this earth in the form of His Son and by His obedience to the Father and His sacrifice on the cross, Jesus became the personification of "The Truth."

Ron Covey