Posted on 12/01/2020 6:42:30 AM PST by Pilgrim's Progress
“The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel” (Proverbs 1:1).
TODAY’S VERSE:
“The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel” (Proverbs 1:1).
This is all the maxims, epigrams, proverbs, and homilies of the ancients condensed into one book. Really, if you searched out much of Plato, Socrates, Euripides, the Greek philosophers, the Greek writers: What they got, they got from this man. They got it from Solomon. And some of them had the honesty to mention that. Some of them didn’t. Some of them want you to think it was original material, but it wasn’t. All they got, they got from this man, Solomon.
Proverbs lays down the emphatic principle of dualism. Liberalism and false religion will try to do away with dualism. Dualism—right and wrong, heaven and hell—things like that. Proverbs is strong on a dualistic outlook. Absolute opposites.
“The wise shall inherit glory: but shame shall be the promotion of fools” (Proverbs 3:35 KJV).
Apostate religion, ungodly religion, false religion does not like to admit dualism. Some religions attempt to do away with dualism—how do they do that? Well, they do away with the Bible definition of sin, and they call some sins mortal sins and some venial sins. So that is trying to temper sin. To try to do away with hell and invent purgatory, to try to do away with the absolute opposite of heaven. Every heretic has to eventually do the same thing with his doctrine, because he only has the flesh to work with—and “all flesh is grass.” It’s all the same, all religions are basically the same.
There is two ways to deal with the awfulness of sin.
1. Experience. They say that that is the best teacher, but it is certainly the hardest teacher. 2. Hearken to wisdom.
Two ways to learn the awfulness of sin.
Now, as wise as this man was—smart as he was, experienced as he was, rich as he was—there was probably never a man alive that was ever smarter, or richer, than Solomon; and yet the Bible said about Jesus Christ, “a greater than Solomon is here.”
Now this Book will give you “wisdom” on how to deal with the real problems. You realize that most Americans don’t have really big problems. Psychiatrists and psychologists say that most of the problems in America are imaginary, and they are soap opera problems. Soap opera problems are (if you ever watch soap operas, which I wouldn’t recommend for anybody to watch) imaginary. Soap opera writers have produced plays and situations where two women are vying against one another, and they are always picking at each other over some little issue—and that is always the big issue in the play. It’s usually always two women, one getting mad about what one said about the other and then they blow it up clear out of proportion. And that has become the way of life in America. Americans blow everything way out of proportion. Nine times out of ten, the problems are no way as big as they really are.
You think you got problems, you ought to live in Afghanistan. In America, you have to go to a funeral home to see death. But in some countries, it is laying right out in the streets. It’s altogether different, we live in a candy-coated world.
Wisdom will show you how to deal with real problems.
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