VIEWPOINT with Chuck Crismier
SEARCHING FOR WISDOM?
This is Viewpoint with Attorney and Author Chuck Chris Meyer. Viewpoint is a one hour talk show confronting the issues of America's heart and hope. And now with today's edition of Viewpoint here is Chuck Chris Meyer. Get wisdom and with all your wisdom get understanding. We like to talk a lot about knowledge. In fact, we're told that in the end of the age the Prophet Daniel said that at the end of time knowledge would be increased, increased dramatically in D&D it is, but it seems like the more knowledge we have the less wisdom we have. Have you noticed that? And so today on Viewpoint we're going to explore wisdom. What is wisdom anyway? Well we know most of us listening to this program know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Well maybe just maybe lurking in that phrase is the answer why we seem to have so little wisdom these days. Maybe we just abandoned the fear of the Lord. Maybe not only in the schoolhouse or the courthouse or the White House, but maybe in the church house, maybe even in your house. Who knows? On the other hand we all want to see our lives work out well. We want to see things come about in a way that we have an expectation that there is something called the good life or a good life. But what does it look like? How do you get there? What does it mean and why is it that it seems to always filter through our fingers like sand through a sieve and we never seem to quite grasp it? Well today on Viewpoint we're going to be talking about that. We're going to be talking about this idea of wisdom. Wisdom. What in the world is wisdom? Well we know that the Bible contains what is called wisdom literature, a series of books right there in the middle of the Old Testament. They tell us what it looks like to live the life the way God intended. And it tackles all kinds of difficult questions, all kinds of things about our lives. And in the New King James Version, I normally use the regular King James Version, but in the New King James Version of the Bible, the word wisdom actually appears 227 times throughout all 66 books of the Bible, 99 of those instances are contained in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and Job. So you can well understand why they're called the wisdom literature. And all of these books grapple with the question is what does life look like when we live it the way God intended. Now we think about Solomon, we think about him as quite, he's the wise guy of Scripture, Solomon. He wasn't just wise, he was the wisest King. And God gave him special insight into both how the world works and how people work. He spoke, he said, 3000 Proverbs, we don't know what all those are, but we do know a whole bunch of them there recorded in the book of Proverbs that talk about wisdom, practical down to earth wisdom. And that's one of the reasons why my wife who is somewhat of an disorder type loves to read the book of Proverbs. So we can read through the epistles and then she says, can we read Proverbs in Psalms? So we'll read Proverbs and then we'll go back to the next iteration, maybe the prophetic books or maybe the Torah, maybe we'll look at some other, then she said, can we go back to the Psalms? Right now we're in the Psalms and you find an awful lot of wisdom in the Psalms. So there's a reason why many of us have resorted to the book of Proverbs and the book of Psalms. But unfortunately so many, when they're going to Proverbs or going to Psalms, they're looking for something that gives them comfort in what they're doing, but not so much looking for what God wants them to do or how He wants them to live. So today on Viewpoint we're going to focus on that. How can we have as followers of Christ, how can we have a life that would be pleasing to God and fulfilling to us the good life? Our special guest today on Viewpoint Ralph Hawkins, I don't think Ralph has ever joined us here on this program, but if he ever has anything else to come up with other than this book called Ancient Wisdom for the Good Life, then I would welcome him to come back because he's written such a wonderful book that helps us to understand this issue of wisdom and why it is that it seems so elusive. Ralph, it's going to have you on the program. Thank you so much Chuck, I'm so delighted to be here with you on Viewpoint. Well, first of all, I'd like to know what actually prompted you to write this book. Was there something unique, something special, or would you just look, were you just looking for something to write about? Well, that's a great question, and I don't tell the story in the book of how I became interested in this, but it was actually when I was 16 years old, I ran across a book on my grandparents' bookshelf, which is called The Psychology of Winning, and yeah, how is that going to lead you to the Bible, my friend? Well, I read that book and it had a profound impact on me, it was written by a social scientist named Dennis Waidley, and I wanted to read many of his books over the later years, but when I first started as a pastor in my first full-time pastoral job in 1995, I was still rereading that book, I read it about once a year for years, and as I read that, I thought, you know, in that book, he had the ten qualities of a total winner, and as I read that book, I thought, you know, each of these qualities is taught in the wisdom literature, and I'm going to write a sermon series elucidating these ideas through Scripture, and I did that in '95, and then when I went to my next church five years later, I rewrote it and preached it again, and I did that over and over over the years. Well have you figured it out yet? Have you gotten a measure of wisdom that can count as wisdom? Well, yes, what I've figured out is that the wisdom literature has rich depth that I've only begun to plumb in this book. So we've only just begun, you know, it's in 1995, May 7th, that we launched this radio program. So yeah, yeah, so we got two things going there in 1995, and I'm so glad that you did begin this because as I have read your book, I realize that your thinking, what God has revealed to you, has also been running parallel to what God has been revealing to me over these years. And you know, as I look at the broader body of Christ, and I've grown up in the church, my father was a pastor for 50 years, his parents were both pastors, my wife, my mother's parents were both leaders in the Salvation Army, and so I have a heritage in that regard. But what I have realized over the years, from coast to coast, that the church as a whole, instead of walking increasingly in the wisdom of the Lord, has actually decreased in walking in the wisdom of the Lord. And that's really problematic to me. That's a very troubling thing. And that's one of the reasons we do this radio program. We'll be right back after this, friends, our guest Ralph Hawkins' book, Ancient Wisdom. We'll be right back. Once upon a time, children could pray and read their Bibles in school. Divourses were practically unknown as was child abuse. In our once great America, virginity and chastity were popular virtues and homosexuality was an abomination. So what happened in just one generation? Hi, I'm Chuck Chris Mar and I urge you to join me daily on viewpoint where we discuss the most challenging issues, touching our hearts and homes. Could America's moral slide relate to the fourth commandment? Listen to viewpoint on this radio station or any time at saveus.org. The famous American philosopher once says, "In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows." He says, "You cannot be wise without some basis of knowledge, but you may easily acquire a lot of knowledge and remain almost bare of wisdom." Wow. So wisdom must have something to do with the application, the proper application of knowledge, not from our viewpoint but from the creator's viewpoint, from God's viewpoint. And that's why we say every day here on this program, viewpoint determines destiny. If our viewpoint doesn't line up with God's viewpoint on the issues of life, destiny rides in the balance. In some way you may think it's little, but in some way that destiny lies in the balance because it's directing our pathway. And when our pathway doesn't line up with God's ways, we end up maybe in a ditch, maybe in the drink somewhere, maybe over a cliff, but it isn't pretty and it's certainly not the good life. So our guest today, Ralph Hawkins writing this wonderful book called Ancient Wisdom for the Good Life. And that's a good marketable title there, Ralph. But when you go into your book, you find out your book really is substantive. It really is. People have a quest for a good life. But how to get there remains totally elusive, doesn't it? Yeah, you're so right. So you and I are both in Virginia. And what I've discovered when we first came to Virginia, it seemed like there was a lot more wisdom here than there have been in California where I'd practiced law for 20 years. But over these last 30 years that I've been in Virginia, I've seen this state lose its wisdom hand over fist. And we're ending up in more and more and more difficulties, more and more troubles looking more like what the state of California looked like 30 years ago. It seems that wisdom, what is it about human nature even in this country that claims to be a nation under God? What is it about wisdom we don't much care for? You know, that's a great question, Chuck. I think that probably what drives the American quest, you mentioned knowledge and how it's different from wisdom a few minutes ago. I think the American quest for the good life is motivated by, you know, it's motivated by this typical American desires for material comforts and luxuries. In other words, what's commonly known as the American dream? Yeah, if you look up on the dictionary, what is the good life? You know, you'll find definitions like a life abounding in material comforts and luxury, or the kind of life that people with a lot of money are able to have, right? Somebody who grew up poor, but is now living the good life. That's what Miriam Webster says. So yeah, I think there's a lot of confusion about the good life out there. You know, in the introduction to your book, you immediately captured my attention. You talked about this drug lord Pablo Escobar, who actually died the very year that we launched Save America Ministries in 1993. And he became one of the wealthiest criminals in the history of mankind. You see, he's worth about 30 billion dollars at his death, and he owned properties, houses, cars. He had everything that would have described the good life, but it wasn't good at all. He had it all, but didn't have anything. Yeah, yeah. That's the conundrum of this issue of wisdom, isn't it? It really is. And people throughout history have been on a quest to find the good life and figure out what it is. And if you go back, for example, to the classical period, you can find in classical philosophies, the good life was a really popular topic among the classical philosophers like Plato and Socrates and Aristotle. But they all believe that the good life was out of reach for the common man. They believe that it could only be attained by an elite class of philosophers. And that's what makes the Bible's wisdom literature so unique in ancient Israel. The sages taught that wisdom is for everybody. And you look, for example, at a passage like Proverbs 8, where wisdom is personified as Lady Wisdom. And she stands out at the crossroads in the town, and she calls out to everybody who's passing by and urges them to come in and learn from her. And Proverbs 8, 4, and 5, she shouts, "To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live, O simple ones, learn prudence, acquire intelligence, you who lack it." So her invitation is different from that of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. She calls on everybody with the promise that anybody can grasp God's wisdom. On the other hand, you do quote in your introduction to your book, "Wisdom for Socrates required the possession of knowledge," and not just any knowledge, but that which provides the basis for infallibly good judgment in decisions pertinent to how one should live. Wisdom then is the possession of such knowledge, plus the disposition and skill to use this knowledge in the right ways. Well, that's not too bad except Socrates took poison. That wasn't too wise. It killed him. And then he said the knowledge has to be infallible. Well, there's only one infallible knowledge, and that's God's knowledge. And so it seems to me that rather than trying to dredge up through human experiences, so on, the knowledge and wisdom, maybe it would be most appropriate and a short circuit for all of that to go straight to what God had to say about knowledge and about wisdom. Yeah, you're so right. Yeah, wisdom in the Bible is a little bit different because in Hebrew the work for wisdom is chochma, and it was not viewed as abstract knowledge. So much of ancient philosophy, wisdom is abstract, but in Hebrew it was not viewed that way. It was literally viewed as skill for living. In other words, applied knowledge. Yeah, applied knowledge. Applied knowledge. And you know what's interesting, Ralph, is that so much of the teaching and preaching in our age is what I call informational. In other words, it's knowledge. It's knowledge about the Bible, knowledge about God. But it's not teaching us who really who God is and how to have that relationship with him, except by making a confession of faith. But in terms of actually applying that knowledge, it just doesn't seem to happen. And I think one of the reasons it doesn't happen is because pastors intuitively are aware that people don't really want to grapple with how to live. They just want to know, at least not in the applied sense, they just want to know facts. And then they feel they're very religious. How do you respond to that? Well, yeah, I think you're right. Often people think of the Christian faith as a set of propositions that are designed to be accepted and believed. Yeah, if we quote the apostles, Creed, we're in life. Yeah, if you just affirm some some propositions, you've done religion. But religion is so much more than that. And that's what's so great about the wisdom literature is that it teaches us how to live. And biblical wisdom is it's also about the ways of things. Nothing to exist and work and function properly. And even more, it's how to exist, work and function properly in light of who God is. And absolutely. And that's why the first third of your book is foundational to everything else. And we're going to get into the depths of that a bit in just a few minutes. But I want to make your book available to our listeners because it is such a good, good book. $23 will put this $25 book in your hands, friends, ancient wisdom for the good old life. Actually, it's the wisdom of God from the Bible. And it's set out in such a way that it puts it in a context. It's different than we normally think that is normally presented in our churches. It's totally biblical. And we'll change our lives if we're willing to embrace it. $23 on our website, save us.org. Save us.org. You can call us at 1-800-SAVE-USA. That's 1-800-SAVE-USA or write to us at Save America Ministries. He obonks 70879, Richmond, Virginia, two, three, two, five, five. You're writing a check at $5 for postage and handling. Okay. Now, it seems that there is a phrase that the wisdom literature tells us is at the very heart of all wisdom. And that without this understanding, there is really no wisdom available to us. And that phrase is called the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning or foundation of all wisdom. Do you agree with that? Yes, I do, Chuck. The fear of the Lord is such an important concept in the wisdom literature. And it's not a negative thing. I think when listeners hear that, or when they read Scripture and they run across that phrase, the fear of the Lord, they might think of that as a negative thing. Well, the reason we think of it as a negative thing is because we're predisposed to do that given American culture today. Well, that's true. But the very word fear, it's usually connected with the basic human instinct to run away or to defend yourself or to retaliate. Uh-huh. Okay. And so there may be this idea that, you know, I don't want a relationship with the Lord that is based on fear in some negative sense. And fear is a good translation of the Hebrew word, but it's negative connotations that we think of. Those don't capture the sense of what the biblical writers want from believers. Well, the same is true of the word belief. The meaning of the Hebrew word belief has very little to do with information. It has everything to do with transformation. It has everything to do with taking what you say you believe in the Word of God and living it out in your life. Right. Yeah. And some contemporary translations have provided alternate translations for the Hebrew word that's translated traditionally as fear, like the New Century version renders it respect, the good news translation renders it reference. In the book, I suggest translating the Hebrew word as reverential all. I think that's a very good, that's about as good as you can get. Here's the problem with that. George Gallup back in 1995 spoke to the religious publication group and said, you know what? We as Americans still claim to revere the Bible. We just don't read it. Right. So in other words, you can revere God and pay no attention to him. So you had this sense of reverence for God, but not for the life that God is requiring in us. In other words, there's no transformation. It's all information that leads nowhere. Well, yeah, I hear what you're saying, Chuck. That's why I render it reverential all right. Like I'm in awe of my wife, and that leads me to want to, you know, to be in a devoted relationship of devotion with her. I think if we're in every reverential off of the Lord, that catches the positive sense of what the response the Lord is looking for. And then, but then we run into the problem of the word awe. For instance, we sing a song, our God is an awesome God. Well, that's good. That's good. But then we hear people say, as an interjection in their conversations, that's awesome. That's awesome. They're not, they don't mean awesome at all. They be good. They make a like it, or that's cool. So we've actually demeaned the words so that they do not connect in our hearts with who God is. Yeah, you're right. We'll say this ice cream is awesome, or my dog is awesome. I'm finding the word that really catches the sense of what it is. Well, you really tried. What I'm trying to do is capture the positive sense of the response to the Lord. You know, there is fear can be both, if you define the word fear, there can be negative ways of understanding fear that can be negative fear, and there can be positive. And we'll talk about that when we get back. Stay tuned friends, agent wisdom, we need it. There is so much more about Chuck Chris Meyer and save America ministries on our website, save us dot org. For example, under the marriage section, God has marriage on his mind. Chuck has some great resources to strengthen your marriage. First off, a fact sheet on the state of the marital union, a fact sheet on the state of ministry, marriage and morals, save us dot org marriage divorce and remarriage. What does the Bible really teach about this? Find all of this at save us dot org. Also, a letter to pastors, the hosea project, save us dot org and many more resources to strengthen your marriage. It's all on Chuck's website, save us dot org. Again, you can listen to Chuck's viewpoint broadcast live and archive, save America ministries website at save us dot org. Welcome back to viewpoint. I'm Chuck Chris. Well, I want to introduce you a new coin, a new coin today. Here it is. We'll talk about heads and tails, but they're not going to be any heads and not going to be able to tails. It's going to be a whole new coin. Here it is. On one side of the coin is the fear of the Lord. On the other side of the coin, coin is the love of the Lord. Without both, there is no legitimate wisdom with regard to God. The heart that both fears and loves God at one in the same time is not divided, but is unified in a single faith religious response to God. How's that Ralph? I think that's really great. Yeah. People sometimes think of fear as diametrally opposed to love for the Lord. But in the Old Testament, not just the wisdom literature, the idea is that the fear of the Lord leads to the love of the Lord. It undergirds the love of the Lord. Exactly. Exactly. In fact, you're not going to obey your father or your mother. You're not going to obey them out of love until you first obey them out of fear or deep respect because they have authority over you. Right. When you get to the end of the book, this idea that the fear of the Lord and the love of the Lord are related is repeated throughout scripture. If you go all the way back to the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy chapter 10, verses 12 and 13, which is a very famous passage that's often referred to as the Shema. It summarizes what God's expectations are for his people. In the passage, Moses says this, he says, "So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God really require of you?" Well, here it is. Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and so on and so forth. Yeah. So the heart that fears the Lord on the one hand and loves the Lord on the other is not a heart that is divided, but it's unified in a single reverential response to God. I'm thinking about the Psalms. David writes, unite my heart to fear your name. Unite my heart to fear your name. Now, why would David write that? If that was not a good thing. Right. Yeah. You're so right. Yeah. David understood this, that the fear of the Lord did not mean running away from God, but it meant running to God out of reverential awe for the Lord. So you cannot have a true and legitimate relationship with the Lord unless your heart is united in both the fear and the love of the Lord. I don't believe so. When we go back to the great Old Testament theologians of prior ages, they often wrote about the fear of the Lord. And I'm trying to think of there was one great Old Testament theologian. He said that the fear of the Lord was Israel's primary response to God. And it's undergirded everything. And in philosophy, there's a field called epistemology. Epistemology is how we know what we know. And he said that fear of the Lord provided the foundation for ancient Israel's epistemology. In other words, the way that they understood the world, perceived the world and knew the world was built on their fear of the Lord. Their understanding of who the Lord was. And you know, the magnitude of who he was and the implications of that affected how they understood the world, how they knew the world, how they related to what they knew about the world. Say Ralph, did you know that every promise of God, including salvation itself, is predicated on the foundation of the fear of the Lord? Every single promise. I discovered that in writing my book, The Secret of the Lord. The Secret of the Lord is for them who fear him. And to them, he will show or manifest his covenant. It's foundational to understanding his covenant, to understanding everything about God, to understanding God's ways, to being a doer of the word and not to hear only his foundation to every single promise of God. That makes it sound pretty awesome to me and something highly desirable. Yeah, yeah, I think that's actually true. I haven't gone through and thought about it in quite that way. Well, that's why you need to read my book, man. Okay, well, let's shift from that foundation because we know the wisdom leisure over and over tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning or foundation of wisdom. So let's start applying some of this. And in your book, the rest of the book is based upon application of wisdom in so many different areas of life. One of those has to do with the word integrity and the word integrity has lost its integrity in our society today, hasn't it? I think you're right. It has. I mean, just look at what's happening in the news. The legal profession has lost its integrity, the government lost its integrity, even our libraries have lost their integrity. Right, right. You're so right. Yeah, and I think recovering integrity starts with, guess what, renewing our belief that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Oh man, do we have to go back to that again? Yeah, in other words, it's not so negative after all. No, no, no. Yeah, it's very positive. And if you look at how ancient Israel's sages talked about the fear of the Lord, you'll see that again, they believe there was a very close relationship between the fear of the Lord and love and reverence for his law. So it makes sense that renewing integrity would begin with the renewal of the fear of the Lord. All right, here's an interesting way to apply this. In 1973, there was a fella by the name of Karl Menager, and he wrote a book called Whatever Became of Sin. And I don't think he was a Christian. I think he was a Jewish man, whatever, he was a psychologist or a psychiatrist, whatever became of sin. So he says, the decline of integrity, he attributes to the abandonment of the concept of sin in our culture. Now let's track that now to the 1990s, when Dr. Robert Shuler, the Christical Thedral guy, declared that it was abused to tell people they were sinners, because what they really need is more self-esteem. That shows you the amazing trajectory of the abandonment of the fear of the Lord, which leads us to understand sin against the Lord, and why we need to repent. So the whole concept of the gospel at the need for salvation was completely undermined by the abandonment of the fear of the Lord. Yeah, you're so right. But integrity can't be renewed without restoring a sense of fear of the Lord. I think, for example, Psalm 34 verses 11 through 22, where the psalmist invites children to come to him so that he can teach them the fear of the Lord. Once he does that, it begins to teach them the fear of the Lord, and then that leads him into teaching them about the importance of God's law. The God's law will only be received and obeyed by those who have a foundation of the fear of the Lord. When you get to the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, where the writer has spent the entire book on this quest for the good life, and he's come up empty with all of these various avenues he's pursued, he says at the end in Ecclesiastes 12, 13, he says, "Well, what I've discovered is that the whole duty of man is to fear God and to keep his commandments." So, fearing God will enable one, drive one, compel one to obey. And guess what? Guess what? The word obey is considered a four-letter word by the church today. Do you know that over the past eight or ten years I have asked numerous Christian pastors, paratroopers, and so on, on this program, what is the most hated word in the church today? And all but one of them said obey. The only word that Jesus said would please God and please him. And I believe the reason for that is we abandoned the fear of the Lord. You abandoned the fear of the Lord. And obedience now has a bad name, a bad rap too. If we don't have a reverential of the Lord, we don't know who he is. We don't revere him, we're not in all of them. We're not going to care what the Lord wants. On the other hand, the apostle Paul says it's God who is working in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. But we can reject it. Right, right. Yeah. So he wants us to have, as you put it, the good life. He wants us to walk in his ways. He wants us to honor him. He wants our lives to be full and complete. But we got to do it his way. Right. Yeah. I mean, didn't the Scripture say there in Isaiah, "My ways are not your ways, say, at the Lord?" That's true. I would stress though that, you know, if we are working from the foundation of the fear of the Lord, we have a reverential awful Lord. We love the Lord. Right. Then what we'll find is that his ways become a delight to us. And, you know, the wisdom literature talks about that. I can't tell it's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't tell you which chapter and verse it is in the Proverbs. But how about Psalm 119 where David says, "I meditate and delight. I meditate on your word. I delight, meditate and delight, meditate and delight. I delight to do your will. Oh my God." Right. Yeah. I was just about to go there. But there's one proverb where it says that the man or the woman who is living according to wisdom will find their delight in the Torah in the chapter verse. But yeah, Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm in the entire Psalter. It's 176 verses and it is the entirety of that Psalm that you can get to wisdom. Absolutely. We'll be right back after this friend's ancient wisdom for the good life. Have you ever considered what the early church was like? Many people are developing a heart longing for greater fulfillment in our practices as Christians. A recent study showed 53,000 people a week are leaving the back to of America's churches in frustration. What is going on? Why has there not been even a 1% gain among followers of Christ in the last 25 years? Could it be that God is seeking to restore first century Christianity for the 21st century? Jesus said, "I'll build my church." Is Christ by His Spirit stirring to prepare the church for the 21st century? The early church prayed together and broke bread from house to house. They were family and it was said by all who observed, "Behold how they love one another." Incredible. But the same can be found right now. Go to saveus.org and click sell church. We can revive first century Christianity for the 21st century. It's about people, not programs. It's about a body, not a building. That's saveus.org. Click sell church. All right, my friends, we've got to get very serious here in this final segment of the program. Today we've laid a strong foundation. We repeated the foundation in some application with regard to integrity. And now we need to talk about some other things in short order that show how the wisdom literature, God's wisdom, speaks into so many areas of our life. For instance, starting in the late 1980s and early 1990s came the warning of an epidemic of loneliness in America. Now, how is that possible? How would that be possible? We were supposed to be so family oriented and we say that the family is the building block of the society and so how could that possibly happen? Could it be that we abandoned the wisdom of the Lord and the net result was increasing loneliness? What say you, Ralph? Yeah, you're still right. There's been a decline in community in this country for decades. There's what is now a classic book in sociology. I was written in 2000 by a Harvard sociologist and Robert Putnam. Oh, yeah. He was a real bowler, wasn't he? I never could figure out why he called his book Bowling Alone. Bowling on. Yeah, it's very much tracking the collapse of American community, which is something that's been happening since about 1980. Americans have just become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, community structures, whether it's the PTA or the church or recreation clubs or service clubs. Well, the breakdown of our marriages didn't help any of that, did it? No, it certainly didn't. Didn't the wisdom literature speak to our marriages? The wisdom literature has a lot to say about marriage and it sees marriage as the foundation of a healthy society. Yeah, communities are built on really built on solid marriages. Yeah, solid marriages. Well, we used to believe that in this country. We still verbalize it, but not so much anymore because we've abandoned the fear of the Lord. We thought that was a bad thing. And so now we've completely reconstituted what a good thing is. And Satan has done his number in deceiving us. And he's changed our speech. We're not speaking straightly anymore. We call that which is black, white, that which is white, black. Does the wisdom leisure literature speak to our speech? It sure does, but I'd like to just go back and emphasize the family for a minute. All right. You know, the family is so profoundly important. And I want to emphasize it because it's on the decline today. It's been on it's been in decline since about the 1960s. Yeah. But ancient Israel's sages, they viewed the family as holding the pivotal place in society. And it was viewed as so important that it actually features in three of the 10 commandments. And after the fifth commandment is given, the text adds that the result of strong families in society is that, quote, you will live long in the land. And what that means is that strong families provide the foundation for healthy communities and produce a stable society. So it's imperative that we in the church focus on encouraging the formation of families, encouraging our young people to get married, teaching them the value of building a family, and so on and so forth. No question about it. He even talks about child discipline. Folly has bounded the heart of a child, but the rot of discipline drives it far from him. And so we've had modern philosophies. We have a new one that's come out that we're going to be talking about. It has a special name. I think it's called a pleasant parenting or something like that. It's maybe it's child centered parenting. No, it's it's beyond that now. It's just like it's as if we're running as fast as we can away from the wisdom of the Lord. Right. So much for man's wisdom, huh? Okay. Well, you know, it's interesting. The the wisdom literature speaks so much about sex that some people have actually called it semi pornographic. It talks about a young man who's got his eyes on this frisky fili out there, or on some prostitute. And there are numerous, numerous warnings about that in the book of Proverbs. So, you know, if we're really training up our kids, our young people are the way you should go. It's all right there. And work is a valid valuable thing. Wealth and poverty. If you're seeking wealth, it's going to fly away like a on the wings of a not so snow white dove. You just can't trust wealth. It is it's just not there for time and eternity. And then you talk about time. Used to have a song time. Oh, good, good time. Where have you gone? Well, doesn't the wisdom literature talk about time? It sure does. Yeah. And one of the things that that was one of the chapters I enjoyed writing the most, the chapter on time and then the chapter on death. And I guess the reason I enjoyed writing it so much is because like everyone else in modern society, I am plagued by what sociologists call time sickness. Well, come on, man. You need some you need some health, biblical health. Yeah. Yeah. And this idea of time sickness is so fascinating the way time has come to be perceived in our society. Yeah. This view of time in which time is always speeding up and we're needing to move faster and faster to keep up with it. And it's a very unhealthy way of living. And of course, ancient Israel sages, particularly the book of Ecclesiastes. They really addressed this. The book of Ecclesiastes if you were to try to chuck it back to the cob as we say in Alabama, one of the main themes of Ecclesiastes is living in God's time, you know, how to live successfully in God's ways, but also in God's time. And so that issue of time is frequently resurfacing. Well, yeah, he talks about there's a time for everything and lists a whole lot of things. There's a time for war and a time for peace, a time for love and a time for whatever. So time, time is important. And, you know, it reminds me of a passage that I learned when I was young around the family table, only one life will soon be passed. All right, what's done for Christ will last. That's all about time, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, when you read Ecclesiastes, the writer is constantly encouraging his readers to slow down and begin to perceive time through the lens of wisdom. And of course, the way time is perceived there is in seasons God has, you know, he's created this world and this world operates on seasons. And that means that seasons are transient, they're temporary. So, you know, we're constantly trying to recreate or recapture our youth, but a better way to understand it. Are you making a confession? Well, you know, just an example, you know, instead of trying to forever recapture our youth, you know, we understand, well, that was a season and now I'm moving into a season of maturity. You know, I'm living in this season, but now that thing has come through the end. So have you arrived yet to Ralph at the season of maturity? Well, I'm at the heights of my power. Okay. Well, speaking of health, by the way, the wisdom literature deals with our health. And it actually talks about applying the word of God as medicine to our flesh, doesn't it? It really does. And this is another chapter that I really love. I keep saying I love these chapters. But really, the fact is I love God's word. And which means you love the Lord, which means you began with the fear of the Lord or you wouldn't love him. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the, the, yeah, the, the wisdom literature definitely has a lot to say about a faith-based life. And I think, for example, very early in the book of Proverbs, the sage invites his hearers, he says, here and accept my words. So that the years of your life may be many for their life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. Yeah. Proverbs four, ten. Exactly. Yeah. So there's so many places in the wisdom literature where the sages talk about the implications of faith for health and, yeah, and the impact of one's belief upon oneself. Well, you know, they say laughter is good for the soul. It comes right down to the book of Proverbs and glad heart makes a cheerful countenance. And there's a little song that again, I learned when I was young, talking about wearing a smile. And you can smile when you can't say a word. You can smile when you cannot be heard. You can smile whether it's cloudy or fair. You can smile anytime, anywhere. So if a Christian, a professing Christian, is not smiling, it seems to me that there's a reflection of something missing of a good life in their heart. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's fascinating. You know, people will argue that there's there's no advantage, you know, that to being a Christian, that it's all subjective. But it's really not true. There are many studies that have shown that spirituality and a religious life are actually good for you. And it's just common sense. It makes total sense that religious activity and church going would be healthy. I mean, just some real obvious reasons. Religious groups tend to steer people away from unhealthy and destructive behaviors. Well, that's true. And into behaviors and lifestyle ways. Exactly. And so things like fellowship and socializing and prayer and volunteering and family rituals and positive and healing music, all of these things are healthy and religious groups steer us into those positive things. And they steer us into things like prayer, which is therapeutic. There have been studies that actually show that those who pray and those who are the subject of the prayers of other people, they actually have improved psychological responses and even improved physical responses. Ralph, I even have in my vast filing system the cover stories covers of America's national news magazines going back 25 to 35 years who are focusing on those things and affirming them, but not so much anymore. Yeah, not so much. Yeah, it's still true, though, that church attendance is associated with decreased heart disease, lower blood pressure, reduced emphysemia, reduced cirrhosis of the liver, lower suicide. I mean, Christian church attendance and Christian practice contributes to all those things. And that's what the wisdom of God, the wisdom of his word is all about. And so friends, again, this is a wonderful book, ancient wisdom for the good life. However, if you wanted to find that, the life that pleases the Lord and that is profitable for you and for righteousness. $23. We'll put this $25 book in your hands. It's on our website, save us dot org org. Save us dot org. You can call us 1-800-SAVE-USA. Write to us at Save America Ministries, P.O. Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia 2. Read 2-5, I'm running a check at $5 for postage and handling. Big thank you to Ralph Hawkins for joining us here today on Viewpoint and the plaque that I kept on my law office wall for 20 years is right from the book of Micah. It says, "What does the Lord require of you but to do justly the love mercy and to walk humbly in the fear of the Lord?" Thanks for joining us. Become a partner. Send your guest friends, my faith, to save American Ministries. Do it today. The other guy's not doing it. So how about you joining with us, making a difference as the message goes out, not only across this country but around the world. Wisdom, God's wisdom. That's what we really need. You've been listening to Viewpoint with Chuck Chris Meyer. Viewpoint is supported by the faithful gifts of our listeners. Let me urge you to become a partner with Chuck as a voice to the church declaring vision for the nation. Join us again next time on Viewpoint as we confront the issues of America's heart and home. 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