40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Ecclesiastes 7:15-29 (Episode 426)

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

The righteous and the wicked both die, so don't attribute too much to any of your works. Don't take gossip to heart. And there is only man who has avoided the fetters of sin. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: When You Meet Jesus | Gospel Encounters Conference Pre-order: Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament by Chad Bird 30 Minutes in the NT on Youtube Remembering Rod Rosenbladt Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Hello, this is Caleb Keith, Director of the 1517 Podcast Network, with a message of thanks to you, our podcast listeners. During the month of June, we hosted a fundraiser with a goal of $150,000. Not only did we hit that goal, we exceeded it by $14,000, raising $164,000 this June. We couldn't have done it without your help. And it is extremely encouraging to see and to hear that our podcasts are having the impact that we intend, delivering the comfort of the gospel of Christ for the forgiveness of sins to listeners every single day of the week. And we appreciate your support because that tells us that we are on mission,

that we are doing what we have set out to do, and that listeners are looking to support that and to help the podcast network keep those shows in development and actually keep expanding those shows onto new platforms. And so we greatly appreciate your support. Thank you for helping us out this June. Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast to check out all of the podcasts that are living over there.

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and you can give a one-time gift or you can become a reoccurring supporter. We'd very much appreciate it. Also, when you're on the site, go to that events page, especially if you're living in Texas or the Flower Mound area, which I believe Chad's a Texan, he would know, is similar to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It's the same vicinity. If you're around there, so I'm talking to you, even Oklahoma,

I mean, I'll probably be driving down from Arkansas. Hey, get those tickets to an event that we're doing over at Lamb of God Lutheran Church. We're going to be doing an event. Chad will be there. Eric Sorensen will be there. I'll be there. Kelsey Clambora. Other people will be there.

And we're going to do a live podcast, Chad. So we'll be recording 40 minutes live from this event. So if you're listening to this podcast in that area, come on. You can get all the ticket information. That is the first Friday and Saturday in September, so get those tickets, come hang out with us, we'd love to see you. All right, Chad, we are in Ecclesiastes chapter 7, we're about halfway through this chapter, we are at verse 15, Solomon has said, hey, there's some things that are better than other

things, not that any of these things are like the ultimate thing, I'm just spitballing some ideas of what it might be better for you to be. And so we talked about joy and happiness. We talked about that it's better for you to be patient and angry and all that. Some of this stuff seeming kind of obvious if you're just sort of like thinking about Christian ethics. Like, would you rather, do you think God would rather you be a patient person or an angry person? What do you think? So he's giving you some of that stuff and certainly says that, and we kind of ended here, that God has made both of these sorts of things. And what is the things that He's made? Well, He's made adversity, and He's made sort of prosperity and joy and this kind of stuff.

But the truth is, is that it's not as though...what I think is interesting that He does here is that, and I think that we sometimes struggle with this, like adversity is like from the devil. and of course like yeah prosperity that would be from god but this is not the theology of solomon no it's not the well it's not the theology the old testament in general or or the new uh i would just uh believe it was yesterday i was looking at something in in psalm yeah psalm 44 i think it's between verses eight and nine just kind of working from memory here but first few verses they're talking about the good things that god does you know and so verse eight concludes we will we will give thanks to your name or something like that and then it immediately

transitions to verse nine to but you have done all these terrible things talking to god you know you've abandoned us you've sold us for for nothing you've made us a byword among the nations you you you you you all through all through this section so there's there's there's no they're not working the old testament with you know if good things happen that's from god if bad things happen that's not from god they have a very unified picture of god's involvement in all the things that happen in this world and so sometimes they'll say things just like he does here the day of adversity well that's from god too yeah the day of good yeah that's from god but so is the day of it so is David Everstein. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. So in a world where the surrounding

nations or whatever have many gods and a god for this and a god for that, pantheons of gods and all this kind of stuff, and then you come out and you say, we're going to be those monotheists, what you're doing then is you have a very...the Old Testament particularly, of course the New Testament does too, but they have a very high view of sort of the sovereignty of God because they are monotheistic as opposed to these other things, right? So in their mind, like, there's one person in charge of everything. Yeah, I mean, being a dualist, as some people still are, and some people certainly were in the ancient world, where you have basically the good spiritual forces against the bad spiritual forces but they're on an equal playing field i mean

dualism well that i mean that does kind of make life easier if bad things happen you say well that's because these bad spiritual forces made it happen if good things happen that's because the good spiritual forces made these happen but dualism doesn't work with the scriptures that's not the that doesn't work with monotheism if there's one god then he is in charge of all things and uh it makes for it it makes for greater difficulties in life and also at the same time uh it it makes it easier i think to pray because you know always no matter what happens is happening times of blessedness or times of adversity there's one god that you turn to during those during those times and he's the one who no matter what's happening is going to hear you and be with you

and help you through whatever you're going through. You think about Job, and I know we haven't gotten to this text yet, but it's our podcast. Our rules. That's right. But you think about Job, and you know one thing that never enters Job's mind is doing all this suffering, and it seems like God won't talk to him, and he's getting frustrated, like, why can't I talk to God?

He's never like, well, maybe I can go talk to the devil and ask him if he could stop. Mm-hmm. Yeah. it's never an option he's not like well if God won't talk to me maybe I can go talk to the dark side and tell him to let up

but he doesn't even consider such a thing he's like no I gotta talk to God and tell him to do something about this he's in charge right that is the mysterious beauty of monotheism that he is always the one you turn to you don't make a sacrifice

to pacify the dark forces or something you know you always turn to god uh times of light and darkness good and evil it really doesn't matter he's always the one that you turn to because he always is involved in everything in one way or another all right so you want to talk about some uh vain life let's talk about this life yeah all right so uh verse 15 it's kind of funny the way this starts out in my vain life i do i do like that he doesn't say like in a vain life but he does he's a in like okay let me tell you something my life has been vain which by the way go back listen to us uh talk uh through the story of solomon in narrative form and uh indeed a lot of vain living from solomon a lot of vain

living yeah so in in this meaningless and vain life that i that i live he says i've seen everything you throw it out there you name it i've seen that oh yeah yeah i've seen that that oh yep seen that too so i've seen it all and let me give you some examples he says uh there there's a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there's a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil doing so you you want a an example of uh you know only the good die young well i've seen that seen a righteous man perishing in his righteousness We were just talking about Job. This sounds like a Job argument here. There's a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and a wicked man who prolongs his life. This sounds

like a Job response to his friends. Are you talking about it? Righteous people die all the time, and I know some really evil people that are like 95 years old, so I don't know what you're talking about. But one of the least quoted verses in the Bible right here, put this one on, put verse 16 on your refrigerator and have some people raise some eyebrows. Or maybe just throw this on Instagram and see if anyone knows what you're talking about, where he says the conclusion of this, like, oh, you know, righteous people, they perish in their righteousness. Wicked people, they prolong their life. So how about this, verse 16? Be not overly righteous, and don't make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? I've never seen that on a coffee cup, not once.

Hey, what are you—hey, listen, man, I'm out here just—I was reading Ecclesiastes, and I'm really taking it to heart. I'm just out here living my life. I ain't trying to be overly righteous or too wise. Moderation in everything, including righteousness. Why do you want to destroy yourself? Because, I mean, I've seen a righteous man who perishes. He's destroyed in his righteousness.

So I'm not going to go that route. I've seen where that could end. But then he balances, as he says in verse 17. Okay, don't be overly righteous, but also don't be overly wicked. and while I'm at this, don't be a fool. Why should you die before your time? So don't go the way of being uber-righteous.

Don't go the way of being uber-wicked. And while you're at it, don't be a fool. Because if you're a fool, well, there is probably a greater likelihood that you're going to die before your time because you're going to do what fools do. You're going to be engaged in foolish things, And that can often be a very deadly lifestyle.

He says, verse 18, It's good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them. Been ambiguous as to what he's talking about. He says, it's good that you should take hold of this. I'm assuming this meaning these truths that I've just spoken. So take hold of these truths. uh and and don't don't withhold your hand from these grip them hold on to them for the one who

fears god shall come out from both of them uh both of them i'm assuming being the overly righteous or the the the overly wicked so yeah i guess what he's getting at here is uh he's striving for moderation uh don't be overly righteous or don't be overly wicked but you know in the in the overall message of ecclesiastes that's where you have to that's where you have to view this too right because in the end well you know you're you can end up in the same place uh so this is him kind of like you said at the beginning he's spitballing this seems what is best for me based upon my observation under the sun yeah it's sort of this i this idea that being overly righteous won't add days to your life. So if you spend all your life fasting and praying,

you could still die at any moment. That's not going to save you. But don't take that to a crazy conclusion and say, like, oh, well, then I guess I should just be overly wicked. Instead, don't do either of those things. You should live as one who knows that the righteous die and the wicked die, and the person that understands this, that's the person who, even so, you hold on to that, and you might have somebody who fears God come out of the, out between these two truths, right down the middle, you might have this one person that understands these things and just fears God, and because, again, as we just talked about, who's in control of your days? God. yeah yeah yeah maybe maybe kind of what he's getting at so in humility it's kind of except

that before god you're you're a creature uh you don't really have any control over the extent of your life so uh don't think that you know by your righteousness or by your wickedness you're somehow going to be control you'll be able to control the extent of your life by your by your own works whether they be whether they be good or bad yeah just acknowledge that uh in this life it's not either by working really hard at being righteous or working really hard at being wicked that you're going to have as it were control over your destiny it doesn't work that way so that's uh it takes us through what uh verse 18 19 and we'll do 19 to 21 next wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than 10 rulers

who are in a city okay a little proverbial insertion there wisdom gets strength to the wise man more than 10 rulers who are in a city so i mean it kind of resonates with this whole So, you know, better to be one wise man than to have one wise man than ten rulers who have some sort of power authority. But then he goes on, verse 20. Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Now, verse 21 seems to me to be kind of an example of this. No righteous guy on earth who's always going to do good and never going to sin. And then verse 21 is like, let me give any, let me give any illustration of this.

Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. That's, that is one of my favorite verses in Ecclesiastes too. Like, don't pay close attention to what people are saying about you. because if you do yeah maybe you're going to hear whoever an employee a friend uh a neighbor whoever somebody online cursing you but then how he follows it up is just perfect he's like tapping you on the shoulder hey uh because you know that many times you've done the exact same thing well you would be like a total fool right like so you everybody knows like

okay have you ever uh you ever talk bad about somebody of course like everybody's done this uh only a fool would be like i bet you nobody does that about me nobody nobody talks bad about me what is there to say that is foolishness and so you're going to be less destroyed by by discovering that some people do talk bad about you if you just acknowledge that like what you do others to others others do to you what's that what's that spurgeon quote uh if any man thinks ill of you don't be angry with him for your worse than he thinks you to be yeah it's always been one of my favorites i mean yeah give it to me give me all the all the bad stuff you can say about me in the end i'm gonna say yeah that's you're you're only getting started

i could i could let you know a lot of things worse than what you've what you've already said about me yeah but yeah what he seems to be uh doing by using this this one particular example about talking bad about others is exemplifying what he means when he says there is there's not a righteous person on earth who's who's so overly righteous that he's never going to do any evil never going to sin of course uh there's only been one example of that in the whole history of humanity. It's Jesus. Everybody, even Job, has plenty of sins to worry about. So in your effort to be overly righteous, also be overly honest with yourself and realize that you're going to fall just like everybody else is. Yeah, and I think that the idea here is that you don't take these

things to heart. So you don't feel too deeply about if you hear somebody said something, And the reason you shouldn't take that to heart is because the idea here is you know how people are because you know how you are. Yes. Right? So maybe you've said some things about someone and you maybe wouldn't want them to know those things

because, one, you might just be caught up in some gossip and you actually don't hate that person or anything, but you're just out there spilling the tea, as the kids say but you know how this goes somebody said something about you I wouldn't let it wound you

too much because this is the way of people and I know this is beyond the scope of what Ecclesiastes is teaching here but I mean this is there is a truism here theological truism that the more honest we are

with ourselves about ourselves then the the greater patience and mercy and forgiveness we're going to extend toward toward other people i mean that's kind of built into this you know if yeah if i'm all upset because people are talking about me then chances are i don't really think nearly enough about how i talk about other people or if i'm very upset because of sins committed against me i'm really not focusing as much on the sins that i've committed against against other people so there's a kind of a there's a a realization of our own weakness and and sins which leads to a heightened patience with others

because we realize we're we're all standing on the level ground at the foot of the cross right we're we're all in the same need of forgiveness just as much as everybody else i do find and this is anecdotal but i think it's probably true uh you can confirm if you if you discover this as well uh i do know some people in my life who really love to uh tell you something bad about someone that you both know i know some people that man they get a lot of pleasure out of like hey did you hear like everybody knows this this kind of person right uh and i find also that that person is the person that it gets most offended if

they hear that somebody said something bad about them. Always. I mean, that is like without exception. But they'll lose it. Come on, Hinge. They're the person that would actually go confront that person and be like, I heard you were

saying stuff about me. I've seen these things go down where there'll be someone who's notoriously uh you know a notorious gossip get all up in arms about hearing that somebody said something critical about them and uh and there is some wisdom in that man you don't want to be that person because everybody knows like that that person you're you watch that situation and you're like this is ridiculous like the hypocrisy here is out of control yeah it's a humorous uh lack

of self-awareness that that you see in folks like that but yeah i i know people like that too yeah just yeah it's the way human nature human nature goes and and and everybody's like that to a degree i mean like everybody you know enjoys like a little uh a little rumor mill and stuff you know breaking breaking some news to uh you know to somebody else uh and doesn't like it when that news is broke about them sometimes it's just amplified well you know we probably uh all those situations too this is like that where you have say you have a couple of family members maybe not immediate family members maybe they are but they don't get along and people will tell you i've heard this so many times oh the reason they don't get along they're just alike

yeah yes yeah so what irritates them the most about this other person actually is that which characterizes them the most in the eyes of other people they see them clearly you're like this you don't get along with this other person because turns out they're just like that too so i mean that's another one of these kind of these blind spots we have okay so where are we here uh we're at, uh, verse 23. Uh, he's just talked about, uh, you know, in your heart that you yourself have cursed others. All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me. That which has been is far off and deep, very deep. Who can find it out? So, um, let's stop there for a second. So he says on the one hand, uh, tell you what folks I've used wisdom

and I have tested all these things. In fact, I said to myself, Chad, you will be wise. Solomon says, I will be wise. But in the end, even he who says he's tested everything by wisdom and the little soliloquy, I will be wise. He ends up at least being honest by saying, didn't happen. It was far from me. It's far off, very, very deep. Who can find it out? You can almost, I don't know if this is, maybe frustration being voiced here is one way to put it. You know, he wants to be wise. He wants to test things by wisdom. He says to himself, he's going to be wise, but in the end, it's just like beyond his grasp.

That it's the sole prerogative, the sole property of God, and he keeps reaching for it in this tantalizing way, but he just can't. He can't get it. And he can't get it, of course, as long as he's laboring under the sun, because it's going to be beyond his reach. He might catch glimpses of it, taste a drop of it here or there, but it's not going to be the full thing. Yeah, we've talked about this, about this kind of being a life without the resurrection. And you see people do this, people that are really smart, and they're trying to figure out how to explain why you should live certain ways. maybe why you should have certain ethics or be a certain kind of person

while not believing in God or not believing in the resurrection of the dead or any of that. And they're smart people. And when you hear their arguments, though, at the end of the day, as well thought out as they may be and as articulate as they may be stated,

you're like, no, no. That still doesn't make any sense. Like, that's, why would I, why, though? If there's no resurrection, then what difference does it make? And it seems that Solomon is saying some of that. Like I said, I'm going to be wise. And he'll say later on, coming up right now, I'm going to search out the scheme of things.

I'm going to figure it all out, and then I'll have the formula. But apart from the resurrection, no, you won't. Like, all your conclusions end up being, they're insufficient to direct anyone to live a certain kind of life, because they can't answer this question, yeah, but what difference does it make? yeah um probably a year or so ago my wife and i were listening to a series of of uh lectures by tim keller and uh i think in the midst that we listened to it was a podcast recording of him having a debate with an agnostic and i can't remember the guy's name but uh uh when you were describing that that that came to mind because they were discussing ethics and you know if you if you if you don't have god if you don't have kind of the subjective morality

then how can you say anything is right or wrong and i think the topic was even something like easy i mean like low-hanging fruit like you know child abuse or whatever it was you know that everybody knows it's wrong but this guy wouldn't come right out and say it you know he was just dancing in circles and he was very articulate uh but it was so patently absurd what he was arguing that even the moderator who had tried to be objective kind of jumped in he's like that makes no sense and made no sense because this guy's not working from the perspective of course of the reality of god and the resurrection and the objectivity of uh all of these all of these things so he was yeah he was trying to like search for wisdom and search for truth but in the end it

was all in vain because he didn't have that which he really needed to be able to speak truth to life in in this world yeah so um let's see verse verse 25 i turn my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness so kind of a quest sort of language i turn my heart to to do all these thing. I'm going to figure it all out. Wisdom, foolishness, knowledge, madness. And I find something more bitter than death. The woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. uh this seems to kind of come out of the blue uh in in many ways to me he's he's he's looking for

wisdom he's uh searching to know all of these sorts of things and he finds something worse than death more bitter than death and it's this woman who has this heart that's snaring and netting her hands are fetters and the only one who's going to escape her is the one who pleases god but the sinner is going to be taken in by her i've gone back and forth on this i don't know if uh so here's i think a couple of options uh that solomon is talking about a particular kind of woman you know maybe a prostitute maybe just a woman of uh of evil intent or maybe an adulteress or whatever whatever it might be that's one option or he's talking about um the personification this female personification that you see in the book of proverbs where you have of course lady

wisdom who's summoning the simple the simpletons the foolish to come to her and to find wisdom but then you also have in proverbs this personified folly who is often described in terms of an adulteress who's who are is luring men to their to their own destruction so i don't know i kind to go back and forth maybe it's a little bit of both uh i kind of lean toward more seeing this is him echoing that personification of female folly that is depicted under the image of snares and nets and and fetters and always taking sinners in well it seems to me that solomon would know about being tripped up by uh some women he's got he's got some experience yeah yeah i mean so like He's like, I'm going to turn my heart to be the wisest ever.

And, you know, what is, like, ultimately the sort of huge blemish on Solomon is that he married a bunch of foreign wives who had foreign gods and let them worship those gods, and Israel essentially never recovered from this. No, they really didn't. Yeah, that was it. That was the beginning of the end right there. Yeah, so I think this is sort of an analogy here, but it's probably on purpose this way, because it's like, what is it that he discovered? Well, I sort of got tangled up in this and found out that that was not pleasing to God, and actually the only one who is going to escape that is the one that pleases God.

So, yeah, I mean, this is, I think sort of both things can be true at the same time, where he's like, the perfect illustration for me to use is actually not an illustration at all, but a life experience. Let me speak autobiographically here. Yeah, we talked about this, of course, back in covering Samuel and Kings, how you look at the first king, Saul, second king, David, and then almost every other king after that, including Solomon. and what sets apart the first two kings is that those guys with all their faults uh they always knew where to turn yeah well they they turned to to the one true god but with solomon of course all of that changes because whatever chapter that is in first kings it says he loved many women and of course these women were exactly as he describes here these uh snares and nets and confederates uh not the the i'm not blaming them the the blame is shared by solomon as well as them

but in their their idolatrous uh temples that he erected well that's the beginning of the downfall of the kingship as well as um as the kingdom leading to the division and all the problems that came as a result of that so uh verse 27 he goes on behold this is what i found says the preacher says koheleth while adding one thing to another to find the the scheme of things which my soul has sought repeatedly but i have not found so an acknowledgement he's been looking for this adding one thing to another trying to find out kind of how everything fits together his soul looked for this over and over but he didn't find it he says one man among a thousand i found But a woman among all these I have not found.

See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. This is a favorite verse that people will point out to talk about Solomon's misogyny that he expresses here. and no doubt that that's probably solomon's perspective but keep in mind that this is this is solomon speaking from uh his own experience as well as from this life under the sun that he claims that he's found one man among a thousand but not a woman among all of these uh presumably he's talking about one who has discovered discovered wisdom but then verse 29 says uh This alone I found that—so if there's one thing I found to be true, it's that God made man upright, Genesis 1 and 2, but Genesis 3 and following, they have sought out many

schemes. Well, for me just to go, you know, in true Chad Bird fashion here, it's not surprising to me that Solomon would say, I think there's maybe one man that fits this description. uh, no women, but there is one man, uh, that would fit this description. And, uh, God did make us all upright, but we blew that and have been, uh, searching out many schemes ever since then. Uh, maybe not, but to me, like you get this little hint, this little hint here, like, well, because, you know, one among a thousand doesn't mean for every thousand guys, there's one necessarily but that uh this this number is among the masses like it turns out there's this one guy

and uh this reminds me of the uh the old simpsons episode where homer starts reading the bible and uh you see a clock starts spinning and he's reading the bible and reading the bible reading the bible and he slams it shut he's like okay i get it everyone's messed up except this one guy he got it right yeah it's very true i mean uh uh the truth of what solomon is communicating here in the in the bigger picture of the salvation story is yeah you absolutely are on target you can look for a thousand among a thousand not just a thousand you look among a million a billion people and there's only one who's truly found it and well it's gonna be the one who is wisdom i mean right this is this is the idea like he didn't only have to it was not as though he stumbled

upon it but embodied it yeah and so if i mean if if we want what solomon was seeking that is if we want wisdom well there's it's it's not simply by the acquisition of uh of knowledge that this is gained the only the only way we're going to be truly wise find wisdom is being found in christ and from him of course learning the way of wisdom but you can't be wise in the biblical sense of the term outside of Christ

you've got to be connected to him you've got to be in him who is wisdom incarnate before you can begin to speak about having wisdom or being wise because outside of him is nothing but darkness and foolishness no matter how high somebody's IQ may be

because what he's saying here is that he's only found one that pleases God. Only one person escapes this snare and these fetters, and only one person does that. And so, yeah, you're going to need to be with him. That last verse, by the way, is, I mean, you've got Genesis written all over that. You know, God made man upright. When did he do that?

Well, not like every time he creates somebody in the womb. he's this making is going us going all the way back to genesis one and two and uh then it actually there's more genesis material here too because when he says they've sought out many schemes the so the root word behind translated here is as schemes the root of that is khashav and that same root is translated usually as thoughts in genesis 6 5 where we hear the lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually so what genesis 6 5 says much more explicitly is what ecclesiastes 7 29 is getting at as well that god made man upright but he sought out many schemes all these

thoughts all these schemes all these plans that biddy makes well they're just nothing more than one more illustration of the intentions of the thoughts of his heart being only evil continually, looking here, looking there, looking in all the wrong places, and never really finding what he needs, because it's only going to be found in God himself, specifically in Christ. Yeah, and the idea here is that God made man upright. He doesn't make all men upright. Is it that God originally made man upright, which of course he did? yeah of course he did and then and then came Genesis 3

and then came with Genesis 3 not only rebellion and death and all the other things and a promise that there was going to be this other man yeah yeah see you have the introduction of foolishness in

Genesis chapter 3 with all with this kind of a wide perspective of everything that foolishness entails but then you also have yeah in genesis 3 15 the promise of a seed who is to come who isn't just the one who's going to overcome the devil but also is going to be wisdom yeah right so the moment that foolishness enters the world through sin at that same time you have the promise of wisdom wisdom being found not in kind of an abstract sense it's kind of ethereally fine you know look for wisdom climb the highest

mountain and look for wisdom but instead wisdom being found specifically in that seed who is going to crush the head of the serpent and deliver us out of foolishness and bring us into the wisdom of God. That's it. Amen. And that is it, man. We are out of time. We have completed that chapter.

We'll be back next week for chapter eight. Hope you guys will join us. Chad, I'll see you then. All right, see you then. Hi, this is Chad Bird. Have you ever felt lost? I don't mean you've dismissed a term, but I mean deeply lost in the challenges of life. My new book, Hitchhiking with Prophets, invites you to catch a ride back to our real home with Jesus.

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