TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles - Date: August 26, 2026. Lesson 168-2026. Title: When Sin Changes What You See

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

In today’s Morning Manna, Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart examine Proverbs 28:3–5 and the progressive consequences of abandoning God’s standard. Solomon exposes oppression from those who should understand suffering, a culture that begins praising what God calls wicked, and the deeper problem beneath both: sin damages our ability to perceive moral reality correctly. This lesson reveals why what we applaud exposes what we truly value, why believers must both contend for truth and fortify themselves in God’s Word, and why genuine understanding comes through continually seeking the Lord. Moral clarity is not merely intellectual—it is formed through obedience and relationship with God. Lesson 168-2026 Teachers: Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart You can partner with us by visiting MannaNation.com, calling 1-888-519-4935, or by mail at PO Box 399 Vero Beach, FL 32961 MEGA FIRE reveals the ancient recurring cycles of war and economic collapse that have shaped history for 600 years. These patterns predict America is now entering its most dangerous period since World War II. Get your copy today! www.megafire.world Get high-quality emergency preparedness food today from American Reserves! www.AmericanReserves.com It’s the Final Day! The day Jesus Christ bursts into our dimension of time, space, and matter. Now available in eBook and audio formats! Order Final Day from Amazon today! www.Amazon.com/Final-Day Apple users, you can download the audio version on Apple Books! www.books.apple.com/final-day Purchase the 4-part DVD set or start streaming Sacrificing Liberty today. www.Sacrificingliberty.com

Welcome to morning, my north. Welcome to morning, my new ritual north. Your teachers, Rekwiles, and Dr. Burkla, get your Bible and notebook and get ready to here before. Good morning, my fellow lovers of the Word of God. I am delighted that you have made time to increase your knowledge of the Holy Bible. Now, if you are new, this is Morning Manam, and we are a weekday Bible study program on television, internationally, and the internet globally.

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is number 168-2026 168 dash 2026 and we're looking at proverbs chapter 28 verses 3, 4, and 5. Dr. Raymond Burkhart will introduce today's lesson after we pray and invite the Holy Spirit. Pray with me. Almighty God, Father, our Father in heaven, we give you glory and honor and praise. Father, thank you for this beautiful day and thank you for life.

We invite your precious Holy Spirit to take his seat at the head of the table and lead this Bible study so that all of us, teachers and students, all of us would be blessed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Welcome, everyone, to Morning Man. I'm so glad to have you here with us. Today's lesson number is 168-2026, and today we're focusing on Proverbs chapter 28,

verses 3 through 5, verses 3, 4, and 5 today. I guarantee you this is going to be a fascinating study today. You have probably read this passage of Scripture before, but I guarantee you, we're going to open up things to you that you've never considered before. I know it was for me as I prepared for this lesson today. And so let's get started today. Let's dive right into Proverbs chapter 20. What I'm going to do first is I'm going to read the King James,

version, the authorized version, and then I'll read the Septuagint. The reason why we do that is we want to give you a comparison between what a lot of the modern foundation is and the Septuagint version provides the foundation that Jesus and the apostles actually used in their teaching and preaching. And so both are important, and I think they provide, between the two of them, they provide a fuller revelation of what the scriptures have to say. So let's dive in, shall we? Proverbs chapter 8, verses 3 through 5. I'll begin with verse 3 from the King James.

A poor man that oppresses the pores like a sweeping rain, which leaveeth no food. They that forsake the law, praise the wicked, but such as keep the law, contend with them. In verse 5, evil men understand not judgment, but they that seek the Lord understand all things. Now the Septuagint, a little bit different take on this, A bold man oppresses the poor by ungodly deeds as an impetuous and unprofitable man, excuse me,

so they that forsake the law praise ungodliness, but they that love the law fortify themselves with the wall. Verse 5, evil man will not understand judgment, but they that seek the Lord will understand everything. So as we get into Proverbs chapter 28, verse 3 to 5 today, they form a, another one of these triplets that carries over from chapter 27, they form a tight unit, tracing the moral consequences of abandoning God's law through three progressive stages. So verse three shows the consequence in conduct.

Oppression arriving from an unexpected source. A poor man pressing down on the, if you will, the more poor, betraying everything his own experience should, have taught him. Verse four shows the consequence of judgment. Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, or those who keep it contend against them. The idea here is that a community that has abandoned the standard loses the capacity to distinguish between what deserves applause from what deserves resistance. And then as we get into verse five, it supplies the diagnosis underlying both of these things.

Evil men do not understand judgment. The oppressor and the applauder share a common condition, a genuine incapacity, if you will, to perceive moral reality accurate. Now, this progression is deliberate and moves from symptom to cause. So as we look at verses 3 and 4, Rick, may describe what moral collapse looks like,

As we get into verse 5, it explains why it happens and names the only remedy, seeking the Lord. And so if we were to distill this down, the lesson's aim is to teach that moral perception is not a fixed human faculty, but a capacity that sin degrades and relationship with God restores. Rick, to me, this is not only an observation that Solomon on a principle in his day, but something that we can see applied to our modern world. I'd love to hear your thoughts as we get started on verse three. This should be a fascinating study today. It will, Doc.

Let's get it going with it. So verse three, a poor man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveeth no food. We're going to begin our lesson by examining. this proverb from the perspective of the King James version. It differs from the Greek Septuagin. It says a poor man that oppresseth the poor. Now that doesn't make sense.

A man or woman poor and oppressing other poor weak ones. It is presenting a scenario that is deliberately constructed to shock the reader. The Bible, typically, the Bible's usual target when condemning oppression of the poor is the rich and the powerful. The wealthy landowner, the corrupt judge, the exploiting ruler. And we can read this in Proverbs 22, verse 16. Proverbs 22, verse 22. And so those other proverbs address that figure of a rich, powerful corrupt. person, pressing the fourth.

Verse three of chapter 28 addresses someone else entirely. This is according to the King James translation. My personal opinion is that the subtergeant is correct in this translation.

But I'm teaching from both translations. I know the die-hard King James fans are like, This is heresy. You can't question King James. We're not questioning it. We're just showing you the differences in translations.

In the King James translation, the oppressor himself is poor. This man or woman has already known in their own life what scarcity feels like. They know what it feels like to have black. they have experienced the vulnerability of having no extra resources and being at the mercy of other people and being vulnerable. And this is a person in the King James translation who uses whatever small advantages he or she possesses to press down on others in the same or worse condition.

Yes. The offense is that it's, violates what a shared experience should have produced, which is sympathy. The man or woman who has been hungry ought to be the last person withholding bread from another hungry person. That he or she is instead the one withholding it makes his or her conduct a betrayal of their own personal history. I mean, it would be like an alcoholic mocking another alcoholic.

Like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that to this person? Now, the King James says, such a person, a poor person, oppressing another poor person, is like a sweeping rain which leaves no food. A rain that sweeps away and there's no bread. why does Solomon choose this image? And again, I'm presenting this from the viewpoint of the King James translators, bless their heart, may they rest in peace.

This is what they had to work with 500 years ago. My personal view is that they were using the Rome text. As far as the Old Testament, like, I think I hear the sound of cabbages and tomatoes was hitting television sets and complete screens. All right, so rain is the farmer's blessing. The thing that the farmer prays for is the source of the harness. But rain arriving with sufficient violence and power does the opposite of what the rain is for.

When it arrives violently, it strips the topsoil. It flattens standing grain. It leaves the field barren rather than fruitful. So the comparison lands on the oppressor's identity. He or she is like such a rain. And it comes from a source that should have brought provision. Should have brought sympathy and empathy? a fellow poor man or woman ought to be an ally who understands.

Instead, this person arrives with destructive force, leaving the field without food. So Matthew Henry observed hundreds of years ago that oppression from a social equal is more devastating than oppression from above. because the harm arriving from one's own rank strikes through defenses no one thought they would ever have to raise right and so rick the the weight of first three their weight rests on the conviction that this shared experience a suffering creates some genuine moral obligation among individuals that having uh if you will needed mercy establishes a claim on how one treats others in that same condition.

But that's not always a case, is it? In fact, in Exodus 22, verse 21, it grounds this in Israel's own history. The fact that the law had to deal with this tells a lot. It says, thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. That's Exodus 22, 21. So the reasoning is that is explicit and it's experiential. You know what it feels like, and that knowledge obligates you, or at least it should. Okay.

Now, if we look at Matthew chapter 18 in the New Testament, Christ's parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18, 23, 335 is the New Testament's fullest treatment of this idea. So the idea here is that the servant, if you recall the parable, the servant forgiven of an unpayable debt seizes another fellow servant over some trivial one. And the master judgment falls precisely on that inconsistency between the two. He says, should us not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on me. So if we are to apply this and the lives as a believer,

then every believer is by definition of person, if you will, who has received mercy. There's no way he could earn, right? Ephesians 432 makes receiving mercy the explicit standard. It says, be ye kind, one to another, tender-hearted,

forgiving one another, even as good. God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven youth. So the question is, what does Proverbs 283 look like in our modern life? The idea here is that the forgiven believer is harsh with other sinners. The recovered addict is contemptuous of those who are still struggling in their addiction. and the person that's rescued from a failing marriage suddenly becomes impatient with others that are in the very same position.

So in each case here that we're talking about, the sweeping rain that we're talking about here comes from the quarter that should have brought provision, but instead it brings condemnation instead of mercy wreck. All right, doctor, now we're going to jump into the Septuagint Translating. verse 3. I'll read the King James, then I'll read the Septuagint.

The King James says, A poor man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food. Listen to the Septuagint. A bold man oppresses the poor by ungodly deeds. In the King James version,

the oppressor of the poor is another poor person. In the Septuagint, the oppressor is not poor, but bold, forceful, audacious. And so this moves a verse back for the conventional picture of the powerful figure exploiting the weak. And that's consistent with what the Bible says. Doc, if the King James has this right, then this is like an anomaly. Because in every other scripture, the poor are oppressed by the powerful. But in this one verse, the King James has the poor being oppressed by other poor people.

The Septuagint has the poor being oppressed by somebody who is bold, forceful, audacious. That's consistent with the biblical pattern. And then the Septuagint identifies the means by ungodly deeds. And that locates the offense explicitly in the category of impiety rather than social justice or social injustice. Right. So really, Rick, when you think about both of the traditions, both the King James and the Septuagint, preserved the condemnation, which emphasizes different aspects. from the King James, which based on the Masoretic text, the Hebrew emphasizes the irony of the oppressor's identity,

whereas the subdugent emphasizes the character of that, oppression as a sin against God rather than merely a violation of social obligation. Now, if you recall, we talked about this back in Proverbs chapter 14, verse 31. So those that have been with us for a while may recall this, it stated the Septuagint emphasis directly. He that oppresseth the poor reproaches his maker, but he that honours him hath mercy on the poor. How a person treats the poor, really, Rick,

when you get down to it, is a statement about how he treats God. Now, Rick, verse three has a lot to say, but I look forward to what your take is on verse four here. Okay. I could go along about verse three. but we need to stay on schedule. Verse four,

they that forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as keep the law contend with them. The King James translation connects two things not previously related, what a person does with God's

law and what a person celebrates. So the Hebrew, a word azav means to forsake, abandon. It describes deliberate departure rather than just mere ignorance. These are not people who never knew the law. These are people who knew it and walked away.

They're apostates. The consequence is not immediate lawlessness, but it's something more subtle. they praise the wicked. These are the people who knew the long and then walked away from it. In the new covenant age, we could say these are people who knew the new covenant

and walked away from it. What do they do? They praise the wicked. Having abandoned the standard by which good and evil are distinguished, they lose the capacity to even evaluate conduct correctly and the law shows up first

in what they applaud this says a lot about modern Western society all over the world in Europe, here in the Americas in Australia New Zealand what are people applauding

what kind of behavior in attitudes are they applauding social the population at large all you have to do is look at the media look at the movies look at the videos look at the media what does society applaud and in our modern society

they're applauding wickedness so this is a very astute observation about how moral collapse actually proceeds how does a nation start out morally operate and hundreds of years later, it's apostate. It is in rebellion against God.

How does that happen? It rarely begins with a society openly declaring evil to be good. People don't just wake up one day and go, all right, I'm tired of being on the side of good. I'm going to be on the side of evil. It doesn't happen that way. It begins with a small shift. in what gets celebrated, which behaviors are admired,

which celebrities and political figures and business figures, you know, social influencers, who are held up as examples? Right. We have movie idols. We have sports idols. We call them idols. Yeah. And many times their personal behavior is reprehensible.

And yet we say they're idols that society does. And so which choices does society say those are courageous, admirable choices to make rather than shameful. We have people today, I can say for my country, I'm in the USA, I can say we, our society at large is celebrating people whose mindset, they're not. language, their behavior is absolutely reprehensible. And you have people in what's called the conservative movement who are idolizing people who are in opposition to God. This is how a society collapses. Isaiah chapter 5, verse 20, woe unto them that call evil good and good evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness. It is the praising of the wicked.

That is the mechanism by which a society arrives at Isaiah's inversion. You don't get to this place of Isaiah 520. You don't get there immediately overnight. When a society arrives at the place where they call evil good and good evil and darkness for light and light for dark, That took place incrementally by the majority of the people in the society praising the wicked who were the opposite, but such as keep the law contend with them.

The Hebrew verb, the raw, describes active engagement, not passive disapproval, active engagement with those who praise the wicked. Those who keep the law do not merely privately disagree. They say so. They resist. They refuse to join the applause of the majority of society. That means you don't go to the movies. You don't watch their Netflix films.

You don't sit there and watch Haramount when movie after movie uses the Lord's name in vain. Amen. If that doesn't bother you, what does? If you can sit there for two hours

and you're living room while somebody, every other sentence uses the Lord's name in vain and that doesn't bother you, what does bother? Great question. Because you're praising the wicked and you're giving them money to use the Lord's name in vain.

And these films are made by people who hate God, who hate Jesus Christ, and you're making them wealthy. What are you going to say about that on Judgment Day? How are you going to explain it? Well, Lord, it didn't bother me. Well, if he shuts the door in your face and says, what does that bother you? So this is, would I say that they engage?

them this is not a recommendation of contentiousness because we've already studied that in previous proverbs proverbs 26 21 2715 the contention here is against the wicked it's against praising the wicked you're not to be a contentious person starting fights and arguments but this is talking about you have to you have to put up the standard against those who praise the wicked you you You don't threaten to punch them in the mouth, but you let them know. I can't sit here and be quiet while you praise a wicked person. I have to speak up. Hey, if they've got the courage to praise the wicked, you should have courage to praise the righteous.

They're not embarrassed to praise the wicked. So you should not be timid about praising the righteous. This is a refusal to participate in a celebration that inverse moral reality. Adam Clark, Methodist theologian in 1700s. He observed that applause is the most reliable index of a society's actual moral condition. Amen. that is more reliable than its stated laws or its official religion

because what people admire reveals what they genuinely value. Boy, that is a real tell, isn't it, Rick? I mean, what does the modern world celebrate? What, you know, what values do the, does the modern world applause provide a pause to and I mean

it really isn't what about the sporting events here in America you know the Super Bowl game and halftime is for the past 10 12 years half time shows have been satanic

demonic a glorification of wickedness of satanic activities you see it in the Olympics and they put on a spectacular stage show that glorifies demons and wicked things. And they're applauded, Rick.

They're applauded. They're caught. The people are clapping for it. That's because they endorse it. They like it. Yeah, you're right. All right. Okay, so you look at the, you look at the,

our violent, you know, each fighting. You get thousands of men standing there, you know, or seated there in the arena, clapping for two men beating each other in the unconsciousness. And they're clapping and cheering for. What does that say? And the more blood, the better.

Yes. Yes. What does that say about us? It's really a condemnation. So, Rick, really, you know, this framework that we're talking about here concerns the function of God's law as the standard by which our more reality is precise. not merely the rule by which conduct is governed. So what do we mean by that? Well, if we refer to the New Testament, Romans 7.7,

the Apostle Paul says this, I had not known sin but by the law, for I had not known lust except the law had said, thou shalt not covet. So the function of the law was not merely to prohibit something, but to provide a revelation, giving the mind categories it would not otherwise possess. We would know sin if there wasn't a standard, right?

So without that fixed external reference point, let's say, moral evaluation becomes a matter of just social conscience. It's whatever everybody feels like. And consensus reliably drifts towards celebrating whatever a culture already finds attractive. That alone right there should tell us what our culture is like today. I'm not just picking on Western culture. I'm talking on our global culture today. So Romans 132 identifies that terminal stage with unusual severity. What does it say there? It says that

those who not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. You may be able to say, well, I don't do that thing. I just watch it. No, but you get joy out of me. You get pleasure out of it, right? You have pleasure in them to do that. The Apostle Paul locates the deepest corruption, not in committing the sin, Rick, but actually in approving it.

Oh, that's a condemnation there. So the condemning of the lawkeeper can be corrupted really in two opposite directions here. You can go into self-righteous combativeness, which 2 Timothy 2.24 forbids, it says that serving the Lord must not strive. Or you go to the other extreme, abandoned entirely for the sake of social peace. Well, we've got to live in this world. We've got to get along with everybody, which is the failure that verse four names here.

Now, in the New Testament, the biblical model in Ephesians 415 is speaking the truth, in love, speaking the truth and love. So what does that mean? That means genuine engagement with what is false, not denying that it's false, but genuine engagement with what is false, conducted in a manner reflecting the character, the one whose truth is defended. Now, Charles Spurgeon had something to say about this. He observed that the believer, who never contends, has surrendered something that scripture requires, while the believer who only contends, and there are those who are like

that too, has misunderstood how it's done. So, Rick, what are your thoughts on the Septuagint's take on this verse? Well, Doug, I'm going to quote verses three in four in our comparison of the King James Version and the Septuagint translation. Again, I'm quoting, both verses that we've studied three and four. We still have to do five in today's lesson. The King James says, in verse three, A poor man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.

In verse four, they that forsake the law, praise the wicked, but such as keep the law, contend with them. How does the situogen state? A bold man oppresses the poor by ungodly deeds. as an impetuous and profitable reign so they that forfeit the law, or excuse me, as an impetuous and profitable reign, so they that forsake the law, praise ungodliness,

but they that love the law fortify themselves with a wall. Take note that the Septuagint attaches the rain image to verse four rather than verse three. The rain image is in verse 3 in King James. It's in verse 4 in the Septuagint. This suggests that the approval of ungodliness operates with the force of a driving storm, moving through a community, a city, a state, a nation with power, sweeping others along, like a flood.

The second half of verse 4 in the Septuagin says, But they that love the law fortify themselves with a wall. It is a very valuable insight into human nature. Those who love the law fortify themselves with the wall. They throw a wall around themselves to protect themselves. From whom? from those who praise the wicked. So where the King James emphasizes contending with those who glorify covenant breakers,

the Septuagint emphasizes fortification against being influenced by such people. Right. And so if we take these two in comparison with one another, these two describe complementary necessities, really, when you get down to it. Contending without fortification produces a believer who engages every cultural error with his own soul erodes and garden. And fortification without contending

produces strong walls and a voice entirely absent from a community that needs it. So you can't have both. You've got to balance this out. So the wall image here recalls back when we were studying Proverbs chapter 12,

He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls. Okay, so you have the connection there. The Septuagint's law lover is the opposite figure. So you have the love of the law, but that being is not merely obedience, but the construction of the defenses that make life sustainable under pressure. All right, Rick. So we've looked at verses three and four here. Let's start on verse five.

What are your thoughts here? King James, evil men understanding not judgment, but they to seek the Lord understand all things. Solomon makes a claim about mental and moral capacity rather than choice. The Hebrew word, Ben, Bean, B-I-N, means to discern, to understand, to perceive with insight. And that describes grasping how things actually relate to one another, not merely knowing the facts.

Its object here is the word Mischpot, a judgment, justice, the right ordering of of matters. So the proverb claims that evil men and women, I'll listen to this, this is important to understand, that evil men and women are genuinely unable, unable to perceive what justice requires of it. They are not merely defying a moral standard, they see. The standard itself has become indisible to them. right. Doctor, no longer even able to see what's right. It's not, it started out with them being opposed to what is right.

But eventually, over time, because of their rebellion and their wickedness, they eventually get to the place they can't even see what is right and wrong. And so this, this explains the phenomenon that every believer has seen. encountered it, or will encounter, arguments about right and wrong that cannot be resolved, no matter how carefully you make the case. And the reason is the frustration arises from assuming that both parties, you, the righteous person and the other one, the ungodly person who is praising ungodly things. You're assuming that they're looking at the same moral landscape and you simply disagree about.

Right. Yeah, I get it. That's not what this is. Verse five is suggesting that the landscape itself looks different to each person. So the direction, the direction of causation runs in the opposite direction to what most people assume. We commonly think people behave badly because they think badly. To me, verse 5 is, and King James is indicating that the traffic also runs the other way, that sustained wrong behavior, sustained wrong actions,

degrades the person's capacity to even think correctly. They've lost the ability to think morally. It's not that they have a different set of morals. They can't even think that way anymore. Wow. Channel 3. Versus 19 and 20. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

For everyone that doeth evil hateeth the light. The deeds come first in this ordering from Jesus Christ that we read in the book of John, the deeds come first, and the aversion to the light follows them. They eventually hate the light. But they that seek the Lord understand all things. The Hebrew word here is Akash.

And it describes an active pursuit, not just passive acknowledgement, but you're actively pursuing all things, to know them, to have wisdom. That's what you're doing here in morning manner. You're coming to a class five days a week because you have a hunger to understand all things. And you're getting a college level force

in the book of Proverbs. And you need to be commended. You need to be, you need a good pat on the back. You're here five days a week because you desire to understand. all things. Note what the verse identifies as the source of this understanding. It's not study, it's not intelligence, not moral effort. It is seeking the Lord. Amen. Okay. Moral perception. Moral perception is a byproduct of a relationship with God rather than an achievement of your

intellect. This is entirely consistent with other Proverbs. Proverbs, Chapter 1, verse 7, Proverbs 9, verse 10. Proverbs 1 7 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and instruction. Makes sense now? Proverbs 9, 10. We studied this so long ago.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Do you remember those lessons? So, Rick, if we think about this, and Matthew Henry observed this too. He said that sin blinds the mind like smoke blinds the eyes. And that when you think about the man or woman who is long accustomed to darkness loses not merely his willingness to see,

but eventually his ability to see too, because he's so accustomed to darkness. He doesn't know what the light looks like. So Matthew Henry is citing that the doctrine of the effects of sin. sends damage to the mind's capacity to know truth rightly, particularly moral and spiritual truth. In the New Testament, Romans chapter 1, verse 21 and 22, it traces this degradation precisely. It says, when they knew God, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, but became vain in their imaginations that their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be why. wise, they became fools.

You know, what is fascinating by the passage is they knew God. They knew him. And in 1st Corinthians 2.14, it gives the clearest apostolic statement to this. It says, the natural man receiveth not, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can they, can he know them. So the Apostle Paul's, neither can he, is the vocabulary, or have genuine inability.

In other words, they lose the ability to distinguish the righteousness of God. Not mere unwillingness, but they've burned and seared their conscience to the righteousness of God. And so, really, there's two qualifications that are necessary here. First, this does not mean

that unbelievers perceive nothing, or nothing true, rather. Romans 215 affirms the work of the law written on Gentiles' hearts. and common grace preserved genuine moral insight. Second, it should produce humility rather than contempt. Whatever perception a believer possesses is restored capacity. It's not native ability.

We didn't suddenly wake up. No, it's something that God did. What hast thou that thou didst not receive? 1st Corinthians 4.7 says. And so there comes a point in time that even if her conscious, sincere, that we can have it restored, but it takes a divine work to do it. So that praise there, understand all things, really is comprehensive, rather than unlimited across all categories.

Think about this. Evil men and women fail to understand judgment. Seekers understand all within that same domain. And Charles Bridges observed that this is. sufficient light for the path actually before believer. It's enough to walk by given continuously to those who continue seeking. And so if you seek, God provides more light. It works in hand in hand.

So John 717 gives us some insight on this, and it gives the ordering that reverses that modern expectation. What does it say? It says that any man will do his will. He shall know of the doctor. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctor. What does that mean? Willingness to obey

proceeds and produces understanding rather than following it. I'm going to say that again. Willingness to obey proceeds and produces understanding rather than following me. The person who says, I will believe when I understand,

has everything all backwards here, has the sequence backwards right? This is according to what Jesus himself said. So let's consider the implications. If this is true, if verse 5 is accurate, argument alone is frequently insufficient because the disagreement concerns

the capacity to perceive the premises rather than merely the conclusions. Now, this does not make the argument worth it, but it explains why persuasion, especially in moral matters, Rick, requires something more than better reason. You can make all the logical arguments possible,

but there's something about the moral argument that's hard for people to overcome. And it's also the reason why prayer for the opening of people's eyes is a strategic necessity rather than just some sort of pious afterthought. So, Rick, what are your thoughts about what the Septuagint has to say about this particular verse? Okay, so verse five, King James, evil men understand not judgment, but they that seek the Lord understand all things. Septuagint, evil men will not understand judgment, but they that seek the Lord will understand

Everything. Very close. Septuagint and the King James track closely together. One notable feature, both clauses appear in the future tense, where the King James' imperfect verbs could carry either present or future tense. I know we're getting nitpicky here. The future framing carries moral weight in both directions for the evil man. It forecloses the hope that continued wrongdoing will eventually produce the clarity he lacks. The trajectory does not reverse itself while its cause remains. Not for you.

Do you see anything? because the statuagin and the King James are almost identical. Well, and the only thing I would add is here for the seeker, what it should supply is patience. The understanding is promised as the outcome of continued seeking rather than as an immediate deliverable. In other words, you may not see it immediately. Sometimes you might, but really it's a long-term gain.

The Greek word for seeking here is Zaytun tests. It's a, without getting in all the details, it's a present participle. And what that means is it's a ongoing continuous action. In other words, it happens now, but it continues. So this construction sets a continuing activity alongside a future result. Those who keep on seeking, there's an investment on the end that's going to have a payoff. Those who keep on seeking are going to understand. And this means, in a nutshell, for the believer, that the promise remains available to anyone at any stage.

And also that arrival at understanding is not the final destination at which seeking may safely stop. It's a continuing action which actually continues throughout our entire lives, Rick. Yes. All right. Well, that's her lesson for today. It's been a blessing to you tomorrow. It's going to be Proverse 28, verses 6, 7, and 8. A thought-provoking lesson. Make sure you come back and invite it for them.

Tell them, see, just check out morning now. Watch it five days and see. If you hear things, learn things about the Bible, you've never heard before. Because I know they will. And if they are hungry for you, the word, they will come back. And the more word that they get inside of them, the more the word will change them. Because the word is alive.

And it's alive because the word is Jesus. And Jesus is alive. He's resurrected and he's living in us. And when we put His word in us, his word is changing us because the word and Jesus are one and the same. you can't separate. You can't say you love Jesus and you don't have time to read His Word. And it says you can't do that. Jesus is the Word.

So that's why we study the Word of God. And I need all wisdom I can get. I need all the understanding I can get because the world is becoming stranger and it's becoming dangerous and it's becoming more unstable. And I don't know what to do. You can only stock out so much food and bullets and beef. I mean, you can only do so much. You better stockpile the Word of God.

You better start stockpiling the Word of God in your soul. And coming up on some things in the world, our natural supplies are not going to get us through it. You're going to have to have a stockpile of wisdom in your soul. I ask one little lecture for today. Thank you so much. We'll see you tomorrow. God bless you. Thank you for watching Morning Manor. We hope your soul has been nourished today. We welcome and appreciate your prayers and financial support for our international Bible teaching ministry.

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