TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles - Date: August 31, 2026. Lesson 171-2026. Title: When Confidence and Reality Collide

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

In today’s Morning Manna, Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart examine Proverbs 28:9–11 and three dangerous forms of self-deception. Solomon warns that prayer cannot substitute for obedience, that those who deliberately lead the righteous astray are ultimately constructing their own downfall, and that wealth can insulate a person from the correction needed for genuine wisdom. This lesson challenges us to open our ears to God before asking Him to hear us, guard our influence over others, and never confuse success, status, or confidence with genuine spiritual discernment. Lesson 171-2026 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 Manor. Welcome to Morning Manoran. Your teachers, Rick Wiles and Dr. Burkla. Get your Bible and notebook and get ready to here before. Well, good Monday morning and welcome to Morning Manna. This is the cafe that serves nutritious soul food to get your day started in the right direction. Oh, my name is Rick Wiles. My partner in teaching is Dr. Raymond Burkhart.

And our website is manonation.com. And today's lesson is 171-2026. All of our lessons are archived at mananation.com. Also at Rick Wiles today on YouTube. And that's also manonation.com. That's also the place where you can give a generous, love gift in appreciation for this Bible teaching ministry. That's all I'm going to say. I'll let the Lord speak to you and whether you obey the Lord, that's between you and him.

We do rely on the gifts of the people who come every day to be taught the Word of God. Now, I'm either. I'm ready to go. As Monday, let's get going in this lesson from the Book of Proverbs chapter 28. Let's pray and invite the Holy Spirit. And Dr. Burkhart is going to read our verses for today and introduce the lesson. Let's pray. Almighty God, our dear, wonderful Father in heaven, Father, we love you and we thank you for your goodness. Father, we invite the Holy Spirit to lead this class because we are hungry to be fed and we need wisdom. And you promise that any person who lacks wisdom can ask and you will supply it liberally. So we are asking and we believe we expect to receive wisdom given from you liberally, abundantly.

And we thank you. We say amen. It is done. It is settled. Thank you, Father. Amen. All right. Well, we continue our journey in Robert of chapter 28 today.

And we're going to pick up our study at verse 9. We're going to be looking at verses 9, 10, and 11 today. So open up your Bibles. And we're going to read together here. We read from the King James and also from the Septu. And so let's get started here today. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so we don't want to waste any time. And it reads, He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer, shall be abomination.

Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit, but the upright shall have good things in possession. The rich man is wise in his own conceit, but the poor that hath understand. searching him out. Now the Septuagint, he that turns away his ear from the hearing the law, even he has made his prayer abominable. He that causes upright men to err in an evil way, himself shall fall into destruction. Transgressors also shall pass by prosperity, but shall not enter into it. A rich man is wise in his own conceit, but an intelligent poor man will condemn him. So, Proverbs chapter 2,

28 verses 9 through 11 present three verses on forms of self-deception and their consequences. There are three ways in which a person can be badly wrong about his own standing while remaining entirely confident about it. Verse 9 addresses religious self-deception, the man who refuses to hear God's law, but continues to pray anyway. So the proverb declares that his prayer is not merely ineffective, but abominable. A word scripture reserves for what God finds actively repugnant. Then verse 10 addresses moral self-deception in its most aggressive form, the man who actively works to lead righteous people into evil. So that proverb applies to the boomerang principle,

which this series encountered back in chapter 26, verse 27, the digger falls into his own pit. Then verse 11 addresses the intellectual self-deception, The rich man, wise in his own conceit, who is nonetheless seen through completely by a poor man with genuine understanding. So these three verses share a common structure. In each case, the deceived party has confidence, and the reality, though, is otherwise. The prair believes he is worshipping. The corruptor believes he is succeeding.

The rich man believes he's wise. All three of them are wrong, and none of them know it. And so our lesson today, our aim is to examine these three domains in which confidence in reality most commonly diverge. Religion, moral influence, and self-assessment, and to teach the Morning Man of audience how scripture measures each one. Rick starts us off today with his examination of verse 9. Rick? This is going to be a good lesson. Verse 9, he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law.

Even his prayer shall be an abomination. Solomon wrote that in the days of the old covenant. We're into new covenant so we could revise us to say, he that turned away his ear from hearing the commandment. of God, the Word of God, even His prayer shall be an abomination. It's a strong word. It talks about turning away,

to refuse to listen. The verb that's used here, the Hebrew verb, is sore. It's spelled S-U-R, but it's pronounced S-U-R. And it means to turn aside, to remove, to take away, it describes a deliberate action, not a passive inattention.

It's not like you're talking to someone and they're busy and they're missing most of what you're saying. And, you know, you finally say, hey, are you listening? Are you paying attention to where I'm saying? Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, I am. No, it's not that kind of thing.

This is the kind of insult. that when you start speaking to someone, that person turns and walks away, deliberately showing you, I'm not listening to you. I mean, it's a snow. It's not just this passive inattention. I'm sorry, I was busy. I wasn't hearing what you said. It is, I hear what you say, and I don't want to hear it.

And now I'm deliberately turning my ear away from me. you so your words can't reach my ears that's what god is speaking about here is through sound okay this man or woman has not merely failed to hear he or she has actively turned his or her ear away from what is being said and what is being said is the word of god in the case the law for us today, it's the Holy Bible. It's the entire revealed word of God. So the proverb addresses a specific posture. Someone who knows what God's word requires, has access to it,

and has chosen, deliberately chosen not to listen. This person, this man or woman, is not ignorant. They are unwilling to know what does Solomon say is the consequence. Even his prayer shall be an abomination. Now, you know from studying scriptures that abomination is like one of the strongest words in the Bible. I've said before, if God had, if he has a rea, a rea, a rea, a, a, a, a, a, a, reflex. You know, he would, he would vomit. When you, when God says that's an abomination, he's literally saying, make me gag. I'll stick my finger down my throat and gag. That's how repulsive

it is to me. The Bible says that a man or woman who deliberately turns his head away so he cannot hear the word of God, that even his prayers would be an abomination to God. And this is, This word abomination is used in scriptures about idolatry, child sacrifice, practices that provoke the expulsion of Canaanites from the land. I mean, it's just one of the most serious words in the Bible. So the severity of that vocabulary applied to prayer should be a wake-up call to everyone.

This is not a proverb, say, such prayers go unanswered or such prayers are the answers are delayed or the answer is a disappointment you get an answer but it's a disappointment that's not what it's saved it says such prayers are repugnant to god they are disgusting that the act of praying performed by a man or woman who has deliberately closed his His or her ears to God's word becomes itself an offense. The reason is that such prayer is dishonest. The men or woman who asked God to hear Him or Her yet refuses to hear God. It's a hypocrite.

There's no such thing as one-way communication. This is a person who's requesting a relationship with God in one direction. while having deliberately severed it in the other direction. This is a person who believes in prayer, who believes in God, who believes God answers prayer. But this is a person who is selfishly saying, I expect God to hear my prayer and answer, but I don't, I won't listen to what he says to me.

It's a one-way communication path. I speak to God. I'm not interested in what God says to me. And God says, if that's your attitude, your prayers make me sick. It makes me want to throw up. They are repulsive. They're repugnant.

It's an abomination. Because you're saying to the Lord, I really have no interest in you. What you have to say isn't important. of importance to me. What I have to say to you is important. And you're God, and I expect you to answer my prayers and do what I ask you to do.

How does this work out in real world, in real time? Maybe you're praying and you're asking God to do something, to answer your prayer. Maybe you have a sickness. And the Lord says, I, I, uh, I desire to heal you. However, you have a lot of unforgiveness in your heart towards certain people,

and you need to forgive them. And when you forgive them, I will heal you. And this person says, I don't want to hear that. That's how it works in the real world. People go to church, they get in prayer lines, they go up to the front ass, the elders to pray for them, and yet they will not listen to what God is saying to them in the privacy of their home. God may be waking them up with dreams, saying you need to forgive, you need to do this,

you need to make this right, and are not going to do it. Not going to do it. They might get a word of knowledge from someone who doesn't even know their situation, doesn't even know what they're praying for. They get a word of knowledge and you go, that wasn't from God. God says, well, you know what? Your prayers become repugnant to me. you're asking me to do something

but you don't desire to do what I ask you to do. The word even, even this word even has importance in this verse. Even his prayer. The one activity that might have been expected

to remain acceptable to God. The religious act most associated with humility and dependence. His prayer. Not even that survives the closed ear. Even his prayer. Isaiah records God saying the same thing to Judah.

With blunt directness. When ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. You know what? God spoke that to the Jews thousands of years ago, and he's still speaking it to them today in the state of Israel. He's still saying to the Jews in Israel, I don't hear your prayers.

Your hands are full blood. You've killed thousands of children in Gaza. I don't hear your prayers. Oh, I just upset some people. I'm sorry. I quoted scriptures. So the volume. Yeah.

People trying to turn up the volume. Maybe my voice isn't getting into heaven loud. I'll turn up the volume. I'll pray louder. Oh, God. It's not the volume. It's the condition of your heart. That's the problem.

Matthew Henry, you know, we quote him a lot here, morning man, will not be governed by it comes now we get into the heart of it submission and that prayer offered while god's word is refused is not worship but it is an insult wearing worship's clothing wow that's a that's a chilling statement there wreck all right well let's think about this and let's consider the framework behind all this and the biblical relationship between hearing god and being heard by God. So what we are talking about here is the conviction

that these are not independent transactions, but a single relationship with two directions. Really, you're saying you can't have one without the other. So Zechariah chapter 7 versus 11 to 13, it traces the sequence explicitly. It says, this is Zechariah, they refused to hearken and pulled away the shoulder and stop the ears.

Therefore, it has come to pass that as he cried, and they would not hear, so they cried, and I would not hear, sayeth the word of hosts. So this doctrine can be badly misapplied, really, in two directions. It must not teach that God hears only the morally impeccable. The publicans cry in Luke, 1813, God be merciful to me as sinner was heard.

And the thief on the cross was received with no opportunity for reformed conduct at all. But nor should it burdened struggling believers who generally want to obey and repeatedly fail. So verse 6 addresses deliberate refusal to hear, not the ordinary weakness of a person fighting sin and losing grounds. So let's be clear about that.

So the difference between a man who turns his ear away and a man who hears, tries, and stumbles is the entire distance between this verse and Romans 7. The verse's proper target is the person who wants God's benefits while rejecting God's authority, right? James chapter 4 verse 3 names the same failure in the New Testament. It says, you ask and receive not because you ask amiss. that you may consume it upon your lust. Now, the remedy is stated in the verse's own terms and is genuinely simple. What is it?

Open the air. The obstruction is not on God's side. And the prayer that begins, speak, Lord, for thy servant here, it's like we see in 1st, Angle, 3-9, has already removed the very thing that made the previous prayers abominable. In other words, you have the option,

opportunity to repent, will you humble yourself, and genuinely cry out to God in repentance? All right, Doc, let's look at the Septuagint compared to the King James. Verse 9, King James says, and I'll just tell you, the differences are minor, but we're going to focus on just several. The King James says, He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be Abomination. Here's the Septuagin. He that turns away his ear from hearing the law.

Even he has made his prayer abominable. At first glance, you would say, well, they're identical. There's nothing here to talk about. Well, there's some slight things that we need to focus on. First of all, the Septuagint has added the phrase, He has made. Even he has made. All right.

So this is, it's attributing the prayer's condition directly to the person who is praying. In other words, Doc, it's not the prayer that's an abomination. It's the man or woman who is praying it, who is the abomination. Right. That's the difference here. You see, the King James says, even his prayer shall be an abomination. But Septuagin says even he has made his prayer abominable. So the King James says the prayer shall be an abomination.

The King James identifies the agent. The man or woman who's praying it has made an abomination. The prayer did not become repugnant by some external divine decision. In other words, God, Dr. God did not say, well, I'm just going to decree this prayer to be an abomination. Nothing came from heaven that said, well, this particular prayer, we're going to stamp it as abomination. Now, the man or woman who prayed it manufactured its repugnance by the posture he or she brought to it. because their heart is not right. So this is a, the shift is significant

because it locates the responsibility precisely, the person who's praying it, and it removed any suggestion of some kind of arbitrary divine rejection. God saw, I'm not in good mood today. I'm going to call that prayer and abomination. God did not decline a perfectly good prayer. The man or woman who has corrupted his own offering before it ever left his or her mouth

because the prayer came out of a defiled heart. A heart that hold the ears do not listen to the Word of God. Right. You know, in the Old Testament, that word abominable, is not just a casual word. It expresses God's disgust, his repugnance. And it's the Greek word, Be luptos.

It means detestable, abominable. It's translated in English. It's the same word family that's used over in the New Testament Titus 116. And it says there, they profess that they know God,

but in works they deny him being abominable. and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate. So Paul's description of the professing but denying man in the New Testament is the New Testament portrait of the very figure here that we're talking about in verse 9. So the Septuagint's active framing, Rick, also carries, and thank God for it, it carries an implicit hope. What a man made, a man can unmake.

if the prayer's condition was produced by the prayer's own posture, then changing the posture changes the prayer. Changing the posture changes the prayer, which is precisely the remedy of the verse's own logic supplies of this. Rick, you also had the opportunity to dive into verse 10. What did you find out? If we got two more verses, 10 and 11. Verse 10, King James,

whoso calls us the righteous to go astray in an evil way. He shall fall himself into his own pit, but the upright shall have good things in possession. This is a principle that we have studied previously in problems. Falling into your own pit. Whosoever callseth the righteous to go, astray in an evil way. A person calls an upright person, a moral person, to wander off and go into an evil path.

The Hebrew verb is shagah. It means to lead astray, call someone to wander, misdirecting someone from the path that he was on. It's not giving bad directions. It's deliberately misleading someone, knowing that you're giving them the wrong directions. So it's not just setting a bad example. It is actively working to move a righteous person off course because they're righteous and that bothers you and you want to get them off the path of righteousness and you want to get them going in the wrong direction.

That's what we're talking about here. So the target is specifically identified. The target is not anybody at random. Pick out that man, a woman over there. No. This person is going after the righteous. So the proverb does not address the corruption of someone who is already corrupt. It is the deliberate targeting of those walking uprightly,

thereby making the offense a direct assault on something God is building. God is working in that man or woman's life, and they are growing in the ways of the Lord. And this other person comes along and begins to deliberately mislead them, deliberately entice them away from the right ways. This is the sin of Jesus Christ addressed with his severe, language, who so shall offend one of these little ones

which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hung around his neck and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea. You know, most people believe that Jesus was speaking about children, and obviously, yes. But the little ones,

to be biologically correct, the little ones were young believers, new disciples. He's saying, anybody out there that misleads and deceives these new believers, these young disciples who have yet to be fully disciples and grounded in me, anybody who does that, it would be better for you, got a big old millstone be hung around your neck,

and you'd just be dropped into the ocean. Now, this verse says, Proverbs, He shall fall himself into his own pit. We studied the same principle in Proverbs, Chapter 26, verse 27, whoso digeth a pit shall fall therein. Laying a trap for somebody is one of the dumbest things you can never do, because you're going to fall in.

Amen. Especially if you're laying a trap for a righteous person. So the justice here is exact. It's not approximate. It is precise. The corruptor is not merely punished, punished by his own, device. The trap he or she constructed for another person receives him or her. They fall into

their own traps. And the mechanism of their intended harm becomes the mechanism of their fall. But they upright shall have good things in possession. The blameless shall inherit goodness and good things. It's just, not just goodness. You shall have good things. Right. Things, you know, things that you can touch. Things that you can live in, things that you can drive, things that you can hold.

Those are things. I consider a boat, a thing, a nice pickup truck. That's a thing. You shall have good things. A righteous, the upright, shall have good things in possession. The Hebrew word is Nahar. It describes what is received as a settled possession, not something that's seized or earned.

So the contrast here is you can learn from the contrast. The corruptor falls into what he or she does for someone else, but the upright inherits what they do. did not construct. Look at this, Doc. The corruptor inherits what he made for somebody else. A trap.

But they upright inherits something they did not make. Huh. One worked and fell into the pit. The other didn't work to build anything inherited it. Yes. Huh.

One receives the product of his own labor, the other receives a free gift. Amen. Got it. All gifts. All gifts are free, right? Adam Clark, a great Methodist, theologian, he said that the pit diggers fall requires no special divine intervention. Because the divine moral order than God established a creation, operates reliability

that violence recoils traps catch their makers and the man or woman who spends himself constructing another person's ruin has been building his own

ruin the entire time right and so this harkens back to that the principle here of divine governance over moral consequences What that simply means, that that's the conviction that God has structured reality in such a way that evil directed outward returns to its source. In the New Testament in Galatians 6-7, we have this verse, be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap.

So, Scripture's historical illustrations about this principle are actually pretty vivid. In the book of Esther, you have Haman. He was hanged on the gallows that he built from Mordecai. Daniel's accusers were thrown to the lines prepared for him. You know, the three Hebrew children thrown in the fiery furnace, the guards ended up being burned up themselves. And so the second half here deserves equal attention, though, Rick, because the proverb is not merely about the wickedness.

man's ruined, but also about the upright man's inheritance. Now, like that you brought out that word about the inheritance, stated together as parallel certainties on both sides of the coin. So the inheritance vocabulary connects over in the New Testament to 1st Peter 1, chapter 1, verse 4. What does he say? He says, inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.

We have that promised inheritance with the Lord. Now, many who have been deliberately led astray or who have watched a corruptor operate with apparent success will note that the pit does not always, does not always visibly open on any timeline that they can observe. Okay. That's reality. But scripture holds both realities without embarrassment here.

Psalm 73's honest wrestling with the prosperity of the wicked. Why did the wicked prosper? Stands in the same canon as verse 10's confidence that there's going to be a payday someday. So the proverb states that the reliable structure of God's moral governance here. The Psalm acknowledges that the structure's operation is frequently invisible from inside of a lifetime. The believer, though, who holds only one, will either be naive or despairing, Rick. Doc, let's take a look at the Septuagint version, and then we have one more verse, verse 11. But this is a Septuagin translation of verse 10, first to King James,

who so callseth the righteous to go astray in the evil way, in an evil way. He shall fall himself into his own pit, but the upright shall have good, things in possession. How does the Greek Septuagint? He that causes upright, upright men to err in an evil way, himself shall fall into destruction. Transgressors also shall pass by prosperity, but shall not enter into it. So the Septuagint intensifies the corruptor's fate from falling into a pit. This person is now falling into destruction, into corruption, to ruin, to utter destruction.

So the image shifts from a trap to comprehensive ruin. You don't talk with it. If you fall into a trap, there's a possibility you might get out of them. But when you're in a state of comprehensive ruin, no, you're not coming. out of it. You've been destroyed. More significantly,

the Septuagint replaces the King James' positive promise to the upright with a statement about the transgressors. Transgressors shall pass by prosperity

but shall not enter into it. Doc, that to me implies the upright are already prospered. Yeah. All right. They're already over in prosperity land. The transgressor is going to walk by prosperity land.

Look at it, but they can't get in. The transgressor does not miss prosperity entirely. He passes by it. He comes near enough to see it, near enough to believe it is his. but he or she cannot enter. The good he pursued remains permanently visible and permanently inaccessible.

He cannot cross the line into prosperity. There's a divine sensor there, blocking them at the entry gate. So the picture here, Rick, recalls Moses on Mount Ebo, viewing the land that he would not enter, though with an entirely different moral balance here. What was for Moses a sorrow within a life of faithfulness becomes, for the transgressor, the settled condition his own conduct produced. Now, if we're looking at the Septuagint here, its version supplied a psychologically precise account of what unjust gain

actually delivers. So the exploiter here, back in verse 8, that gathered wealth for someone else, you have the corruptor of verse 10, approaches prosperity, but cannot enter. In both of these cases, the pursuit

does not fail to produce something. It produces proximity to what is wanted, but it's ultimately and unfortunately permanently unconsummated. So look at both of these, both the Hebrew and the Septuagin,

they describe both halves of the corruptor's outcome, right? The active ruin that overtakes him and the frustrated nearness to good that characterizes his pursuit while it still lasts. All right, we have one more verse in today's lesson. Verse 11, the rich man is wise in his own conceit, but the poor man that half understanding search. him out. The wise man, the rich man. The rich man is wise in his own eyes. Maybe no one else thinks he's wise, but he thinks wise, this phrase wise in his own eyes. We've encountered

this before in our studies of Proverbs. In Proverbs chapter 26, verse 12 and verse 16, it describes the man for whom there is more hope than for a fool. Describes the sluggard who believes himself wiser than seven reasoning men. Remember those lessons? So verse 11 now in Proverbs 28 is identifying wealth as one of the conditions that manufactured this self-assessment. Wealth generates evidence that feels like confirmation of wisdom.

I must be wise because look at the result of my decisions. I've made successful decisions. I've made successful investments. I have hired the right people. I am wise. Look, my wealth is the evidence of my wisdom.

This is the way the wise man or woman is thinking. The problem is wealth also insulates you. The rich man or woman is less frequently contradicted, less often forced to accept a verdict he or she doesn't like, more able to surround himself or herself with people whose interests align with his or her, or staff his company, his organization, with people that never, ever speak up.

They just, yes, sir. Your way is right. You know, we call them yes people. So the very success that generates confidence removes the conditions under which it should be tested. But the poor that have understanding searches him out. There's a Hebrew word here. It is an investigative term.

Do you remember back in Proverbs 25, verse 2, to honor kings in searching out a matter? So the poor man actively examines and comprehends what the rich man or woman is, and his assessment is accurate. Poor man's assessment. Now, this arrangement is deliberate. Solomon in what he was doing here.

Understanding is available to the poor man in a way it is not available to the rich man, not because poverty confers insight and not because wealth blinds you to wisdom, but because poverty removes the insulation that prevents accurate self-nobiles. knowledge. The poor man has been contradicted. The poor man has faced verdicts he could not buy his way past. The poor man has been forced to see reality as it is. Charles Bridges, Anglican bishop in the 1800s in Great Britain. He observed that the rich man's error is not believing he possesses wisdom, but never having occasion to discuss. over that he does not have wisdom.

Right. That's the problem, Doc. It's not that he's fooling himself believing that he has wisdom, but his wealth has insulated him in a way that he's never confronted with the possibility that he does not have wisdom. Right. Yeah. And Reggie said that the poor man's discernment is frequently the product of a life in which

illusions are not affordable. And when you broke, you can't afford to have an illusion. You're dealing with reality. That's right. Yeah. And so that theological framework that we're working with here beneath verse 11 concerns wealth, spiritual danger as Scripture. You know, scripture consistently presents this, this illusion that wealth brings, that with wealth, their security, And to a degree, I guess, in the world there is.

But it's not the shield that many make it out to be. But it doesn't frame it in such a way as a wealth as an inherent evil, but as a condition that produces a distortion of perception. Jesus himself taught on this in Mark chapter 10, verses 23 through 25, and he identified the difficulty directly. He said, how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God? So if you recall Rick, the disciples were astonished by this statement. Now, we've kind of been primed on it and everything, but the disciples, they were like, what?

What are you talking about, Jesus? That indicates how thoroughly the opposite assumption, veiled then. And it does to a great degree now, right? Revelation chapter 3, verse 17, gives the sharpest statement of this self-assessment problem as it relates to wealth. Now, think about this. It says in Revelation 317, Rick, because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wrecked and miserable and poor and blind and naked. And it's almost like we're waiting for some more words to be added there, Rick, right? So the gap between self-perception and reality is total.

And wealth is identified as the mechanism that produces it in this particular proverb. So the verse, though, should not be read. You know, we don't want to want this to be a blanking condemnation of the wealthy or somehow romanticized poverty. You know, people try to do that too, Rick. Well, I'm poor in the Lord. You know, I'm just looking for our cabin over in Glory Land. Well, scripture records that there were wealthy believers that had genuine spiritual discernment, Rick. and poverty, I mean, wealth has its distortions, but poverty does too, right?

Proverbs chapter 30, verse 9 that we'll be getting to hear not too long from now names them. Lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain, you know, where people will justify stealing. We see that in Western cultures today, you know, where they are no longer prosecuted. including those individuals that steal items less than $1,000 in some cities in the United States. And so there's a different distortion that's going on in poverty. So the proverb, though, I think is teaching us that wealth reliably produces conditions in which self-assessment can go uncorrected. And any person in those conditions needs to regard their own confidence with corresponding suspicion. It's going to be hard to do unless you are in the word like this.

So the remedy, though, follows from the diagnosis. If the danger is uncontradicted self-assessment, the defense is deliberately seeking contradiction, right? In other words, the wealthy need to cultivate relationships with people who have no incentive to agree. They need to receive correction from those with less standing and treat the absence of pushback as a warning sign rather than a confirmation. Rick, do you know of wealthy people?

Maybe you can name one or two off the top of your head. You don't have to right now. Who everybody around him is in a great. with them. Everybody around them is, you know, there's no condemnation, there's no contradiction, there's nothing that they say the, it's just totally in agreement. It's a dangerous situation because what you start doing is you start actually believing all this, your own self-assessment, right? It's a dangerous situation. I'm sure there are wealthy people like that, but I, I, know that there are politicians that surround themselves with yes people and nobody dare

say anything contradictory to what the politician is saying. But think of how difficult, though, Rick, it is for someone who is wealthy, saying, you need, I need someone to contradict me. That's not their natural inclination, is it? Yes. Although, I'm going to tell you, Doug, I've just thought of a story. I just heard this recently that Jeff Bezos,

the owner of Amazon, was presenting to his leadership team new ideas that he desired Amazon to accomplish, new divisions, new services, new products, you know, making Amazon bigger and bigger and bigger. And one of his

mid-level lieutenant said to him, Mr. Bezos, you have enough, you have enough great ideas to destroy Amazon. Oh, wow. He was. He didn't condemn the ideas.

He said, you have enough great ideas to destroy Amazon. And it made Bezos stop and pause and think, wait a matter, what am I doing? Just because you have a great idea. It's new, it's good, does not mean it is to be implemented.

You may destroy the very thing that you built. So, I would say, Dod, I think most successful people, I'd be, you know, I think most successful people have people around them that

do tell them the truth. They need it. I think the danger is with the politicians. they're the one that actually believe that they're they start believing all their campaign propaganda about themselves and they're the ones that are dangerous for me let's look at verse 11 King James the rich man is wise in his own conceit but the poor that half understanding searches him out Septuagint a rich man is wise in his own conceit but an intelligent poor man will condemn him. So the Septuagint sharpens the poor man's action.

Why consider what? Where the King James has him searching out the rich man. You know, I'm going to discern who you are and talk about it. The Septuagint has the poor man condemning the rich man. You know, he finds fault with him. He passes judgment. after examining him. So the shift moves the poor man from private discernment

to a rendered verdict. He does not merely see through the rich man. He pronounces judgment on what he sees. And so I think, Doctor, the Situagin translation carries a note of vindication. for people who have accurate perception of rich, powerful people, but their wisdom is disregarded

because of their social status, their financial status. So what we're learning here is that the poor man's assessment is not a private opinion with no consequences. It's a verdict. And its accuracy gives us, it standing regardless of who

issued a verdict. And that word connects to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 15, where it says, he that is spiritual judges all things that he himself is judged of no men. So, genuine

discernment, wherever it resides, rich or poor, or whatever, possesses evaluated authority that social position neither confers nor removes. Okay, so this is our encouragement as believers. The Christian, even of the most modest means,

whose spiritual perception is routinely dismissed by those with more standing, is not imagining his own accuracy. Scripture assigns his verdict real weight, and the day is coming when that assessment will be public. That's right. Well, that's the end of our lesson today. and as always we hope it's been a blessing to you that you are seeing something

in the Proverbs that you've never seen before I know I have and again I have said a number of times I don't want to see the book of Proverbs in I keep teaching from it I wish we I wish like in the next couple weeks archaeologists would say we've discovered another 31 books of Proverbs you know so

but I don't think that's going to happen. We'll move on to another book in the Bible, but it has been a blessing to me to study and teach Proverbs, and I hope you're getting something out of it like I am. Thank you so much. We'll be back here tomorrow with another lesson from Chapter 28. Book of Proverbs. Take care.

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