Submit Podcast or Channel

Date: October 14, 2026. Lesson 203-2026. Proverbs 30:27-28. Wisdom That Works With What You Have

October 14, 20260 comments♥ 0
00:00Welcome to Morning Manor.Welcome to Morning Manor.Your teachers, Rick Wiles and Dr. Burkla.Get your Bible and notebook and get ready to here before.Good morning. I'm Rick Wiles.Welcome to Morning Manor.Yesterday I opened the lesson by asking you to identify the four little creaturesidentified in the Holy Bible as exceedingly wise.
00:42We studied the ant and the rock badger yesterday.Today, we will look at the other two small animals that got made wise.They didn't become wise. God made them wise.So we human beings have much to learn from these small creatures.Today's lesson number is 203-26,203-2026, and it is archived at manana nation.com.We always start our lessons with prayer by inviting the Holy Spirit to preside over our discussionof God's Holy Word.
01:23So would you please join me in prayer afterward?Dr. Raymond Burkhart will introduce today's lessons.Let's pray.Almighty God, our Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory and all.Your sons and daughters are here hungry and thirsty for wisdom.Your word promises that if anyone asks for wisdom, you will give it to him or her liberally.So, Father, we are asking for a generous helping of wisdom today.Open our hearts and minds to see wisdom, to understand it, to perceive it, to receive it.
02:02all for the glory of Jesus Christ, our Lord and King, in his name we pray. Amen.Amen. And welcome morning manna, everyone. We're so glad to have you here today. We're going tocontinue our study in Proverbs chapter 30 today looking at verses 27 and 28. This actually is the secondpart of the lesson that we started yesterday where we talked about four little creatures and howtheir wisdom is greater than the wisdom of just ordinary people. So we're going to be focusing todayon the last two.The locust and the spider.So let's read today.
02:38I'm going to read from the King Jamesand also from the Septuagin here this morning.Follow along with me,picking back up, chapter 30, verse 27.The locust have no king,yet they go forth, all of them by bands.The spider taketh hold with her handsand is in king's palaces.
02:56In the Septuagint,the locust had no king,and yet they march orderly at one command.and the F, which supports itself by its hands and is easily taken, dwells in the fortresses of kings.So we'll be getting into the Septuagint version here later in the lesson.So this passage today, Proverbs chapter 30 versus 27th, 28, completes the fourth numerical saying of Agar.And they supply the third and fourth creatures in his list of four things, little upon the earth, but exceeding wise.Now, in yesterday's lesson, we examined the heading and the first two.
03:36The aunt is weak and compensates with timing.She gathers in summer when she's not hungry.The coney is feeble and compensates with position, timing, position.It houses itself in rock where its weakness no longer determines its outcome.Now, the third and fourth creatures compensate in different ways,and both strategies are available to people with no advantages whatsoever.The locust has no king and moves in perfect formation.Its compensating strength is coordination without command.
04:13Self-direction.The spider or the lizard, depending on how it's translated in the Hebrew,takes hold with her hands and ends up in a palace.The compensating strength is grip,and the access that grip produces.In other words, hold on.Just hold on.Now, there's also a translational question in verse 28
04:37that we're going to address honestly here at the outset.The Hebrew word simamit, simamit,only occurs here in the entire Bible.It's one of those one word occasions in the Bible.translators have gone back and forth centuries on whether it means spider or lizard.Well, today in our lesson we're going to examine both creatures.We're going to present that translational difficulty without pretending that it's settledand show why these two strategies close Agger's list the way they do.
05:15Rick gets us started today with his introduction here to verse 27.Rick.Yes, sir.I love these lessons, Doc.I like talking about animals.The locusts have no king,yet go they forth all of them by bands.What does this mean?
05:35Two things I think we should look at.First, the absence.A king.There's none.Anger leads with what the locust lacks.That's how he starts it out.He tells us the locust has.have no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands.
06:00This is the same rhetorical move that Solomon made regarding the ant back in Palmerchapter 6, verse 7, saying that the aunt, which having no guide overseer or ruler.So today's lesson begins with what is missing.Underline that in your nose.The lesson begins with what is missing.Second, we're going to look at the formation.Yet they go forth all of them by bands.Let's take a moment to look at the Hebrew words used in this phrase.
06:44Hot Sets means to devise.divide to separate into parts.The sense is of a body divided into units, military terms, companies, ranks, divisions.And then the next word means all of it, the whole of it, not some of it, the entire swarm.So the picture that Agar is painting for usis of a vast bodyorganized into rankslike a military army
07:23moving as onewith nobody in chargeno commanderno king no leaderand so anyone who's ever seenvideo footageof a locust swarmor if you've been physically in a place that has had a locust warm,
07:47you know, this is, Doc, it's, it is unbelievable.If you're ever caught up in one,if you've ever seen it, you understand why Agar found this to be remarkablebecause you have millions of flying incidents,six, each one capable of flying wherever it pleases to go.And yet, the entire swarm is moving in a coordinated mass that strips a vast region of all this vegetation.When this swarm has passed through, there's not a leaf standing.They have no orders.
08:37They have no general.and yet the formation holds.And Agar says this is amazing.This is remarkable.The Prophet Joel precisely described the same scene,and he used military language.Joel said, they shall run like mighty men.They shall climb the wall like men of war.
09:03And they shall march everyone on his ways.and they shall not break their ranks,neither shall one thrust another.They shall walk everyone in his path.And you can find that in Joel chapter 2,verses 7 and 8.They shall not break their ranks.Joel is describing a swarm of attacking locusts.
09:34Now this is prophetic language,talking about the last days.But note the detail.Neither shall one thrust another.What does that mean?No jostling, no collisions.Each one is traveling in his own lane.Matthew Henry observed that the locus shame many great church congregations,
10:04where order must be imposed from above and collapses the moment that the ruling ofthe lead pastor is absent.Now, so with locust,they hold their rank.They move as one unit, and they don't need a commander.Right.And so we always look at the theological significanceof any of these illustrations,
10:30and the theological significance of the locust liesin the distinction between order imposedby an external authority and order arising from within.So imposed order requires a commander.It works as long as someone is watching, someone's enforcing, someone's correcting,but once you remove that authority, it degrades.But internal order requires no commander because the organizing principle is inside each member rather than above all of them.Now, the locus, T.J. Agger is making the case, is of the second kind.
11:09And Agar actually calls it wisdom.Internal order is wisdom.And the Apostle Paul describes in Romans chapter 12,verses 4 and 5,the church in precisely these same terms.And it's really interesting that the parallel here,it says in Romans 12, 4, and 5,for as many as we have many members in one body,
11:33and all members have not the same office.So we, being many,are one body in Christ and every one members one of another.First Corinthians 1225 says the same thing.There should be no schism in the body,but that the members should have the same care one for another.And so the body, you've got your body,coordinates without a hand issuing commands to the foot.
12:00The hand doesn't say, hey, foot, it's time to walk.The organizing principle is inside.One spirit, one head, one life, distributed throughout all the parts.Ephesians 416 describes the same mechanism as well.It says the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supply it,according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.Every joint supply it.In other words, it's all together.
12:32The coordination is produced by each member functioning,not by an administrator arranging them.So a necessary balance here, though, needs to be statedbecause this can be pressed too far.Scripture does not, excuse me,scripture does establish human authority of the church.We have elders, we have overseers, we have shepherds,and Hebrews 13.7 says,
13:00obey them that have rule over you.So Agger's locust here is not an argument against leadership.It's an observation that a body, which requires constant supervision to function,has not yet become what a body should be.That's the argument he's making.There's a sober side to the image here, though, that honesty requires naming here.And somebody may be saying, you know, what about locust swarms?Well, a locust swarm in scripture is pictured as judgment.
13:39The eighth plague in Egypt was locusts.Joel's prophecy, which Rick just mentioned here,describes a devastating invasion.And so the coordination agger admires is the deployment of the locusts.in every biblical appearance toward destruction.Now, Agar is commending the strategy, not the creature's purpose.Okay, so that's understand what we're trying to get across here.So a coordinated body is, in other words, is enormously effective,
14:16and what it accomplishes depends on what it's organized around.And so the pastoral principle here follows directly.the question for any congregation, any fellowship is not whether or not it's organized,but whether the organization would survive the absence of the person currently holding it together.Rick, you and I have observed in our years of service in the Lord and various functions,how we've observed organizations, churches, even ministries,that once the founding person or the lead person,you know, either stepped down or they passed on to glory,
15:02suddenly that organization can no longer function.It fell completely apart.And so there's a lesson to be learned hereabout bodies functioning and coordinationwithout, you know, self-directed head, an individual, let's say.So we're going to get more into that here as we get further along in verse 28 as well.Absolutely.We've seen it happen multiple times.
15:31And sometimes it's God's will.Sometimes it's God's will that a church or ministry comes to an end when the leader has passed on.But other times, it's not God's will, but the leadership in the church or ministry did not make wise plans.for secession of leadership.The next one, the spider.And as Doc pointed out earlier,some Bible translations say it's the loser.Okay.
16:04It doesn't matter whether it's a spider or a loser.The wisdom principles what we're trying to learn here.The spider taketh hold with her hands and is in king's palaces.Well, you could say the same thing about,Lizards.I live in Florida.Trust me.Lizards are everywhere.
16:31You can't open the door, and there isn't a lizard trying to get in.They're everywhere, and there are spiders.So to me, either word spider or lizard applies.The spider or the lizard taketh hold with her hands and is in King's palaces,Meaning, those little critters get in even the houses of the great and mighty.There's no place that can block them.That word Simamit is here again, and Doc pointed out, okay?This is the only place that it's in the Bible in chapter 30.
17:14when a word occurs only once,translators must work from its root, from its context,and from how ancient versions understood it.Here, the ancient versions themselves disagreethe various biblical manuscripts.The King James translators chose Spider.So did the Geneva Bible translators.And most of the older English,
17:46translations.Other translations,more modern, choose the wordlizard,specifically gecko,whichis common in theNear East.
18:05So,to be honest, I mean, honestteaching should presentboth creatures.It's not a big deal to me.That's not the point.whether it's a spider or a lizard.If we go with the spider,
18:23the root word carriesthe sense ofsomething causingdesolation.And yes, spiderswere found in palaces.A spider web in a royal chamberis a vivid
18:44image of somethingthat's unwelcome and yet nonetheless cannot be kept out.You know, I can, Doc, I can just imagine a king or queen calling his or her age saying,there's a spider web in this room, all right?How did these spiders get in here?Or say, there's a lizard running around in my room.It's just a fact of life.they're going to get in places small and great.
19:20If you go with lizard, the verse says the creature takes hold with her hands.Well, a lizard, especially a gecko, has a remarkable ability to grip vertical surfaces.Lizards live in houses in many regions of the world.I said here in Florida.You're just, it's just part of life.My grandchildren are experts at catching lizards.They can spend hours.I'm not kidding, dog.
19:56They spend hours just chasing lizards just for the fun of catching them and letting them go.They're lizards everywhere.The Greek Septuagint uses the word F-E-F-E-F-T or newt.which is a small lizard-like creature.So the Greek translation understood this as a reptile,not as an insect, a spider.The thing that has to be said plainly is the central lessonis identical under either creature.
20:38It doesn't matter.It doesn't change the meaning of this proverb.That's the point we want to get across here.A small, easily crushed creature, a small easily crushed creature, ripped with its limbs,and ends up inside a palace.Whether it has eight legs or four legs doesn't matter, it doesn't change the point that Agar is making.He is making the point that here's a creature, it's small, it could be stepped on easily,and yet somehow it gets in the White House,
21:15it gets in number 10 Downing Street,it gets in, it gets in palaces.They're everywhere.Adam Clark,he made note that Bible commentatorshave spent more timeidentifying this creaturethan on learning from it.
21:38I can see that, okay?And that the wisdom that Agar is commended,is available whether the thing is in the pallet.The thing that's in the palace is a spider or a lizard.So don't get caught up arguing over,is it a lizard or a spider?Doesn't matter.Just learn the principle.
22:01The principle is this little creature can go anywhere.Right.And before we move on here,we need to consider how to approach this passage faithfully.acknowledge what is uncertain while holding firmly to what is certain and what the scripture makes clear.So in a Bible study, in interpreting the scriptures, in preparing for sermon messages,need to keep in mind that there's a small number of words that occur only one time in the Bible.And this word Samo Mitt is one of them.
22:41And Hebrew scholars call these words hapex ligomena, which means we said it once, okay?And sometimes, depending, because we don't have other scriptures or other similar words in the Bible compared with, their meaning sometimes is inferred.Sometimes the inference cannot be made with 100% certain.Now you may be saying, well, doesn't that diminish, you know, the certainty of, you know, the certainty of.scripture? Not at all. This isn't a threat to the doctrine of scripture's reliability, but ratherto our limitation in being able to interpret and to determine the original meaning of work.One thing keep in mind here that in all these cases, there's no article of faith that depends onwhether the creature in Proverbs 30 is a gecko or has eight legs. No doctrine that, no doctrine
23:40is, you know, the Trinity is not being threatened, all right?Nothing of the core doctrines of the Bible threaten that in any way.And this demonstrates something about how God distributed the difficulties in his word.The uncertainties cluster in details, not in the big items like doctrines.Okay.So Deuteronomy 29-29 establishes this principle.And we come back to this over and over again.You folks should have this memorized by now.
24:20The secret things belong to the Lord, our God,that those things which will reveal belong unto us, our children,that we may do all the words of the law.Now, bottom line, what is revealed,what God has revealed in Scripture,without getting lost in the weeds of a particular interpretation of a word,is sufficient for obedience.What remains obscure was not necessary for them.
24:50That's a big lesson in Bible study, okay?So the practical instruction for any believer encountering a difficult,a hard text is one this lesson models.So what we've done today is we've stated the difficulty here.We've done it honestly.We've presented the options.And we identified what is not in doubt.And what's not in doubt, that's what we teach.
25:19Okay.So if a teacher comes along and manufactures certainty,where the text itself does not supply it,they've done something closer to what we studied earlier at Proverbs,chapter 30 back in verse 6.They're adding to God's word.They're adding to it.And they're doing something really
25:40in a big way dishonest with the scriptures.And so we should be carefulwhen we're uncertain about things.Just be uncertain.But realize that things like thisdon't impact any of the core beliefsor the major doctrines of the Bible.And it certainly doesn't diminish
26:02the inerrancy and the accuracy of Scripture in any way.Okay, I think you'll find the next segment of today's lesson to be very gripping.No pun intended.No pun intended.Takeeth hold with her hands to seize, to grasp, to lay hold on, to catch.This is a very strong, strong verb, okay?interestingly, the Hebrew word that's used here in this verb,takeeth, takeeth hold, okay?
26:41It's the same used in Joshua 8 for the capturing of Jericho.It's the same word used in First Kings chapter 13 for seizing a man.It's the same word that's used in the Bible for taking hold of a weapon.What does this have to do with this spider or lizard or,or whatever you want to call this thing.This little creature does not walk into the palace.It grips its way in.There's a reason for this being in the Bible.
27:23Takeeth hold with her hands.What an anger just say?You can't keep them out.They just walk in.No, he said,it taketh hold with her hands.It's a,With her hands, it's actually presented as a dignifying description.
27:49Agar assigns hands to a creature that has feet, claws.Lizards don't have hands.Spiders don't have hands.But Eggers says this thing take a hold with its hands.So he is deliberately emphasizing the,act of grasping rather than incidental movement.If I mean, if you're talking about a creature entering a palace, you would think, okay, it has legs,it walks in.
28:28But Agers desires us to focus on hands, hands grasping.It holds on, and it holds on by an act.and then he says,and is in King's palaces.In the most important places on earth,a spider or the lizard has no invitation.Nobody sent out an invitation that said,you are cordially invited to the King's Palace.
29:10It's not a guest.Now, can you get into the King's Palace?No way.Not without an invitation.I've only attended one royal banquet.King Abdullah of Jordan.But I wasn't in the palace.It was in a banquet hall.
29:30But I did receive a royal invitation from the palace in Amman.I really did.I still have that invitation.But the spider or the lizard doesn't get an invitation.It's not an invited guest, and yet it's walking around inside the palace.It has no standing.it doesn't have rank or value or significance that would qualify it to be in the royal palace.It has no defense.
30:14The Septuagin translation says it is easily taken,meaning any servant can capture it in any moment and get rid of it.It's easily taken.you can grab a spideryou can grab a lizardand it is there anywayrightit might have all these things
30:36it's still therethat's rightin the most guardedmost exclusivemost carefully controlledenvironmentin the kingdomthe palace
30:49it's still thereand yet you and I can't get inthe access was deemed by one thingit held on with its hands, even though it doesn't have hands.Agar is telling us it enters with her hands.Charles Spurgeon, the great Reformed Baptist preacher in London in the 1800s.He observed that the creature's sole qualification,for its address and where it was residing is its persistence and that there is no palace in the world
31:44whose doors are closed to a thing that simply will not let go there's your wisdom that's rightthere's your wisdom in this spider in this lizard whatever the creature is there are no doorsanywhere in the world.Doesn't matter how tightly they're closedthat can prevent this little creature from getting in.It will eventually get in.Persistence.This image reminds us of the value of persistence
32:20throughout all of the scriptures.And we're encouraged to remain faithfuland not grow wary when the way becomes difficult.That's the lesson that we can take away as a believer.Christ taught this too, taught it twice in parables form.And both times, this is so interesting, both times the point is tenacity.So the first one we'll look at is the friend at midnight.You can find this in Luke chapter 11, a man knocking on the door at an impossible hour.
32:55And what did Jesus say about that?What was the conclusion that Jesus gave here?though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend,yet because of his importunity,that's another word for persistence.He will rise and give him as many as he needed.So this guy wouldn't get up, even if he's his best buddy,hey, I'm in bed with my kids,
33:18at midnight and everything.Go get bread somewhere else.No, the man kept knocking,and finally the guy in the house turned to his wife, Edna,and said, I can't live with this knocking.I got to go down.I'll give him some bread just so we quit knocking.And so the Greek, Anaida, literally means shamelessness.
33:44The man kept knocking past the point where a reasonable person would have already gone home.And that's the first one.The second time Jesus talks about persistence is found in Luke chapter 18.and it's this parable of the unjust judge.So what you do here in this situation, in this parable in Luke 18,you've got a widow who has absolutely no standing with the court, no value.She's a woman.She's a widow.
34:15She has nothing going for.She has no standing, no leverage, no advocate.She didn't have an attorney or anything.But her persistence got the judge's attention.and the judge's reasoning, yet because this widow troubles me,I will avenge her, less by her continual coming, she wearied me.So Luke tells us the purpose of that parable in the opening line.Men ought always to pray and not to faint.
34:49Now, you know, Rick, people never associate that verse with that parable,and yet they're right next to each other.There's a reason.Jesus is talking about persistence and prayer.In both cases, the person has no qualification except that they will not stop.Now, if you've been with us on Fridays in our Faith Friday lessons,if you're not tuning in on Fridays for the words table and our Faith Friday lessons,you're missing something.
35:22But we encountered this before in a recent Faith Friday lesson.We talked about blind Bartimaeus, and he shouted louder when the crowd told him to be quiet.You also had the woman with the issue of blood, and she pressed through the crowd.She was ceremonial forbidden to enter or touch anybody, but she's pressing through.Jacob said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me in Genesis 3226, too.and so in the Old Testament,Jacob's wrestling is the closest parallelto Agar's creature.
36:01The verb is the same category, too.He took hold.He gripped, Rick.He gripped and would not release.And so the pastoral application hereshould be pressed warmlybecause this is the most encouragingof Agar's four strategies.
36:20So with the antWith the ant you required foresightWith the coney slash rock badgerIt requires location and terrainThe locustrequires an army or a bodyTo belong toBut the spider's
36:42Ability requires nothing but refusing to let goAnd that is available toabsolutely anybody in any condition condition at any stage.Galatians 6.9 states the instruction,and let us not be weary and well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.And Hebrews 1036 says,For we have need of patience that after you have done the will of God,that ye may receive the promise, that you may receive the promise.
37:17I like to joke around that if someone, I forget when it was,it was about 10, 15 years back, someone asked you,what's my superpower, Rick?What is my superpower?And I just told him, fly out my ability to stand in the line and outweighed anybody.There you go, persistence, patience.It could be the DMV, it could be whatever it is.It could be free samples at Sam Club.
37:49The ability to stand in a line and outweighed everybody else.Other people leave the line.I'm there.I'm committed.I'm in.I'm a whole hog going all the way in.And so it's the idea there that even if you're not qualified,even if you don't have the biggest talents or the best looks or anything like that,
38:14persistence, not just persistence in things of this world, but persistence in prayer.We're going back to Luke 18.And that's something that a lot of people give up on.They pray once, they didn't get an answer, and they're just like going, well, God didn't want to answer it.No, the scripture teach, that when Jesus was teaching the parable, the unjust judge, he was talking about prayer.He said, if an unjust judge will give in to a widow woman, imagine what your heavenly father will do.when you pray. Persistence, persistent, persistence in your faithful walk with Christ, in your love for one another.But persistence and persistence in prayer reg. So that's the things that we can take, why is believers here.
39:02Persistence is, that's the lesson that we're receiving here. You live for many years here in Florida,just a few miles from my house, and you're now in the Philippines.So, you know, in both cases, a tropical environment.Right.I like to say here that we're Floribians.We're in Florida, but we're Caribbean, right?We're Floribians.How many times, Doc, in Florida or down in the Philippines,
39:34how many times have you opened your door and a lizard ran in?Oh, or a frog.Well, here, yeah.Very common.Coming through the house and everything.So, very common.That little lizard stood there patiently waiting on you to open the door.Well, and yeah, I don't even know how they, you know, Rick, I don't even have to open the door.
40:03They still get in.I know.I can have all the doors and windows shut, the house closed up.Somehow those guys get in.I don't understand it.They find some.little hole to crawl into and I have to sit in it with frog. I open the door and a frogto say to it. Okay. Now, I happen to think frogs are funny. I like frogs, but my wife doesn't.
40:27Okay. So whether it's a lizard or a frog who gets in the house, guess what? My life is going totemporarily stop until I remove the frog or the lizard, okay? You're not going to be, Susan, not going to let afrog or a lizard running around in the house.Okay.The point that we're making is the persistence.They hang on with their, the aggress is with their hands because he's trying to show us they grip.They hold on.They wait.
40:59And they eventually get in.And there is no place on earth to stop them.They will even get into a king's palace.And so as Doc has pointed out, the spiritual principle.here is the persistence to hang on, to persist.We now have all four creatures examined from yesterday's lesson and today's.And so now the shape of Agar's list becomes visible.So let's take a look.
41:36The ant, we studied the ant yesterday.What is the ant's weakness?the ant is not strong.But what is thethe ant's compensation?It's compensating strategy.Timing.It works in the summer
41:54before the need in the winter.It works when there is plenty of food.No reason to work day and night like the ant does.But the ant uses timingto compensate for its weakness.So then we,We look at Tony, the Rock Badger, okay?Its weakness is its feebleness.
42:22Agra described it as a feeble folk.It's not strong.It doesn't have any strengths.But what is its compensating strategy?It's its position.It lives where weakness does not decide the outcome.It lives in the climate.left of the rock.
42:45And soits position determines the outcome.Its position, not its weakness.Now, the locusfrom today's lesson, what is its weakness?It has no king, no ruler, no commander.What is its compensating strategy?Ordination.
43:08A locus swarm flies in perfect formationwithout a commander.Now the spider or the loser, which is weakness.Easily crushed doesn't stand a chance.Whether it's a size 4 or size 12 shoe, it doesn't stand a chance, okay?But what is its compensating strategy?It's grip.It gains access by holding on.
43:40persistence.This is the wisdomthat Agar is passingon to us.Not one of the fourcreatures require strength.And then let's note theprogression.
44:02The first twoconcern the individual.One creature preparing,one creature positioning,the ant and the badger.The third concerns a body.The swornmoving as one. And the fourth concerns access a single creature in a place it has no right to be.
44:28And then consider what Agar has accomplished rhetorically. He has been building this chapteraround a single theme, which is accurate self-assessment. And this would make Dobbs'Papa Proud.Be realistic in your self-assessment.He started out in Chapter 30by calling himselfbrutish.And then he prayed for an appointed
45:02portion because he did not trust himselfwith either extreme. Remember, he said,I don't want to be poor and I don't want to be rich.I don't trust myself.Then he named four situationsthat the earth cannot bear.every one of them a person elevated beyond their character formationand now he closes with four creatures that know exactly what they are
45:30and they arrange their lives accordinglyDoc, I never saw this in previous studies of Proverbsthis completely went over my headso I'm gonna close my section here with before DocCharles Bridges, he said that the four little things are the practical answer to the four unbearable things.And that Agra placed the two sayings in sequence so that the reader will not miss the contrast.Right.So, Rick, as we bring these four examples together, we see that they share more than the ability to accomplish much with little.
46:21strength. What each one is teaching us, teaches us to use wisely what God has provided to acknowledgeour weaknesses where we lack and where we have strength in God. Preparation, refuge, cooperation,and persistence all have their place in the faithful life. But we need the wisdom to prepare for whatlies ahead, preparation. We need the humility to seek shelter, especially the shelter,of God, we need to have a willingness to work with others and the patience and the persistenceto keep on going. And so these little creatures remind us that we need not be mighty to live wisely.What we do need to be is faithful with what is in our hands right now. What's in our hands right now?or what's not in our hands.
47:21That's really another option there, too.Every one of them is a form of wisdomoperating within a limitationthat will never lift someone up.The ant is never strong.The coney will never be fast.The locust will never have a king.The spider or lizard will never be anything
47:41but easily crushed.None of the four strategiesis a path toward eventually overcoming the weakness.Now think about that.The weakness persist.The weakness remains.But there are ways of living well inside the weaknessand ways of living well inside the weakness permanently.
48:05Now, this is, you've got to understand,this is a genuinely different modelfrom the one most people operate on,which assumes that limitations are just,obstacle to be removedbefore a usefullife begins.We mentioned Paul's thorn
48:23in the flesh and 2 Corinthianschapter 12, verses 8 and 9,for this thing I besought the Lord thricethat it might depart from me.And he said in me, my graceis sufficient for thee, for my strength,is made perfect in weakness.Now, think about this, he
48:39asked the Lord three times.Guess what the answer was?The answer was no.Well, should he have kept asking after the first time?Well, he did, and the answer was still no.What he received instead, though, was an explanation of what the weakness was for.And his conclusion is the verse, this entire saying, has been building toward it.Second Corinthians chapter 12, verse 10, says, therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities,
49:13in reproaches, in necessities, and persecutions,in distresses for Christ's sake,for when I am weak, then am I strong.And that final application should close out this lesson directly.Most people, and we're talking about people in the church,most people are waiting to be useful.They're waiting for a limitation to lift,for an obstacle to be moved, or something along those lines.
49:43They're looking for more time or more resources, more money, more standing, more capacity, more health.But the four creatures that our teacher Agar is talking about here suggest a whole different question.And we can answer this question today.And this is for every student of the class that's watching or listening, given exactly what you are and exactly what you lack,what is the wise move available right now?You have four options to choose from.Think of it as a toolbox, Rick.For the ant, it was working in a season
50:25when nothing seemed urgent.Can you prepare now for something in the future?Okay.That's something you can do right now.You can prepare for future lack.You say, well, lack now.Well, there could be timesgreater life so you better prepare.
50:44For the Coney,it was living somewhere specific.AndI'm of the opinion that God hasus not only a location in Christ,but that God places usin partsof the world where we are supposed to be
51:04and that we're never satisfieduntil we're in that spot.Andyou know, God is, I justjust knows God has already spoken to people in our audience today,and he's told you to move to a specific town or go somewhere else other than where you're at.And you've been hesitant about it.But there's a place where there's shelter.
51:28There's a place where you belong based upon not your strengths, but on your weaknesses.Think about that.For the lotus, it was moving in step with a body.and you know we we live today with a mentality of the lone ranger for those that don't know who the lone ranger was that was another generation agothe lone ranger was in the old west he was a masked man that went out and defended the wheat and everything he was called the lone rangerbecause he was often by himself but i always say even the lone ranger wasn't alone the lone ranger had hissidekick Tonto and he had his horse silver so he was never alone in the firstflood and then for the spider it was simply refusing to let go the spider or if you want to use
52:23the gecko either one of them they both do the same thing right i mean spider just hang onthey'll hang on to a fragile web with all their might that gecko man i've seen decostick to the ceiling. And so they can grip the persistence to hang on no matter what. None of them,now think about this. None of them required anything they did not already have, Rick.Everybody has access to these tools. Everybody, Rick. Every single person watching or listeningtoday has access to any of these tools today. Whether you're a believer or not, it helps if you're a believer,but even unbelievers can use these principles.And I don't recommend being an unbeliever,
53:11but I'm just saying that you can observe this in people in the world todaythat will use these strategies in order to move forward in their goals in life.So, Doc, the very first thing that came into my mindwhen you said none of them required anything they did not already havewas God speaking to Moses,God was in the burning bush.The bush was not being consumed.It was on fire, but it wasn't being consumed.
53:43And there's a voice coming out of the burning bush.And the voice of God is telling Moses his assignment.Okay.Moses had been living in the wilderness for 40 years because he had murdered a man in Egypt.And he's been a shepherd for 40 years in the wilderness.And now God is giving him an assignment to go back to Egypt and deliverGod's people from slavery.And Moses is coming up with these excuses of why he can't do it.
54:15And God asks him a question.Moses states another excuse, and God doesn't answer his excuse.He asked Moses a question, what is in your hand, which was the rod?None of them required anything that they did not already have.God is asking you and me, what do you have in your hand?I can work with it.You don't have to be big and mighty.You don't have to be pretty and smart and all these things of the world.
54:51What do you have in your hand?I can work with you and the thing that you have in your hand.This is the message here.I'm going to take a quick look at the Septuagint.Doc, you and I can bounce back and forth here with this as we close up these verses,verses 27, 28.The Septuagin says, the locust have no king, and yet march orderly at one command,and the Eft, which supports itself by its hand and is easily taken, dwells in the fortresses of kings.
55:35Let's look at two things that I think add to the King James translation.First, the locust's formation is attributed to a command.There's one command from a single signal.Now, that, they, it's paradoxical because the locusts have no king,and yet they march orderly at one command.Who gives the command?They have no commander.The King James says simply that they have no king and they move in ranks.
56:17The Greek says that there is a command even though there is no commander.So, Dr. There's something internally, I would say,that the coordination is not spontaneous.It originates somewhere.The locusts are obeying something, someone,and whatever they are obeying is not one of them.Yes.That connects to the King James, its passive description in verse 24.
56:56They are made wise.They're made wise.They're not wise on their own.They are made wise.So the wisdom was given.And so I think the Greek Septuagint is saying the same thing.There's a signal.It doesn't come from themselves.
57:15Yes.They have a command to fly in formation, but none of them is the commander who gives the command.Right.It's hardwired in them.You know, God hardwired it into.And for a body of believers, the parallel is exact.You see, the church coordinates without a human commander because every member of responding to the same voice.Christ said in John 1027, he said, my sheep hear my voice.
57:45and they follow me.And then secondly, the Greek names the creature's vulnerability explicitly.That spider or lizard that is Eujolatos, easily taken, easily caught.Now, the King James leaves this implicit, but the Greek, in the Septuagint, states it,and the statement sharpens the whole verse.This creature is not really small, it's catchable.I mean, you can eliminate it.Like he said, it doesn't matter to the size shoe.
58:19The shoe's bigger than the creature.Any one of that palace could remove it without any effort whatsoever,and that spider or lizard would have no recourse,which really makes its presence more remarkable rather than less.It survives in a place it could be evicted from at any momentand survives by holding on.Rick, any other observations here from the Septuant?Yeah, another one.
58:49The palaces become fortresses in the Septuagint.And the King James is a palace, and the Septuagin, it's a fortress.The Greek word is, Ocromo, four to five places.It's the word for a defended structure rather than just a big, glorious palace.And so that sharpens the irony considerably.The most defensible building in the kingdom cannot keep out a creaturethat a little child can catch, that my granddaughter can catch.The king's palace, which is defended by its army,
59:31cannot keep out a lizard that my little granddaughter can catch in her hands.That same Greek word appears in 2nd Corinthians' trance.chapter 10 verse 4, where Apostle Paul says that the weapons of our warfare are mighty through Godto the pulling down of strongholds. Same word. Strongholds. Fortified places. So together, the King Jamesand the Septuagint give us a full picture. The King James emphasizes the grip. The Septuagentemphasizes the vulnerability and the fortification.A creature that is easily taken,owning on inside the strongest building in the kingdom.
01:00:22That's the message here.And so for us, Agra is telling us to be as wise,to be wiser than these little creatures.Learn from them and apply their principlesof wisdom, apply them to your own lives.Okay, that's it.It's been a fascinating lesson.I love this.
01:00:48Thank you for being here.We'll be back here tomorrowwith the next lesson from the Book of Proverbs.God bless you.Thank you for watching Morning Manor.We hope your soul has been nourished today.We welcome and appreciate your prayersand financial support for our international Bible teaching
01:01:08ministry. Visit manoration.com and kindly send a gift of appreciation and encouragementfor our work for Christ and His Kingdom, manoration.com, where souls are nourished.Goodbye. Please return for more soul food. We love you.