Wisdom Cries Out

By Daniel First

Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. -Ecclesiastes 12:13 ESV

Jesus offered us an abundant life. That life is not measured in the acquisition of earthly wealth and monetary gain. It does not include the promise of perfect physical health. It does not shield us from temptation. It does not guarantee

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890417671

Daniel First

Daniel First has been an entrepreneur, song writer, worship leader, recording artist, speaker, and pastor. He has spent thirty years studying an teaching the Bible. He and his wife, Brandy, have been married for twenty-eight years and have seven children.

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Wisdom Cries Out

Trilogy Christian Publishers A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

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Copyright © 2024 by Dan First

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Aramaic Bible in Plain English

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 979-8-89041-766-4

E-ISBN: 979-8-89041-767-1

Chapter 1

Chapter 12

Yes, you read that correctly. The title of Chapter 1 is Chapter 12. You’ll see why.

There are many people in our world who are completely dissatisfied with the state of their lives. They don’t know their purpose. They don’t have any sense of meaning. They keep making the same mistakes and suffering the same consequences over and over. We’ve all been there at some point.

It could very well be that your life is in shambles right now because of things completely outside of your control. You may have been born with, or somehow acquired, an illness or disability that holds you back. You may have suffered a traumatic experience that has nearly crippled you as a person. You may have been cheated by a crooked business partner. A bad economy may have destroyed your finances or career. Your spouse may have left you and started a new life, and you had no idea it was coming. God may be taking you through a difficult time in spite of your best efforts and obedience to His Word. Maybe He is growing you. Maybe He is humbling you. Maybe He is making your ready for an upcoming blessing that has not materialized yet. There are all kinds of things that can happen to you that bring destruction, but how much ruin is because of you? If your life is a mess, you may be the primary cause.

Did most of your problems just fall out of the sky and hit you like a meteor? That is doubtful. Numerous others have helped, and will continue to help, people try to come to terms with those situations that are outside of their control. Those painful surprises are going to keep striking us until there is a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. This book isn’t going to tackle any tragedies that hit us from the outside. This book is going to address how and why we make the decisions that we do, and the results that we should expect from those decisions.

We start making choices the moment we wake up each morning. We decide whether or not to hit the snooze button a few times or immediately put our feet to the floor to begin our day. We decide what we will have for breakfast or if we will eat anything at all. We decide how we are going to treat our families, co-workers, and strangers throughout the day. We decide what level of effort we will apply to any number of tasks. We decide if we will be seeking the Lord throughout the day in prayer, in the Scriptures, and through fellowship with other believers. All those decisions set the stage for our lives.

In an online article from February 18, 2018, Frank Graff, of UNC-TV, estimates that we make about thirty-five thousand decisions each day (How Many Daily Decisions Do We Make? www.unctv.org). Those decisions all have consequences at the end of them. Many of those decisions will be trivial: Do I use a thumbs-up or a heart emoji? But some decisions can be significant.

The good news is, God wants to be involved in each of those decisions. He offers guidance. Sometimes we can find very specific answers in the Scriptures, and sometimes we will find principles that can be applied in a variety of scenarios. But God has not hidden the answers from us. The Bible says, Wisdom cries out in the street; she raises her voice in the public squares (Proverbs 1:20

isv

). God’s wisdom isn’t hidden from us. He doesn’t expect us to find secret knowledge that isn’t available to the rest of the world. He provides answers for us, and we need to utilize them. Look at these passages from Deuteronomy:

What I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ . . . No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. . . . I set before you today life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life.

—Deuteronomy 30:11–12, 14, 19

niv

There is no code to crack or mystery to solve, but there are words to obey and principles to apply. There are choices to make. Every path has a destination. Life and blessings . . . death and curses. The Father wants us to choose life!

We all want a good quality of life for ourselves and those we love. God is on board!

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

—John 10:10

nkjv

Part of God’s mission for Jesus is to give us a more abundant life! It would be nice if we could just say a hearty Amen to that, but in this day and age, we can’t. I need to clarify that I do not believe this verse promotes or permits what is most commonly known as the Prosperity Gospel. I do not subscribe to a theology that teaches that God’s primary way of affirming His love for us, or His good pleasure with us, is through giving us more money, more power, more fame, or more prestige in the eyes of our neighbors. Luke 12:15 (

niv

) reads, Then he [Jesus] said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’ Prosperity theology is antithetical to everything Jesus taught and modeled. Gobs of money and things cannot be the primary sign that God is pleased with our lives. If that theology can’t work in Haiti, among joyful believers with very little access to money, then it cannot be part of the universal, authentic Gospel that is meant for the whole world. I am not saying that God never blesses our finances. He has and still does. Later on, we will be discussing some of the biblical principles that explain how the godly wisdom revealed in the Bible can mean a lot in terms of healthy finances. But it certainly is not the center of the target for Jesus. So, what does Jesus mean by abundance? In short, Jesus teaches quality of life over quantity of things.

The average American is, by far, the wealthiest, most prosperous person on earth. The median household income of $63,000 places a family into the top 0.17% of the richest people in the world. . . . The median worldwide income is less than $2,000 per year. . . . That means half the households in America make more than 30 times the worldwide income (www.sportofmoney.com/how-rich-are-americans-on-a-global-scale-very-rich).

When it comes to having money and things, average Americans experience a level of wealth and amenities that would be unimaginable for even a king living one hundred years ago. We have an expectancy of a minimal measure of prosperity that is completely separated in our minds from our level of effort. We really don’t get how most humans have lived throughout history, and how most humans live today in comparison. If you are in the bottom 10 percent of wage earners in America, you are still in the top 1 percent of wage earners in the history of the planet. Believe it or not, nearly every American you will ever meet in your life is one of the wealthiest people who has ever walked the face of the earth. But has our abundance of money, our abundance of things, and our abundance of comfort given us the abundance of life that Jesus spoke of? Not at all. In February 2018, Catey Hill wrote an article for the New York Post entitled Americans Are More Depressed and Miserable Than Ever. She describes a decline in the well-being of many Americans that existed alongside an abundance of financial prosperity. Our decline in a sense of well-being was related to our quality of life, not the quantity of things. She writes, With the exception of community well-being, all of the national well-being elements (purpose, social, financial, physical) suffered declines in 2017. These declines came despite improvement in key economic metrics, including unemployment perceptions and standard of living, confidence in the economy, and optimism about spending. She adds, Our relationship closeness has worsened.

So, in 2017, Americans had more money, more things, more prosperity, and more options for their future. They had no drop in the confidence that we had community well-being. What that means is that as we Americans looked around our community, we had a general sense that not only did we have it good, but that the broader American community was also doing well. Still, an abundance of things did not translate into an abundant life.

The proverbs of King Solomon are going to be cited frequently here as a measuring stick for wise and foolish decisions, but modern America could also learn a whole lot from Solomon’s lesser-known, lesser-quoted book called Ecclesiastes. I have always viewed Ecclesiastes as a short autobiography, or even Solomon’s testimony. In this little book, Solomon writes about the many ways that he went off course during his life trying to find purpose and meaning and abundance. Maybe it should bring us some measure of comfort to know that even a wise and wealthy king