Proverbs 18:4

The Imagery of Deep Waters and Flowing Brooks

0:00 Chapter 18, verse 4, the words of a man's mouth are as deep waters, the wellspring of wisdom is as a flowing brook. Very briefly, what's the imagery there? Where you have a wise man, he's got more than a shallow stream that just sparkles. You can take your ladle and dip beyond six inches and come up with something pure and clean and wholesome.

0:26 The words of a man's mouth are as deep waters, the wellspring of wisdom is as a flowing brook. It's wholesome, clean, healing, refreshing. We must teach our children again that if they are to have a mouth, that when it speaks, speaks wisdom. They've got to pay the price of having a supply that could be called a deep river and a fresh and a refreshing spring.

Wisdom Requires Acquisition, Not Just Innate Giftedness

0:54 If God's given them anything. If God's given them anything of a good mind, they will be stroked and pride will be nurtured in areas where you have no control over it. And you need under God to seek continually to emphasize the issue is not what God gave them in their gray matter, but what they're doing to make acquisitions by pains and prayer and carefulness. Some of you have heard me say this before, but others you haven't.

The Report Card System: Effort and Character Over Grades

1:21 So I'm repeating it not because I'm getting old and senile, because you need to hear it. In our report card. In our school, all through grammar school, at two marks, you had your A, your B, your C, and then you had next to it a 1, 2, 3, or 4. This represented effort and character revealed in the way you dealt with your subject.

1:46 You want to know something? If I came home with an A2 or an A3, I was a big bad couple. Why? Because my parents were not feeding their pride.

1:58 My parents were not fed by my letter grade. And they said to me, son, this represents what God gave you. This represents what you're becoming in your character.

2:10 If I came home with a C1, I was praised. I was encouraged. But if I came home with an A2, I was in trouble.

Parental Disapproval of Unearned Success

2:22 I thank God for that. Why? Because I was being taught some of these principles that we're looking at in these very passages. That if I was to have any substance.

2:34 Over the long haul, over a full lifetime, then I would have to pay the price of diligent, constant application. I couldn't post. Sure, there were subjects that I could get an A without studying. And that disturbed my parents.

2:51 And until it was A1, or A plus 1, I was in bad trouble.

Passing on a Legacy of Diligence

2:58 Now, many of you, you sit there and say, Pastor, that's as far into my upbringing as night from day. I know it is, but do you want to pass on your mess to the next generation? If not, then you start doing something in this area. And do it diligently.

3:11 And do it prayerfully. And do it consistently. Do it to the point of growing weary in the task.