Proverbs 2:1-6
"My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding; yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding."
Let us pray. Our Father, we come before You now, asking that You would send the Spirit of wisdom and truth here to us, that we might come to understand the word of truth and the wisdom of God. Give us knowledge and understanding of Your word, discernment. And may You empower us, Lord, to both hear and for myself to preach the word of God in a way that will magnify the Lord Jesus Christ and would exalt the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. We ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.
On Tuesday nights, we were going through concise theology, and we're up to the wisdom of God. That was on last Tuesday. And if you weren't there and you'd like to listen to the lesson, then I'd be happy to send you a copy of it. But we were going through the doctrine of the wisdom of God. And when I prepared the lesson, I had a little section at the bottom which I never really was able to get to. And that was to encourage us to pursue the wisdom of God. And we looked at the wisdom of God in His creation, looked at the wisdom of God in His providence, looked at the wisdom of God in redemption. And we looked at the wisdom of God as unfolding in the foolishness of the message preached, which is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the world was foolishness. But it is the wisdom and the power of God, as First Corinthians chapter one reminds us.
And so we considered the wisdom of God. And we took our definition from J.I. Packer's book. And this is the way that he defined wisdom. And he said, "Wisdom in Scripture means choosing the best and noblest end at which to aim, along with the most appropriate and effective means to it." So it's having the right decision, making the right choices regarding the ends to which we are aiming, which we want to aim towards the ends which glorify God, and also having and choosing the right means, the way in which we attain to those ends, the very steps that we take to get to those ends. And wisdom is knowing what decisions to make, what to choose in regards to the ends and the means, and choosing the best ends and the best means.
And we considered how God Himself does that perfectly. He aims at the best end, which is His glory, and He aims at the end of the good of His people. And at the same time, He, by the best means, accomplishes all the purposes that He has designed and all the purposes that He aims at. And this is the wisdom of God. It unfolds in His redemption and unfolds in the way that He works providentially in the world. And we also looked at the fact that even though man has wisdom, the wisdom of man cannot stand against the wisdom of God. And we considered Proverbs 21 verse 30 that says, "There is no wisdom, no understanding, no counsel that can avail against the Lord." And although man can gather against the Lord and His anointed, all fall short in the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God outwits all the wisdom of man. He is God, only wise, and to Him is the praise and the glory forever and ever.
And we considered this about our God and considered the wisdom of God, but I was unable to develop the challenge to us, which is to pursue the wisdom of God, to come to search out His wisdom, to try to know His wisdom. And I was meaning to go on to talk about the word of God and how that contains the wisdom of God. And I felt that it may be best and appropriate to address this here this morning.
Now, here is the logical connection between the wisdom of God and the pursuit of wisdom. The wisdom of God and the pursuit of wisdom: If God is all-wise, and if God has spoken, therefore what God has says, by nature of the extension of Himself, is all-wise. Meaning that the words that proceed out of the mouth of God carry with it the wisdom of God. Because in God is no foolishness, and He cannot say anything that is foolish. And therefore, everything that He says is ultimately and supremely wise. And therefore, when we come to the word of God, we have here inscribed for us in Scripture, preserved for us, the wisdom of God. Here we have the word of God. Here we have the all-wise words of God, the inerrant word of God, the counsel of God, the will of God, all unfolded for us here in the word of God. And this is what Proverbs speaks of when it talks about the wisdom of God.
Let me just say this: We all need wisdom. All of us. We feel that great need for wisdom. And the reality is that we seek wisdom from all sources. We go to our friends. We go to family members. We go to those business accountants and advisors and all these things. And none of those things are necessarily wrong. Even Jesus said that sometimes the children of this world have more wisdom than the children of life in some of these areas. And therefore, you know, there's a place for those things. But recognizing this and this alone, the Christian understands this: that although he may derive wisdom from creation, although he may derive wisdom from other sources, he realizes this: that the ultimate standard and wisdom all proceeds from God Himself. That if there is any true wisdom, it has its source in the almighty God who alone is wise. And so we must realize that man has counsel, but their counsel is not infallible. But the counsel of God stands sure and is eternal and cannot be improved upon. And it is the standard by which all other counsel is to be judged. And if the value of the wisdom of other men is so valuable to us, how much more to hear the words of the God of heaven and earth speaking to us in His word? That is supreme wisdom above all else. Our confidence rests in what man says and what people say. But how much more should our confidence then rest in the wisdom of God found revealed in His word?
This text of Scripture in Proverbs chapter 2 speaks to this. It says, "My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding." And here, Solomon says, "My son," addressing his son, "I want you to receive my words, and I want you to treasure my commands." And he describes his words and his commands as wisdom and as understanding. And the Bible says to us in other ways that the word of God is the wisdom of God. It also says in Psalm 19 verse number 7, "The testimony of the Lord," which is a synonymous term for the word of God or the law of God, "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." The Bible also says to us in Psalm 119:130, "The entrance of Your words gives light. It says it gives understanding to the simple." Psalm 119:99, "I have more understanding than all my teachers. Why? For Your testimonies are my meditation." And the psalmist in these three passages teaches us that the law of God and the word of God is the supreme wisdom of God, by which we have true and infallible understanding as it relates to the Scripture itself.
Jesus said this Himself. He said, "Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man that built his house upon the rock." He is a wise man because he hears the word of God, the word of Jesus, and he does what the word of the Lord says. This can be found all over Scripture. Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 6 says the same thing as Moses is recounting the law of God to the children of Israel. He reminds them of this in verse number 6 of chapter 4 of Deuteronomy. He says, "Therefore, be careful to observe them, for this is your wisdom and this is your understanding." And the same word comes to us this morning: that here in the pages of the word of God, this is our wisdom, this is our understanding. That God has inscribed for us His wisdom, His authoritative wisdom in His word, and has given it to us that we might understand, that we might be wise, and that we might know the counsels of the Lord and the ways of God and what He expects from us as His people.
And so, if the wisdom of God is, if wisdom is achieving the best ends, aiming at the best ends, and using the best means to get those ends, then we can understand that Scripture, therefore, tells us what are the best ends to which we are to aim and what are the best means we are to employ in reaching those ends. And this is important to realize because wisdom is not to be sought in a vacuum. It is very common in our world, well, in worldly thinking that creeps sometimes into the Christian church, is that wisdom is to be found when you look within yourself, you follow your gut feeling or whatever you feel. That is wisdom. That is truth. That is what you need to do, necessarily. And man looks into themselves, and they seek to find wisdom, and they seek wisdom, as it were, in a vacuum. According to the Scripture, this is more akin to mysticism than it is to biblical Christianity. The Bible teaches us that the word of God is a revelation from God. And because it is a revelation of God, therefore, in it is contained wisdom. And therefore, we seek the revelation of God and therefore find what God has said. And therefore, we understand what wisdom truly is.
A man by the name of Derek Kidner said this: "The search, strenuous as it must be, is not unguided." This is the search for wisdom. He says its starting point is revelation, specific, that is, words; practical, that is, commands. Talking about this text here. Its method is not one of free speculation but of treasuring and exploring received teachings so as to penetrate to their principles. And its goal, far from being academic, is spiritual: The fear of the Lord and the knowledge of God. And so the pursuit of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding is not a mere academic exercise, but it does result, as the Scripture teaches us, in the fear of God and also in the knowledge of God, which is true spiritual realities. In fact, that is the summary of true religion in the Old Testament: The fear of the Lord and the knowledge of God.
And what is important to realize here is that the starting point of wisdom is revelation. It is God, the all-wise God, has revealed Himself, and we derive it from what He has revealed. Therefore, we don't look for wisdom in a vacuum and go to it in a sense of approaching it in a sense of mysticism. And it's important for us also, as Derek Kidner said here, is to penetrate the teaching of Scripture as to their principles. I think this is a very important thing that many Christians are not diligent in their search for wisdom and therefore they fall short of seeking the principles of Scripture, seeking to know what God is meaning by what He is saying.
I was having a conversation with someone who called me the other week, and he was struggling with this idea that the Bible teaches in James chapter 4 verse 15, it says, "And if the Lord says, if the Lord wills," and it says, "Say, if the Lord wills, we shall do this, and we shall do that." And he said, "See, the Bible says you must say if the Lord wills before you do anything." And so he was thinking that I have to preface every remark that I say by the words "if the Lord wills." Now, granted, he was a young Christian, and that is what young Christians tend to do. And he was sharing with me as I was trying to explain to him how this is not the case. You don't have to preface every word with "if the Lord wills," although you need to submit yourself to the will of God and not go in your own strength and all these kind of things. But I said to him, he was explaining to me how he had another problem in the past, and it was in relation to Matthew chapter 6. I said, "What was the problem?" They said, "Well, I used to pray the Lord's Prayer." And Jesus says, "When you pray, you must say this: 'Our Father, which art in heaven.'" He goes, "So therefore, I only prayed that because we were told to say this." And it made me just think, as I was preparing the sermon, that that is often what happens when we don't understand the wisdom of God as we approach the word of God. We sometimes over-literalize it and don't penetrate to its principles, don't understand the very meaning of those things, don't understand the whole counsel of God so as to see that the apostle Paul himself didn't only pray the Lord's Prayer, that he didn't always preface everything he said with the "if the Lord wills," although he did at certain times. He didn't do it every time. And so this is the way in which sometimes we find ourselves, that we have a very immature approach to Scripture. We don't have the sense of searching it, of reaching into its depths. We just breeze over it and think that whatever we find there on the surface is it. And therefore, we don't seek to understand the mind of God and understand the wisdom of God and understand the counsels of God in His word.
And so it's important for us to realize that we need to be people that pursue wisdom. But understanding that our pursuit of wisdom has to be guided and governed by the understanding of the word of God, for the wisdom of God is revealed.
So this passage in Proverbs chapter 2 teaches us of the value of wisdom. And I want us to go there now just for a moment. And it says there, "My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding; yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." And here we are shown that wisdom is a valuable commodity and is likened in this passage to hid treasure. And the illustration used is that of a miner who goes hunting for treasure. And the miner, when he goes hunting for treasure, uses a diligence, goes on a diligent search so to obtain the gold, so as to obtain the precious stones, so as to obtain the silver. And that is because the price of the silver and gold is of high value to the miner. And what the proverb is saying here, what Solomon is saying here, is my words, which we can hear this as the words of God, and when he says, "My son," we can receive it as he's talking to us. But it says, "My words are more valuable than hidden treasures, and my commandments are more valuable than precious rubies." And he's simply encouraging his son here to pursue my wisdom as if you were a miner pursuing gold, silver, and precious stones. And he uses intensifying language so as to convey the diligence that is required and to convey the heart that should be behind the search, if I could say. And he uses the words "to receive," and then he goes on to use the words, "I want you to treasure my commandments." And then he goes on to use the words, "I want you to incline your ear to wisdom." And then I said, "I want you to cry out for her and lift up yourvoice and search and seek." These are not the language of slothful people or slothfulness. He is simply encouraging his son to make a diligent pursuit of that treasure called wisdom. And the value placed on this in the text, as I mentioned before, is like silver and hidden treasures. And he's trying to say, he's saying this to us, that wisdom is not something that we are going to stumble over as we walk about in life. Wisdom is something that needs to be deliberately pursued. It's something that needs to be sought after. It's something that should be of value to us and so precious to us that we are pursuing it.
And he goes on to, as I said, use the idea of a miner to help us realize that the miner, when he goes to find gold, he doesn't stub his foot on a vein of gold and say, "Eureka!" He digs. He employs tools. He gives hours. He gives his mind. He gives his attention. He gives his heart to the work of obtaining that which he longs for. He's driven underground to dangerous places, making use of all the tools available to him just to obtain one vein of gold. And those veins of gold are hidden in big boulders and big rocks. And so when he finally gets that rock, he breaks down that bigger rock into smaller rocks and into smaller rocks and into smaller rocks and sifts and seeks to find even just a little bit of that gold. And Solomon is saying to his son, "I want you to pursue wisdom in the same way. I want you to make a diligent search for it. I want you to make efforts so as to obtain it. I don't want you to be lazy concerning it. I don't want you to be indifferent about it. I want you to value it. I want you to see it as hidden treasure and as gold. And I want you to look to the miner and see how the miner approaches his pursuit of gold and I want you to pursue wisdom in the same manner. Make use of all the tools available to you and go after her because she will save your life. She will rescue you. She will deliver you. She will teach you. She will give you discernment. She will give you understanding. Therefore, pursue her with every fiber of your being."
And what's interesting is that this text of Scripture may make us feel that wisdom is so far away from us that we may never find it. That's not the point of the text. The point of this text is not to make you feel, "Gosh, I'm never going to find wisdom because when I leave this place, I'm like, 'Man, like a miner.'" That's not the point of the text. The point of the text is to set us on the pursuit and to give us a heart for the value of wisdom and to give us the determination so as to make all the use of all the means available to us to obtain it. But chapter number one teaches us, gives us the other coin to wisdom. And I want you to see there in chapter number one, just briefly, as we look there together.
Look at chapter number one with me, and I want us to see verse 20 to 24. Yes. Turn over there. It says, "Wisdom calls aloud outside. She raises her voice in the open squares. She cries out in the chief concourses, at the opening of the gates in the city. She speaks her words. 'How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge. Turn at my rebuke. Surely, I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make my words known to you. Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded. And you have disdained all my counsel and would have none of my rebuke.'"
Wisdom is presented there as not being very far off from the people. She's there in the open concourses. She's calling out. She's saying, "Come and receive my word." She's stretching forth her hand. In fact, the Bible teaches us in chapter number 2 verse number 6 that wisdom is a gift from God. It says, "For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding." And so, therefore, God is not reluctant to give it to us. He's not hiding it from us, as it were, in the hidden places of the rocks of the crevices, saying, "Now you can't find wisdom. Don't bother." Not saying that.
So then, where is the difficulty? If God is making wisdom readily available to us, and then on the same token, He's saying to us that we must pursue it like hidden treasure and that she's a valuable commodity that may not be so easily obtained, then where does the difficulty lie? Well, if we look at what the Bible says about why people don't have wisdom, we will find that the difficulty does not lie in where wisdom is positioned and placed. It's right before us here in the word of God. Neither is the difficulty, and not only wisdom is placed, or is the reluctance on God that He doesn't want to give us wisdom, for the Bible clearly says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not." Doesn't hold it back. And he, and he shall be given you. Just ask in faith, and you'll have it.
So then, why does wisdom seem so far yet so near? And I believe the Bible answers that question for us in chapter number one verse 22 and 23. And it says this: "How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge. Turn at my rebuke. Surely, I will pour out my spirit upon you, and I will make known my words to you." Where does the difficulty lie? It lies within our stubborn wills and our own tight affections for the things of God. Wisdom says the problem is not where wisdom is. She's calling out. The problem is we have no heart to it, no heart for it. She says, "How long are you simple ones? Will you love simplicity?" There you have a person whose love and his affection is tied up in not knowing or being simple or being satisfied with little knowledge and little understanding. And at the same time, you have these fools who hate and despise knowledge. In one sense, they shut their ears to the voice of wisdom, their heart, and their hearts to the pleas of wisdom. And then he basically is saying to them, wisdom, therefore, is far from you. Not far from you in that she is not readily available to you, but far from you in that your heart is closed to her. Your heart is not open. Your affections are taken up with other things, and you do not see the value of this precious jewel of wisdom.
The problem is spiritual, not mental nor intellectual. In the Bible, when it talks about foolishness and wisdom, it's a spiritual problem that's being taught, not a problem of intellectualism. It's a problem with our affections. What does wisdom say? "Turn at my rebuke, and I will pour out my spirit on you." Just turn. Just don't be stubborn. Don't resist. I'm calling. I'm there. Gold is there in the mine. Here are the tools. Here is the word. Stop hating knowledge. Stop looking at me as though I'm not valuable. Stop considering my words and my commands as if they are not of any use to you. Rather, turn at my rebuke. When I call, come. When I reveal myself, obey. That's where the difficulty lies, not in the position of wisdom but in our own affections caught up in other things rather than the pursuit of God and the pursuit of the knowledge of God.
The Bible says, "Why is there in the hand of a fool the purchase price of wisdom since he has no heart for it?" And in Proverbs 18:2, "The fool has no delight in understanding but in expressing his own heart." Notice the words that he has no heart for it. He delights not in understanding. He delights in expressing his own heart, and therefore he is a fool. And so when the Bible teaches us about the difficulty that is there in the sense of wisdom is that it's in us.
And let me just bring us to come to understand this by the illustration of Solomon. We are not like Solomon, and that's half the problem. When Solomon was there and the Lord appeared to him and said to him, "Solomon, you ask me whatever you want, and I will give it to you." What did Solomon say? "I want riches, Lord?" No. "Lord, I just want to be comfortable." "Lord, I just want you to move all the problems that are in my life so I can just have a clear way." "Lord, I just want you to make all the people that I'm leading good and obedient. Just do that, Lord, and everything will be fine." You know what Solomon did? He confessed his own ignorance. How did he confess his own ignorance? He's like, "Lord, I don't know how to lead these people. Give me an understanding heart. Give me a heart of discernment that I might know the way and how to judge and how to lead and how to shepherd and how to guide the people that You've put under my care as king. Lord, if You just give me an understanding heart." You know what the Lord said? "Because you didn't ask for riches, because you didn't ask for fame, because you didn't ask for those things, I'm going to give you wisdom. And with wisdom, I'm going to give you all the blessings that you could have even in this material world." Why? Because Solomon heard the voice of God when God said to him, "My son, hear my commandments. Come after wisdom, pursue her, know her." And that day there, when Solomon appeared before God and God appeared to Solomon, Solomon said, "Lord, if I could have one thing, give me wisdom. Give me understanding so that I may know." He's confessing his own ignorance.
And God poured out the spirit of wisdom on Solomon, so that he was the wisest man in all the world until the Lord Jesus walked on the scene. "One greater than Solomon is here." And all the regions about came to see the wisdom of Solomon, how this man operates, how he lives, how he runs his kingdom. Out of all the kingdoms of the earth, he made Israel an amazing place where the glory of God shone throughout all the world, that people came to see it. But why? Because he had a heart for wisdom, and he delighted in it, and confessed his ignorance.
And my dear friends, the question is begging for us today. If God appeared to us right now and came to us as He came to Solomon and said, "What is your one desire? Ask me anything, and I will do it." What will be the first thing that we would ask Him? Think about it just for a moment now. What would we ask the Lord if He appeared to us this day and said, "One thing do you desire of the Lord? What will it be? What do you want? What can I give for you?" The problem with the people of God is that most of us will not confess our lack of wisdom or our ignorance for it, regarding it, or our lack of pursuit for it. We probably ask for something that would just get us out of a difficult situation. Like one wish, "Get us out of here, Jeannie." You know, that's the kind of way that we would think, is "Get me out of here," or "Make me rich, make me famous," because money is going to solve my problems. But Solomon understood, and we ought to understand, that the pursuit of wisdom, this is the pursuit of the fear and the knowledge of God. This is the treasure by which the Christian church should be pursuing, as Solomon pursued.
We always want relief from our difficulties. But God says, "How about you pray for wisdom so that I might lead you through your difficulties so that you might be refined like silver and like gold and you might be able to declare My glory in the midst of your trouble?" One thing that we ask from the Lord is, "Get the pressure off." If it's too much, ask for wisdom instead, that God might guide you through and teach you how to lead and behave and love and serve and be all that God will have you to be and to fulfill His will in your current situation.
The question we have to ask is, where is our pursuit of wisdom? Are we diligent in our pursuit of wisdom? You know, so many of us, even myself included, we have so many questions about life. We have so many questions about the future. We have so many decisions that we feel like we need to make, whether it's in our home lives with our families, with our wives, with our children, whether it's simply in our workplaces and we're confronted with new difficulties. It may simply be things that we find even in church life, and we don't know what's the best course of action to take. What are the best ends to aim at and what are the best means to accomplish those ends? And we feel like we're in a straight sometimes, and we're betwixt, and we don't know, and we're confused, and we're troubled, and we're questioning, "Lord, what do we do in this situation? What do we do?"
Well, the problem is what we often do is we say something to this effect without saying these words: "Lord, write the answer in the sky." But here's a word from the Lord to you. If you want wisdom, if you want understanding, be a miner and go on a diligent pursuit to find her. The problem with the Christian church is we get lazy, don't we? You want wisdom? Start reading this. You want wisdom? Meditate on this. You want wisdom? Pursue the word of God. Pursue the knowledge of God. Pursue the fear of God. Pursue God. Ask Him for wisdom and seek Him in His word. Ask Him for wisdom and keep seeking Him in His word that He might to penetrate into the principles of the word of God. And so you start thinking Scripture. You start acting Scripture. You start talking Scripture. And that when you're confronted with something in your life, the whole Bible comes to bear on the decision that you need to make.
But for so many of God's people, we don't understand what to do and where to go. We're confused and we're troubled and we're stressed out. And we want God to write it in the sky. My friends, God's written it all here in His word. Get your pick, get your axe, get your hammer, and get to work, O people of God. The study of the Scripture is not for the minister alone. It's for all the children of God. This has been given to us to seek and to know the wisdom of God.
Most of us look to our fears in decision-making. We come to a stuck, we're stuck in a position, and what decision do I make? And our fear guides us. Others come to a place where they're in a decision, and they've got to make a very tough decision, and they consult popular opinion and the council of popular opinion. Other people consult their own feelings and their own impulses as the final authority by which they make their own decisions. And many of these things that we are consulting, my friend, have no biblical ground. And for many of us, we don't even know whether they have biblical ground because we're not in the Bible. But my friends, you will find that if you become a Berean and student of the word of God, you will find the wisdom of God, and you will find safety. That even when you're in your dark and troubling time, you will know the counsels of God to be your comfort. You will know, although this is not yet revealed, that I'm asking wisdom so that God might show me the path that I have to take here. But I know because I'm in the word that this, this, this, and that are the truth of God is to guide my life and to keep me on the straight and narrow even in my dark places.
Never forget, dear Christian, that it is in what we once considered as the foolishness of the message preached, we found the true salvation of God. Why? Because we submitted ourselves to the revelation of God. Although to the Jews it was a stumbling block and to the Greeks it was foolishness, but to us who are being saved, it was the power of God and it was the wisdom of God. And we understood that if the wisdom of God, the foolishness of God, is wiser than men, and we bowed in humility and humbleness and contrition with our eyes open to see that in what was once seen as the foolishness of God, there was the cross, the almighty or wise cross of Jesus Christ.
We bowed and were saved. My friends, nothing changes after your conversion. You still pursue the revelation of God for the wisdom of God and bow to the revelation of God over the counsels of men, which continue to lead men astray and keep us confused and in darkness.
And dear friend, if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior today and you know that you are in darkness and your heart has a sense of confusion and you do not know your way and you feel like you are lost concerning your eternity, lost concerning your purpose, lost concerning understanding what it is that God has for His creatures, I encourage you to hear the word of the Lord Jesus who said this: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. And no man comes to the Father but by me." You're losing your way. There is confusion. Well, there is the way, the Lord Jesus. He says, "I am the door. If any man enters in through me, he shall be saved." There, in Jesus, is all the treasures hidden of wisdom and knowledge. And you can be liberated from foolishness and from darkness and from corruption if you'd but come to the Savior and be saved and delivered from your own darkness. He is the light of the world. And He shines into the dark, foolish hearts the light of the preciousness of truth so that we can see clearly that we can understand that I'm here with a purpose. I'm here to glorify Him who made me, Him who loved me, Him who gave Himself for me.
And so, my friend, if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, I plead with you to come to the way of the only wise God, which is through the Lord Jesus Christ, and know true forgiveness and mercy through His blood. Let us pray. Amen.