The Simple (Part 1)

[00:00:00] We're going to be in Proverbs. We're going to kind of move to a new study in Proverbs in our major theme study. So we're going to move to a new theme. [00:00:13] So today we want to talk about the let me get to my note here. [00:00:24] Let you today I want to talk about what is in the one recurring theme in the book of Proverbs, which is the simple. The simple. All right, so to do that, we need to look at several verses in Proverbs to kind of get an understanding of what the definition, what that exactly that means. So we'll start in Proverbs chapter nine. Proverbs, chapter nine. [00:00:54] Proverbs, chapter nine. [00:01:00] All right, let's pray together. And then we'll start in chapter nine, and we'll see just how far we can go in our study. All right, let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for being our Savior. [00:01:13] Thank You, Lord, for Your church, Lord, that you have built Your church, not just this church, although certainly this church, but also that which is composed of all believers everywhere, Lord, Your people, Your family. [00:01:30] Lord. Thank you for that. But Lord, we thank you most of all that you took our sins upon yourself and Your own body. You died in our place. [00:01:41] Thank you, Lord. [00:01:43] Thank You, Lord, for rising again from the dead. Thank you for giving us eternal life and giving us Your Spirit. Thank you for bringing us into Your family, for calling us, Your children, Your sons and daughters, for giving us an inheritance, for giving us the earnest of our inheritance as well, lord, thank you for the opportunity to meet together with Your people, Lord. And you said, where two or three are gathered together in Your name, there will you be in the midst. So, Lord, we trust you that we're not gathering here just as a social organization meeting, but we're gathering here as Your people. Lord, we want to hear from you. Would you please take control of our Sunday school? Not just this one, but also the ones downstairs with the various age groups and Ms. Pam, Ms. Priscilla, Ms. McLean, please bless them as they teach and give them understanding. And I pray, Lord, that you would stir up their hearts and the hearts of the kids that are in the various classes, but in our class, we pray you do that as well. [00:02:44] Lord, I thank you for the truths in Proverbs Lord. Help us to see the truth clearly. [00:02:51] I pray for the service as well, that you would bless it and meet with us, Lord, this whole day that we've given to you, to Your worship, to Your service, to the hearing of the Word. I pray it would be profitable to us today in Jesus name, amen. [00:03:10] All right, we're going to look at the simple. [00:03:14] So in Proverbs chapter nine, we'll start in verse number one. This is an interesting just a very interesting as I started studying this. I started, of course, as always, and I'm glad the Lord helps me with this, because if he didn't, I'd be in a world of hurt. But you start to notice how things are connected. [00:03:35] What I thought was a simple subject, I started to see connections with other things. And I hope it's a blessing to you as it was to me. In chapter one. In chapter nine, verse one, the Bible says, wisdom hath builded her house. [00:03:52] I'm sorry, fellas, but Wisdom is personified as a lady, not as a man. That's just what proverbs when it's personified, it's always as a lady, is it not? And we all understand what's that exactly. [00:04:08] Because if it had been a man, we would have some problems with Jehovah's Witnesses even more than we do. Wisdom hath builded her house. She hath hewn out her seven pillars. She hath killed her beasts. [00:04:20] She hath mingled her wine. She hath also furnished her table. [00:04:25] She hath sent forth her maidens. She crieeth upon the highest places of the city. Now, here's what you also see, not just in this place, but in other places that we will see that Wisdom is also a street preacher. [00:04:38] She is a street preacher. This Lady Wisdom, I call her Lady Wisdom. She is a street preacher. [00:04:45] But notice who she's calling to. This is interesting. [00:04:49] Who so is simple, let him turn in Hither. As for him that wanteth understanding, now, that doesn't mean they desire understanding. Now, understand, when the Bible uses the term want, it's referring to something lacking. [00:05:08] If we're referring to something we desire, the Bible will say desire. [00:05:12] But in this case, it's referring to wanting something is when you lack something, notice what it says. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. As for him that wanteth understanding, she saith unto him, come eat of my bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Now, she has a whole message. She preaches on the street corners and on the lanes of the city where the passersby pass. [00:05:36] And she's speaking to the simple. All right, but notice what in verse four. Let's look at chapter this chapter, another verse in this chapter, and then one other place to kind of get an understanding of what the Bible is talking about when it refers to a simple person. A simple person is not necessarily a dumb person. A dumb I got to make all these terms clear. Dumb not in the biblical sense where you can't speak, but dumb as in lacking intelligence. That's not what we're talking about when we talk about simple, it's not somebody who is who just lacks the ability to understand things, but is something different. It says, whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. As for him that wanteth understanding. [00:06:30] So in this parallelism now this is a good thing to help you understand. [00:06:35] I've mentioned this before, but this is an important thing for us to understand when we study Proverbs and the Psalms, because Psalms and Proverbs are both poetry. Poetry. It's Hebrew poetry. I think Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon are also Hebrew poetry. Now, we think of this poetry as something that rhymes, has words that rhyme on the end. But actually poetry, there are many different forms of poetry. Even in English, poet poems don't always rhyme. They have meter, which is what makes them poetry in English. But in Hebrew, poetry is often seen in parallelism, which means you say one thing and then you say it again in a different way. You say one thing and then you say it again. And when you set things in parallel like that, it helps you understand that's one of the features of our Bible is it helps us understand words that might be a little unclear otherwise. In this case it says, whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. So he puts forth we're just nerding out a minute, so just hang with me, okay? Hang with me. He puts forth the subject who so is simple in the first part of the verse. And then in the second part of the verse, he puts forth another person, him that wanteth understanding. So simple and him that wanteth understanding are parallel. They match, okay? And then the second part, which is the imperative, it says let him turn in hither. And then the second part of verse four says she saith to him and that's her message. So you have these things in parallel all the time. You see this in your Bible all the time? All the time. In fact, I did not pre prepare this, but I could probably find an example of this even in this verse seven, for instance, even in this chapter, just randomly picking it because it's literally everywhere. He that reproveth a scorner getth himself shame. He that rebuketh a wicked man getth himself a Blot. You see that parallel. [00:08:46] Now remember that. That will help you. It will help you understand. [00:08:50] Okay, back to verse four. So because of the parallelism in verse number four, we can see that the simple biblically defined is someone that lacks understanding, someone who lacks knowledge, someone who lacks wisdom. Now again, that does not refer to the capacity to have wisdom. We'll see that in just a minute. Well, hopefully we'll see it in just a minute depending on how far we get. But it doesn't refer to the capacity to get understanding or wisdom. It refers to the presence or absence of understanding or wisdom or knowledge. Okay? That's what it means to be simple. Look at chapter nine, same chapter, verse number 13. [00:09:41] Speaking of a foolish woman, notice what it says. A foolish woman is clamorous. [00:09:47] She is simple and knowing nothing. See that? And knowing nothing. [00:09:56] So what? A simple person in the book of Proverbs is covered. This theme of a simple person refers to someone who's ignorant. [00:10:05] Someone who's ignorant perhaps. And there are several causes for this that are in the book of Proverbs. [00:10:13] It could be a simple person. An ignorant person is ignorant. And again, we use the term ignorant sometimes as an insult. You're just ignorant. But actually the word ignorant just means you don't know. There are many things all of us are ignorant of just because we don't know we might be ignorant. Often people are ignorant because of how young they are. I mean, you can't help that, right? You come into the world ignorant, right? Often people are ignorant because they've not come into contact with wisdom. Sometimes people are ignorant, however, because having come in contact with wisdom, they have refused it. And that's also in the Book of Proverbs. But in any case, when we're talking about someone who is simple, we're talking about someone who is merely lacks wisdom and understanding, as opposed to and in contrast to a fool or a wicked man. That's different. That's different. All right, let's look at one more place. Hold your hand in Proverbs because we'll be back here. Proverbs, chapter I'm sorry. Second Samuel, chapter 15. [00:11:22] Just looking at a Bible definition two. Samuel 15, verse number eleven. Speaking of absalom, chapter 15, verse eleven. [00:11:49] The Bible says, and with absalom went 200 men out of Jerusalem that were called. [00:11:57] And they went in their simplicity and they knew not anything. [00:12:04] It's pretty clear they were just ignorant guys. He was able to find and gathered them into a group and they all followed him, had no idea what was going on. Just clueless. Clueless. We would say clueless. And that's often what it means to be simple. Now we don't need to be mistaken. [00:12:28] It is not good to be simple. [00:12:33] It is better to be simple than to be a fool or to be one of the wicked. But it is not better than there is a better alternative than being simple. Now if you look at Proverbs chapter one and verse number four, look at that and we'll see this first connection. [00:12:59] I'll say it like this, simplicity. And again, we're not referring to the ease of something or the uncomplicated nature of something. Simplicity, referring to a simple person. [00:13:13] Simplicity is our natural state. That's the first thing I want you to see. Now look at Proverbs, chapter one, verse number four. [00:13:21] Look what it says. [00:13:26] Well, let's read verse number okay, verse one. There's no way to understand it unless we read the context. The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice and judgment and equity. Now notice what it says to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. See that? To give subtlety to the simple. [00:13:58] Again, this is parallel to the young man knowledge and discretion. Notice what's in parallel. Being a simple person and being a young man, young man, look at chapter 17 is Equated with Being Simple. Chapter seven, verse number six. [00:14:32] We will come back to some of these passages later to look at them in a different light. But I just want to point out the verses here that just make this point that simplicity is part of our natural state. Verse number six. For at the window of my house I looked through my casement and beheld among the simple ones. [00:14:53] I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding. See that? [00:15:02] You see the comparison of the simple ones with the youths or the young men. Now let me ask you a question. [00:15:13] Why would the Lord describe a young man or young people, youths as simple? [00:15:24] Is he intending an insult? I don't think so. Even though, of course, you look at this context, this is speaking of the strange woman, but of course that's bad, but it's not necessarily a cause and effect. [00:15:39] In other words, he is simple. [00:15:42] And as a result of that simplicity, he is more gullible, naive, and he's going to be led into sin. But other than that, why would a young man be referred to as a simple? Why are young people this is what God's saying. Why are young people referred to as simple? Any guesses? Yes, sir. Lack of experience. Experience. That's a key one. [00:16:07] One time when I was actually living with my dad, well, I was staying with my dad anyway, I think. I don't remember that very clearly if I was living with my mom or my dad at that point. But I was staying with my dad at his place off of Points at highway. And I was pretty young. I was pretty young and he had a stove and he was using the stove to cook. [00:16:32] And of course, I had seen people cook on the stove as well. This is not, of course, the glass top. This is the older kind with the you know what I'm talking about? [00:16:43] Resistance burners. Thank you. Yeah. And so, of course, when you turn on, it glows. When you turn on the high, it glows. And when you turn it off, it doesn't. And so me, as a young person, very young in my simplicity, I falsely assumed, you know what I'm going to say, right? That because it's not glowing, it's not hot. Well, he had just finished cooking. [00:17:08] It wasn't glowing. I remember, I remember this very clearly. And so I think it was my left hand. [00:17:14] I put my left hand right on the burner. [00:17:17] You know what I did that night? I slept with my hand in a bowl of ice water. That night. [00:17:23] I laid on the couch and my hand was in a bowl of water. That night, after I screamed and cried, you know what, that's from inexperience. But you know one thing as concerning resistance burners, I was no longer simple. [00:17:43] But see, here's the thing that's one way to leave simplicity through the school of hard knocks. But the problem is here's the problem. [00:17:55] When you leave a life of simplicity into a life of experience, you might call it wisdom. I guess not putting your hand on a hot burner is probably in some way a form of wisdom. [00:18:08] When you leave simplicity to go into wisdom, and I know you can chop this up into many different areas of life, okay? But I'm just using this as an example. When you do that, you can do that by means of the pain and suffering that you experience having done it. [00:18:25] Or you can do that by learning the wisdom that God gives so that you don't have to have the pain and suffering and learn it that way. [00:18:37] See, there's two ways. In both cases, you end up the same. You don't touch the burner. If I had listened to my dad, he had no idea what I was doing. [00:18:49] If it had been my son, what are you doing? Are you stupid? And I'd be like, yeah, apparently I'm simple. I'm simple, dad. I'm simple, a simple man. [00:19:00] Well, but had he told me and had I listened, and those both go into play, but had he told me and had I listened, I could have avoided the pain that night and still gained the wisdom, you see? So we look at a young man. It's easy to understand how a young man would be called. God would call them not as an insult, but call them as a matter of fact, simple, because a young person does not have the experience that is necessary to help them make wise decisions and to have knowledge. And this is why, when you're young and, for instance, you're Joshua's age and probably younger, because as Josh is an adult, he's finishing up school, and he's going into his career, whatever, he's gaining knowledge every day. Josh knows things. Three or four years ago, there probably were very few things that Josh knew that I didn't know. Probably things about football mostly, right? There's still a lot of things about football he knows I don't know. [00:20:06] But as he's gone through his job, right, as he's gone to school, he's learned things concerning those things. I'm simple. I have no idea what all that stuff is. He knows about tools and lathes and whatever they're called. See, I can't even name them. But he knows all about that. He's gained knowledge as he's come out from being a younger man into, we might say, just a regular man. [00:20:34] And as he's gained knowledge, he has left the realm, at least in those cases of simplicity. [00:20:41] So inexperience is one of the causes. [00:20:45] But then also, you got to realize when we come into the world, as I said, simplicity is our natural state. We come into the world with a balance of zero when it comes to knowledge, right? We come into the world with a balance of zero. We can't go to the bathroom ourselves, we can't eat ourselves. Eat, feed ourselves. That's the word I should say. We can't feed ourselves, we can't walk, we can't talk, we can't do anything. Now, I know those are natural things that you do with your body, but as you get older, you realize, yeah, you can walk and you can talk, but there's a whole world of knowledge. You have nothing because you came into the world with a balance of zero. So you have to learn everything. And that's the way we all are. So it is our natural state. [00:21:32] So we come into the world naive, we come into the world ignorant. And so that's why I say it's not bad, it's not a bad thing. That's just a fact of the matter. [00:21:46] But here's the problem. [00:21:53] That because we're naive. If you can go ahead and be turning to Proverbs 14, because we come into the world with a wisdom balance of zero, a knowledge balance of zero, we have to gain all of that. [00:22:05] As a young man, as a young woman, we come and we're increasing in knowledge. But for most things, our balance is still pretty low compared to other things. And so we say we're naive. Now, naivete and ignorance are a little bit different because naivete especially has a real negative connotation. Like there are things that you don't know, that you should know, and because you don't know them, there's a certain level of danger. That's kind of what's in the word naive. [00:22:37] Naivete is not something we want generally, right? So look at Proverbs chapter 14, verse number. [00:22:53] Well, let me get there and we'll see where we're going to start. [00:22:58] Verse 15. [00:23:03] The simple believeth every word. [00:23:09] Now, what do you call someone who is quick to believe what they hear and is unsceptical about what they hear all the time? Naive. Right? So this is describing naivete. But notice it's connected to a simple person, because a simple person doesn't have knowledge. So they're gullible, they're naive. All right? The simple believeth every word. And I'm going to show you a couple of things. [00:23:35] But the prudent now, this is a contrast. But the prudent man, now, of course, a prudent man is going to be different than a simple man. A prudent man, like a wise man, is going to be a man who has knowledge. His balance of knowledge and wisdom is a lot higher. He may be through experience, maybe through the school of hard knocks, but then again, it may also be through listening to Lady Wisdom. That also can be a source of knowledge for the prudent man. Notice what it says, the prudent. But the prudent man looketh well to his going. Now, again, we're looking at this. You have in one case, the simple believeth every word. He's gullible, he's naive, he doesn't know better, he's ignorant. But then, in contrast to that, you have a prudent man and it doesn't describe him being skeptical, but it describes that his way, how he looks well to his way. That is the path he's on, his decisions, his works, what he's doing, where he's going, why he's doing it. That's what a prudent man does. He's paying attention to what he's doing. [00:24:45] He's paying attention to what he's doing. That's the contrast here. Now, while we're here, let's look at Proverbs 22 on this subject. [00:25:01] Proverbs 22, verse three. [00:25:10] And also this same verse is quoted almost exactly verbatim, not counting the italics. One has, italics, one doesn't. [00:25:20] In 27, verse twelve. But notice what it says here, verse three of chapter 22. A prudent man foreseeath the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished. [00:25:38] Now, let me ask you a question. Why does the prudent man remember a man with a good, strong balance of wisdom and knowledge? Why does the prudent man foresee the evil? [00:25:53] Knowledge. [00:25:58] He has either experience or imparted. We'll call it imparted wisdom. [00:26:06] Wisdom given to him not through experience, but wisdom given to him that has allowed him to see into the future. Now, imagine he's walking a path. All right, again, we're talking about a path. He's walking a path. And because of his wisdom, he has learned that he's learned to pick up on the indicators on the path that he's on, that evil is ahead. Even though he can't necessarily see the evil in its entirety or whatever, he starts to see little indicators and signs of evil ahead. [00:26:44] It's not like he's in the future. He doesn't see the future necessarily, but his wisdom shows him, perhaps his experience shows him. All right, there's danger. [00:26:56] You know why he's paying attention? [00:27:00] He's paying attention. [00:27:03] That's what we saw in the previous verse. Simple believeth every word. Prudent man look at the well to his going. So the prudent man is paying attention to where he's walking, and in this case, because he's paying attention, he sees the evil ahead. [00:27:21] But you know what? The simple, the ignorant, he's gullible. He's ignorant. He's not paying attention. He believeth every word. So he's just lolly gagging or diddy bopping or whatever, what they call it in the army, they had a word for that. We called it diddy bopping. Walking like a civilian. Just kind of like, yeah, but he just goes on. He's ignorant. He's just not paying attention to anything. So therefore, he's not paying attention to his way. He doesn't see the evil ahead, and he's punished. All right, stop. That tells us something. That leads us into something. [00:28:06] You talk about simplicity. [00:28:09] And even though the simple is not to call a young man, for instance, or anybody, someone who is simple is not necessarily an insult. It's just a statement of fact, of their balance of wisdom and knowledge. However, there is great danger in it. [00:28:28] But because of that ignorance, that simplicity, he passes on, and he doesn't know the danger. [00:28:37] And it says the simple pass on and are punished. [00:28:42] He comes into the school of hard knocks. And sometimes I'm using the term school of hard knocks, we think of that as the sting of making mistakes and stuff like that. But sometimes the school of hard knocks is not something light. Sometimes it's grave, like driving drunk, causing an accident in which someone dies or you yourself are maimed, that kind of stuff. That's not just a school of hard knocks. That's a life altering result of what? [00:29:18] Ignorance. [00:29:20] See? So it's very serious to be simple. And God gives us a warning. See, by simplicity and ignorance, lack of wisdom and knowledge, we put ourselves in a place of grave danger. [00:29:34] Grave danger. [00:29:37] Sometimes as you turn to proverbs one, if you would look at that, start looking at Lady Wisdom here. [00:29:48] So again, just to repeat, to be simple is not an insult. However, the Lord does absolutely tell us that there is grave danger with being simple because the simple pass on and are punished. Our last verse. But the simple pass on and are punished. You know what that tells me? This world and this life is full of dangers. [00:30:15] It's not an easy world and an easy life. There are dangers. There is an actual enemy who is seeking to destroy. And again, we're not necessarily talking about physical harm, although that's included in Proverbs especially it's included. But think of the spiritual harm beyond the physical harm. Think of the spiritual harm that comes from ignorance marrying outside of the will of God. [00:30:44] What kind of harm comes from that? As a young man, as a young woman? I mean, the harm is almost incalculable to yourself, to your family, to your future children and generations will be harmed. [00:31:02] That's not just a minor thing and that's not necessarily a physical thing. [00:31:08] Those are spiritual dangers that lurk. We have a real enemy. We have this world which desires to delude us, that's run by the devil, the prince of this world. And then we have another thing which is our flesh, that wants to lead us down a path whose end, although it might be pleasurable in a moment, the end of it is death. All these dangers are in the path. This world is full of those things. That's why the Bible says the simple pass on and are punished if left in ignorance. If left in ignorance, it always ends in danger and destruction. Always. Because that's the world in which we live. We don't live in a world that is whole. It is fallen, we have enemies. [00:31:56] And so here's my point. It is not good enough to remain simple. [00:32:01] They say this ignorance is bliss and I know there are times when that applies, but generally speaking that is not true. [00:32:10] Especially when you're dealing with the biblical simple person. [00:32:15] Sometimes ignorance is not bliss. [00:32:18] We think. Well, see, to say that betrays the fact that we think this world's just going to be our friend. And it's not. This world is full of dangers. And if we live in it as a simple person without wisdom and without knowledge, it will bite us. It absolutely will bite us, and even within our own selves. [00:32:44] And this goes back to being simple. [00:32:48] We talked a lot since we've been going through acts, been going through our Sunday school class even before this. And we're in Psalm 119. How many times did we see the Lord describe human nature, our own nature? The Lord wants us to know. [00:33:04] That's the opposite of simple, right? He wants us to know our own nature. You know why? Because we think, oh, well, whatever. Ain't know what takes over. [00:33:17] It looks like a phase issue, doesn't it? [00:33:27] Well, it came back on all right. Anyway, I lost my train of thought. [00:33:37] So in our flesh, there is this latent, evil nature that wants to drag us away. And if we're ignorant of it, it'll drag us right along. We'll have no idea. And where we'll end up. We'll end up in the pit. [00:33:51] Proverbs says that, but we'll have to wait till next week to see it. Let's pray together.