Yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.
So wisdom gives you strength, but adding knowledge to that wisdom will increase your strength,
the Bible says.
For by wise counsel thou shall make thy war, and in a multitude of counselors there is
safety.
That's why it's important that we actually listen more than we speak sometimes.
You ever notice that God gave you two ears and one mouth?
Two ears, one mouth.
Why?
Because he wants us to listen more than he wants us to talk.
Why?
Because he wants us to learn and increase in knowledge more than to disperse the so-called
knowledge that we think we have.
And so the wise man seeks to excel at his craft, go to Proverbs 17 and augment his skills,
he's constantly developing himself.
Don't be the fool, don't be the slothful person, don't be the individual who is just content
where they're at, they're satisfied, I'm just going to read the Bible just once this
year.
Hey, that's great, but if that's something that comes pretty easy to you, why don't you
challenge yourself a little bit?
Amen?
Why don't you challenge yourself to just learn a little more?
To push yourself, to raise your lid, to become better at what you do.
And push yourself to that limit, try to raise your lid, increase your strength, augment
your skills, develop yourself to become a better person.
Proverbs 17 verse 27, look what the Bible says, he that hath knowledge spareth his words,
and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.
Now what does it mean to be excellent?
We ought to think something that's excellent is something that is refined, something that's
near perfect, but really excellent simply means to excel.
So someone of an excellent spirit is someone who succeeds, is constantly moving forward.
And the Bible says that a person who understands, a man of understanding, will have an excellent
spirit.
Why?
Because they know they have not yet arrived.
So if they understand they have not yet arrived, they don't know everything there is to know
about life, about the Christian life, about the Bible, they're going to seek to excel
and succeed and push forward and learn more.
Think about Daniel, the Bible says that an excellent spirit was found in him because
he's constantly learning new things.
He's constantly pushing and promoting the agenda of the king, he's causing the king
to succeed, he is being promoted, he's excelling, he's succeeding, he's going forward.
The Bible tells us in Genesis 49 verse 4, unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.
So you think of water as very unstable, and because it's unstable, it's not necessarily
excelling.
He's referring Ruben to this right here, he's saying you're unstable as water, you're not
going to succeed, you're not going to excel.
So the counterpart to that is that when you are stable, you will succeed.