Now, in Job 28, we're into a really interesting part of the book of Job.
This is where Job is speaking in parables and dark sayings, and if you look at the very
beginning of chapter 27, for example, it says, Moreover, Job continued his parable and said.
And then also at the beginning of chapter 29 verse 1, it says, Moreover, Job continued
his parable and said.
Now what is a parable?
Well, we know that Jesus Christ, he used a lot of parables.
There are parables in the Old Testament.
And a parable is a story about physical things, earthly things, fleshly things, but it has
a spiritual meaning.
It's a symbolic story.
Basically, it's using natural truths to teach spiritual truths.
For example, Jesus would talk about soul winning and related unto fishing, for example.
Or he would talk about the end of the world and he would compare it to dragging a net
through the sea and you gather all kinds of good, valuable things and also just a lot
of junk if you were to drag a net through the sea.
And you take all the junk and you throw it in the trash and you gather all the valuable
things and you keep them.
And that's how the end of the world is going to be, according to the Bible.
Basically, the junk would represent all the people that are wicked people, and then they're
cast aside as worthless.
And then those that are saved, those who have been redeemed, those who have been cleansed
and purged of their sin, would be the valuable treasures that would be pulled out of that
junk heap.
There's the parable of the sower, probably one of the most famous parables about Jesus
Christ and his word falling upon different types of ears.
Different types of people that would hear the word of God and how it would either take
root in them and bear much fruit or not take root at all.
And so these parables of earthly situations such as a farmer, a fisherman, somebody casting
a net into the sea, those are to illustrate spiritual things.
So Job here is speaking about the natural world, he's talking a lot about animals and
nature and geology, and he's using these things to illustrate spiritual truths.
And really in this chapter, he's only illustrating just one truth in this whole chapter of 28
verses in chapter 28, he's talking about wisdom and knowledge and understanding and
where to find it and where it's not going to be found.
And he uses all these things from the natural word, these parallels, to make that point.
That's what he's doing.
So he starts out just by talking about the greatness of God and the greatness of God's
understanding.
Start out in verse number 1 of chapter 28, it says, Surely there is a vein for the silver
and a place for gold where they find it.
Now a vein, we think of veins in our body.
And they're arteries or obviously the difference between an artery and a vein technically is
that the artery is carrying the blood out to the cells from the heart and the vein is
bringing the blood back in order to get it replenished with oxygen.
But if you go and do a mine where gold or silver or anything else is being mined, there
will be veins of gold.
Basically that's how it will look upon the walls of that mine.
You'll see kind of lines and arteries of gold or silver and that's what it's saying
here in verse 1.
Surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for gold where they find it.
Where they find it is referring to the fact that it needs to be melted down and purged
of all the dross and all the junk that's in it to make a finer metal.
It says in verse 2, iron is taken out of the earth and brass is molten out of the stone.
What's another word for molten?
What would be our modern day word for molten?
Melted, right?
So to melt, the past tense of melt in the Bible is often molten.
We would just say melted, okay?
And it's important to know what that word means because the Bible often talks about
molten images and not to make any molten images or graven images.
A molten image would be an image that is made from metal that is melted down and shaped
into something else.
That would be an animal or a person or a god or whatever and that's what we're not supposed
to be making.
It says, molten out of the stone, he set at the end to darkness and searcheth out all
perfection, the stones of darkness and the shadow of death.
The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant, even the waters, forgotten of the foot.
They are dried up, they are gone away from men.
As for the earth, out of it cometh bread and under it is turned up as it were fire.
In the first five verses, God is just talking about all the different things that come from
the earth.
He's talking about how you can dig down into the earth and you can find veins of silver,
veins of gold.
You can find iron and brass in order to melt them down and refine them and make things.
And then he talks about how bread comes out of the earth and obviously that's just referring
to the fact that you till up the earth, you plant the seeds and bread grows out of the
earth in the form of wheat that's going to be ground into flour that's going to become
it.
And it says in verse five at the end there, under it is turned up as it were fire.
Now whenever you see the phrase as it were in the Bible, what that means is as if it
were.
That's how we would say it in our modern vernacular.
It says I saw as it were one of his heads as it were wounded to death in Revelation
for example.
We don't talk that way in 2014, we would say as if it were.
So it's saying here basically that under the earth is turned up as if it were fire.
Now we know that under the earth there is fire.
And in fact, I think there's a brother Fairchild and I were talking about this, that this is
one of the things that those who believe in the big bang and evolution, they have trouble
explaining that.
Was that you that I was talking about that?
They have trouble explaining how the earth is still on fire all these billions and billions
of years later.
And they say that Venus is a planet that is comparable to our own in size, etc.
And the scientists claim that they know, I guess they've been to Venus, but they claim
that they know that the inside of Venus is solid.
But yet our planet, earth, is filled with fire.
And it really is an amazing thing.
And I don't think that most people have stopped to think about how amazing it is that our
planet has this inferno inside of it, even according to secular science and secular geology,
even if you just go to a public school classroom or a state university, they'll show you a
picture of the earth and it's just fire.
And it's just thousands of degrees hot in the middle.
And then they, you know, they'll draw a diagram that shows the core.
And then it shows, which core is from the French word core, which means heart, the heart
of the earth.
You know, what's in the center of a sphere, which the Bible is completely biblically correct
again to say that hell is in the heart of the earth, showing that they didn't believe
that the earth was flat, but that they knew that it was a shape that would have a heart
or a core in it.
But the core of the earth is surrounded by the mantle.
And really, 99% of our planet is just molten fire and lava and brimstone and everything
else.
And if you look at the size of our planet, it's 10,000 miles in diameter.
A sphere of 10,000 miles.
And the crust upon which we're standing is only less than 10 miles thick.
So think about that, you know, you just go a few miles, just a couple miles, and boom,
you're down to just fire.
And then it's fire for 9,000 some, you know, 10,000 some miles.
10,000 some miles of just fire.
And then it's just the crust again.
And you look at the planet, it just looks so serene.
You know, you see birds chirping and rivers flowing and maybe it's a nice cool morning,
maybe there's even snow on the ground.
But to think that 99% of our planet is just a blazing inferno?
And you have to ask yourself, would it not have cooled down by now?
I mean, after all, you know, because supposedly, our planet started out as just this blazing
inferno that it is, and here's what they tell us, oh, but then the outside cooled.
And that's what we have now, is we're on the outside that has cooled, that shell of the
crust.
But it's still, I mean, it must be insulated really well, you know, because here we are,
you know, and I don't know how long they say, or how old they say that this planet is this
week because, you know, they constantly change what they believe.
But you know, they definitely believe that it's billions of years old.
So just for billions of years, it's just been that hot.
And eight billion, is that what they say?
Okay, so, you know, eight billion years, it's just been that hot.
And I guess they say that in the core, there's nuclear reactions that are going on somewhere.
But for that long, and we're just on this perfect, serene outer crust and all that fusion
and fire and everything's going on in the middle?
Well, you just don't understand it, yeah, neither do you.
No human being has ever even been to the mantle, let alone the core.
It's all just theory.
Maybe science fiction would be a better word for it.
But it's just interesting how the Bible, even when it ventures into scientific things and
when it ventures into zoology and biology and the natural world, it's always right about
everything.
Saying, hey, under the earth you turn up stones as it were fire.
You know, you think of, you know, lava rock or you think of just, you know, brimstone
and fire that comes from the earth.
The Bible said that hell was in the center of the earth.
What are they saying?
Only as of about a hundred years ago that the earth has a core and so forth.
We already knew that because we had read the Bible.
But even in this chapter later on, there's an interesting statement made in verse 25
when it says, to make the weight for the winds and he weigheth the waters by measure.
So he talks about weighing the waters, but then he also talks about weighing the winds.
Now most people, if they just use common sense, would look at the world and say air
does not have weight or wind does not have weight.
But yet we know today that air does have weight.
You know, modern science will tell you that air does have weight, even though in the past
scientists have denied the fact that air had any weight.
They felt that it was weightless.
But in fact, all matter has weight.
So it just might have a very low weight, but it does have weight.
So anyway, it's just interesting how the Bible talks about there being fire under the earth
in this chapter.
It talks about hell being in the heart of the earth in many chapters.
And then here it talks about the weight for the wind.
So again, the Bible's always correct.
Look at verse 6.
It says, the stones of it are the place of sapphires.
So it's saying, you know, you dig down into the earth, you find sapphires.
And it hath dust of gold.
There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen.
The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion pass by it.
He put forth his hand upon the rock.
He overturneth the mountains by the roots.
He cutteth out rivers among the rocks, and his eye seeth every precious thing.
He bindeth the floods from overflowing, and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth the
light.
Just talking about God's great power and his creation.
Again, scientifically accurate about the water and the rivers carving out the rocks and carving
out shapes in the mountains and so forth.
That's all, of course, scientifically accurate, as everything in the Bible is.
But look what it says in verse 12.
It says, but where shall wisdom be found?
So he's saying, here's where you find silver, here's where you find gold, here's where you
find iron and brass.
These are precious things to man.
He says, here's where you find sapphires and gold.
But he says, but where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
Man knoweth not the price thereof.
Neither is it found in the land of the living.
The depth saith it is not in me, and the sea saith it is not with me.
Now what is the Bible saying?
It's saying that silver, gold, sapphires are easier to find than wisdom.
We can physically go and just in our own human strength, just in our own fleshly ways, we
know how to mine that stuff out of the earth and get to it.
And those are things that we think are very valuable.
But yet when it comes to wisdom and understanding, he says, you can't go to a certain place to
find it.
You can't dig down into the earth and find it.
Now keep your finger here and go to Proverbs, chapter number 3.
Proverbs chapter number 3.
And the Bible says, while you're turning there, it continues to say in chapter 28, it cannot
be gotten for gold.
Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
He's saying you cannot buy wisdom with money.
You cannot buy understanding with money.
It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx or the sapphire.
The gold and the crystal cannot equal it, and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels
of fine gold.
No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is above rubies.
The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
I mean, he just said about a hundred different ways, okay, I'm exaggerating, but he said
about ten different ways.
You can't buy wisdom and understanding with any amount of money, with any precious stones,
with gold, silver.
You cannot exchange money or goods for wisdom and understanding.
It's important.
You can't go find it somewhere physically on this earth.
And he explains later in the chapter that it only comes from God.
It only comes from the Lord.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding.
Look at Proverbs chapter 3 verse 13.
It says, Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
The exact two subjects that are dealt with in Job 28.
For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof
than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies, and all the things that thou canst desire are not
to be compared unto her.
Now look at verse 16.
Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor.
So let me ask you this.
According to the Bible, can you buy wisdom with money?
But according to what we just read in that last verse there, can you exchange wisdom
for money?
If you have wisdom, you will also have the power to get wealth.
Wisdom gives you the power to get wealth.
Because if you're smart, if you're wise, if you understand, that knowledge and wisdom
and understanding gives you the power to get money.
But does money give you the power to get wisdom?
No.
You see how it's a back, people have it backwards though.
They think that if they have money, then they can get wisdom.
They can get knowledge.
They can get understanding.
But no, that's not how it works.
We should be seeking after wisdom, not money.
We should be searching for knowledge and digging for it like we would dig for buried treasure.
Not in the earth, but actually in the word of God.
Digging in and trying to find the knowledge, the wisdom, and understanding that are contained
in God's word.
And if we knew how valuable it was, we would look for it.
We would search for it.
But when the Bible sits off to the side and collects dust, that shows that we don't know
the value of wisdom because we're not willing to search for it, to dig into it, to go after
it.
Look, if you knew of a mine that was going to produce a lot of gold, and gold is how
much an ounce?
You know, 13, 1400 bucks or whatever it is.
What is it?
1289.
Thank you for giving me an up to the minute price on that.
So 1289 bucks an ounce.
You know, people go through a lot of work to get that out of the earth.
But how much work are you willing to go through to mine and to dig and to pull out the truths
out of God's word?
Do you understand the value of wisdom?
If you look at the choices that people make in their life, it shows how they don't understand
what I'm preaching right now, and how they don't understand that wisdom and knowledge
and understanding are the most valuable things you could have in your life.
More valuable.
Look, there are people with a million bucks in the bank who don't have knowledge, don't
have wisdom, and don't have understanding, and a lot of times they'll lose all of it.
Or even if they don't lose it, they will use it on the wrong things.
They will use it on stupid things.
They will destroy their own lives and destroy the lives of others with the wealth that they
take in.
They will leave it under the wrong people.
They will use it for the wrong purposes.
They will be miserable.
They will make other people's lives miserable because they're fools.
And the Bible is teaching that the most valuable thing you could have better than lands and
houses and money and possessions is knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
These are the key things that we should be searching after in our lives.
Let's talk about some of the decisions that people make that show that this is not what
they believe.
Okay, how about this?
When people don't come to church and they don't go to a church that's actually teaching
them something, where they're actually gaining in knowledge, gaining in wisdom, and gaining
in understanding, but they'll rather spend their time on other pursuits.
You know, whether that be they're just working during church, they just work through the
services, or whether that be just hobbies that they do on Sunday, or they just say,
hey, that's my day off, you know, it's my only day off, I need to go out and do this
and do that and do the other.
When people are spending their time other places than church, when church is in session,
and when the wisdom and knowledge and understanding of the Bible is being preached with the presence
of the Holy Spirit, it just shows that they don't value the information that they're getting.
It's so valuable, and I mean, literally, it's more valuable than if I were just handing
out $100 bills, and you come three times a week, show up three times a week, and I'll
just hand you $200 bills, one in each hand.
People would show up for that.
But yet what I'm giving out Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night is more
valuable than that.
It will do more for you than that.
And I'm not exalting myself and saying, hey, I just know everything and I just have so
much wisdom and knowledge to spare.
But I will say this, though, I do have biblical wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to some
degree.
I'm not saying that I know all, understand all, but I do have a lot of information from
this book to impart, otherwise I shouldn't even be the pastor.
Otherwise somebody needs to be up here who has some knowledge and wisdom and understanding
to impart, because a big part of going to church is to show up and get that information,
get that teaching, get that truth.
And I decided a long time ago, long before I was a pastor, I decided to just go to church
Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night.
And every time you go to church, you don't always learn some life-changing, groundbreaking
truth.
I mean, sometimes you show up and you don't really learn anything that is really that
dramatically going to affect your life.
Isn't that true?
But wait a minute, sometimes don't you show up and learn something really important that
has major impact on your life that is actually life-changing and that is dramatically going
to change the way you think and understand and live your life, but you don't know when
that's going to be.
And it's just, it's so worth it to just come to all the services just so that you're there
when that important critical truth is being preached that you need in your life.
And so many times I'll preach a sermon and people will come up to me afterwards and say,
wow, that's so weird, we were just talking about this on the way here, or we were just
thinking about this, or I was just wondering about that.
Why?
Because of the fact that God will lead the preacher to preach on stuff that you need
to hear.
See, I go into my Bible studies and just think, oh, okay, I just am looking for something
and that's what I decided to preach on.
But in fact, behind the scenes, God can point me to things and lead me to things, and I
remember when I was in the pew, it was the exact same way.
I'd bring a visitor to church and it was like the pastor knew exactly, I mean, what they
needed to hear.
I could have handed him a list of, hey, you know, cover this stuff, and he just covered
it all without me even saying anything because God can lead people, lead the pastor to preach
what people need to hear because the Bible says, ask and it shall be given you, seek
and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you, and when you are seeking answers
and when you are seeking the truth and when you are seeking for wisdom and knowledge and
understanding in your life, God said, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God
to give it to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering, for he that wavereth is like a wave of the
sea, driven with the wind and tossed, for let not that man think that he shall receive
anything of the Lord, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
What's God saying there?
He's saying, if you actually believe that I am the source of all wisdom and you actually
believe that if you ask me for wisdom, I will give it to you, then he says, by faith, your
prayer will be answered, and if you come to church saying, God, I want to learn, I believe
that you have something to teach me, and every time you open your Bible, you say, God, open
thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law, and you go into the
Word of God believing that it has all the answers, believing that God is ready to show
you the answers in the Bible, believing that when you go to church, God is going to show
you important truths from the Bible.
You will find the answers to the questions that you're looking for in your life.
And you will learn groundbreaking truths.
See so many people, they waste time in their life, they waste money, they waste energy
by doing things the wrong way.
I mean, have you ever been at a job where you're doing the job and it's just so hard,
and you're like, why is this so hard, why is this so hard?
And then somebody just walks up, oh, just do it like this.
And then it's just super easy, like, what have I been doing?
I've been beating my head into the wall this time, you know, this is a really easy way
to do this all along.
But have you ever been there, where you're just doing something the wrong way, the wrong
way, the wrong way?
You know, it reminds me of when I was dealing with a lot of plumbing problems in my house,
and Jerry Rodriguez and I, we replumbed the whole house with copper now, but it was galvanized.
And so I was constantly calling Brother Jerry, you know, saying, man, you gotta come over
and help me with this, because I was having so many leaks and so many problems with galvanized.
Well, a lot of times I would try to fix it myself, and then I would call him, but I was
trying to kind of learn about it.
Every time I would watch him fix stuff, I wanted to learn more about plumbing.
So I would basically, you know, see what I could glean from him and understand him.
In the real early days of my experience trying to fix plumbing, you know, I'm trying to get
some of this old galvanized stuff to get it off.
And I had like a pair of channel locks, and I was like, you know, and I'm thinking, what
am I, just a weakling?
You know, what's wrong with me?
Because I couldn't break this stuff free.
I thought, well, maybe it's just decades old, it just won't open.
But then he taught me, you know, you just need a wrench this long.
Okay?
So he'd bring over this, you know, he's like, oh, you need a bigger wrench.
And I'm like, well, you know, I was using a big wrench, and it was like this long, you
know, it was like a foot long.
He's like, no, no, no.
He's like, you know, that's not a wrench, you know, this is a wrench.
He pulls out this wrench that's like this long.
And then, you know, when you have that much leverage, when you get a huge wrench like
that, really far away from the fulcrum, I mean, he could, you know, I'm exaggerating,
but he just puts his pinky on it, and it's like, you know, not really.
But I mean, you can literally just grab the end of that wrench and just exert very little
force on it, and you can break this plumbing free if you have a really long wrench.
But see, that information could save you so much time on backbreaking, trying to get something,
you can't get it to work, then you end up sawing it off and, you know, doing something
different, when in reality, all you had to do is just get a longer wrench.
And once you learn that, you're saving time, you're saving money, you're fixing stuff yourself,
because you know how to do it.
And that's the way so many things in life, marriage is like that.
You know, you're trying to go through marriage, you know, and you don't have that long wrench,
you know, it's like, you go into marriage and you end up spending all kinds of money,
wasting all kinds of time, doing a bunch of stupid things, and it just doesn't work out.
Why?
Because you don't have the wisdom, you don't have the understanding of how to do it right,
okay?
When it comes to child rearing, a lot of people are trying really hard, but are they doing
it the Bible way?
I mean, some people are just beating their head against the wall, trying to deal with
that two-year-old, because they haven't discovered spanking yet, you know, they haven't learned
about it in the Bible, or they didn't believe the Bible, when the Bible said to spank your
kids in the book of Proverbs.
So they're trying all these other, they're going on websites, all these ways to get your
kid to obey, besides the Bible way, and none of it's working, and then you go out and you
have eight kids with you, and people are like, how do you do it?
I can barely handle my one kid, I can barely handle my two kids.
It's because you're not doing it right.
Because you're not following the word of God, you're not following the Bible.
And wisdom and understanding and knowledge will save you money, save you time, save you
headaches, save you energy, because you're doing things the right way, because you know
what you're doing.
Here's another decision that people make that shows that they don't understand how wisdom
will bring you wealth.
It can.
My goal is not to be wealthy, because here's the thing, once you get wisdom, you realize
that the love of money is the root of all evil, and you're not really even out to try
to get a bunch of wealth.
But wisdom definitely gives you the power to get wealth.
You can definitely make a living if you have wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
You'll always be able to be hired.
I mean, look at the men in the Bible.
Did they have problems at their job a lot, where they just couldn't succeed at their
job?
You look at godly men in the Bible, they're just succeeding.
You look at Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, look at Joseph, I mean, look at Isaac, look
at Jacob, I mean, when these guys go to work, they get things done, they're effective, why?
Because they're godly men who have wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
But here's another decision besides just skipping church, which is one place where you can gain
a lot of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding through the preaching, in addition to your
own Bible reading, which also imparts knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, is the fact that
people will go to the state university for four years to basically just have sewage,
the mental equivalent of raw sewage poured into their brain.
You know, I mean, would you put a spoon into, you know, just the bottom of an outhouse and
just start eating?
But that's what they're putting into their mind.
It's like a mental feasting on sewer sludge that's going on at Arizona State University,
whose mascot is the devil.
That's what I love about Tempe, because the university has a mascot of Satan and the devil,
that way I don't have to really talk to my kids that much about why they don't need to
go there.
It just, from day one, it's just kind of obvious to them, like, that's of the devil, that's
Satan.
He's got the pitchfork, he's got the horns, like, ah, you know.
Let me prove to you that wisdom and understanding are not found there.
Go to Job 28, where we're studying tonight, go to Job 28 and let's read this.
It says in Job 28, in verse 12, but where shall wisdom be found and where is the place
of understanding?
Man knoweth not the price thereof, neither is it found in the land of the living.
Look what it says in verse 20, whence then cometh wisdom?
And where is the place of understanding?
Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living.
So can the natural man understand the wisdom of God and the knowledge of God?
No, it's hidden from him.
No one of the living can understand it.
Now in 2 Corinthians, flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, because it says that it's hid from
the eyes of all living.
It says that man knoweth not the price thereof, neither is it found in the land of the living.
But it says God understandeth the way thereof and he knoweth the place thereof.
So God is the source of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
Now if we go to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, we'll find a similar teaching to what we see in
Job 28 when the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 7, but we speak the wisdom
of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world are unto
our glory.
Watch this, which none of the princes of this world knew.
Now just as it said in Job 28, look, the men who live in the land of the living, they don't
know wisdom.
They can't find it.
They can't understand it.
The only place to get it is from the Lord, is to get it from God.
That's the only place it's going to come from, according to Job 28.
Here he says none of the princes of this world knew the hidden wisdom or understood the wisdom
of God.
For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, verse 9.
But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart
of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him.
But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things,
yea the deep things of God.
So God reveals the hidden wisdom to us by his Spirit.
None of the people of this world, none of the unsaved can understand.
The Bible says in Daniel chapter 12 that, you know, the righteous shall understand but
none of the wicked shall understand.
It says in verse 13, which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual,
but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them.
It's impossible for him to know them or understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
So the Bible says, look, there's the wisdom of the world and then there's the wisdom of
God.
And the Bible says the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God.
To those of us who have real wisdom and real understanding from the Bible, we look at this
world's wisdom as a joke.
I mean if you pick up the books that are written by the great thinkers of our world, the great
philosophers of our world, you know, books by men like Plato, books by Confucius, Lao
too, you know, whoever you want to read, these great thinkers and philosophers, it's a joke.
It's ridiculous.
It's laughable.
I mean, I don't know how much philosophy you've read and how much of the stuff you've read,
but it's a joke when you're coming from this book.
But there are people who take it really seriously and they think it's real.
It's like, to us, it's like a kid who thinks cartoons are real.
That's how ridiculous this stuff is when you read it.
And they think it's so smart and you're just like, are you serious?
Because the word of God has so much more wisdom, it's on such a different level.
Once you get to this level, you're looking down and you're like, wow, I can't believe
anybody thinks that this is an intelligent book.
And so the world's wisdom can be taught at places like ASU, it can be found in this world,
but it's foolishness with God, it's foolishness under those that are saved.
Whereas God's wisdom, the true wisdom, real knowledge, wisdom, and understanding is only
found in the word of God and it can only be understood by those who are saved and the
unsaved cannot comprehend it.
Now why would anyone go to ASU?
There has to be a reason that somebody goes there and somebody pays the money to go there.
Why would you go there?
Do they teach the word of God?
No.
You say, well, but they teach you trades and how to do your job.
Okay, but they also teach humanism, atheism, everything that is wicked and godless and
against the Lord is taught on that campus.
It is not just a neutral campus.
It is atheistic.
They will push upon you an atheist.
Who has been to college, either junior college or state university?
Put up your hand.
Yeah, almost every hand in the building.
Okay, can anybody just raise your hand right now and say, I can verify that Pastor Anderson
is telling the truth about the fact that atheism is taught and sinful, wickedness is taught.
Of course, everybody knows this, but why would anyone go there?
Why would you as a Christian, as a child of God who has all this wisdom and all this knowledge,
why would you go to someone that is stupider than you are and say, teach me?
When they know less, well, but they know about that subject.
Well, what subject?
But what about all the other stuff that you have to learn at that state university?
Because let's say you just want to learn about computers.
You cannot go to ASU and get a degree in computers without learning all the other garbage.
They make you take all this other garbage.
Now when I was in college, I tried to take the most benign classes I could and then they
turned out to be filled with filth.
But you say, why would anyone go there?
There's one reason why anybody goes there.
It's not just because they love to learn.
Look, I'm telling you the truth tonight.
Listen to me.
And some of you think, oh, he's stupid, he's out to lunch, he doesn't know what he's saying.
Listen to me.
I'm telling you the truth.
There's not only one reason that anybody goes to that school.
It's not because they love to learn.
Because anybody who loves to learn picks up books and reads them without someone forcing
them to do so.
I love to learn.
And I pick up books every single week and I read them and I learn every week and it's
free.
It's called the public library.
It's called spending a few dollars at the used bookstore.
All kinds of information, all kinds of learning, all kinds of knowledge.
That is not why anybody's going to that institution.
It's not to learn, it's not because they love to learn.
Anyone who loves to learn can learn, as long as they know how to read.
You could even, I mean, you say, well, but they'll teach it to you.
Yeah, but okay, you could go on YouTube and watch all those same lectures on YouTube.
You can watch lectures from Harvard and Stanford, it's all online, it's all on YouTube.
It's all there, you want to watch it?
Neither do I.
But my point is, that's not why anybody goes there.
The tens of thousands of people that are there are there for one reason and one reason alone,
because they are there in pursuit of money.
They're there in pursuit of saying, hey, if I go there, I can get the degree that's going
to put me on easy street, doesn't always work out that way, but they think if I go
there, if I get the degree, I can get a really good job and I can make a lot of money and
then I will not end up digging ditches for the rest of my life.
I can actually have a good paying job if I get a degree from ASU, so I'm going to go
there, I'm going to work through it, I'm going to sacrifice it, but look, that's what the
devil wants you to think, because he wants, the Sun Devil, that's what he wants you to
think, because he wants to get into your mind.
He wants to get into your mind, he wants to change the way you think, he wants to expose
you to sin, he wants to expose you to wickedness and change your philosophy, change your beliefs,
water you down, desensitize you to sin, so he holds out to you this alluring, you know,
ooh, it's not that bad, come on.
That's only four years and then you're going to be set for the rest of your life, live
a comfortable, easy life, come on, it's right here, come and get it, you know, basically
that's the lie behind it, but here's the truth.
First of all, let's say that that were true.
Even if it were true, I would choose poverty, right?
I mean, if those are the choices, be indoctrinated by Satan for four years or be poor, I'll just
be poor, choose poverty, but wait a minute, that's not even really the choice anyway because
you know what, if you have knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, you can go out and make
lots of money with no college degree.
In fact, some of the most successful people in the world don't have college degrees, multi-millionaires
don't have college degrees.
I could name for you several people that I know who make six figures that don't have
a college degree.
So it's not like you just, well you've got to go to college, you've got to go to college,
well, but to do certain jobs, you do have to go to college, then I'll do a different
job.
You say, well what if your kids want to do a job that requires college?
What then?
Well you know what, I teach my children, and here's the thing, when my children are adults,
they're going to do whatever they're going to do, I mean I'm not, I can't stop them from,
once they're out of my home that is, you know, if they want to go and fill their mind with
toxic waste, go ahead.
But honestly, I teach and train my children that if there's a job that requires you to
go to the state university, then you just find another job.
But I can be whatever I want when I grow up, and I really want to be an astronaut.
You know, whatever, you know, I want to be an astronaut, I want to be a marine biologist,
I want to be the president of the United States, why don't you just want to be godly?
And whatever you end up doing, whatever trade you end up doing, there are lots of professions
where you don't have to have a college degree.
And don't tell me you're going to live in poverty.
First of all, I grew up being raised by an electrician, and most of my life my mom did
not work.
She got a job once I was just getting into my teenage years, I think I was actually 12
when she got a job.
But for the first 12 years of my life, my parents raised us, and my dad raised us, and
he was an electrician, and he did not go to college whatsoever, okay, the highest he
went in, you know, was just high school, and he made really good money my whole life.
And my whole life, we lived in really nice houses and drove really nice cars, and you
know, we had plenty of money, at least, to do the things that we wanted to do.
I mean, we definitely weren't living in poverty by any stretch of the imagination.
We always lived in brand new houses and drove nice cars, you know, I mean that was my perspective
as a kid, and yet my dad had no college degree, he's an electrician.
But you know and I know that there are tons of stories like that, and you know people
like that.
I never got a college degree, and I've made lots and lots of money in my life, and how
did I do it?
Just by knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
You don't have to have the college degree to make it, and in fact, a lot of people get
the college degree, and then they don't make any money.
I mean there are people who get the college degree, or multiple degrees, and they're not
making any money.
And sometimes they even have debt and loans.
I mean I didn't even, I've only learned in the last like year or two about how crazy
these student loans are.
Because I've heard people talk about student loans, but I never paid any attention to it.
Because I always just thought, well that's stupid, you know, you need to just pay as
you go.
Because when I went to college, I paid as I went, you know, I had to pay, the college
I went to, I was paying $500 a month tuition, but I just paid as I went, paid as I went,
you know.
Because, you know, why would I just take on these massive amounts of debt?
But I guess people, it turns out, go into debt like $50,000, and $60,000, that $100,000,
crazy.
In fact, there's more student debt in America than credit card debt.
And we know there's a lot of credit card debt.
So the student debt is insane.
And sometimes people take on all the student debt, and then it gets them into a job where
they're not really even making that much money.
They're making, you know, $15 an hour or something, and they have all this debt.
You know, and it's like, what in the world?
And I know people who go and they spend tens of thousands of dollars, they get a four year
college degree, and then they start making $35,000 a year.
And then you know other people that are making $60, $70, $80, $90, $100,000, no college degree.
Just in trades.
You know, or if they go into business with themselves, you know, start a business on
their own, sometimes they can even push that to $110, $120, $130, I mean, and make even
more money.
And look, I'm not saying that life's about making money.
I'm not saying that we should desire to have riches and wealth.
That's not the point.
My point is that even what the devil's offering down there is a fraud.
Because a lot of people make more money without going to, if you spent that same four years
just applying yourself at a trade, four years in, you'd have a pretty good job.
If you worked hard, as an electrician, plumber, carpenter, whatever, you could actually have
a pretty good job four years in.
And you wouldn't have any debt.
Or you can come out of the school and then start at the bottom with a bunch of debt and
whatever.
So it's even a fraud, but even if it were not a fraud, it still would not be worth the
exchange of, because listen, it's not just that college doesn't make you wiser, it makes
you dumber.
So it's not even like college is promising to make you smarter and you're going to learn
and they fail at that.
No, they're like a knowledge vacuum.
You actually get stupider by being, you get more dumb.
They drain you of knowledge.
Every time you go and sit in that classroom and that long gray haired, burned out hippie
stands in front of the chalkboard to teach you, like all the information is just being
sucked out of your brain.
Wisdom is going out of your brain.
Foolishness is entering in.
And you think I'm kidding, but I'm dead serious.
I believe this.
It's true.
It's like watching TV.
The idiot box, just sucking you of information, draining all knowledge and wisdom and understanding
from your brain.
But God is saying over and over again, look, wisdom is so much more important than money.
And yet people choose money, they embrace foolishness because of the promise of money,
they miss church, they skip church, they go to ASU, they go to some other institution
of high learning.
I don't call them institutions of higher learning, high learning.
Because the professors must be smoking something in order to teach the things that they teach.
And so you go to these places and you watch the TV and you neglect the bio, it just shows
that your whole life is spent pursuing the wrong things and pursuing stupidity and you're
going to be a fool for the rest of your life and you're going to be a complete failure
and a loser for the rest of your life.
Let's close and go home.
Anyway, what I'm saying is if you want to be a success in your Christian life, if you
want to serve God effectively, if you want to be used by God, if you're a young lady
that says, you know what, I want to be a godly wife and a godly mother and live a spiritual
life that God has for me.
Or if you're a young man that says, you know what, I want to live a godly life, I want
to serve the Lord, I want to be able to work and pay my bills and feed my family and be
a godly, honorable, righteous man and be a part of the local church and serve the Lord.
Look there's a path to get there and the path that will get you there is the quest for wisdom,
the quest for knowledge, the quest for understanding.
When you go to college, you're forsaking that path.
When you go to church, you're embracing that philosophy.
God looks down on you and he sees how you value wisdom and God will not cast his pearls
before swine and God's not going to give you something if he knows that you can't even
appreciate it.
If he sees that you're not putting any emphasis on wisdom in your life, you're not putting
any kind of effort toward digging for it, he's not going to give it to you.
You're double minded, you don't want it bad enough.
You must single mindedly seek wisdom from the Lord and you will find it.
When he sees you not doing that, he's not going to help you.
When he looks down and he just sees you just pursuing money, pursuing money, money, how
can I get money?
How can I have an easy life?
How can I get a cush job that doesn't require me to work physically?
First of all, there's nothing wrong with working physically.
Sometimes people will mock blue collar workers like, oh yeah, that guy's a worker.
You know what?
Being sedentary is not all that it's cracked up to be.
It's not healthy and it's not only unhealthy for the body, it's unhealthy for the mind
and it's unhealthy for the soul to be sedentary.
Sitting in an office all day behind a computer screen not only is detrimental to your body,
it's also detrimental mentally.
Have you ever just sat at that computer and worked, because I have a job that's a combination
of both and I've worked in a combination and I'll tell you what, after a while of sitting
down in front of books or computers or anything, I mean, do you ever just feel like you just
have to just go outside and just sprint across the parking lot or something?
Does anybody else feel that way?
Like you just have to get out and just do something physical.
You're just going to go insane.
But everybody just wants that easy cush, you know, just give me a paycheck for doing nothing.
It isn't out there.
People who make money work hard for it.
Even the guy in that desk job, in some ways that desk job is harder than the physical
work.
For example, when I worked in the fire alarm business, I would constantly work 16-hour
days.
I mean, I've worked for like 30 hours straight.
I'd work all night and you know what, it wasn't really that hard.
But you know what, if I have to work at a computer for eight hours, I'm done.
I couldn't even do nine, let alone 10, 12, 14, just after eight hours, I'm done.
I mean, my mind is fried, I can't stand it anymore.
Whereas physically, you can go out and you can work and work and work and renew your
strength.
So I'm just saying that we need to show God that we're serious about wisdom.
Show him that we want it.
Because when he sees you saying, oh God, please give me wisdom, oh Lord, please show me how
to live my life, as you skip church, well, okay, oh God, give me wisdom.
He's like, okay, I'll give Pastor Anderson the perfect message that's going to show you
and then you don't show up.
You didn't even hear it.
Or, oh God, give me wisdom.
And God's like, okay, well, you know, I've placed something in the Bible and if you're
following your Bible reading plan, you're going to get to it today, you skip it.
You miss out.
You know, all the while, you're watching TV, oh God, give me wisdom, you know.
You're sitting in classes at ASU, oh Lord, open thou mine eyes, you know.
What?
It's not going to happen.
But anyway, let's finish the chapter in Job 28.
Honestly this is a, you know, Job kind of spends the whole chapter on this truth about
getting wisdom.
Because it's such an important subject.
And you say, well I don't agree with your sermon at all, Pastor Anderson.
Okay, so you're saying that wisdom has another source besides God?
How do you balance that with this chapter?
Oh, you're saying that the unsaved can teach you wisdom and knowledge and understanding?
How does that jive with 1 Corinthians 2?
Well, but they can teach you about computer programming.
Right, but you know what, learning about computer programming is about 1% of what you need to
know in life.
Oh, but they can teach you about engineering.
Yeah, but that's not that important.
Because if you learn wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of God, you'll figure out all
that stuff like Joseph did, like Daniel did, like Isaac did, like Jacob did.
You learn all that stuff on the job, you'll learn that stuff from books, because you are
an intelligent person.
You're a wise person.
Oh, I just don't agree with you, I think that ASU is a wonderful place.
Then why is Satan their mascot?
Why is there a picture of the devil on the building?
Why do they teach that God does not exist?
Why is it filled with lesbians and sodomites?
I mean, look, I'm telling the truth up here tonight.
Oh, I just think you're totally wrong about college.
Okay, let me show you a list of all the people I know that graduate from college that don't
make as much money as all the people I know who didn't graduate from college that are
making a lot of money.
Now look, you say, well, Pastor Anderson, I'm offended because I graduated from college
and you attacked me.
I'm not attacking you at all, because if you already graduated from college, okay, you
graduated from college, so what?
I went to college.
Hey, look, I can sit there just because I got smart before I finished.
I still went there for years, I still wasted a bunch of time and money, so I'm not pontificating
like you're an idiot, you went to college, you're an idiot.
Look, I went to college too.
I was mind-numbed too.
I went to the mental vacuum facility too.
Okay, I had the toxic waste put into my brain as well, okay.
But I don't want my kids to do it and that's why I'm preaching this sermon, because I don't
want them to get influenced by Satan down there.
But anyway, if you look at chapter 28 of Job, verse 14, it says, he's talking about
where wisdom and understanding are found, he says, the depth saith it is not with me,
and the sea saith it is not with me.
That reminded me of the verse in Deuteronomy 30 where he talked about, you know, trying
to descend down into the earth to figure out the Word of God, when in reality it's right
here with you.
It's in your mouth, it's in your hand, it's right here in this book.
People are traveling to foreign lands trying to search for it when it's right here all
along.
It talks about looking to the ends of the earth, verse 24, and seeth unto the whole
heaven to make the weight for the winds and he weigheth the waters by measure, verse 26,
when he made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder.
Then did he see it and declare it, he prepared it, yea, and searched it out.
And unto man he said, and this is the final conclusion of the whole chapter, he tells
this elaborate parable about the earth, and mining, and plants, and animals, all these
elaborate things.
Then he gets to the end, he says, and unto man he said, behold, the fear of the Lord,
that is wisdom, and to depart from evil, that is understanding.
Will you learn either of those things by going to college?
No you won't.
Will you learn either of those things watching TV?
But will you learn those things reading the Bible?
And will you learn those things attending church?
Now look, there are ways to succeed in this world.
There are ways to make money in this world, not that that is the goal.
But it is necessary that we make money in life.
We must work hard and make money in order to exist.
To feed ourselves and to feed our families, and if any man provide not for his own, especially
for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.
But when we look at the godly men of the Bible, they always paid their bills.
They always made enough money to survive.
They were always able to feed their family, and in many cases they even prospered.
How was it that they went unto the world and the ungodly and said teach us wisdom?
Did they go to the Philistines and have them teach them wisdom?
No.
They succeeded because they had the wisdom of God.
And honestly, if you're a godly man, you'll be like a Daniel, you'll be like a Joseph,
you will excel at your job.
You will excel.
I mean, I'm a strong believer in the fact that Christians should be the best workers
on the job.
You know, that's the testimony that should be there.
I mean, Christians should be the best workers on the job.
And when they're not, something's wrong.
Now obviously, you're not gonna show up at a job where other people have 20 years of
experience and you're just already just the best worker on the job.
But you know what?
You oughta be there, you oughta be growing, you oughta be reading, you oughta be learning,
you oughta be getting there early, staying late, reading up on it, working hard, giving
it 100%, and thriving at that job, using the wisdom and knowledge and understanding that
you received from this book and from the preaching in church that taught you how to be a good
worker and how to live your life and how to be a good husband and how to be a good
wife and how to be a good child.
Where's your heart tonight?
Is it with the world today, just pursuing everything that the world has to offer, following
the path of foolishness, or are you on a single-minded path that says, man, I just wanna read every
word of God that I can, I wanna get every bit of preaching that I can, I wanna go out
and serve God and obey His commandments, and I bet you that if I go to my job and I
follow all of God's commandments on the job, God's gonna bless me for doing that.
And I'm gonna succeed and I'm gonna thrive by following God's commands.
I mean, there are people who've literally moved across the country to come to our church,
seeking wisdom, seeking knowledge, seeking understanding.
There are other people who move across the country for a job and forsake a good church.
They're going to a great church.
They get some offer of more money, and they'll go to an area where there exists no good church
that they know of.
They don't even know.
Our philosophy should always be that we should never move away unless we're upgrading churches,
or at least go into a church of equivalent stature.
But it should never be, well, I'm downgrading, I'm going to a liberal, lame church, but I'm
going to be making so much more money.
Where are your priorities tonight?
What are you seeking?
Because you will find it.
And God's gonna bless you when you're seeking the right things.
Be like Solomon.
Did he ask for money when God said, I'll give you whatever you want?
I'll give you anything you want, Solomon.
What did he ask for?
Did he ask for gold, silver, precious stones, long life, the lives of his enemies?
No.
He said, give me wisdom.
In one account, it has him asking for wisdom.
In another account, it has him asking for an understanding heart.
What are the two things he's asking for?
Wisdom and understanding.
And God said, I will give you wisdom and understanding.
And along with wisdom and understanding, I'll give you what you did not ask for.
Gold, silver, precious stones, long life, the lives of your enemies.
You say, oh, that was nice of God to give him both.
He didn't have to give him both.
Because by giving him wisdom and understanding, he's already giving him those other things.
Because wisdom says that it has those things, you know, honor in one hand, wealth in the
other.
So if you have understanding and wisdom, you have the power to get all that stuff.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
It's a priceless treasure.
Nothing that we have, Lord, no possession that we have can even come close to the value
of our Bible.
All the things in our house, vehicles, land, whatever we have, Lord, it's all completely
worthless compared to the book that we have in our hand, the Holy Bible.
Lord, help us to understand the value thereof.
Help us to read it every day.
Help us to hear it preached.
Help us to hunger and thirst after righteousness and to search for wisdom like we're searching
for hid treasure, Lord.
And help us to realize man cannot give it to us.
Only you can give us the most valuable possession.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.