When I was in sales, I was taught to sell, and what I was told is that what you had to do is identify a problem and provide a solution. We told if we could do this with any tact that we would be great salespeople. Though my stint in sales was short, this concept continues to be true. There's a reason why midday shopping channel infomercials still stick to the same script. Because it works. Having a hard time with stubborn stains or spills? Use this pink foam, or use this sponge, or use this cloth. Though most people in sales don't use that tacky voice or this basic script, the concept is still used. Whether with life insurance, whether with investments, whether with cars or toys, we are people that are flooded with the benefits of products and how they will fix our present problems. We see this in ad campaigns, we see this in company slogans, even like Walmart, save money, live better. For every product or business, there's a list of solutions given, telling us why we should use their product or service. In this section, Solomon tells us wisdom's benefits and blessings. Last week, it was as though that Solomon provided the consequences of wisdom. Here he lists its value. After telling his son, yet again in verse 1, to pursue wisdom, he gives 10 benefits that will come if he acquires wisdom. Solomon tells his son that wisdom delivers. It delivers from trials, troubles, temptations. The question is, will he turn to wisdom? Where is comfort found? Where is character found? Where is confidence, correction, certainty, or salvation? It is all from wisdom, not anywhere else. Solomon's list of benefits can be summarized as this. Seek wisdom to experience deliverance. Wisdom delivers you to God. Wisdom delivers you from evil and wisdom delivers you to God's place. Our outline is printed in our bulletin if you'd like to follow along there. Let's look at our first point. Wisdom delivers you to God. Last week I mentioned how wisdom is calling out to all people in all places. Whether you are a plumber or a pastor, pagan or churchman, wisdom calls. The question last week was whether you or I will pick up. Whether you'd respond or not. In chapter 1, verse 32, we're told that the complacent, those who do not respond to this call, are fools. These are those who trust in themselves, lean on their own understanding, or trust in someone or something else other than God. And this reluctance or complacency leads to their destruction instead of their flourishing. Yet again, we see wisdom and its benefits are not known passively. To know wisdom, we must respond. We cannot just hear or read or watch something and be given the benefits of wisdom. It's not like the movie A Beautiful Mind or we aren't somehow savantes who are just given natural aptitude. Instead in verses 1-4 we see a steady effort towards knowing wisdom. It involves searching, treasuring, inclining, asking. It takes work. Solomon uses seven to eight verbs depending on how you count it to show us diligent seeking of wisdom. Showing us how important it is to be active in seeking wisdom. Given that it's summer and it's beach season, think of how people use metal detectors on the beach to find treasure. Or people love searching for seashells and sea glass. In recent weeks I went to a fossil beach and I saw people staring at rocks, breaking rocks, searching diligently to maybe get a glimpse of an animal etched into stone. We are people who are acquainted with searching even if it's done recreationally. However, when it comes to wisdom, few of us search with any sense of diligence. It's as though wisdom is the free sample at the grocery store, freely given, freely offered, take it or leave it. Really just depends on the day. Wisdom's benefits though are not for the passive customer. The small morsel that you take might help you for a moment. But what is offered for us here is for a lifetime and a life to come. We must seek wisdom because it delivers. It delivers us to God first and foremost. Look at verse five. It tells us that if we seek wisdom, if we call out for it, if we are attentive to it, if we are treasuring it, then we will understand the fear of the Lord. That we'll understand the fear of the Lord more. Then we will know God more. The path to a right view of God, which is the fear of the Lord, thus having a right knowledge of God is found through wisdom. Many of us struggle to see God rightly or to know Him truly. And this limitation is not a deficiency on God's part, it's a lack of wisdom. This is why we must seek wisdom. But what is wisdom? Throughout this series, I have given you many different definitions to this very question. It's not because I try to confuse you or that I don't know the answer. It's because wisdom is a very comprehensive concept in the scriptures. As we look at each text, we see one of its many facets. Think of like a 3D cube that has many sides or a jewel of great price. As you turn it and you see it, you see its different facets. We've seen that wisdom is practical, moral, theological truth for life. Or we've seen that Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. But here in verse 6, we see that wisdom is God's word. That God gives wisdom from His mouth. He gives knowledge and understanding. None of these facets contradict each other. Instead, they seek to elaborate who and what wisdom truly is. In verse 6, we see that God is the source and substance of wisdom. Thus seeking after God and seeking after wisdom are one and the same. God is who gives wisdom and wisdom gives us God. This is not a paradox. It is a parallel. Seeking wisdom delivers you to God. And it is God that delivers you to wisdom. That is what Solomon says here. This is why seeking wisdom is compared to mining for precious minerals like silver. The treasure that is found is God Himself. He has given us the words of His mouth, the scriptures, that we would know Him and that we would understand Him. That we would seek Him and that we would find Him. If you find Him and know Him and experience Him, He changes you from the inside out. And He provides for you. He stores up wisdom for you, being a shield to you. Look at verse 7. Guarding justice and watching over you. Verse 8. Giving you understanding of righteousness. Verse 9. The wisdom comes to dwell in you, in your heart. Verse 10. God comes to dwell in your heart and He gives you these unsearchable riches and transforms you from the inside out. Which ultimately protects you as we'll see in our second point. God gives us so much for those who seek Him. The question that we must ask is, do we actually seek after God and His wisdom? Do we actually see it as the most precious thing in life? Or have we been fooled to think otherwise? In the history of Nova Scotia, there have been multiple gold rushes where people have flocked to different parts of our province seeking out gold. Seeking out wealth that would change their lives. But most of these rushes were short lived. The deposits were shallow and others, they only came up with pyrite, which is fool's gold. With the pursuit of wisdom, however, there is greater certainty. That if you actually seek, you will find. You will find treasure that you won't be able to pile up in your home or in your bank account, but you can store up in your heart. And as you do this, it will change you from the inside out. As you seek after wisdom, you'll find not just principles and proverbs, the scriptures tell us here that you find the Lord. It is He who is the path to wisdom and the goal of wisdom. As you seek for wisdom, church, you are delivered to God. To know Him and enjoy Him. And with Him, He changes your life. He changes your character. He changes your countenance. He changes your capacities and capabilities. He is the giver and the goal. So may we seek Him, may we know Him. However, the sad reality is that many of us, instead of seeking wisdom and being delivered to God, we are complacent. Seeking after a fool's gold instead of real treasure. We think that we can survive or thrive by our own terms and wisdom instead of God's. The complacent posture shows up in one of two ways. It shows up internally and externally. In some cases, it's both. We can be complacent externally by seeing God as trivial instead of precious. We see this in the simple neglect of not reading the Bible for ourselves. Or avoiding discussion of the scriptures with others. Or the lack of priority in hearing the word preach. Or the reluctance to pray. The minimal fellowship with other believers. Or the flippancy towards the Lord's Supper and baptism. These are the externalized realities of complacency towards God's means of grace. God has given us ordinary means to seek Him and to know His wisdom. But we so easily choose fool's gold. The fool's gold of ease, comfort, recreation. Thinking that that will lead to relaxation and pleasure or joy. But it won't. Even if you get that for a little while, it won't last. The internal way that we can be complacent to seeking God's wisdom is not seeking it wholeheartedly. This is the person who is happy to cherry pick God's wisdom for their life. Glad for their salvation, experiencing His grace and caring for others. But having no thought for how God would affect their speech, their work ethic, their thinking or their desires. We can even be people who forego seeking God in His fullness so that we can keep our pet sins and our preferences. And as I say this, just because my job as a pastor puts me in front of the scriptures each week doesn't mean that I don't fall into these traps of externalized and internalized complacency. We all can. And God calls both people to repentance. For the first group, before even turning to pursuing these ordinary means of grace and knowing God's wisdom, He must first turn to God and repent. For not seeing God as glorious. For not seeing His word, His saints, His sacraments as precious. For the second, my encouragement to you is that you would give all of yourself to God, not just part of you. The treasure that is our God and His instruction is far better than your pet sins and preferences. He gives greater and truer pleasure, joy and goodness. Better than we could try and find for ourselves. The worst trap for the person in the second category is arguing that the reason that they are the way they are is authenticity, being genuine. Suddenly each of us are prone to sin. We must be transformed by God's grace. And so would you seek wisdom because it delivers. It delivers you to God who changes you from the inside out. So we've seen that wisdom delivers us to God. Let us look at our second point, wisdom delivers you from evil. In verses 12 to 19 we see two tempters, man of perverted speech and the forbidden woman. Both figures represent the way of evil. Each present unique temptations. The first, the man of perverted speech are those who use words inaccurately, inappropriately and indistinguishable for sinful gain. This is not only using bad words or inappropriate jokes, this is using even good words for evil purposes. These men are individuals in life who speak lies, who try to corrupt others and lead people astray for fun, who try to succeed by underhanded ways. The Hebrew phrase behind the word perverse carries the connotation of turning something upside down. Meaning that the words that they speak contort reality. They do not use words rightly to reflect the truth. Instead, they use them to fit their agenda and plan to succeed in sinful gain. Ray Orland commenting on this says bad men use good words to smuggle in bad realities and some people are fooled. This is the contortion of words like love, empathy, good, caring, being weaponized to guilt and shame for people in schools, governments, workplaces and restaurants all to support sin. God in his wisdom however makes us reluctant and resilient to these temptations to sin. Giving us discretion to know that these words might sound sweet, that the goal might even be desirable but the actual action that it supports is evil. Wisdom delivers us from evil as verse 12 says. The second temptation presented here is the forbidden woman. This is the temptation towards adultery or for some towards fornication. We are told that she speaks seductive words to try and entice people to sin. This is the individual who forsakes their spouse and their marriage for sexual promiscuity and calls others to do the same. We live in a world where this is all too common. The world is calling out to people to sin sexually with their hearts, minds and bodies. And the access to this is at our fingertips whether by apps or websites or in person. And left to our own devices we will turn to sin. But if wisdom has taken residence in our hearts we'll know the way of escape. It is by fleeing. It is not going near the way of evil. This is how we are delivered from the forbidden woman or even forbidden man. Sexual sin and its promotion and pursuing is something that both sex, both genders struggle with. But the way of deliverance is given by God's wisdom. It is given by God's wisdom as you see verse 16. The call of these temptors whether towards sexual sin or underhanded ways is something that we all face. I don't escape this trial by virtue of being a pastor. Sin comes to us all whether by our algorithm, thoughts in our head or the people of this world. Temptation comes for us. And our only deliverance comes by the Lord. As I've already said left to our own devices we will sin in thought, desire and deed. We need God's wisdom to deliver us so that we would flee, that we would reject, that we would refuse. And so may God do this in and through us. As someone, as a child who's been impacted by adultery in their family I can tell you that it will ruin your life. It will ruin the life of your loved ones. Your spouse, your children, your career, your faith. The seductive tale of sin that it spins in your heart and the temptors bring to your ears and your eyes is not a fairy tale where people live happily ever after. It leads to destruction of your life on earth and possibly the one to come if you do not repent. The short way to say this is that short term pleasure will lead to a life of long term pain. It's not worth it. So this text sounds very consequential. We know from the council of scripture that God gives grace to the repentant. Even if you are an adulterer or fornicator, if you turn to God in repentance, giving up that sin and that lifestyle, God will not give you the cold shoulder. He will not reject you. Think of the passage that we read in Luke 7. The woman who is addressed to that passage as a sinner is likely a prostitute but she comes to Jesus at his feet having godly sorrow over her sin looking to her savior. What does Jesus say to her? Your sins are forgiven. If you are entangled in sexual sin or perverse speech, whether online or in person or in your imagination, turn to God today. Know that the descent into death that's presented here doesn't have to be your end. That you can know the path of salvation that God gives the person and work of Jesus Christ is by him that evil men and women which in many ways all of us are. People who are given to perverse speech, thoughts or actions for the sake of economic gain, pleasure, comfort or misplaced idols of beauty gives grace. We are called to seek wisdom that we would know God's deliverance from evil so that we would know wisdom's benefits. So when we seek wisdom today, would you seek wisdom today? Look at our last point, wisdom delivers you to God's place. The culmination of deliverance to God and deliverance from evil is the delivery to God's place. Look at me at verses 20 to 22. The old covenant believers, to old covenant believers, the land spoken of here was the literal land of Israel that was promised by God to the patriarchs. However, as new covenant believers, we do not believe that God is going to give us Israel. We believe that he is going to give us the new heavens and the new earth. This is where the promised delivery culminates. It is the place where God dwells with his people in fullness. It is a place where evil is no longer present. It is a place that all who believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of sin are promised to be. The place that is the way of good, the path of righteousness, the path that is paved and presented not by us keeping or seeking wisdom. It is the path of Jesus Christ, our sinless Savior, who graciously gives us his inheritance to sinful people like you and me. The seeking of wisdom that this passage calls us to does not qualify us to God. Instead, they are the faithful steps of the believing. It is the gift of growing in grace that we are blessed with. One commentator said it this way and encapsulated it well. God is not saying, if you seek me, I will love you more. He is saying, if you seek me, you will find me for all that I am worth. If you have yet to believe in Jesus and you want to know this life of wisdom, this place that is with God and free from evil, come and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. For if you don't, the text closes with a warning. The wicked, those who live in unrepentant sin, will not inherit this land. They will be uprooted and cast out. The deliverance to God's place can be yours today. You don't need to stay in the place of the wicked. Instead, you can be forgiven and changed from the inside out for the believing. My hope today is that you would see the immense gift that our God has given. Not that we have to seek wisdom, but that we get to seek wisdom. We have the privilege of God's provision. So may we seek it, not under a sense of obligation or guilt, but instead out of opportunity and grace. Our God gives graciously, sufficiently wisdom for life. May we seek and know. Let's pray.