Peaceable Wisdom - Part 3 of 3

Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer's praise, the glory's of my God and King, the triumphs of his grace. This is L'say Bradley, Jr., welcoming you to another broadcast of the Baptist Bible Hour. All to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give.

I will ever love and trust him, in his presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender, humbly at his feet I bow.

Worldly pleasures all forsaken, take me Jesus, take me now. I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender, Lord I give myself to thee. Fill me with thy love and power, let thy blessings fall on me. I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Savior.

I surrender all. I want to thank all of you who have taken time to write us recently. The expense of the program is considerable and we need your help to be able to stay on the air.

If you have not written, I would appreciate hearing from you or even those of you who have been consistently supporting it. We continue to need your help. Our address is the Baptist Bible Hour, Box 17037, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. Today we continue with the message bringing the concluding part on Peaceable Wisdom. Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above the heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen. Seeing the source of this wisdom, what are the qualities of it? They stand in vivid contrast to the qualities of that wisdom that is of man. That wisdom which is earthly, sensual, devilish. If you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. If you're claiming, I have knowledge, I know what the Bible teaches, I have wisdom, I know how to conduct myself, but your life is not matching your claim. You're living in sin, not having repented and turned from it.

You're harboring bitter envy. You're holding malice against various individuals. You give way to that which stirs strife.

It says, don't lie against the truth. Don't lay claim to having knowledge and wisdom if this be the case. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

And where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure. So there's the first quality.

It is first pure. And we've already talked about that to some degree when it says initially that if there is one that is wise and a dude with knowledge among you, let him show it out of a good conversation. Let him demonstrate it by his good works, by his godly life. The wisdom then that is from above is first pure. The wisdom that is from God is not going to lead you down the wrong path. You can't claim that wisdom and defend and excuse ungodliness in your life. You can't defend and excuse bitterness, envy, strife.

It can't be. It is pure. Chapter 4 and verse 8 says, draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purify your hearts ye double minded. So if we find that there is a tendency toward maintaining a bitter spirit, being harsh in our attitude toward others, being resentful, that needs to be dealt with. We need to draw near to the Lord. We need to cleanse our hands. Our hearts need to be purified. We must not be double minded, saying one thing and doing something else.

Laying claim to believing what the word of God says and yet trying to justify another course of action, another spirit, another attitude. Next thing that it says here, it is not only pure, it is peaceable. And as we said, we have identified that subject peaceable wisdom as being what is emphasized in this entire passage. It is peaceable. Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers.

How do you see yourself? Are you a peacemaker? Do you make a concentrated effort to bring about understanding, unity? Help people maybe who have had differences and difficulties come to some unity that will glorify the Lord. Now, I hasten to emphasize here that when we are talking about peacemakers, we are not talking about compromising fundamental basic truth. Jesus obviously didn't have that in mind when he said blessed are the peacemakers. Know that we are living in a time that more and more people are saying that doctrine is not important. And there is this inclusivism that has become more popular even among fundamentalists.

That would indicate that some of the most basic truths of scripture can be ignored and that it is not all that important. Now talking about that, we are talking about for one thing every day, day to day human relationships. How easy it is to be offended. How easy it is to draw a conclusion about a situation when you don't have the facts.

You are offended at somebody and if you just took time to go to them and ask about a situation, you might find out that the whole issue is absurd to start with because there is nothing but misunderstanding. And even when there are real differences, often a resolve for peace could be found if prayerful, diligent effort were put forth. Mark of this wisdom that is of God is that it is peaceable. It is gentle. It is moderate.

It is forbearing. Have you ever seen people who just really cannot talk? That is hard to say about Bible subjects but some people who are like this about almost anything, if they feel intensely about it, whether it is politics or the Bible or anything else, that they really can't talk about anything that is important to them in a calm tone of voice. If they are talking to somebody that disagrees with them, they are easily and quickly upset.

They become angry because there is a different opinion. This wisdom that is from above is gentle, forbearing. I just read where the Apostle Paul said that he was gentle. Gentle as a nurse would be with a child.

How are you going to treat an infant, a nursing child? Are you not going to yell at them? Are you not going to call them names? You are going to be gentle. That is a mark of this wisdom. Easy to be entreated. One definition of the word is yielding to persuasion. That doesn't mean that you give in quickly and compromise a principle of truth. But rather than digging your heels in and being downright headstrong, stiff necked and stubborn, you yield to persuasion that if there is a persuasive argument given, if there is information available to show you that maybe you have been a little confused about the matter, or you might have been wrong about something, you know, one thing will help you in this. Of course, I guess maybe there are some people who feel like they have never been wrong about anything. But if you have ever been awakened to the fact that there has been a time or two in your life where you were wrong about something, it will help you to maintain this gentle spirit and be ready to be entreated. You know, part of that attitude that I'm right and I'm not even going to consider anything else is nothing but pride.

It's arrogance. Easy to be entreated. If you're easy to be entreated, then you're willing to talk to somebody who wants to talk to you.

If you're easy to be entreated, you don't set the tone of a conversation with tension from the beginning of any interaction that may occur. And it says, full of mercy. Full of mercy. If you're merciful, then you're going to be looking for opportunity to agree. Not compromising truth, not giving in and denying your Lord, but if you're merciful, you're going to be merciful to somebody and if they didn't pick the exact word you would like for them to use, you're merciful. You're not making that such an issue as, well, you use that word that I don't care for.

You use terminology and that's not the same one I use. You're merciful. Let's look at the book of Luke chapter 6.

If you're merciful, you're full of mercy, you're controlled by mercy, it influences the way you talk, the way you deal with people, your attitude. Luke chapter 6 verse 35. But love ye your enemies.

Well, somebody says, I'm dead in the water already. When you get to that, I have a hard enough time loving my friends sometimes, as aggravating as I can be, much less love my enemies. But here it is, right here in the Word of God. Love your enemies and do good. Now this love in your enemies doesn't mean that you've got a warm, fuzzy feeling and just say, oh, you know, I just like to think about my enemies and all the things they've done to harm me. But it does mean this, that you're going to do good and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great. And ye shall be the children of the highest. For He, that is your heavenly Father, is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. This is an obligation to be like your heavenly Father. He is kind to the unthankful.

Isn't that hard to do? If you have done something for somebody, you've gone out of your way, you've made a real sacrifice, you've put yourself out. And it becomes evident that the person that you tried to help and do something for really didn't appreciate it.

What is the human reaction? Well, it'd be the last time I'd do anything for that person, I'll tell you. I've learned my lesson, I've quit, I'm not going to do anything for anybody. What good does it do? I mean, life's too short, I'm not going to be subjecting myself to this kind of hurt anyway.

I just quit. But that's not what the Lord says. If you're going to be identified as children of the highest, you're going to have to behave like He does. He's kind to the unthankful and to the evil.

You don't condone evil actions, you don't support evil workers, but you can be kind even to the evil. Be He therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful. You are to be full of mercy. That's part of what this wisdom is all about. It is gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy, and good fruits.

Full of good fruits. We read Galatians chapter 5, what the fruit of the Spirit is. If the wisdom that you're utilizing, the knowledge that you have and the wisdom that you use in your life to apply that, is the wisdom that is of God, then some good fruit is going to result. You may claim to have great wisdom. You may feel that you're a very deep Bible scholar. And that nobody can approach you as to the depth of your wisdom. But if you are in a constant furor and can't maintain friendships and fellowship with other believers, there's a problem. I've known of men, some who were gifted writers in their younger days. And as time went on, with an attitude that their knowledge was deeper and their walk was more godly than anybody else.

By the time they reached the end of their life, they were living in isolation. And as we've pointed out a number of times, true Christianity cannot be lived in isolation. See, the tendency of human nature is, if you get disgusted with the way other people are conducting themselves or their attitude or what they're doing, well, I've had it. I just withdraw and worship God at home.

Scriptures don't give you that option. Christianity is lived out by interaction with other people. Why do you need patience?

Because people sometimes get on your nerves, as the saying goes, and you've got to have patience. You've got to have love and that love has to be demonstrated to other people. You've got to labor to minister to other people and you can't do that in isolation. So the result of this wisdom, which is from above, is that there's going to be good fruit born as a result of it.

It's without partiality. It's a matter that you're not trying to judge by outward appearance, making a selection on a basis that I'm going to treat this person differently than I do somebody else for whatever reason, because it then says without hypocrisy. In other words, it's to be sincere, it is to be honest. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. Fruit has in it seed for more fruit. So when you are utilizing the wisdom, the knowledge that is of God, that is from above, the fruit of that righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace as you display that knowledge and that wisdom to the glory of Christ. Something good is coming from it. Good fruits are being displayed and it provides the opportunity for greater blessings in time to come. I'm sure that in this one discourse we have not near covered everything that could be drawn from this text. But I trust this little time of observing it once again as we have at various times in the past can stir our minds with the importance of testing whatever knowledge and wisdom we may claim to have. If the knowledge and wisdom that we claim to have causes us to be bitter, resentful, if it doesn't lead us to work for peace, if it doesn't maintain in our hearts a gentle spirit, one that is full of mercy so that we are ready and easy to be entreated, there is something wrong with it. It doesn't matter how well read, how well educated, how well versed, how long somebody has studied the Bible, how long they have been claiming to live a Christian life.

The issue is, how is it today? May we pray that prayer that the psalmist prayed in Psalm 119 and may we ask for that wisdom that James speaks of in chapter 1. Let him ask of God who giveth liberally and upbraideth not and pray that God will bless us to have peaceable wisdom. Children of the heavenly Father, safely in His bosom gathered, nesting bird nor star in heaven, such a refuge ere was given. On His own doth tend that nourish, in His holy course they flourish, from all evil things He spares them, in His mighty arms He bears them. Neither life nor death shall ever from the Lord His children sever, under them His praise He showeth, and their sorrows all He knoweth.

Though He giveth or He taketh, God His children therefore saith, Is the loving purpose solely to preserve them pure and holy? I hope that these messages on peaceable wisdom have been a help to you emphasizing a truth we need not forget, and certain it is especially needful in these times of strife and conflict to know that the wisdom that is from above is peaceable. I hope that you will write us. Our address is the Baptist Bible Hour, Box 17037, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. Until we greet you next time, this is LeSara Bradley, Jr. bidding you goodbye and may God bless you. It's a mission, perfect delight Visions of rapture now burst on my sight Angels descending, great from above There comes a mercy, whispers of love This is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long This is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long I am my Savior, I'm happy and blessed Watching and waiting, looking above Filled with His goodness, lost in His love This is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long This is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior, praising my Savior, praising my Savior all the day long