Joseph Prince - Stop Guessing, Get Divine Direction
This is an excerpt from: Wisdom For Holy Living
In Proverbs chapter 2, it says, «For the Lord,» let’s all read together. «For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding». The Lord gives what? Wisdom, now the next three words say it together. From, again, again, from his mouth. The Bible is God-breathed. The Bible is God-breathed, 2 Timothy 3 tells us this, but evil men… before we drop down to verse 16, «All Scripture is given by inspiration of God». The word inspiration of God is the word, «Theos» the word «Theos» means God, «Pneustos,» which is breathed.
All Scripture in the Bible is God breathed and God made man from the dust of the ground. That’s his body, so man was like a mannequin, and God breathed into man and man became a living soul. It was the breath of God that made man a living soul. And all Scripture is God-breathed, that’s why man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. If this is God-breathed, our very existence, our life, even our health depends on the Word of God. If we are lacking in that life force, in that health, amen, then we can go to the Word because God’s breath is all over this Word, amen. We can breathe in the breath of God that gave us life in the first place. Can I have a good amen?
So the Lord gives wisdom, amen. And it says that, what must you do when in the world of deceiving and being deceived, «You must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures». Paul is writing to Timothy, telling him. Remember this? From childhood, you have known the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God. The Holy Scriptures that are breathed by God. These Holy Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. And the word which is able to make you wise, the word able, there is dynamite, dynamic, dynamo, is from the word «Dunamis».
It is able to dynamite you into wisdom. It is able to empower you, it is able to make you wise. Actually the word to make you wise is one Greek word, «Sophizo» or «Sophizo». The word Sophia in the verb form is «Sophizo,» it’s able to make you Sophia, it’s able to make you wise. By the way, Sophia is the Hebrew for «Chokmah,» for wisdom. The most frequently used word for wisdom in the Old Testament is «Chokmah». In the Greek translation, the Septuagint of the Old Testament where it says «Chokmah,» it says Sophia. Sophia is «Chokmah» in Hebrew, which is the wisdom that God gives. Now there’s wisdom that God gives to the world as well to govern the earth, to govern the nations, to come up with innovative ideas for the betterment of mankind’s lives.
You know, there’s a wisdom that God caused his rain to fall on the just and the unjust, his sun to shine on the righteous and the unrighteous. But there is a wisdom that God gives only to his children, and this comes from the Scriptures. It’s able to make you wise, unto what? Unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus, make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ. Now listen, many of us think that, well it’s just for that purpose to make us, to bring us to a saving knowledge of Jesus and then it’s done. No, no, no, this verse is not talking about just a saving knowledge. The word salvation is an all encompassing word. It is the word for healing, this word salvation «Soteria,» is the word for healing, is the word for wholeness, is the word for completeness, is the word for peace, is the word for prosperity. Can I have a good amen?
So God’s words, as you spend time with it, is able to make you wise. Sophizo you to all the salvation, that rich word salvation, whether you need healing, whether you need supply in your life, it’s able to make you wise for that. And release faith in you, faith in Christ, isn’t it wonderful? Amen, when you spend time reading the Word of God, it has an impartation of wisdom. You are no more the same. You don’t have to understand everything. When a child washes his hands, he doesn’t know all the components of H2O and all the chemicals that make up the water and whatnot, all he has to do is use it.
God’s Word is not for you to understand everything, I don’t understand everything. I’m still learning like every one of you, amen. Just use it, if you read God’s Word, it has a cleansing effect. It has a healing effect. The word, «Rapha,» it comes from the Hebrew word, the root word is «Rapha,» which is let go, relax. I don’t know, I can’t explain to you. It’s not like when I read God’s Word, straight away I get healed but there is a relaxing effect. I start feeling like, you know, I’m in touch with reality, I’m in touch with the truth yet there are some very, I would say, even gory details and violence in the Bible yet there is a beauty in how it all turns out that sort of like has a therapeutic effect on me. When I see God in it, I get hope, I find courage, amen. Can I have a good amen?
And then we start reading this story about how King Solomon passed on, and you know the story of King Solomon, he had wisdom and all that, but one thing though, he departed from the Lord later on in his life. He started worshipping idols. Now one thing about God is that the gift of God is without changing of his mind, without repentance. But, his wisdom, King Solomon’s wisdom became corrupted. Just like Lucifer, when he fell and became Satan, God did not say his wisdom departed, God says, now your wisdom is corrupted, you have corrupted your wisdom. So there’s a wisdom, the devil uses music. The devil approaches to the young generation, amen, but his wisdom is corrupted.
So Solomon in his old age, when he departed from the Lord, don’t forget, no matter whatever you do, wisdom is not an it, wisdom is tied up to the Lord. And you depart from the Lord, you depart from wisdom. In Proverbs 9, it says, «The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom». And one thing the devil today, compared to you, the devil does not have is that wisdom. His wisdom is corrupted, not the kind of wisdom that God gives you because you know why? He doesn’t fear the Lord. Therefore, he has not even begun in wisdom. You have the fear of the Lord, therefore, it’s the beginning of wisdom. Can I have a good amen? But you know that there’s a wisdom that Solomon says that there are three things. He gave us a quadruplet, a four-line of wisdom sayings, okay?
In the book of Proverbs. Let’s go to the quadruplet. In Proverbs 13, «There are three things which are too wonderful for me. Yes, four which I do not understand. The way of an eagle in the air». So there are three things too wonderful for him, the fourth, he says, I don’t understand. This is the wisdom of the man that God, the Bible says, God gave him wisdom and his wisdom excelled the wise men of the East, even in China. His wisdom was such, it excelled all the wise men in Israel and their names are given in 1 Kings 4. And yet he says three things I don’t understand, it’s beyond me. The fourth one I don’t understand. So the first one is, «The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a virgin».
Now the fourth one, he doesn’t understand, the way of a man with a virgin. He says, I don’t understand this. Now you’re talking to a man who has one thousand women in his life. So obviously, you cannot refer to a natural understanding of the way of a man with a virgin. Okay? It must mean something spiritual, right? So years ago, I asked the Lord, «God open up this passage to me,» I said, «Open up this passage, give me your secrets in this passage». Because I was challenged by the fact that Solomon cannot understand it, okay? And I’ll try to break the code, so I asked the Lord, «Give me something that is from you, it must be from you,» I said.
So I asked him many years ago, and he has given me the answer, I believe. I’m going to submit this to you and you see whether it corresponds with what you have in your spirit. Whether it brings up the amen in you, okay, cool? The first one, «The way of an eagle in the air». There are four books on the story of Jesus. How many of us agree that every lock can be opened by the key, Jesus Christ, our Lord Jesus? How many agree with that? Christ is the theme of the entire Scripture, am I right? Back to this, there are four stories of Jesus. Eighty nine chapters in four gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. When it comes to the early church, in the entire book of Acts, there’s no story that’s repeated four times.
Why is God saying four stories of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Four gospels we call it, and yet it talks about the life of one man, his death, his resurrection, portrayed in different ways. Now watch this, the first one is the Gospel of Matthew. It talks about Jesus as the King. The King of the Jews, right? What animal is portrayed there? In the Gospel of Matthew, it’s the face of a lion, the king of the beasts because the Gospel of Matthew is portraying him as the King. And that’s why the genealogy of chapter 1 of Matthew does not trace all the way to the man Adam, the first man, but it traced all the way to Abraham and David, the promise of the king. Because it’s the gospel of the king, and the lion is portrayed there because the lion is the king of the beast. Second gospel, Gospel of Mark, does not talk about genealogy. You don’t ask a servant about his pedigree.
So it starts off by Jesus working, working, working, working, healing, healing, healing, repairing, repairing, restoring, restoring, and it’s just work, work, work, and the face there is the face of an ox, the Gospel of Mark. Then we have the third gospel, the Gospel of Luke. And in no other gospel, we find the phrase the Son of Man so often used because it’s a gospel about Jesus the man. And that’s why in the Gospel of Luke, his genealogy is traced all the way to Adam the first man. And what is the face of the Gospel of Luke? Man, the face of a man. But the last gospel, the Gospel of John, there’s no genealogy, why? It’s a gospel that portrays his divinity. That Jesus is God. It starts off like this, «In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh».
So which beast is not mentioned yet out of four? The eagle, you know why? The eagle flies in the heavens. There are pilots who fly really high in the atmosphere and they have seen an eagle fly near them. Higher than them, the eagle of all the birds flies the highest in the atmospheric heavens. So eagle, the way of an eagle in the air is who he is. Don’t think that his history began in the virgin’s womb, no. He was with the Father, he came down. Like an eagle from the heavens, he came down, amen. And he was planted in the virgin’s womb to become a complete man.
Do you know that in heaven today, Jesus is someone that he never was in the sense that he always was divine but he never was a man. But today, he went back as a man. Do you know that he is in the highest place in the universe at the Father’s right hand? Do you know he is there representing you and I? Do you know that God wants you to think of him? Not as God, that he always is, but that he was also before, before he came as a man, but today he is a man, he is one of us. One of us made it to the highest place, and he represents us. And what he did at the cross, the Father attributes to your account he imputes to your account. And as Jesus is, so are you in this world. He wants you to think of Jesus as a man, a man representing you. That means God sees him and sees you in the same way. He sees him as you, hallelujah. Okay, so the way of an eagle in the air is who he is, okay?
You ask yourself whether he sits well with you. This is what the Lord gave me. The next one the way of a snake, a serpent on a rock, from an eagle, he became a snake on the ground. From uttermost to the guttermost, he came down all the way for us. He came down and as he told Nicodemus that night, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up. Remember the story of in the Old Testament, how the children of Israel, they started murmuring against God and then the snakes came in? See, God protected them all the while. The snakes were there, but God protected them. And the snakes came biting them, right? And then God told Moses to build a bronze serpent, bronze means judged.
Judgment, bronze serpent and lifted up high, a cross. And everyone who was sick, everyone who was bitten, whosoever looketh, liveth, the Bible says. Whoever looks, God healed, whoever looks, lived. All those who look at their wounds, died. If you look at your sin, you look at your sin and your corruption and all that, you will die. But if you look at Jesus, he’s the answer to your sin, he’s the answer to your problem, he’s the answer for everything in your life that has fallen. Look away from self to Christ.
So, serpent on a rock. If you look at Calvary, the place of the skull where he was crucified, it’s a huge rock. It’s built on a rock precipice, right? So the eagle became a serpent on the rock. What he became. Does he sit well with you so far? The third one: the way of a ship in the midst of the sea. You’re like, huh? The way of a ship in the midst of the sea. I know, pastor, you gotta learn how to sway, man. Sway with the flow, go with the flow, you know? No, no, that’s not it, what is it? The way of a ship in the midst of the sea is why he came. You see, a ship in those days, like a cargo ship, it carries containers. Even today, we get our goods like containers containing petroleum, specially designed containers, then there are containers containing furniture, containers having all kinds of metals in it.
So even today, even Solomon’s time, there are no planes and all that but even today, we still have cargo ships. So, traversing the ocean. The ocean is like, you know, when a ship travels, usually it’s a far country. So, God sent his Son loaded with blessings, full of grace and truth. Like the Father sent David to meet Goliath, David was a type of Christ, he came with bread. Jesus came from the house of bread, Bethlehem. He came with blessings for his people. And he conquered a greater Goliath for you and I, right?
So Jesus came to this earth loaded with blessings for us. Although men rejected him, those who believed, God gave them power to become sons of God. He came like this cargo ship, traversed the ocean, amen. From a far country, from heaven to earth, from an eagle to the snake, that’s pretty awesome, that’s far, that’s far, that’s amazing, amen? What he became, why he came, and the last one is what Solomon says I don’t understand. This man who has one thousand women, concubines, porcupines and wives. He says, I cannot understand the way of a man who is a virgin. Obviously, it’s not referring to the natural, right?
Now, I’ll guarantee you, you have the wisdom of God, you know why? Because you have something that the people in the past don’t have. There’s something hidden that was revealed to the church, amen? What do you think this is? Jesus and the church. This is whom he loves, right? Who he loves, he loves the church, am I right? By the way, do you know that a lot of things that are written like I showed you just now, «Thou shall not muzzle the ox». In the Old Testament, it’s written for our times, it’s written for us.
Like 1 Peter 1, please show them 1 Peter 1, «Of this salvation, the prophets have been quiet and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you». And the prophets, when they prophesied, they said, «Wow, these are great blessings, man. I wonder which generation is it for? Is it for the people of Israel? I’m prophesying great things. God will not impute sin to them, God will forgive them of their sins. God will heal their diseases and they will be not just servants but sons of the Most High God, who are these people»? And they were searching what? «Of what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow». Next, «To them it was revealed that not to themselves, but to us».
So the prophecy, the benefits was not to them at that time, but it was for us. All right, they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look into. That’s why the angels are portrayed as looking at the mercy seat, they’re inquiring. Even angels are learning about salvation from us. You know what is God’s best kept secret that even Solomon did not know? All the prophets and the saints and the righteous men in the Old Testament never even knew about this secret, God kept it.
And what’s the secret? The church, the church. The church is God’s best kept secret. The devil wants to make a church into like something sacerdotal with priestly or all that kind of thing and all that. Or something outward like a building and all that. No, the church is the greatest organization and society that ever existed in the universe. It is the only society that I know of on earth where your disqualification is your qualification to enter and to join. Look at Ephesians 3 real quick. «Which in other ages was not made known to the sons of man, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets that Gentiles should be fellow heirs».
Drop down all the way to verse 8, «To me who am less than the least of all saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ, and make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery,» all right? «Which from the beginning of the ages, has been hidden in God». But verse 10, look at verse 10. «To the intent,» now watch this, don’t miss this. «To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places».
Come back to this again, all right? The way of a man with a virgin. Husband loves your wife, and drop down the same chapter, it says what? «Of a husband and wife, man shall leave his father and mother, join to his wife, the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery. I speak concerning Christ and the church». Just remember, does she have to qualify for your forgiveness? No, because Christ forgave you, right? Men, men, Christ forgave you, right? How do you do it freely? You forgive your wife freely. Not much, amen.
I’ll try again, you forgive your wife freely, amen. It’s a great mystery. The reason God has marriage put on this earth here from the beginning is because God wanted him to understand Jesus and his bride. The man must be put to sleep before the bride comes out of his side. Jesus died and out of his side came the church made of Jew and Gentile, hallelujah. Go back to the quadruplet, we will close with that. The air, you know, is from heaven, right? Okay, so that’s out from heaven, so rock there is the land, the Jew. Jesus became a serpent in the Jewish land, okay.
The way of a ship in the midst of the sea, sea is always a picture of the Gentiles. The sea roaring in restlessness, it’s a picture of the Gentile nations. In the book of Revelation, he saw a beast come out of the sea, out of the Gentile nations, not Israel, the sea. Israel is always the land. And finally, the way of a man who is a virgin, the church. Does this quadruplet sit well with you in your spirit? The best with those of you, is Christ in the center? That’s how you judge revelation you receive from God. And I pray that you’ve been blessed by this, and all the people said, amen.