Tony Evans - Finding Wisdom in a Distorted World
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Summary
In this exposition of James 3, the preacher contrasts heavenly wisdom—which comes solely from God, brings peace and order, and is rooted in fearing the Lord—with earthly wisdom that is demonic in origin, producing conflict and chaos. He warns that much of today’s cultural, media, and even educational «wisdom» is hell-inspired because it rejects God’s perspective. The main point is that Christians often neutralize biblical truth by dipping it in human opinions and cultural flavors, leading to confusion and stagnation, just like pulling back on the reins while saying «Giddy up!» to a horse.
Dipping Truth in Cultural Flavor
What people often do is come to church for their nutrition but then dip it in human opinion because they want the flavor of the culture. They want the flavor of the environment. They want the flavor of the educational realm. They want the flavor of society. And they wonder why they’re not getting the nutritional benefit of the revelation, because it’s been dipped.
Two Kinds of Wisdom
He describes wisdom in two ways. He says that there is a wisdom that does not come down from above. Verse 17 says, «But the wisdom from above.» So there is a wisdom that comes down from above, and there is wisdom that does not come down from above because it’s earthly. Yeah.
So he deals with a contrast in approach to wisdom. There is wisdom that comes down from heaven, but he says there’s wisdom that comes from earth. And any wisdom that comes from earth, he says, comes from hell. It’s demonic. So even though it’s coming from earth, if it disagrees with the wisdom that comes from above, it came from hell. Even though humans are giving it, because earth is giving it, but he says demonic has inspired it. So a lot of the information we are hearing on TV, in the media, in our classrooms, with our friends, even with our family, is held talking through people that sounds good because it’s not birthed from above.
Heavenly Wisdom Brings Peace
He says, «The wisdom from above brings order and peace.»
The wisdom from the earth brings conflict and consternation because it’s coming from the wrong source. The wisdom from above, according to Romans 16:27, comes from the only wise God. There’s only one source of wisdom.
Wisdom’s True Location
Yes, Job chapter 28 is the most comprehensive statement outside of Proverbs on wisdom. And just to give you a couple of verses from Job 28, he says in verse 12, «But where can wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding?» Verse 13 says, «Man does not know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living.»
Verse 20, «Where then does wisdom come from, and where is the place of understanding?» Thus it is hidden from the eyes of the living and concealed from the birds of the air. Where do I find it? Verse 23, «God understands its way, and he knows its place of location, for he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the sun.» Verse 28, «And to men he says, 'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.'»
Why We Need God’s Wisdom
What he’s saying is your source for wisdom has to be rooted in God, because he’s the only one who knows where it’s located. And the reason why he knows where it’s located is that he’s infinite and we’re finite.
In other words, he is without limitation; we are with plenty of limitations. That’s why we go «Oops!» That’s why we say, «My bad!» That’s why we say, «I thought I felt,» because we have a limited scope. That’s why you need an app. We have a limited scope. So we need a wisdom app that can negotiate because it can see further than we can. And he says he understands. God’s name is «I Am,» present tense. He has no past, no future. Everything for God is now. Anything tomorrow, he’s already been there and come back. So he cannot be flawed. He cannot make a mistake. He cannot advise incorrectly.
When Knowledge Lacks Wisdom
But when knowledge gets mixed with understanding, giving birth to wisdom, many couples get a divorce because they say, «I’m not happy!» when they never got around to finding out what a man is supposed to be, what a woman is supposed to be, what a husband is supposed to be, and what a wife is supposed to be, then have the understanding of how to apply it so that they don’t have to get divorced, because they went back to the wise person who established marriage in the first place. But when you abandon wisdom, you’re left with education. When you abandon wisdom, you’re left with information. When you abandon wisdom, you’re left with chaos.
Fools on Display in Culture
What you’re seeing in our culture today are fools on display. We got racial fools, political fools, social fools, gender fools. Why? Because they have abandoned wisdom from above. They have accepted the wisdom of earth, which means hell has informed the information.
The problem is we got Christians who’ve adopted the earth. And so we get caught up in the confusion of the culture. And sometimes we think that because we go to church or are religious or believe the Bible, we’re wise. No, the Bible gives you the wise information, but that doesn’t graduate to wisdom until understanding has gotten married to it. So what we do is we take some biblical information, which is where you start, we don’t marry it to understanding, and we wonder why things still don’t work.
The Candy Apple Illustration
A couple of weeks ago, I went to the fair with my great-grandchildren, and my great-granddaughter said, «Poppy! Poppy! Look, look, look over there!» And she was pointing to the candy apples, the candy apples.
Now we know apples are nutritional, okay? An apple a day keeps the doctor away. We know that apples are good for you. But these apples have been dipped in liquid sugar. So these are candy. These are sweet apples. These are sugary apples. These are apples that, you know, you bite into and they taste so good. But once you dip the apple in sugar, you have neutralized its benefit for its flavor. What people often do is come to church for the nutrition but then dip it in human opinion because they want the flavor of the culture. They want the flavor of the environment. They want the flavor of the educational realm. They want the flavor of society. And they wonder why they’re not getting the nutritional benefit of the revelation, because it’s been dipped.
The Crazy Horse Story
There’s this famous camp here in Texas; many of you know it, Pine Cove. My kids grew up at Pine Cove. Pine Cove is where I first started really learning to ride horses. And I’d seen enough westerns to know what to do. I had seen Rawhide, I’d seen Bonanza, I’d seen Gun Smoke, I’d seen The Rifleman. You know I knew what to do. I knew that you get on the horse and you go, «Giddy up!» I know what to do because I’ve seen the westerns. So I got up on my horse, brought back all my knowledge from my western days, and I said, «Giddy up!» and kicked it. But my horse had issues. My horse had some issues because it would go two steps and back up three steps and go two more steps and back up three more steps. My horse had issues. They gave me Crazy Horse.
So I called the wrangler over and I said, «Uh, I need another horse because this horse is crazy. This horse don’t know what to do.» They said, «What’s the problem?» I said, «I’m going, 'Giddy up! ' and this horse is doing this and doing that.» The wrangler looked at me and he said, «It ain’t the horse’s crazy.» «What do you mean? I’m going, 'Giddy up! '» He said, «You can’t go, 'Giddy up! ' while pulling back on the reins. You can’t. You have confused this animal. He don’t know whether you want to do this, whether you want to do that, whether you want to do this, whether you want to do that. You are contradicting where you say you want to go.»
Mixed Signals to God
See, a lot of us will come to church and say, «Ride on, King Jesus!» and we' ll want Jesus to take us somewhere. We’ll go to Jesus, «Giddy up! Come on, Jesus! Let’s go!» while leaning to our own understanding, while going secular with God, and we want to know why we can’t ride to where God wants us to go. That’s right.
Divine vs. Human Wisdom
He says divine wisdom and human wisdom are mutually exclusive. He says the wisdom that is not from above will not work because God is not going to be involved in it. Even if you have the right data, you’ll just have conflict.