The sermon titled 'The Legacy of Faithful Families' by Peter Allison, focuses on the significance of Proverbs chapter 4, emphasizing the instruction of wisdom through familial and spiritual lineage. The speaker discusses the importance of repetition in teaching, illustrating how the prologue of Proverbs serves as a recurring call to pursue wisdom. It highlights the role of fathers and other figures as sources of divine wisdom, with an emphasis on listening and adhering to their teachings. The sermon underscores the necessity of marrying wisdom, acquiring it through diligence and humility, and the pivotal role of both fathers and mothers in nurturing this legacy. Various examples, including the Rechabites' obedience and the significance of early instruction, illustrate the value of wisdom as a cherished possession. The sermon concludes with a call to cherish wisdom and listen to the words of fathers, highlighting the transformative power of wisdom in life.

Please remain standing and turn with me, your Bibles if you have them, to Proverbs chapter 4. Hear God's Word. Hear, my children, the instruction of a father, and give attention to no understanding. For I give you good doctrine. Do not forsake my law.

When I was my father's son, tender, and the only one in the sight of my mother, he also taught me and said to me, Let your heart retain my words. Keep my commandments and live. Get wisdom. Get understanding. Do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth.

Do not forsake her and she will preserve you. Love her and she will keep you. Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom. And in all you're getting, get understanding.

Exalt her and she will promote you. She will bring you honor when you embrace her. She will place on your head an ornament of grace, a crown of glory she will deliver to you. Hear my son and receive my sayings, and the years of your life will be many. I have taught you in the way of wisdom.

I have led you in right paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered. When you run, you will not stumble. Take firm hold of instruction and do not let go. Keep her for she is your life.

Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it. Do not travel on it. Turn away from it and pass on. For they do not sleep unless they have done evil, and their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall.

For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence, but the path of the just is like the shining sun. That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is like darkness. They do not know what makes them stumble. My son, give attention to my words.

Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put perverse lips from you.

Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you. Ponder the path of your feet and let all of your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left. Remove your foot from evil." Thus far the reading of God's Word, His Word endures forever. Almighty Heavenly Father, we ask that you would visit us now.

May we hear your voice as you speak to us by your Spirit, and grant that we can receive with meekness this word that is brought to us, brought through lips that are sinful, Through a mouth that has spoken corrupt things, Father, sanctify this mouth and use these words that the glory and the honor may belong to You. Through Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name we pray, amen. Well, this is the fifth lecture in the prologue of Proverbs.

The fifth lecture and we're still not out of the prologue. In fact, the prologue goes on for Another five more chapters. Now why? Why so many lectures about the same thing? Well one of the first rules of teaching, if you've ever listened to such things or been instructed in the ways of instruction, one of the first rules of teaching is repetition.

Not the exact same words and the exact same packaging, but the same message brought in different contexts and different mediums. The same message over and over again. It's necessary for us We need that repetition if we're going to learn and that's what we see here in this prologue to Proverbs The same message the same theme that is reiterated in different ways, because we need that. We need that repetition if we're going to learn it. This prologue is a call to hear.

It's more than just an announcement, like you might announce that supper is being served in your house, like my house, somebody comes and tells me dinner is on the table, and then they're gone. The purpose of a prologue is more than that. Its purpose is to motivate us to come. In that sense, this prologue is not just an announcement, it's also like the aroma that accompanies a fine feast. It's an inducement, a motivation to come and eat.

The prologue draws us in, telling us why we should come and pay attention. What benefits wisdom will bring to us. What effect wisdom will have on our life. It will protect and preserve. It will bring honor.

It will bring prosperity. It will bring a crown of glory. Who wouldn't want wisdom if it brings prosperity, if it protects and preserves? If it brings a crown of glory, that is a wonderful aroma of a very fine feast. And indeed, we've seen all these things have been promised to those who have Wisdom.

Well, who wouldn't want wisdom? Well, it turns out that when people find out what's required to get wisdom, they aren't so willing to pursue it anymore. And how does the Bible say that we get wisdom? Hearing. Hearing.

Here, my children, the instruction of a father. Wisdom is said in Proverbs 2-6, to come from the mouth of God. The Lord gives wisdom. From His mouth come knowledge and understanding. So we hear, we get wisdom by hearing.

By hearing. By hearing God's voice. By hearing and listening to God speak. Because wisdom is from Him. Wisdom comes from His mouth.

Knowledge and understanding come from His mouth. And certainly He speaks to us in the Scriptures by His Spirit. But in the Scriptures, and this text being one of the main ones, one of the significant ones, the Scriptures say that God speaks to us through messengers, through messengers, through fathers in particular. God speaks to us through the mouth of fathers, And God teaches us and He gives us wisdom through fathers. And so if we want to have wisdom, The Bible says that we have to learn to listen to our fathers.

Hear, you children, or literally sons. Hear, sons, The instruction of a father. Instruction. We've heard this before. We've encountered this word before.

Musar. It means counsel. It means correction. It means discipline. Sometimes it even means chastening.

Job said, remember, happy the man whom God corrects. Don't despise his Mussar, his chastening. Proverbs 3.11 in the last chapter said, Don't despise the chastening, the Mussar of the Lord. And Proverbs 7 also speaks about the correction of stocks. Stocks, you know those things that they used to put around your ankles and you put your head in, you put your feet in.

The correction, the mussar of stocks. We must hear. We must pay attention. We're going to have wisdom to the mussar, the instruction of our fathers. That's not always pleasant, is it?

It's not always pleasant. Chastening, correction, teaching, especially when we've gone astray or when we're wayward, is not something we want to hear. It's not something that is always pleasant for us to receive, missar. But it is how the Bible says, we will get wisdom. Hear my children the instruction of a father and give attention to no understanding.

Knowledge and understanding. No understanding. These are the same words, the exact same words that were used in Proverbs 2 and verse 6 when it said, Wisdom comes from the Lord, knowledge and instruction come from His mouth. Here knowledge and instruction is said to come from the mouth of our fathers. To hear, though, also implies obedience.

Give attention, or attend, some of your Bibles may say, attend to no understanding. That might be translated this way. Pay attention to knowledge that gives insight. In other words, it is to deposit into one's conscience and life such that it results in a change in our living, such that it affects how we go about our day-to-day business. Have you ever read a chapter of the Bible and found it dry?

It's okay, I've done that too. It's just dry. Because we're approaching it as something to do. Something that we need to do. We have a number of things that we need to do today.

And one of them here is read the Bible. And so we do that. But it's rather dry. Why? But it's rather dry.

Why? Because we have sought to take it on board. We've sought to do it as something that is not going to change us. We've approached it as simply a task to do, instead of something that will feed us and change us. You see, when you come to a meal, do you come because, oh, that's one of the things I have to do today.

Oh, I need to eat today. In fact, I need to eat three times today. Okay, I'll get that done. We don't approach it that way, do we? It's not just something we need to do like we need to go to the store and get some things.

We come to a meal with the idea that it will give us life, that it's going to strengthen us. We come to a meal with the idea that it will sustain us the rest of the day. We don't approach it just like a list of something that we have to get done, that we have to check off our list. And that's what the sense of this is. We are to pay attention to the Word of God as it is spoken in the Scriptures, but also as He speaks it through the mouth of fathers.

We are to pay attention as that which will give us life, as that which will change us, will deposit into us a new way of living. Something that will feed us and guide us through the day, much like food sustains us and guides us through the day. You see, we are responsible for what we hear. We are responsible to follow it. Jesus said that it would be more tolerable for Tyrant Sidon in the day of judgment.

Why? Because the Israelites had heard wisdom. They had fathers who had taught them the Word of God. And so they were responsible for what they had heard. When we hear instruction, we become responsible for it.

And that brings a greater judgment if we turn away from it. There is a responsibility there. If you've been baptized, you have upon you the sign of God's covenant. And that brings a greater responsibility to you to be faithful to that covenant. When we hear the words of wisdom, when we hear the words of our fathers, we become responsible.

Certainly to search the Scriptures if they're human fathers. To search the Scriptures to see whether those things be so, but as we see that they are in accordance with the Scriptures, to then follow them. To gain that knowledge that brings insight, brings understanding, that brings a change in the way we live. I've been talking about fathers. It's an interesting construction here.

Here are my children the instruction of a father. In Hebrew it's called a construct chain. It's just Father and an instruction. And it's indefinite. It's not talking about a particular father to a particular son.

It's talking about a father's instruction. That's interesting here. He's saying, here, my children, a father's instruction and indefinite. And so what is In the Scriptures, what is a father? How does the Bible speak about fatherhood?

Well it certainly speaks about fathers as our biological father, that one through whom we have life. But also, it's any ancestor speaks of, the Bible speaks of an ancestor as our father. David is called the father of many of the kings of Israel. Even though he wasn't their what we would call biological father. He wasn't even their great-great-grandfather.

He was their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, and many more times. The Bible uses the word father to speak of the founder of a nation or of a people. Shem is said to be the father of all the sons of Eber. The father of all the sons of Eber. What does that mean?

He's the father of the sons of somebody else. Eber is where we get the word Hebrews from. And so it's saying that Shem is the founder of the nation of Hebrews. He's the founder of the Hebrew nation, of the Hebrew people, which we call Jews. Shem is the father of the sons of Eber.

Abraham is called the father of many nations. Moab, Ami, sons of Wath, and Esau, son of Jacob, are also called fathers of their respective kingdoms, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Ishmaelites, sorry, the Edomites. So a father can be a founder of a nation. A father can also be an author. Job speaks about a father of rain.

The creator of rain, the source, the one who produced it. The father of rain. But a father is also, and more importantly, somebody who brings up and nurtures or nourishes. Job says that he was a father to the poor. He was a father to the poor.

He nurtured. He nourished. He brought up. He cared for the poor. We're not saying that all the poor children running around were from Him.

But he was a nurturer of the poor. Psalm 68 says that God is a father of the fatherless. And in Ephesians, you remember a father is to bring up His children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. A father is somebody who nurtures, who nourishes, who feeds. Jobin being the father of the poor is saying He's feeding these orphans.

But it's also a master. A father is a master or a teacher. When Saul was prophesying among the prophets, somebody said, who is their father? He didn't mean who fathered all those people, but rather who's their teacher. Here's a bunch of prophets.

Paul is among them prophesying. Somebody said, who's their father? Who is their teacher? Who's their master? Who are these disciples of?

You remember in the days of apostasy in the era of the judges, there is a Levite who goes out from Jerusalem because There's nothing going on there. There's no provision for him, which means there is no tithing going on, which means there is no proper worship going on. Tithing is a part of a worship. And so he heads out, and he finds this guy from the tribe of Micah. And Micah asks this strange Levite to be a father and a priest to his household.

A father. Micah was asking this strange Levite to become a teacher, to be a master in his home. They called him a father. Bob also speaks about a father when It refers to a counselor. Joseph is called the father of Pharaoh.

Obviously, Joseph didn't beget Pharaoh, but Joseph was Pharaoh's counselor. Pharaoh followed what Joseph did. Joseph said, You're going to have famine. You're going to have seven years of plenty and then seven years of famine. You need to start saving your food.

And Pharaoh said, that sounds good. Why don't you go do it? See, Pharaoh was giving advice. Joseph was giving advice to Pharaoh. Pharaoh followed it.

And so Joseph is called a father to Pharaoh. In fact, Isaiah even speaks about kings being our nursing fathers. There's a sense of nurturing there by a civil magistrate. Job uses that word father also to refer to an intimate or close relationship. He talks about corruption as a father, and the worm is a mother or a sister not saying he was born of corruption he's saying somebody who is closely so intimately associated with corruption.

And a father is also somebody who is a skilled in an area, who possesses a skill. And you remember in Genesis, to Balkan and his brothers were called the father of all these people who excelled in either music or in metalworking or in agriculture. Because those men had those skills and they taught those skills. So they're called the Father. And so when this says here, my children or my sons, the instruction of a Father, It's speaking broadly, I believe.

It's speaking broadly. If we want to have wisdom, we need to learn to listen to our fathers as they take in these many and varied forms in which we have them. If we want to have wisdom about the world that God made, we need to listen and learn from the people who know about the world that God made, and how our body works, and so forth. That's wisdom. That's knowledge that comes from the Lord, and He gives it to us through the mouth of fathers, people who are skilled in these things.

And if we want that wisdom, we need to learn from them, to listen to them. We need to listen to our grandfathers as well as our fathers and those who are over us, to our ancestors that are living. We need to listen to our fathers in the faith, to our elders. Paul called Timothy his true son in the faith. Paul was a father to Timothy because he taught him.

If we want to have wisdom, we need to learn to listen to these Fathers that the Lord brings into our life. We need to seek out such people to be mentors to us. We should always be those who are listening, those who are learning, those who are growing in grace and in knowledge as we listen, as we seek out and listen to those who can teach us. Obviously when you're born, you don't have much choice. You're put into a family.

And we need to listen to our Father. And also notice our text doesn't omit mothers as well. They are just as important in this instruction of wisdom. And we need to listen to them. In fact, Isaiah speaks of kings being our nursing fathers and queens are nursing mothers.

We need to have a humility to Listen to the fathers that the Lord brings to us, or that we seek out to sit under, to be near, to know. Now this principle here of listening to fathers is also taught by example in this text. Did you catch that? It didn't just tell us here the instruction of a father, but he gives us an example. He gives us his own example.

He says, when I was my father's son, tender and the only one in the sight of my mother, he also, who's he? This father's father. The grandfather here, in other words. So here is a Father coming to His Son, and He says, When I was My Father's Son, My Father taught Me. And this is what He told Me.

And the father here goes on to teach his son what he was taught by his father. He identifies himself here with his son, putting himself as it were beside his son and saying that he would teach him what his father had taught him when he was young and teachable. And so the father here is giving to us an example of what He's trying to teach, that is listening to our fathers. He does this certainly to reinforce the message. You notice how the message that He gave to His Son is the same message that his father gave to him.

If you look in verse 2, I give you good doctrine. I give you good doctrine. Good teaching. God saw everything that He had made and it was good. The Father is giving to His Son, in that same sense, good teaching, good doctrine.

Do not forsake My law. Well then, what does He say? His Father taught Him. He taught Me and said to Me, let your heart retain My words, keep My commandments, and live. It's the same message.

Keep My commandments. Don't forsake My law. That's saying the same thing. So he's bringing this message twice. He's bringing another witness because truth is established by a plurality of witnesses.

Even when Jesus came teaching, He taught the same thing. He said, don't listen to me. If I testify of myself, my testimony isn't true. It's in the sense That truth is established by a plurality of witnesses. Now in the Trinity there is a plurality of witnesses.

And Jesus says that the Holy Spirit testifies to what He was saying, and the Father as well. Plurality of witnesses. This Father here is bringing a plurality of teachers who are bringing the same message. Do you teach that way? Do you teach your children that way?

Do you look for other sources, other witnesses who are saying the same thing as you are trying to teach? And do you bring those other witnesses to your sons and to your daughters as you seek to teach them by word and by your example. You can't teach your children to listen to their father, to listen to you, or father or mother. If you yourself aren't listening to your fathers, if they see that your example is not listening, Your children are not going to learn what you're trying to teach them very well. So this father here broadens his son's experience by bringing another voice, another mature teacher, another father to him, and letting him sit under this other message.

He doesn't have this nobody can teach my son but me attitude. The father who thinks that way is a bit of a fool. I can remember growing up, how much I profited from the other elders and other men in the church, teaching me, informally and formally. They had aspects and ways of saying things that were different from the way my father said things. But they were teaching the same message, the same counsel.

And I greatly profited from them. And my father would like to, you know, he would like to talk to me about what they were teaching as well. And He went out of His way to bring me to other people who could teach me the things that He was seeking to teach me. And my father was a pastor. It wasn't like he didn't know anything himself.

But he was bringing other men, other fathers, other mothers, into my experience. And that was very valuable to me. And I still look back and remember with fondness some of those men and women who taught me in those early years. Some of whom have now gone on to be with the Lord, Godly people, fathers and mothers, who brought counsel from their mouth. The Word of God.

If we are to have wisdom, we need to remember the law of our fathers. We need to put ourselves under their law. Do not forsake My law, Solomon says in verse 2. But also later on, as he's reciting what his father taught him, he said, Let your words retain my words. Keep my commands and live.

Keep my commands, he says, and live. Do not forsake My law. Notice it doesn't say the law of God. He didn't say don't forsake the law of God. He said don't forsake My law.

The Father's Law. To understand this, I think it's helpful to distinguish between laws and wisdom. Laws and wisdom. And it's good for us to listen to our fathers even when they speak in what I'll call the area of wisdom. That which is not directly commanded or forbidden in the Scriptures.

Teachers give us wisdom. These are things that are matters where they have decided something. They have decided that our home, we're going to do it this way. This is how we're going to run our house. What Solomon is saying here is, sons, and all of us are, daughters, you need to keep those commandments.

You need to keep the way that they have instructed you. Even if it's not something that's specifically commanded in the Scriptures or forbidden in the Scriptures, if it's something they're telling you not to do. Because it is good for us to live under authority. It's good for us to live under authority. The Lord uses that to teach us wisdom.

So maybe in your family, your father has decided that you're not going to have any alcohol in your house? Does the Bible say that you have to have alcohol in your house? No, it doesn't. It doesn't say that. It doesn't say you have to have alcohol in your house.

It doesn't say you can't have it either. In fact, it says that it's been given for certain purposes. But what if a father says, I don't think we should have alcohol in our house. What do you say as a son? Do You say, well, that Bible doesn't say that.

No, Solomon says here, don't forsake my law. And my father, he taught me saying, keep my commandments. Keep my commandments. And live. Because it's by keeping these commandments, it's by putting ourselves under their authority, their proper authority, that we learn wisdom.

There are many things you could give as an example here. What kind of clothes you're going to wear, what kind of movies you're going to watch, what time you're going to eat, and how the house will be run, and so on. These are matters where fathers and mothers, or civil rulers, and they're a little bit different there, and we'll talk about that in a second. Or church elders have come up with some rules, some procedures, some instructions. And where those are lawful, Where those are not commanded or forbidden in the Word of God, then we need to follow those instructions.

Now, if we're talking about church or the civil magistrate, it's a little bit different. I grant that. The law of our land is a little different. But when it's properly properly imposed, then we should follow it. So the trouble today is that we, in our day of tyranny, the trouble is that the laws are not properly imposed.

You see, when you're born, nobody asks you what family you wanted to be a part of. But when you form a country, you do get to decide. And we have a compact and a contract with our government. And they are under that authority. And it stipulates what they have authority to do and don't do, and how laws are to be passed and imposed, and how they're not to be imposed, and exactly what authority the civil government has and what it doesn't have.

That's the law of our land. And we, if we're going to follow the law of our land, may have to tell a civil magistrate that he's acting contrary to the law and we can't obey him because his word isn't a proper law. It's no command. It imposes no burden on us because it's not a lawful law. Because it doesn't follow the authority that He's been given in our country.

And So there is that difference. But where the law is properly imposed, then we should live under it, even if we don't think it's wise or there's a better way of doing things. Jeremiah gives a very interesting example of this. You remember the Reckobites? Remember that family?

They were the sons of Jonadab. And Jeremiah is told to take these descendants. Jonadab was somebody who lived in Jehu's time. So this is hundreds of years later in Jeremiah 35. He's told to take these descendants of Jonadab, who are the house of the Rekebites, and he's to invite them into the chambers of the temple and offer them wine to drink.

So Jeremiah does this. He gets them all together, He sets bowls of wine and cups and says, drink. But they say, we will drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, you shall drink no wine, you and your sons forever. You shall not build a house, sow seed, plant a vineyard, nor have any of these, but all your days you shall dwell in tents that you may live many days in the land where you are sojourners. Thus we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he charged us, to drink no wine in all our days.

We, our wives, our sons, our daughters, nor to build ourselves houses, to dwell in, nor do we have vineyard field or seed, but we have dwell intents and have obeyed and done according to all that Jonadab, our father, commanded us to do. Now does the Bible say you can't build a house? No, of course not. But that's what Jonadab had told his sons, and that's what they followed. And the Lord uses them as an example.

He says, look, here are these recubites. Follow their father, but you don't follow me. What's wrong with you? He doesn't praise them directly. He doesn't condemn them directly, but he does indirectly praise them.

He points to them as an example of people who obeyed the wisdom of their Father, the law of their Father, even when it was something that was not exactly commanded or forbidden in Scripture. Now we see one other principle here in this listening to our fathers in order to receive wisdom. And that is that we must begin to teach and we must begin to learn We are when our children are very young He says when I was my father's son when I was He's not saying when I was his biological son, but when I was under the instruction of my father. Because a sonship in the Bible is not just biological, but it's obedience. When I was under my Father's instruction, tender, tender, young, inexperienced, it's weak, literally weak, But it's weak in the sense of being pliable and moldable.

You might say that wet cement is tender in this sense. We wouldn't say cement is weak, But wet cement is pliable. You can shape it and mold it and fashion it any way that you like. And he's saying, when I was this tender, when I was this young child, I was pliable. I was shapeable.

I was the only one. Now that could mean beloved, but it could also mean the one and only. In some of the Greek translations of this passage, it's translated one and only, the same word that's used of God's Son. The one and only, or only begotten. And so this could mean when I was tender and the only one.

Meaning I was important to my mother. I was important to her. I had the focus of her attention to me, teaching me. But His Father and Mother here are teaching Him when He is young. When He's young.

This is when we need to be teaching our children, when they are very young. They can understand our words even before they can speak. And whether you know it or not, you are teaching them even before they can speak. Do you know what you're teaching them? Are you teaching them to listen to your voice and obey it?

Are you teaching them the words of God? Are you singing to them the praises of God? Our children are learning from very, very early. And it's what is learned in those early, early days. Even before they learn to read, they can learn to memorize the Scriptures.

They can learn the Psalms and the hymns. They can learn the catechisms. Who made you? Why did God make you? What else did God make?

You can learn these things. And the things that are learned in those days, when they are tender, when they are pliable, are the things that they will never forget. I can remember scriptures that I learned as four and a five and six year old. And even though I haven't reviewed them, they don't go away. We sang out of the precursor to this red trinity that we sing out when I was growing up and young.

And there are hymns that I learned out of there that I haven't looked at in 40 years, but I can't forget them. They're still with me. If you learn the catechism, when you're young, you'll always have it. If you learn the Scriptures, those passages of God's Word, when you're young, you'll always have them. It's so important.

It's so important to begin teaching when our children are tender, when they're very young. From the day they're born, they can hear and they can understand. God gave them a brain and they know a lot. They can learn a lot. This is the legacy of a faithful family.

To hear the instruction of their Father and to learn wisdom. That is your legacy, a godly father and a godly mother. What is the message? We've looked at all the ways that it's delivered. What is this message?

Well, the message is essentially, marry wisdom. Marry wisdom. Get wisdom. Get understanding. Literally it's buy.

Buy wisdom. Acquire it. That word get occurs four times in these two verses, verses five and seven. Four times. It's probably important.

Get wisdom. Get understanding. Purchase it, literally. Buy it. And interestingly, since we're looking at marrying wisdom, Paul uses a very similar word in Greek, in Thessalonians, when he talks about possessing your vessel in sanctification.

That word is literally acquire or purchase. Acquire. Your wife in sanctification. Same concept here. Get.

Acquire wisdom. Acquire understanding. Verse 7. Wisdom is the principal thing. Literally this is the beginning of wisdom.

It's the same word used that we've seen before to refer to the beginning. The beginning. The beginning of wisdom is, get wisdom. If you have a Bible that puts things in italics, you'll probably see a lot of italicized words in that sentence. Because literally it says the beginning of wisdom, get wisdom.

The beginning of wisdom is to get wisdom in exchange for all your acquisitions. Get wisdom by itself. It is worth everything else that you have acquired. Exalt her, and she will promote you. That word is cherish her, esteem her, Highly prize her.

They said it earlier, seek her as silver. Value her. Cherish her. It's what a husband is to do to his wife, to nourish her, to cherish her. Proverbs 31 speaks about A woman whose worth is far above rubies.

She's highly prized, esteemed. Prize her and she will lift you up. She will bring you honor when you embrace her. She will place on your head an ornament of grace, a crown of glory she will give to you. A crown of glory.

She will place on your head. That's what a good wife is to a husband. Crown of glory. Worth more than rubies. Wisdom is the principal thing.

Get wisdom. The beginning of wisdom is to get wisdom. Cherish it. That's saying value, esteem, the words of your fathers. Seek those.

Get, acquire. It means you have to go out and, as we said earlier, seek for wisdom. To seek those who can teach and instruct. And she will bring you honor when you embrace her. She will place on your head an ornament of grace and a crown of glory she will deliver to you.

But you have to listen to the words of your fathers. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have subdued our rebellious heart, that we are able to listen to it, to hear it, to receive it. We ask, Lord, that this week you may give to us that humility and submission to listen to the words of our fathers, to begin with the Scriptures.

Father, we ask for the little ones here, that from their infancy, that they may know the Scriptures which are able to make them wise unto salvation, even as Timothy did. Father, we ask that each father and mother here may pass on to their children a legacy of a faithful family, that of the wisdom of Your Word, the wisdom of fathers who themselves have been brought up in the truth and the instruction of your Word. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.