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THE MIND OF CHRIST SERIES
FIVE RIVERS OF WISDOM
We want to see how to possess the mind of Christ. How we can posses the intelligence, the
wisdom that Christ has brought for us. I
believe that the body of Christ has yet to tap into the full measure of that
Jesus Christ has come to bring to us. We
need to understand the Word, process the Word, the life that is available for
us that we may enter into what the Bible and epistles called the riches of the
inheritance that is in Christ Jesus. It
all starts with 2 key words. In fact one
if you want to put it that way, is in the word wisdom.
Paul in Eph.1: 17-21, in praying for the
Ephesians Christians he pray that they may receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation
that they may know 3 things, the riches of His inheritance in the saints. You notice that he did not say that we may have
the riches of the inheritance in the saints, but he says that we may know
the riches of the inheritance that is in the saints. Not that we may have it
but we may know because we already have.
Say I have the riches of the inheritance of the saints. The only difference is that we may not know
what we have. So Paul says in Eph.1:
17-18 Therefore I also after I have heard of your faith in the Lord,
verse 17-19 “That the God of our Lord
Jesus Christ the Father of the glory may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and
revelation in a knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding be enlightened
(from the Greek word phos, “light” and is
constructed in a way that means flooded with light), that you may know what
is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance
in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who
believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ
when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the
heavenly places.”
Notice what the spirit of wisdom
does. It says that the spirit of wisdom
in verse 18 will enlighten, will flood our mind. The word mind or understanding
is a Greek word dianoia, will flood our dianoia with light. Apparently that light is essential to
understanding. Without light we cannot
understand, we cannot see. Sometimes we
have used it in an English phrase that we say I see it now. In a humorous sense it always show alight
bulb lighting up in a person. When a
person has an idea we don’t call it a dull idea. We call it a bright idea. When something new comes we say that’s a
bright idea. We use the expression
bright, light, to express an understanding, a concept, an ability to see
something that are there in the word.
And so the wisdom, which is a spirit, when
it comes it, floods us with light. That light is related to life. That’s in John 1:4 “I Him was life and the
life was the light of men.” Now the spirit of wisdom has light and the
light if life. If light and life is the
same thing which John 1:4 says light and life are the same
thing. If they are the same then
wisdom is life as well as light. It’s
important to take note of that, and since wisdom is a spirit, it is not just an
understanding, it’s a desire, an attitude and a life that you posses. The Bible uses the word spirit to
represent life or vigor and initiative and desire and vibrant and all those
things that you will associate with the song “Fire, fire, fire fall on
me”. But when you sing the song, you
don’t have what we call life. We today use
the word spirit to mean to speak in a spiritual way or being very religious,
but it’s not just that. The word spirit
in the Bible is synonymous with vigor and life.
In II Chron.9: 4 when the queen of
Therefore when you call a person spirit
filled, I would say a person who is spirit filled is full of life, full of
vigor, full of initiative. Nobody who is
spirit filled who has no ideas. You
don’t call a religious man who would just say, “Hang on brother, O I have been
hanging on brother for 20 years.” You
say that man is religious, he is spirit filled, and that is not spirit
filled. Being spirit filled is being
full of ideas, being full of the life of God, being full of initiatives. It is not just being lifeless and hanging
on. There are a lot so called spirit filled people
but they are not spirit filled. They are
religious filled.
If you really call something spirit
filled, there has to be life, there has to be movement, creativity and
ideas. We call ourselves charismatic; we
call ourselves spirit filled, then live it, show it and prove it. If there is spirit in you there should be
movement. There should be desire and
there must be vigor. I don’t call it
spirit if there is no vigor. Now I am
not just talking about shouting and prancing away like in a disco but surely
there must be some spirit involved that will move you when you mean what you
say and you mean what you sing. There
has to be great desire, there must be vigor and life.
Doesn’t mean that you speak in tongues
last year you are spirit filled this year.
Otherwise Paul will not say be continually be filled with the
spirit. You could speak in tongues even
yesterday and today you woke up in the morning and you have no more life and
say O dear today is Monday, I am going to work
again. There is no spirit in you. That’s not being spirit filled. Spirit filled is being filled with vigor like
a newborn baby looking at everything and everything is interesting. Like a little child and everything is
new. As you are driving pass, going to
your office, you have been driving that direction 1000 times and that child in
your car will be jumping up and looking every where. Wow, look at that car, look at that bicycle,
and look at the road. And you have seen
that road 1000 times. It is that vigor
that we need to have.
We call ourselves spirit filled, well
let’s qualify what is spirit filled.
Spirit filled is being full of the life of God and initiative of God
because life and light are the same.
Life and spirit are the same and life and wisdom are the same. Because wisdom and spirit are the same and
wisdom is the spirit. We can be filled
with the wisdom, I tell you when God gives you His wisdom, you will find that
even 24 hours in not enough. You want 48
hours a day to do everything God tells you to do. And you will find energy. Why, because the spirit is energy. Since spirit is life, spirit is energy, if a
person has an idea and no energy to carry out, to me
that idea is the flesh and not the spirit because the flesh has no life. Anyone who has an idea and has no life to
perform that idea, that idea is not from the spirit because the spirit has
life, vigor and desire. But any idea that
is in the flesh we only says hi brother that is a good idea, why don’t you try
it? That’s the flesh and the soul
talking. See, we want to differentiate
between what comes from the mind of Christ and what comes from the spirit of
God and the mind of the human flesh and the human soul. The mind of human soul will say I have an idea,
will say I know how to do this, I know how to do
that. This should be done and that
should be done there but there is no life to back it up with the Word and with
your life and to sacrifice your life inside.
When God has an idea, God put his whole
life inside it, that’s the difference.
If we say we have an idea from God, we have a plan from God, my first
question is, are you willing to die for that idea? If it’s the Spirit of God who inspired that
idea, inspired that plan, inspired the will in your life, you will be willing
to lay down your life for it. Anyone who
is not willing to lay down his life, my question is then it must be from your
soul, because when the Spirit doesn’t supply the life, you can have a million
ideas but it doesn’t work. So here we
talk about the Spirit of God as related to wisdom. And wisdom is light and life and wisdom is a
spirit. So there is vigor, there is
movement, there is life and there is desire.
When you say it you do it if it’s the spirit. There are a lot people who start it but
cannot finish because part of it is his or her own idea.
For God so loved the word that He gave His
only begotten Son, He is willing to sacrifice right to the last, right to the
best. God did not hold back His
best. He gave His best; there is nothing
worthier than Lord Jesus. God so loved
the world that He gave and He tells us if God is so willing to give us then we
should be willing to follow through with His will for our lives. Jesus said I will go to the Father and He
died. I Jn.3: 16 should continue to
operate in our lives, that we would be willing to lay down our lives for our brethren, that we will be willing to lay down our lives for
the things God shows to us. So here we
have in the Bible how spirit and life are related.
Hokmah
What we want to see here is that what the
world call wisdom is self-limiting.
There are many Hebrew words for the word wisdom but there are 2 primary
words we want to consider as the main key to understand the difference. The general Hebrew word for the word wisdom
is the word hokmah. It points to the wisdom of God and is the
same Hebrew word that was used in Proverbs 3 where it says wisdom or hokmah cries out in the street. And all over
in the O.T. whenever the word wisdom is used, you will find the word hokmah. Then
there is another word wisdom that is used in the O.T., Deut.34 it tells us how
Moses laid hands on Joshua and Joshua received the Spirit of hokmah on him, the Spirit of wisdom on his
life. We need God’s hokmah
so that we can function.
Hakam
We have the other
Greek word that is used for the natural wisdom.
The word hokmah is used for
spiritual wisdom, the higher kind of wisdom that operates. And the other word that is opposing to it,
not necessary contradictory but not fully reliable and sometimes in a positive
way, sometimes in a negative way, is the word hakam. Hakam means
natural wisdom, natural ability. Hakam originally came from God. God was the source of wisdom and imparted to
men but when men fell that wisdom can be utilized in a
cunning way and evil way. Or it can be
used in a good way. So hakam is natural wisdom and it can be
developed. It’s in the lower scale. In the world when you talk about wise man,
many times the word hakam is used. You will notice that sometimes when God tells
us to do something, He requires some hakam
involved. So it’s not necessary
something evil, something bad all the time but we need to know that hakam alone cannot serve God. The natural wisdom and ability of our mind
will never be able to serve God in a way that God wants us to serve Him.
In between hokmah
and hakam are 5 rivers of wisdom. There is a whole zoo of Hebrew words involved
but we trace it to 5 major Hebrew words for the word wisdom. They point to 5 major areas of intelligence
and of wisdom that we need to be aware of.
Our present twentieth century world is only aware of primarily two major
fields, one major type of wisdom in the educational field and one in the
artistic. Today’s test of intelligence
is based on one aspect. That ability of
a person to think logically, to conceive and analyze is the conclusion to a
minimum facts possible. That’s the test
of the world’s intelligence. And all the
educational system is based on that. You
learn one level of logic after another and then you are supposed to bring it to
a conclusion. The other field is the
artistic field.
The Bible does speak about 5 major areas
or fields of wisdom. We want to look at
them today but before we go into them, I want to show how that sometimes from
one genealogy can arise several branches.
Lets look at Gen.4, after Cain killed
Abel, Cain ran away to out of the presence of the Lord. Out of the Garden of Eden. In verse 17, “Cain knew his wife and she
conceived and bore Enoch. He built a
city and called the city to the name of his son Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad
and Irad begot Mehujael and
Mehujael begot Methushael
and Methushael begot Lamech. Then Lamech took
for himself 2 wives. One was Odah and the name of the second was Zillah. And Adah bore Jabal.”
Now here began different fields. Jabal was the
father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. In other words Jabal
grew up to be an expert in agriculture and in cattle rearing. So Jabal developed
his profession and from his line, you see he developed a type of cultural
profession. Why cultural, because it
ties up to the lineage. Just like today
in certain types of business here in
Then another son in Gen.4: 21 “His
brother name was Jubal. He was the
father of all those who play the harp and flute.” Some families are musicians. Their grandpa was a musician, their father
was a musician, son was musician, great grandson was a musician and it seems to
follow down the line. Not that it was
limited to that but they pass on the knowledge and their skill that they have
learned and they have developed. So here
is a whole lineage under Jubal who became expert musicians.
Sometimes that happens in the spiritual also. Notice that in the book of I Chronicles, that
all the musicians of David were related to one another. This looks like a clan ministry. In I Chro.25 “Moreover David and the captains of
the army separated for the service some of the sons of Asaph,
of Heman, and of Jeduthun.” Notice there were 3 main tribes and each
tribe points to a patriarch figure. They
are Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun. These 3
major tribes produce all the musicians for king
Solomon and king David. The Bible tells
us that some of us are the eyes, some of us are the noses, some of us are the
ears and we must each discover our place.
Sometimes that skill is passed on to the next generation. Here we see in verse 2 “Of the sons of Asaph: Zaccur, Joseph, Nethaniah, and Asharelah; the
sons of Asaph were under the direction of Asaph, who prophesied according to the order of the king.” There you have the whole group of people
under Asaph.
Then verse 3 Jeduthun; he was in a different type of music. He was in the harps and he plays the harp
with all his kids. Verse 4, Heman and verse 5 you notice Heman
exalted the Lord with the horn. So there
are the trumpeters. If you study
relationship in the Bible, you will be amazed that how closely knitted top
leadership are.
Sometimes they are even related to one another in blood. God is not against that but God is against it
when men put blood relationship and kinfolk
relationship or racial relationship above the Spirit. That would be wrong. But every one of us belongs to some tribes
and we don’t have to be ashamed of that.
You don’t have to be ashamed because of your family name; we all come
from somewhere. Even Elijah was a Tishbite. God knows
what is that but he came from same Tishbite
family. So here we have an understanding
where each one draws their lineage.
If you notice that the top leadership in
Moses’ time was Moses, Aaron, Miriam, guess what, look like family
business. Somebody down there will say,
is this a clan taking over or something?
But God was not concerned about that.
God was just choosing leadership.
Even from the beginning you possibly notice that Aaron was the leader
among the Egyptians. When the Israelites
were in
There apparently appear to be different
types of wisdom and there are 5 rivers of wisdom that flow. Sometimes it flows because of our
heritage. We have been brought up in one
area of wisdom, like some kids who are raised up in a musician family. But you can add a new line when you move into
a new fellowship with a different group, which has a different wisdom
involved. It can bear fruit in that direction.
Lets
get back to Gen.4, the second son Jubal was a musician. He invented musical instruments and he played
them. Verse 22, Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain. Tubal-Cain was an instructor of every craft man in bronze
and iron. Tubal-Cain
had a different skill altogether. Tubal-Cain was an expert in craftsmanship. He could be a blacksmith or silversmith, but
he was skillful in handling and making works of artifact. An art, maybe a bronze base, a bronze table,
he could skillfully bring it about. He
could cast iron, cast metals and alloy. That was the skill that was involved.
One family came out with 3 different types
of skill. The key is not the bloodline;
the key is in the type of spirit that was imparted. You see spirit can be imparted, sometimes the
whole family carry a type of spiritual wisdom stronger than the other. There could be a inter flow of different
rivers of wisdom and we need that in order to tap on the mind of Christ and be
functional in a productive way in this world.
To tap on the different types of rivers
that is available for us, 5 different Hebrew words for wisdom. The main one is hokmah
and that covers all the five. The lowest
is human wisdom hakam. Hokmah flows
into 5 different streams. We have a tendency
to be majoring into one or two of those streams but to develop we need to be
opened to all the five streams of wisdom that the Bible talks about.
Lets look first of all something akin to Tubal-Cain type of wisdom.
Exodus 36:1 “And Bezalel and Aholiab, and every gifted artisan in whom the Lord has put
wisdom and understanding, to know how to do all manner of work for the service
of the sanctuary, shall do according to all that the Lord has commanded.” Now, the word wisdom here in verse one
is the word hokmah. He used the general word for wisdom to
describe the impartation to their lives but when that hokmah
came into their lives, they excelled in one field of wisdom. That is the same field like Tubal-Cain could do.
Works of art, with that skill they were able to build the tabernacle and
all the inter grade parts involved. I
mean it is not just a wooden table laid with gold, they must have fine artistic
design on it, and then they must have artistic design for cherubim. I mean how do you conceive them, how do you
visualize them? So they need the hokmah from God and with that hokmah
they move into one field. They were not
teachers or preachers like Moses was. It
takes a different wisdom but they became good at their hands.
First River
In chapter 35:35 of Exodus he says he has
filled them with skill. The word skill
sometimes is translated as wisdom and sometimes translated as cunning. “He has filled them with skill to do all
manner of work of the engraver and the designer and embroiderers, in blue,
purple and scarlet thread, and fine linen, and of the weaver-those who do every
work and those who design artistic works.” It use a special
Hebrew word hasab to describe the work
skill in chapter 35:35.
So here we began to see the picture. There is the main river hokmah,
which flows out. As the hokmah
river flows out, it has 5 streams.
One of the streams is chasab. Because the Lord filled them with hokmah in Exo.36: 1 but then Exo.35: 35 He filled
them with hasab. So there is a relationship between hasab and hokmah. Hokmah is
the total wisdom, entire wisdom, the length, the breath, the height, and the
depth of God’s wisdom. And we know God
is awesome, we cannot fully understand Him.
We are finite mind but if one drop of wisdom of hasab
comes into our life,we would
become skillful with our hands. Hasab dropped
into Aholiab and Bezalel
and their hands became skillful. Hasab wisdom is the wisdom that causes your hands to
be skillful. This is an area of wisdom
that I tie up to the engineering ability.
You take raw materials and you take a concept and you could transform
those raw materials into some workable structure.
It will be just like a mechanic. If you want to be an ordinary mechanic you
take hakam but if you want to be the Lord’s
mechanic then you take hasab with hokmah. That
will make you different. It will make
your hands different. An engineer has a
different profession altogether. The
scientist can have their theories but to take those things and to construct it
into something usable takes a different skill and wisdom. That type of wisdom for engineering calls for
wisdom of the inventor. For example
Thomas Edison was not so much a discoverer of laws and theory but he took what
was there and he make little invention and little things that make life
different and more useful. He invented a
light bulb and that makes a whole lot of difference. He takes the discoveries that were there and
formed invention that are beneficial to human beings. That is the hasab
kind of wisdom. Perhaps as we look at
God’s Word, we realize that the only wisdom we have is the ability to
understand God’s Word. That’s not the
only wisdom. God could give you wisdom
to be able to do your type of profession much better than before. The hasab
is a kind of wisdom where you could see ways to put things together that
the hakam wisdom of the world can never give
you. This is because hasab
depends on hokmah. So your engineering ability, your ability to
put things together with your hands is high above the others, above
normal.
Lets look at some of the things that they made
in chapter 38:23 “And with him was Aholiab the son
of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver and
designer, a weaver of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and of fine
linen.” Some of us talk about works of cunning. Do you notice that Aholiab
was from the tribe of Dan? Turn to the
book of Gen. 49:16-17 “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of
King Solomon received the plans of the
temple from king David; he says that king David
received the pattern from the Lord. I
mean they already had the blue print for the temple kept in the cold
storage. When it came the time to build
the temple, Solomon did not have enough people who had hasab
wisdom. He had to ask king Hiram to
supply skillful craft man with great cunning.
He points to the same Hebrew word.
These 5 rivers of wisdom are available
because God has released them upon the planet earth. Sometimes some of the people on the planet earth
who are in hakam tap on the little bit of
those rivers. When we say the church and
the people of God should be the head and not the tail, we are saying that in
all 5 areas of wisdom. The people of God
must excel. For too many years the world
has excelled in areas that the people of God had a potential to. Areas like hasab
because we were not taught that Word. We
think the only wisdom is understanding God’s Word and
receiving spiritual principles and living a holy life. It includes all that but we neglect to see
that there is a river for us to tap and it’s call hasab. And
because we don’t see it, we don’t believe it and we don’t receive it. So we never tap into those rivers and the
body of Christ never gets the chance to perform hasab
in the way that God wants it. In the
way that the world will marvel that we should tap on that field of wisdom, so
that we could do things, engineer things, invent things, and make things like
the world has never seen before. We
shall be the head and not the tail.
Some of you may not be called to the five
fold office and you may say I am not an apostle, I am not a prophet, I am not a evangelist, I am not a pastor, I am not a teacher, but who
am I? You are hasab,
maybe you can evangelize with what your hammer and nail can made. You could not evangelize with a plane and
jack-saw and a drill but you could evangelize with the creation of your
work. When everything was finished,
everybody came to the
One of the ways that we are going to bring
the prosperity into the
Second River
The 2nd
realm of wisdom is in I Sam.18: 5. “David went out wherever Saul sent him,
and behaved wisely.” Now here is
wisdom involved. Behave wisely and Saul
set him over the men of war and he was accepted in the sight of all the people
and also in the sight of Saul’s servant.
In verse 14-16 “And David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the
Lord was with him. Therefore, when Saul
saw that he behaved very wisely, he was afraid of him. But all
What type of wisdom
is involved? He didn’t say that because
he passed all his examinations but it says here, there is a different type of
wisdom, wisdom to know the right things to do, the right things to say. The Hebrew word for wisdom is sakal.
We have hasab, and now we have sakal.
The word sakal means you are very
refined, cultured. We realize that this
area is in the line of table manner, dress style and social ethic, etc. And all these things make you different. That area of wisdom the world has not
refined. But the Bible defines it as
wisdom. David knew how to behave
himself. Sakal
wisdom is wisdom in diplomacy and wisdom to know the finer point of
relating with imperfect people. That is
an area that people need.
Hasab has to do with the hands and you skills
but sakal has to do with your ability
to comprehend people. That’s the
wisdom. Wisdom to read people like a
book and know what will offend them and what will not offend them, so that when
somebody else cannot relate to them but you can. It takes skill and it takes wisdom. Do you know that because of the great effort
of diplomacy sometimes wars are avoided?
Of course if you don’t have the right diplomat with sakal,
but you depend on someone with hakam or earthly
wisdom, you can create trouble. You make
more wars. But where sakal
comes in, it is what make you say, Jesus says blessed are the peacemakers
for they shall be called the sons of God.
See, its people who could come in, in an area of strife and understand
everything and be able to appease everybody.
That takes wisdom. Wisdom is not
book knowledge but this wisdom is to know the heart and the feelings of
people.
Do you know some people completely have no
sakal and behave like hooligans. For example, some men do not know how to
behave before the ladies. They think
that they can win the lady’s heart but instead they chased them away. I mean, normally you should know how to
behave before a lady. You don’t speak
loudly, praise God man, hi, how are you man.
I mean what will she say? That
guy is primitive. That lady is going to
think hi Tarzan, better run. So things
like that, you know the skills that are involved.
Sometimes you relate to people of honor,
the Bible says, giver honor to whom honor is due. You put a guy who doesn’t know all these
things and he can blunder your entire business
deal. Just a small little thing can blunder your half million dollars contract. Or sometimes in
a ministry, for example if I need to plan a meeting in another country or in
another city, like I want to organize a teaching crusade for 5 days. Now there is a lot of organization work
involved. Besides that you have a lot of
red tapes involved. And then you need to
have faith to go ahead and rent the auditorium and you send somebody there
without sakal wisdom (refined,
cultured, dress style, social ethic) and all that fellow have perhaps is hasab wisdom (skillful with the hands). I mean he is good at putting the poles up, putting
the tents up and gets all those systems up but not good at sakal. I tell you he will do everything but nobody
will come because everybody is turned off.
Before that fellow came in everybody was excited. After that fellow came in everybody was hurt,
bruised, wounded.
The expert has a different wisdom that was required. That expert wound people. He had no skill in relationship. So the skill to develop relationship with
people is sakal wisdom. It comes from God hokmah.
David was filled with the Spirit without
doubt. David had a skill that other
people don’t have. You see, David like a
mighty man, you forget that behind the scene he has to relate to many people. Think about it. When he was running away from king Saul, hiding in Adullam cave
and in Adullam cave all the worse character in
society came. The outlaws, the reject of
society, the debtors, that’s what the Bible says. All these people came to him and guess what
happened? All these people usually are
not cultured, and have rough mannerisms.
When they drink their soup they will slurp, I tell you if you want to
win a lady’s heart you don’t drink your soup that way. Then he put his apron in the wrong place. Then the food are
all there but they don’t know the politeness of letting others take first. When David says thank you Father for your
provision Amen, they take all the drum sticks and put it on their plates and
look up and smile for the camera. These
are the guys David took in. Some of
those guys are going to be his key generals.
David had a lot of homework to do.
He had to polish them.
Sometimes a person is called to be an
apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. They have wisdom, which I will classify, in a
different area, spiritual wisdom but they don’t have sakal
wisdom. I tell you they can go in,
they have a good ministry but don’t know why people don’t open door. Because you are not refined enough and you
don’t know how to move into other areas of wisdom.
I mean here is David in his Adullam cave and polished all these people up. They are great fighters, great warriors,
people are afraid of them when they come to a fight but they were not cultured
men. Through time they become
cultured. Part of the sakal wisdom in David came to them. Apparently in I Sam.
David was very refined. Everybody loves
David after he conquered Goliath. He was
more famous than king Saul. David could have grown bigheaded, walk around
like a peacock but David didn’t do that.
He knew how to humble himself. He
knew how to behave before dignitaries.
The same way, sometime we speak to people
of authority in this world, some Christians don’t have sakal
wisdom. All they have is spiritual
knowledge about the authority in Christ.
Thank God, praise God, He has made us kings and
priests. And so you don’t know protocol
and you meet some of these dignitaries and you speak roughly, praise God. We need some sakal
wisdom to relate to people at different level, different places and at
different position. It takes a dignified
wisdom, thank God, it comes from God.
You could read books on mannerism, you
could read books on ethics and you could read books on all these areas but all
these contain some measure of tradition.
Only the spirit of God could teach you what is right and wrong in some
of these areas, the rightness or the wrongness of these things. Even without the book saying, the feel of sakal wisdom will tell you what is right and what is
wrong. You could flow with that and you
know exactly what to do.
Sakal wisdom, David has it and he was filled
with that and when Saul saw that David has such wisdom. See, when you have sakal
wisdom you find favor not only with God but you also find favor with man. Jesus finds favor with God and with man. It says at the end of all his practice some
years of sakal wisdom, all Israelites love
David, because he did what was right in the right way. It’s a different set up altogether.
There was one of those commentaries that
one time I read many years ago, about one champion who came out and said, when
he started he thought all he needed was his skill. Just play to the best and keep in top
form. Then he said, when he matured in
the sport he learned this - that you must not just know yourself; you have to
know your opponent. So when you play
with an opponent who has a very strong smash, you don’t play too many high
balls. You give him more net play. But if you have an opponent who is good at
net, you try not to give him that. So
his first skill was skill in himself.
His second skill was skill to adapt his play to each opponent.
See, that’s a blind spot that sometimes
people come up with. They don’t realize that there are two developments. We are teaching this because we realize that
in the body of Christ we shall be the head not the tail. In business we shall be the head not the
tail. In inventions we shall be the head
not the tail. In sports we shall be the
head not the tail. No sportsman here,
praise God, some days this message will get to some sportsmen who are the
believers in Christ and who know that God caused them to be a champion for the
Lord.
I was talking to a
woman tennis player in
As long as there is one born again, we
Christians have shut something up that the world is trying to push and
develop. Because we put it as non-spiritual,
you don’t realize that there is the whole field of wisdom called yada’ wisdom, wisdom of body coordination and
perfection. And because of that do you
notice that we have neglected to excel in areas that we could excel in. I hope your thinking is not old fashion or 20,30,40 years ago where those parents think that football
profession is not a profession or sports profession is not a profession. This is the old thinking. In the old days we Asians think that the only
profession are the doctors. So sometimes
when a person is good at something that could make the whole life out of
that, they could build their life out of their talent, we neglect that. We are narrow-minded. We realize that this has now become unique
profession. You could be a world champion
golf player, tennis player, whatever player, let me tell you, wouldn’t it be
glorious after you win all the games.
You win all the world championships.
Then the reporters interview you and you say Jesus Christ helped me to
do that. I tell you, you evangelize more
people than an evangelist preaching his heart out at the stadium where all
these other folks never attend. You have
a world audience that others don’t have.
We need people like that. We need
to tap on that type of wisdom, the yada’ wisdom. Body
coordination in God that God gives skill to excel in God.
There are 2 phases of this wisdom. It’s not just the skill but also your relating of the skill to your environment. It’s your ability to adopt your skill. Those who win marathon are not just their
stamina. Everybody try to develop
stamina, its important but pacing yourself, you know at what speed to pace
yourself and when to give it the last go. Its not just
running hard but its running smart. It’s
not just playing hard with all your skill but it’s playing smart. That’s the key factor involved that can make
Christians rise and be the head not the tail.
I mean today sports events are one of the top world earners. The whole of the world is going into that. Wherever there is recession, there is no
recession in sports. While we are having
recession those sports fellows are earning money. In the past years of recession those
sportsmen are gathering the wealth of the world. The cattle on the hills and the silver and
gold belong to them. Even in the sports
arena, it takes a Christian and a believer to tap into yada’ wisdom and excel by the help of God’s
Spirit.
Lets look at I Sam.16 May it help us to
develop grace in all these areas of wisdom.
We realize we may not be able to do everything but we will find our
place in the body of Christ that God has called us to. One thing spurred me to examine these
scriptures and realize there are so many realm of wisdom. One day when I was reading this book “Scenes Beyond the Grave” by Marietta Davis where she actually went
into a state of unconsciousness and her spirit left her body and she went to
heaven. In heaven she had the privilege
of being taken to visit children paradise.
She saw all the training the angels were giving to all the children in
paradise. She saw many of these spirits
are little infant spirits. Most of them
are babies that died in a miscarriage or abortion. Little spirits being taken into paradise in
heaven and this is the one statement that put me on and makes me realize that
there is a whole field to research into.
She made this statement in her testimony, she said when a new little
infant spirit comes into the children paradise, the angel would look at it and
identify the type of mind and inclination that God has given him and then they
will be put him or her into one of the major schools in paradise in
heaven. Today every Tom, Dick and Harry
goes through primary education, secondary education and only specializes when
you are 18,19 or 20.
But in heaven immediately they know whether the child is an artist, a
musician, a teacher or one who is skillful in architecture, design heavenly
things. Heaven is interesting,
it’s not just floating in the clouds.
There are a lot of things to design; there are a lot of things to do up
there. What we do on this earth and
found interesting, in heaven there is the same thing magnified billions of
times.
That statement that I read spurs me
on. I realized not everybody has the
same type of mind. Everybody has a
different type of mind and inclination that God has created based on God’s
perfect will for that person. If we can
discover where our children stand and all that we have, we will never be
frustrated. We will grow and develop
into what God intend for us to be in the first place. You will enjoy it because you are comfortable
with it. Every fiber in your being was
made for that and that was made for you.
So I began this research and I realized that there are these different
types of wisdom that the world did not classify but the Word of God
classified. One of them was yada’.
Lets
look at I Sam.16: 16 “Let our master now command your servants, who are
before you, to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp. And it shall be that he will play it with his
hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well.” Sometimes the word skillful is translated in
the Old King James as cunning player, skillful player. The word skill is a different Hebrew word
from the word skill in Exodus 35:35.
That is the word hasab. This word skill is the word yada’.
It talks about skillful coordination.
Hasab makes you an inventor you create
something. Yada’
bring you to coordination. A
musician may not be able to build the instrument that takes hasab,
but are well coordinated, the fingers, the mind and the ears. David had yada’,
he was well coordinated on the harp.
Music takes coordination beyond our conscious mind. If anyone has learned musical instrument before,
you will realize that at first stage you are conscious of it but that’s not
good enough. You have to know the chords
until you subconsciously could find it and you are not thinking where to press. You are thinking about the sound. It’s a deeper level of the coordination of
your body, mind and ear. When they teach
you the piano, they teach you one hand first.
Then when you first learn with two hands you find it hard to coordinate
but then after sometimes, it’s automatic.
Something inside you starts coordinating. It’s the coordination of your body. Yada’
is your skill in wisdom to coordinate all your response in your body to get a certain out put and coordinate to the environment. So, David had that skill like no others. He was skillful to bring the best out of the
harp. You could give the same instrument
to ten different persons or musicians but the ten different musicians will
bring out the beauty out of that instrument differently. It depends not on the instruments since all
have the same instruments. But the skill
that is inside them, their ability to bring out the best of that.
I read the story of one famous violinist
and how as he played with one violin string broke. He was left with just a few more
strings. If you understand a violin, a
violin is a different instrument from the other musical instruments. Because a violin does not have a fixed place,
a fixed chord, its just a string and empty bar. Unlike a guitar where you got the exact place
to press, in a violin you have to find where the cord is. The places where you press depend on the
tuning as well as your feel on the wood.
So here he is playing and the string broke, then he played on and he
broke the second string. Finally he was
left with one string and he played with that one string. And when he finished he was given a standing
ovation because of his skill to bring out what take four strings to bring
out. That’s skill, that’s yada’.
Now we realize that in the musical realm
is also the wealth of the world. I mean
today parents will spend dollars and cents to pay the best for the best teacher
in music. It’s a whole field in
itself. If you think about it all the
businessmen in the world, they earn money, what do they spend on,
entertainment. I tell you the multi
millionaires in the world are those rock and roll band players. Some of them are skillful businessman some
are not. Drugs and immorality ruin their
own lives. But in times of recession
they are still prospering. While the
business was in recession, they are in prosperity. I tell you that wealth belong to the
The fourth type of wisdom is one of the
most general word, is the word bin. The word bin has been translated 48
times as understand and 14 times translated as consider. So the word bin talks about
understanding, mental capacity. The word
bin is that type of wisdom that the world today identified to be
I.Q. That is the river that most of us
know about it in the educational system.
Bin is the ability to analyze, the ability to comprehend, to
understand.
Its
all over the place but I just want to give the name of the man who operated in
that area. I Chron.27: 32 “And
Jonathan, David’s uncle was counselor, a wise man (now, this is the word bin),
and a scribe and Jehiel the son of Hachmoni was with the king’s son.” Notice the wisdom David’s uncle Jonathan
had. He was counselor, advisor to
people. He was a wise man, that is bin
and he was a scribe. Now here bin
type of wisdom and understanding is what I call the scholarly type of
wisdom. The wisdom that the world would
say I.Q, able to analyze, logical and comprehensive. Bin type of wisdom is what the world
today is after without realizing that there are all these other areas of
wisdom. So bin wisdom is basic to
society today. We can tap on that
area. It’s from hokmah. That wisdom will help you to have the ability
like Jonathan. He was a scribe and a
scribe is very meticulous in his writing.
In those days they don’t have printing machine so the scribes had to be
very meticulous, an A is an A, a T is a T, a full stop
is a full stop. Very
meticulous and scholarly. That is
the basic educational wisdom that the world demands.
But the world is on hakam and God can give you bin wisdom where
He can give you a comprehension. The ability to comprehend,
to analyze, to reason like the world and your hereditary has not been able to
produce. When Solomon receives wisdom hokmah, he had a lot of bin wisdom. He could speak of trees and analyze
them. He spoke of human relationship and
he analyzes it. He spoke on a lot of
things he spoke on 1000 proverbs. That
is bin wisdom. Bin wisdom,
an analyst, a philosopher, one who analyze things and
relationship. Bin wisdom is
intellectual wisdom.
As we see hasab
is with your hands and then we have the sakal
wisdom is in relationship and yadah is
in coordination of your body and we have bin, which is intellectual
wisdom that God can give.
Fifth River
Finally we have the fifth river, the last
one. Proverbs chapter 2 in verse 7, he
stores up sound wisdom for the upright.
He is a shield to those who walk uprightly. The word wisdom in verse 7 is the Hebrew word tushiyyah and bin is spelt bin. Tushiyyah
wisdom is the wisdom to understand God’s Word and God’s principles. That’s the wisdom we need to have when we
look at God’s command and God’s scripture.
Notice in Proverbs 2 there is a very close
relationship between hokmah and tushiyyah. Closer than all others.
In verse 1 onwards, ‘my son if you receive my words and treasure my
commands within you, so that you incline your ear to hokmah
wisdom and apply your heart to understanding, bin, if you cry out for
discernment and lift up your voice for understanding; if you seek her as
silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; then you will understand
the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives hokmah; from His mouth come knowledge and
understanding. He stores up sound tushiyyah for the upright.”
From hokmah
it suddenly becomes tushiyyah. That tells you that tushiyyah
is related to hokmah closely, because tushiyyah has to do with spiritual comprehension and
wisdom. Comprehending
spiritual significance, spiritual principles and scriptural relationship of the
Word. Then he continues with the
normal word chokmah in verse 10 etc., but then
he concludes in chapter 3:21, My son let
them not depart from your eyes, keep sound tushiyyah
and discretion. Tushiyyah
wisdom is wisdom in spiritual matters.
Partnering with Hakam or Hokmah
Each river of wisdom has its counterpart
in either hakam, which comes from the
world or in hokmah, which comes from
God.
Hasab without hokmah
tries to achieve what you call scientific inventions, but they will be
inventions that will not glorify God or benefit mankind, like destructive
weapons or dangerous drugs.
In the case of sakal
without hokmah, it tries to achieve diplomacy
but it fails. I mean we know how many
times a diplomat is deceived. If a
diplomat only has sakal with hakam he can be deceived but not when he has sakal with hokmah.
Then you have yadah. Yadah is
bodily coordination. In the world with hakam they tell you to be able to excel well, you
must think positively, have a positive approach, give
a pep talk to your football team. They
are all using hakam. There are still in line but it’s different
for hokmah. Hokmah gives
different skills, different techniques.
Then in the field of tushiyyah,
which is godly wisdom and spiritual wisdom.
The world in hakam has what we call
common sense. Common sense is to know
the rules and things that will be sensible to people. But hokmah
is in a different realm. It’s higher
than common sense. It goes beyond the
carnal and it can look very foolish in the natural but it’s wise. For example, common sense that is carnal will tell you if you are in
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