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The reading from Holy Scripture for this morning is the book of Proverbs, the second chapter. I begin the reading at the verse numbered one. "My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like

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silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and preserving the ways of his saints. Then you will

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understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path. For wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the

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perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. I was doing a wedding on Cape Cod, and at the rehearsal dinner they served lobster, and when they brought me my lobster, it had only one claw.

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So I said to the waiter, "What happened to the other claw?" He smiled and said, "I guess he was in a fight and he was the loser." He lost his smile when I handed him the plate and said, "Take this back and bring me the winner." One of the people at the table said, "I thought you as a minister would be more concerned with helping the losers than the winners." I said, "I am,

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but the fact that we are called to help the losers does not mean that we are called to be losers. We are to minister to the unsuccessful, to the suffering and the hurting in the world, but that does not mean that we are to be unsuccessful in our service. Success is to know the will of God and then to do it with everything that you have. And when you mix that kind of commitment

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and that kind of conviction, the result is not that which is merely mediocre." So I've been exploring with you in the last few weeks the secrets of success, and this morning I ask you to go with me to the Book of Proverbs. Now, Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings and aphorisms gathered across several centuries. The beginning of the collection

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probably came from the writings of King Solomon, but others were added as time went along. And one of the principal themes explored in this vast collection of Proverbs is wisdom, how to procure wisdom. Now, what is wisdom? If we turn to the New Testament, to the letter of James in the third chapter, we read there that wisdom is to gain one's understanding from God and to

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live it with certainty, purity, reason, and truth. Wisdom is to know what God wills for you and then to go after it with certainty, purity, reason, and truth. You've noticed, I'm sure, wisdom and success, biblically defined, are synonyms. So this morning I want to go to Proverbs to see what it has to say about wisdom, about success, and I take as my text the words from the ninth chapter of

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that book, "Wisdom has built her house. She has set up her seven pillars." What, according to Proverbs, are the seven pillars of wisdom or the seven pillars of success? The first one is this, "Trust God." In Proverbs chapter 3, verse 5, we read, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and he will make straight your paths." There was a fellow out skiing by himself, and he went over

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a cliff, and he just managed to catch a little branch. It was all which was holding him up, below just a chasm of snow and rocks. He cried out for help, but no one was around. Finally, he began to pray, "Oh, Lord, if you hear me, answer me." And God heard him, and God said, "Yes." He said, "Is that you, God?" "Yes." "Save me, please," God said, "All right,

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I will save you. Let go of the branch." "Save me, please," the man said, "Save me." And God said, "All right, I will. Let go of the branch." And then the man clinging to the branch cried out, "Is there anybody else up there?" Isn't it strange how people will depend on things, and how people will depend on other people, and yet they'll hold back from depending on God?

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They'll trust everything else except the one who made them and sustains them? A lot of people who are failures in life justify their failure by saying that they're very careful, they're very cautious, they're very frugal, they're well-balanced in their approach to life. Actually, they're people who do not have sufficient faith in God, and they tell themselves lies to justify their conduct. No

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one lies more to failures than to failures themselves. In 29 years of ministry, I've been confronted again and again with people who live in the house of never. They have no gumption, and the reason they have no gumption is because they've never really relied, trusted upon God. Notre Dame and Army were playing. Notre Dame was down by six points. Newt Rockne was coached. There

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was only a few minutes left in the game. He called a player from the bench, and he said, "I want you to go in there, and I want you to take this play, and I want you to score a touchdown and win this game. Will you do it?" And the young man said, "I'll try, coach, I'll try." And Rockne said, "Go back and sit down. I've already got 11 people out there trying. I'm looking for someone

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to do it." The people who do it are the people who go forward in the power of God, and that kind of power comes only from trusting in him. So the first pillar, trust God. The second pillar is to have integrity. Proverbs 10, verse 2, "Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit." Let me introduce you to Brian the Barbarian. I was over in Ohio giving a speech at a church, and I was to have dinner

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beforehand at the home of the chairman of the committee. And we arrived at his house, and his little three-and-a-half-year-old son named Brian met me at the door. I called him Brian the Barbarian. The first thing he did on greeting me was to kick me in the shins. We went into the living room to have some punch and crackers. He proceeded to spill his punch not once or twice,

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but three times. His father, who was the chairman of the committee, handed me the program for the night. Brian tore it out of his father's hands, and when his mother tried to get it back from him, deliberately tore it up and threw it on the floor. They had a little pussycat in the house. I noticed the cat kind of slinking around the outside of the room. I could understand why. As soon as Brian

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saw the cat, he began to throw things at it. We went into dinner. He dominated the entire meal. He screamed. He refused to eat. He intimidated his own parents. He was a barbarian. And it finally came time for us to go, and he was to go upstairs to get his bath to go to bed. And do you know how his parents got him upstairs? They actually put a cookie on every other step and bribed him to the

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second floor and to bed. Brian the Barbarian. Now what is that child being taught? That child is being taught that you can get reward without contribution, that you don't have to give anything and you can get something anyway. And that's one of the tragedies of our time, that so many believe that you can have reward without contribution. The broker who churns stocks, the

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builder who uses inferior materials, the employee who does not give adequate labor for the money paid, the employer who seeks to dominate and intimidate her employees, the teacher who goes before the students ill-prepared, the pastor who steps into the pulpit without having him readied himself in his mind and in his heart, the child who is paid an allowance for taking care of

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himself, things he ought to be doing for himself in terms of personal responsibility. All of these activities are rewarding without contribution and they tear away at the very fabric of our society. Treasures gained by wickedness, treasures gained without contribution, treasures gained without effort do not profit. You get nothing for nothing. So second pillar, have integrity.

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Third pillar, be prepared. Proverbs 6, verse 6, one of the most well-known of all the Proverbs, "Go to the aunt thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." Here's the aunt that knows winter's coming, so the aunt begins to prepare by laying aside the supplies that will be needed in the colder days to come. And when the cold comes, the aunt is ready to endure. What's being said,

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you see, in this Proverbs is that we must have a goal. We're to prepare and the most important part of preparation is to know what we're preparing for, to see in our minds what we're after because what we see is what we're going to get. You know, you hear a lot these days about how America is being defeated in the worldwide competitive market. And you hear that we're not

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sending out people with zeal and with a real desire to succeed, that we're kind of laying back on the oars and therefore slipping farther and farther behind. I suppose that in many instances that's true, but not in all instances. There are still business people in this country who have a goal, who know what they're after and succeed in reaching it because they have that goal and are

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prepared. I heard someone say the other day that all the shoes you buy in America are made in South Korea or made in Italy. Well, I was pleased to inform that person that the Allen Edmonds shoe company here in the United States is now selling American shoes in both South Korea and in Italy. There's a man named Charles Neville who lives out in California who's selling sand to the Middle

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East, a special kind of sand that's used to filter water. Fred Chow is a man from Chicago. He has opened a string of 24 laundries in China. 24 laundries in China. He knew what he was after and he succeeded in doing it. Lakewood Industries from Minnesota is selling disposable chopsticks to Japan. Now, who would ever think that someone here would be selling chopsticks to Japan or

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sending laundries to China or sand to the Middle East? But these people, you see, prepared. They had a goal. They knew what they were after and they succeeded in achieving it. That's true if you're in business or if you're seeking to evangelize someone or sell your car or find a boyfriend. It's true whether you're trying to make a better grade or to solve some problem that exists

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in your family. The principle is simply this. Thunder makes a lot of noise, but it has no power. But if you get to the place where that thunder is focused, at that place where it is centered, there you have lightning and lightning has power. So it is in focus. It is in goal. It is in preparation that success is won. Fourth pillar, always persevere. Proverbs 21, verse 15. The plans

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of the diligent lead to abundance. Diligent, of course, means to persevere. It means to have stick-to-itiveness. It means to be tenacious. Mark McCormick, who's the chairman of the International Management Group over here in Cleveland, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago in which he said that he believed that 80% of all business came through

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old doors. And what he meant by that was that most business does not come through new contacts. It comes through contacts that have already been developed. And perseverance is applied to those so that they become productive. You see, there's a temptation whenever you run into some difficult times to start looking around for greener pastures. The truly successful person is the

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person who perseveres, who keeps at it, and who eventually carries the day. Some years ago, a husband and wife team, Mildred and Victor Gretzel, wrote a book called Cradles of Eminence. And they took 300 famous people, people who'd accomplished a great deal, people like Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt and Albert Schweitzer and Clara Barton and Mohandas Gandhi

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and Albert Schweitzer, people like that. And they traced their lives. And you know what they discovered? They discovered that three-quarters of them had come from broken homes or homes where there was great poverty. Half of them had undergone some kind of major trauma in their early lives, 25% of them were partially handicapped physically. 25% of them. Here was one, for example,

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who stuttered terribly. And he stuttered until the day of his death. But he persevered in doing the things that he could do. And he wrote 20 novels and 30 plays and I don't know how many essays and short stories. His name was W. Somerset Maugham. Now, the principle illustrated in the lives of all these people who succeeded so well was they stayed at it. In spite of the brokenness

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or the poverty or the trauma or the physical disability, they stayed at it. Perseverance. As you slide down the banister of life, you will not find that the splinters are always going in your direction. But hang on, it's worth the ride. Fifth pillar, watch your tongue. Proverbs 15, verse 1, "A soft answer turneth away wrath and a harsh word stirs up anger." The tongue is very

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small, but it has great influence. You remember how James says the tongue is like the rudder on a ship. It's not nearly as big as the ship, but the way that rudder goes is the way in which the ship goes. So the tongue has tremendous importance in our lives. I was giving a speech at a banquet. It's not my custom to eat before I speak, and so I'm just kind of pushing the food around the plate.

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The man next to me said, "You're not eating anything." I said, "Well, I never eat before I speak." You see, if you eat, that goes into your stomach and extra blood is drawn from other parts of the body in order to aid the digestive process. And I don't want that to be going on when I'm speaking. I want that blood to be up here in the thinking machine where I can use it to the

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utmost. "Oh," he said, "I understand." I got up and I gave the speech. When I was done, I came back and sat down. I looked at him. He said, "You should have eaten." Well, we all get in trouble with our tongues. Public speakers just do it more conspicuously than other people. What I'm saying is the tongue really is important, and our preparation for using it is important also.

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In two weeks, I shall be on the campus of a college here in the state of Pennsylvania, and they've set up a very interesting program. They've invited every one of their 1,900 students to write an essay on why they don't believe in God. And the ten who write the best essays, and they know this in the beginning, are going to have dinner with me and the chance to come

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at me with all their arguments. Then later that night, they're having what they call an arena debate where I sit in the midst of all the faculty and the students, and they throw questions and accusations and things with regard to religion. And they've got a program next day called "How to Make Evangelism Respectable Again." Now, I listened to the man as he spelled this all out

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to me, and I said, "It's a great idea, and I'm all for it, but you're using words like 'debate.' Don't use a word like that. Use the word like 'dialogue.' After all," I said, "I'm not coming to win the point. I'm coming to win the people." Oh, he said, "That's a good line. I'm going to write that down. 'Not coming to win the point, but coming to win the person.' Well, it is a good line.

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It's a very old line. I've read it many times, and so have you, but its point is absolutely accurate. It is a soft answer which turns away wrath. And what we're trying to do is to win people, not to annihilate them or devastate them with the wisdom of our arguments." Proverbs says in chapter 16, "Pleasant words are like a honeycomb." And now the sixth pillar, "Have healthy friendships."

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Proverbs 17, verse 17, "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born to adversity." You ever watch a bunch of people go into a restaurant? Men or women, makes no difference. They sit down around the table. You're sitting over here so you can watch. And they come and they pass out the menus, and everybody looks at the menu. "What are you going to have?" "I don't know.

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What are you going to have?" "Well, I've been thinking. What are you going to have?" Then the waitress comes over, and what do they say? They always say, "What's good here?" And the waitress says, "Everything." "Well, you order first." "No, you order first." "All right, I'll have the chicken in the basket." And then you watch, and four out of the five people at the table will pick chicken

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in the basket. We are tremendously influenced by what goes on about us. And Proverbs says, "That being so, then if you want to have wisdom and you want to succeed, surround yourself with people who will do you good." Pick good friends. At another place, Proverbs puts it this way, "He who walks with wise men becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm." Mark Twain

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put it more succinctly. He said, "A friend is someone who will stick by you when you're in the wrong. Anybody will stick by you when you're in the right." Now, I'm not sure of all the implications of that remark, but at least this much is absolutely true. If we're going to make progress, if we're going to succeed, we need to have people who will stand with us shoulder to

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shoulder. Life is tough, so gain for yourself tough and good friends. And the last pillar, the seventh pillar, is to be generous. The word on this is very brief. It's from Proverbs chapter 3, verse 9. "Honor the Lord with your substance." The sad fact is that success spoils some people. It ruins them. They become arrogant and deficious and pompous. And what this verse calls to our

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thinking is this. If you're going to be a really wise and a really successful person, then never lose your reverence for God and never, ever fail to be a good steward of what he has given to you. Just this last week, I had the pleasure of sitting down with a couple from our church, a young couple, neither one of them 30 yet, and they're being outstandingly successful,

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and they're worried about it. They wanted to talk to me about things like where they should live, what example they can best set for their kids. They don't want their kids to grow up spoiled rotten by the abundance which is apparently going to be theirs. They're thinking about their stewardship down the line, and they've entered into stewardship commitments which

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prepare them for those times. These young people understand that success can paralyze and ultimately defeat, and they're getting ready for that right now. How many times we see individuals who are successful, and then what happens? Well, they become tyrants in their own home, or they're not around the home very much. They stay at the place where they're gaining all their applause. They're

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too busy to come to church anymore or to be involved in Christian education. Their responsibilities are too vast. As a matter of fact, they really don't think much about God anymore because somehow or another in their own mind's eye, they scrambled up onto his throne. You are never so successful that you can stop being nice. You are never so successful that you can stop being obedient. You

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are never so successful that you can stop being a generous steward of what God has given you. Proverbs says, "He who oppresses the poor insults his maker, but he who is kind to the needy honors his maker." And the mark of the truly successful, wise person is the one who honors the Lord with his substance. I shall never forget in 1973 being at the Special Olympics in Los Angeles. This is

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the Olympics for retarded children. It was the 400-meter race, and a little lad with Down's syndrome was leading the pack in the race. It was really something to see him run. His little legs wouldn't carry him in a straight line. He zigzagged back and forth across the course, but he was still out in front. Not by much, but he was still winning. And they came into that final 25 yards,

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and there he was pouring it on with all he had, and suddenly he fell. Flat out, he fell. And you know what happened? Every one of the kids running behind him, trying to overtake him and win themselves, every one of them stopped, and they helped him up. My friends, that one runs the race best, who makes the race safer for others. The finish line isn't the big thing. The fellowship

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is. Well, that's what I wanted to share with you this morning, and I'd like to ask you to make a promise. I'd like you to promise to drink, steal, lie, and swear. I want you to drink from Proverbs. You ought to read that book at least two times every year. I want you to steal a few minutes every day and remind yourselves to trust God, to be honest, to have goals, to persevere, to be

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careful with your tongue, to nourish your friendships, and to be generous in your service of others. I'd like to see you lie. When you lie down each night, before you go off to sleep, thank God for all he's given you. And swear, too. Swear that you will understand in your heart of hearts that success and wisdom are in fact the same thing. And as you seek after wisdom,

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that you seek after that which is of greatest importance. For as Proverbs says, and I quote it now for the last time, "Wisdom is more to be desired than gold and silver." Pray with me. We thank thee for this little book hidden away in the pages of the Old Testament, which is so rich in its counsel, Father. We thank thee that you enabled your Holy Spirit

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to move in the lives of those persons who penned these words centuries ago, words which are as apt today as they were when the plume hit the parchment. Teach us out of the riches of Proverbs, and out of our learning, may we find that success and that wisdom which consists of knowing what your will for our lives truly is, and then pursuing it with certainty, purity, reason,

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and truth. This is our prayer, and we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]