Sermon Tone Analysis

"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy wisdom get understanding."

Wisdom Is the Principal Thing

There has been a great deal of discussion over the years on what is the greatest good.

Henry Drummond wrote a stimulating essay entitled "The Greatest Thing in the World."

His argument is based on the inspiring thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, one of the masterpieces of our literature, in which Paul says, "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

Jesus pointed out two aspects of this important idea when he said we should love God with all of our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves.

Solomon said, "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding."

(Prov.

4:7.)

Try to imagine what a society we would have if each of us always exercised good judgment, if we were always wise in our choices, if we thoroughly understood each situation so that our wisdom could be fully depended upon.

We sometimes give credit for greatness to chance or those circumstances and influences that were in our heredity antedating our birth.

We sometimes say that a person is a natural-born salesman or a natural-born teacher or a natural-born golfer.

Everyone has at least two personalities, the one that he is born with and the one he acquires after he is born.

It is the acquired personality that we use in becoming a successful teacher, businessman, scientist, or husband or wife.

The principal ingredient in all of these successes is the element of being wise in what we do.

Just as nothing is born fully grown, so no one begins his life with a head full of knowledge or muscles filled with skills and self-control or a nervous system ripened with stability.

We learn how to be good husbands and bank presidents just as we learn to be expert basketball players, golfers, and skaters.

Each of us begins his life with great possibilities, and where we go from there is up to us.

With the right kind of study and labor and with a few other things added in, each of us may develop wisdom and good judgment.

Certainly we ought to explore the possibilities of more effectively cultivating these important qualities for our own lives.

Wisdom is the quality of being able to judge sincerely and deal sagaciously with facts, especially as they relate to life and conduct.

It is the capacity to make the best use of knowledge.

It involves the ability to make the best use of time and opportunity.

It is the proper development of talent.

It is a perception not only of the best ends, but also of the best means.

It is the ability to use practical know-how.

It adds excellence to our lives.

And so we might adopt as a theme and goal for our lives the statement of the wise man Solomon, who said, "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding."

We should work on this project as though our life depended upon it, as indeed it does.

Basic Character

The kind of character we develop determines on which end of the success scale our lives belong.

There is a great similarity between physical structure and our character structure, for as the bony skeleton gives us physical strength and power, so our basic character furnishes us the power to reach our divine destiny.

God himself has developed a perfect character, one that not only knows right from wrong, but one that is also dedicated irrevocably to right and is set in eternal opposition to wrong.

God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.

His strong commitments and his unchangeable nature make it impossible for him to fail, for he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

It is this basic, unchangeable, righteous character that makes God God, and we should train ourselves to follow his example.

It is important for us to develop a strong physical backbone with its some two hundred other supporting bones, but it is even more important that we develop moral backbone composed of a righteous human character.

The general benefits that we receive from a good character guarantee to us every other success and happiness.

The Boy Scout organization attempts to build this kind of character into its members.

Before any boy is permitted to have even a Tenderfoot membership in the Scout organization, he must make a solemn pledge: "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight."

These sacred pledges, if lived, would constitute a godly strengthening in the skeleton of each participating boy.

The first part of this pledge has to do with performing one's duty to God and country.

The second has to do with maintaining a high relationship of genuine service to others, and in the third, each boy makes a solemn pledge to himself of physical cleanliness, intellectual excellence, and moral righteousness.

Then he attempts to develop within himself those laws of righteousness centered in the following twelve basic character principles:

1. Trustworthiness

2. Loyalty

3. Helpfulness

4. Friendliness

5. Courtesy

6. Kindness

7. Obedience

8. Cheerfulness

9. Thrift

10.

Bravery

11.

Cleanliness

12. Reverence

When we refer to character by itself without any qualifying adjectives, we automatically imply a good character.

Yet our world is full of people who lack character or who have some negative character traits.

Evil character traits are fathered by Satan.

The dictionary says that character is the aggregate of distinctive mental and moral qualities belonging to an individual or to mankind as a whole.

A man's character is what he is.

His reputation is what others think he is.

One is the substance, the other is the shadow.

Emerson said that character ranks higher than intellect.

It must stand behind and back up every other thing.

Character is a moral vigor or skeletal firmness that we acquire through self-discipline, and our individual traits serve as the index to our essential or intrinsic value.

In recent years, we have been made aware of a serious worsening taking place in the world that forms an unusual contrast with the brighter background of our earlier history.

This consists primarily of processes that are eroding away fundamental character qualities.

In many places honor is being replaced with dishonor; truth is not as valuable as it once was; delinquency and criminal activities have increased enormously.

In the past men lived by the inspiring old axiom that an honest man is the noblest work of God.

Yet, to many people today, lying and deception have become a way of life.

We have torn down the pedestals from which our earlier heroes lifted us upward.

We do not have the same kind of confidence in our great educational institutions that we formerly did, and many students have become rebels, vandals, and fosterers of immorality.

Probably more important than all of these other downward trends is that so many people deny their responsibilities as children of God.

Recently a woman came to talk with me about her problems.

She and her husband have six young children.

The husband was immoral before they were married, and he has had several immoral affairs during their marriage.

He has made many pledges to his wife and children, promising them one day a happy, united, righteous family life, and yet the next day disappearing for several days without anyone knowing where he is.

Though he is immoral and irresponsible, he is a teacher in the public schools.

He makes contributions to the financial welfare of the family only if it pleases him to do so, but he is not dependable as a means of family support.

His wife works two eight-hour shifts each day, and from her two incomes she supports their six children; yet he accuses her of being a poor housekeeper.

The children love their father; yet they plead with their mother to divorce him.

This man, a college graduate, forces his wife and children to undergo the torments of hell merely because he is irresponsible and lacks those fundamentals of basic character that should identify him as a man.

He might be described as a mental and spiritual jellyfish who has no moral backbone or strong personal commitments to manhood.

His occasional impulses toward righteousness cause him to make promises, and then the weakness of his undisciplined will prevents them from being fulfilled.

Someone has said: "He who acts wickedly in private life can never be expected to show himself noble in public conduct.

He who is base at home will not acquit himself with honor abroad; for it is not the man, but only the place that is changed."

In contrast to this gloomy picture, we might think of God himself, who never wavers or vacillates.

He is always the same.

Colton has said that anyone should be willing to give twenty thousand pounds for a good character because he could immediately make double that sum by its use.

When J. P. Morgan was asked what he considered the best bank collateral, he replied "Character."

The best characters are formed by vigorous and persistent resistance to evil tendencies.

No one can wish or dream himself into a good character.

He must hammer and forge one for himself.

Lloyd George said: "There is nothing so fatal to character as half-finished tasks."

J. J. Gurney has added: "A tree will not only lie as it falls, but it will fall as it leans."

The beast was placed down on all fours and thus his vision is cast upon the ground, but man was created upright in the image of his Maker, so that he might look up to God.

Solomon said: "With all thy getting, get understanding."

(Prov.

4:7.)

And we might reassert our central purpose by adding: "With all thy getting, get character."

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