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Podcast
Knowledge Require Fear Of Lord
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Hi, I'm Dave DeWitt, and today I'd like to talk about the question, why does knowledge
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require the fear of the Lord?
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This podcast is basically an analysis of Proverbs 1-7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning
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of knowledge.
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My thesis is the fear of the Lord is the only path to truth, the way things actually are.
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So there is an inseparable connection between knowledge and the fear of God.
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Notice Proverbs 1-29, they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.
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Proverbs 2-5, then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of
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God.
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Acts 9-31, so the church throughout Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being
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built up and going on in the fear of the Lord.
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Acts 16, 13-16, and Israel, and you fear God, listen.
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2 Corinthians 5-11, therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men.
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The question is, if the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the knowledge, why can an
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atheist learn to drive a car, do algebra, develop a computer program without the fear
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of the Lord?
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Why are the Jews in general, and compared to most people groups, knowledgeable without
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a fear of the Lord?
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The liberal progressive world does not connect knowledge to the fear of the Lord.
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The high-tech world in which we live was invented in a large part by people who have no fear
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of the Lord at all.
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So why does the Bible claim that the fear of the Lord is necessary for knowledge?
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Most people would say Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci have a lot of knowledge, but Solomon
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would say, no, they don't.
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Here's an observation.
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The Bible clearly and consistently connects the fear of the Lord with both wisdom and
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knowledge.
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I can understand how wisdom is unattainable without the fear of the Lord, because wisdom
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is a skill for living with discernment, which in the New Testament includes an internal
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perspective.
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Clearly that requires the fear of the Lord.
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But the discussion about the knowledge is not wisdom.
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In the Bible, the fear of the Lord seems to be necessary for knowledge itself.
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The Bible applies that to all knowledge.
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Solomon applied it to seemingly every area of life in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
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Also God applied it to Job, using various areas of science in the natural world.
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Paul's prerequisite for these, he spoke to in Thucydides and Antioch, was you who fear God.
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If we're going to answer the question correctly, we need to ask, what is fear?
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What is that fear when it's applied to the Lord?
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Biblically, fear is terror in the context of reverence.
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Fear includes terror, not just respect.
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I might give a gift to a professor who I respect, but in that case, I define what fear and respect
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looks like.
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If I'm running from a bear in the woods because of fear, he defines what fear looks like.
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If we don't have a fear of God, his commandments become options kept on our terms.
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Fear is terror, but in the context of God, it's not just terror by itself, such as running
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from a bear in the woods.
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That terror would not include reverence or piety.
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Fear as it applies to God is terror which comes from reverence.
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When Ezekiel had a glimpse of the throne of God, he fell on his face.
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When Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on his throne, he said, woe is me, I'm ruined because I'm
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a man of unclean lips and I live among people of unclean lips.
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Apostle John tells us that the 24 elders around the throne of God fell down and worshiped.
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The very presence of God creates a reverence-induced fear.
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Why do we need to fear the Lord?
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The answer, we need to fear the Lord because we're sinners.
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Notice the fear of the Lord did not exist in Adam and Eve before the fall.
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They only began to fear the Lord when they were disobedient and ate from the tree of
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the knowledge of good and evil.
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God told them in Genesis 2, for any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the
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tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.
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It seems that Adam had no fear of God until he ate from that tree.
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Fear of the Lord is never a prerequisite for knowledge when there's no sin, as with Adam
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and Eve in the garden, good angels, four living creatures around the throne, or Jesus.
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Jesus' knowledge did not require fear of the Lord.
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It's our sin nature that creates the need for the fear of the Lord as an access to knowledge.
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After he ate the fruit, the first thing Adam said to God was, I was afraid.
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It's the same word for fear God used throughout the Old Testament.
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After they ate from the fruit of the tree, Genesis 3.22, then the Lord said, Behold,
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the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, definition of morality and
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creation of conscience.
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What about the biblical command, do not fear, and perfect love casts out fear?
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All the commands to not fear in the Bible are about not fearing something other than
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God.
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The Bible never tells anyone to not fear God.
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For example, Jesus said, Matthew 10.28, Do not fear those who kill the body, but are
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unable to kill the soul.
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Rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.
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Apostle John wrote, 1 John 4.18 and 19, There's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out
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fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
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The statement, perfect love casts out fear, assumes there is first fear for perfect love
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to cast out.
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The perfect love John is talking about is in the context of fearing punishment.
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The Greek word for punishment is the word for torment.
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According to the Strong's Greek Dictionary, the default position for anyone who realizes
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they're a sinner facing a just God is fear.
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You're only open to the gospel of salvation if you realize you're lost.
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The death of Christ on the cross delivers believers from punishment for their sin.
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Believers do not stop fearing God.
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They stop fearing punishment.
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What's the beginning of knowledge?
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The Hebrew word for beginning in Proverbs 1.7 means beginning first things or principal
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things.
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It seems that Solomon is saying that the beginning of knowledge would be the first thing or primary
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or principal thing that needs to happen before knowledge is possible.
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Solomon is not saying that the fear of the Lord is all you need for knowledge, but that
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it starts there.
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The fear of the Lord is a prerequisite for any and all kinds of knowledge.
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So let me suggest a definition.
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Scholarly or secular wisdom, secular knowledge, is a recognition of what we understand to
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be true.
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Biblical knowledge is a recognition of the truth itself.
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More specifically, true knowledge, biblical knowledge, what Solomon called knowledge,
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is a recognition through understanding and discernment using the logic we are born with
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that something is true the way things actually are because it comes from the general or special
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revelation of God.
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Here's a biblical perspective of knowledge.
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Job 38, 1 and 2, the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind and said, who's this that darkens
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counsel without knowledge?
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God gave Job a science quiz to show Job that he could not answer any of the questions.
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The point was and is all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, will end up being wrong
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if it doesn't come from the fear of God because only God has all knowledge.
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Proverbs 2, 6, for the Lord gives wisdom, from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
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Solomon connected knowledge to that which was only obtainable from his mouth, which
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will only be sought by those who fear the Lord.
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Hosea said, listen to the word of the Lord, O sons of Israel, for the Lord has a case
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against the inhabitants of the land because there's no faithfulness or knowledge of God
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in the land.
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My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
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Because you have rejected knowledge, I'll reject you from being my priests.
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Hosea told Israel they were to come to God with knowledge.
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For example, they were not to approach God with things like mysticism, magic, blind faith
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leaps, or even sacrifice and burnt offerings.
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They were to come to God with the knowledge of God.
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Romans 3 and Romans 10, through the law comes the knowledge of sin, for I testify about
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them that they have a zeal for God, but not according with knowledge.
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Paul emphasizes two things about knowledge.
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One, knowledge of God comes from the revelation of God, through the law comes the knowledge
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of sin.
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And second, even a zeal for God was not valuable without knowledge.
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There's one more point I'd like to make before we leave the subject.
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Knowledge which begins with the fear of the Lord always includes morality.
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David said in Psalm 34, come you children, listen to me, I'll teach you to fear the Lord.
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Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.
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Depart from evil and do good.
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Seek peace and pursue it.
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And remember, Jeremiah told us, the heart's more deceitful than all else and desperately
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sick who can understand it.
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Paul discussed the morality, the moral sensitivity of the Corinthians, perfectly, holiness, he
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said, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
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Peter affirmed that knowledge must follow moral excellence, 2 Peter 1.5, moral supply,
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moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge.
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In the secular mind, there is a disconnect between knowledge and morality.
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A scientist, a university professor, a doctor of something or another, is not concerned
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to be lacking in the knowledge when he's acting immorally.
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But the fear of God, which leads to knowledge, is always connected to morality.
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For example, we can know how to drive a car, even with a humanitarian morality, without
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knowing the fear of the Lord.
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But without the fear of the Lord, I can't know if I should be driving my car.
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Driving cannot be disconnected from what I do with my driving.
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My driving ability, even obeying the traffic laws and using driver courtesy, does not tell
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me if it's good to drive my car, say, to get an abortion, to drive my car to buy illegal
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drugs, to drive my car to meet someone I'm committing adultery with.
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Only the knowledge of driving that begins with the fear of the Lord can determine that.
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If I know engineering without the fear of the Lord, I can use my skill to help a terrorist
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build a bomb.
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With our intelligence, we made an atomic bomb that we're now afraid we'll use to destroy
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one another.
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Technical knowledge of, say, an architect, doctor, lawyer, engineer, or computer programmer
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are only real knowledge if connected to morality.
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For example, a doctor could have great skills and use them to abort babies, illegally sell
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body parts, or take a bribe to favor certain people.
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Technical knowledge without morality may be like knowing how fast you're going in a car
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headed for a cliff.
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If it does not come from someone pursuing moral excellence, don't trust it as being
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the knowledge of the way things actually are.
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We all know intelligent people whose lives are a disaster because they do not have the
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morality which comes from the fear of the Lord.
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Well, I'm going to stop here because it's long enough for a podcast.
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Thanks for listening.
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If you want to study more about this in more in-depth on it, I've got a longer paper that's
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available on our website, relationalconcepts.org.
