WISDOM INSIGHTS NO. 1

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10

For the last few years, I have been toying with writing a small book about wisdom (because I’m not smart enough to write a large book!). I even came up with what I thought was a great title “The Little Book of Wisdom For Modern Times”, which seemed a good title but I soon discovered that titles like this had been used for books by authors as different as the Dalai Lama and C.S. Lewis. Nonetheless, I have become increasingly convinced that in the information age, where Google searches are at the fingertips of even the youngest child, it is not access to more information that we need but access to wisdom.

It is hard to put your finger on wisdom but I will attempt to pull together a number of ideas about wisdom over the next few months for Sons of Issachar Newsletter readers. I hope that the ideas may be useful in helping readers to reach their own conclusions about wisdom, which I believe is the most important life aid in these disturbing times.

So what is wisdom? The Cambridge Dictionary’s definition is: “the ability to use your knowledge and experience to make good decisions and judgments”. Merriam-Webster, acknowledging the complexity of ideas about wisdom has several definitions:

“Ability to discern inner qualities and relationships, good sense, generally accepted belief, accumulated philosophical or scientific learning; a wise attitude, belief, or course of action; the teachings of ancient wise men.” The definition includes the following synonyms for wisdom: discernment, insight, perception and sagacity. The most often used word for the opposite of wisdom is foolishness. Wisdom then is an inner quality and is linked in some way to decision making or “a course of action” and has a correlation to good decisions.

Does Age Confer Wisdom?

You would think with age may come wisdom? This may well be part of God’s intention as in the apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he writes: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7-8). God has planned into the fabric of creation, the law of sowing and reaping. This is a natural law that helps us to understand when we have done something foolish because we reap the natural consequences – for example we experience pain, financial loss, loss of friendships. Pain and loss associated with our own actions may teach us to make better decisions. However, we are all prone to making the same mistakes repeatedly. The old saying: “the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour” tells us that behaviour is predictable. We all can become trapped in destructive behaviour patterns, which is evident with various forms of addiction. So – age does not automatically confer wisdom on anyone but we do all have the capability of learning from our mistakes, even if our tendency is to repeat them!

The Bible, particularly the Old Testament, has a lot to say about wisdom or the lack thereof. There are three books: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job that are generally grouped together as “wisdom literature”. This video from the Bible Project provides a great overview of these “wisdom books”

We will explore some of the ideas of these foundational books of the Bible in the weeks ahead.

The Hebrew Concept of Wisdom

The main Hebrew word that we translate as “wisdom” is חָכְמָה (ḥâḵemâ) which the Lexham Bible Dictionary defines as “the practical skills associated with living a successful life”. Other words associated with חָכְמָה (ḥâḵemâ) are skill, prudence and shrewdness. We first see the Hebrew word חָכְמָה (ḥâḵemâ) used by Moses in a speech to the children of Israel, whom he is preparing to enter the “promised land”. Because of their disobedience to God and turning to other “gods” after their miraculous rescue from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites had been condemned to wandering in the Sinai desert for 40 years, until the disobedient generation died out. Moses instructs the children of Israel in his speech as follows (Exodus 4:6-10):

Wisdom, Moses’ Teaching and the Fear of the Lord

“Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’

“For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day? Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, especially concerning the day you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, ‘Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children’”.

Moses says in the verses above that the “statutes and judgments” ie the laws of God, are Israel’s חָכְמָה (ḥâḵemâ) wisdom and that the other peoples of the earth, seeing a nation guided by these laws, will understand something of the lawgiver – God Himself. The warning though is that the default position is to “forget the things your eyes have seen” and to turn away from God. To prevent this from happening, Moses says that the children and grandchildren must be taught to “fear” God. “Fear” is the translation of the Hebrew word  יָרֵא (yârê’) which means to venerate, to honour, to esteem, to reverence, to stand in awe, to respect and to be afraid. To fear God is to place Him at the centre of life, to worship Him and to love the things that He loves and has outlined in His law. John Bevere has written an excellent book on the “Fear of the Lord” and he outlines some of the key ideas in this 10 min video

From Moses’ teaching in the Book of Exodus, there is revelation that the natural human condition is to turn away from God, to rely on our own instincts and not to fear (honour, reverence, stand in awe) Him. In Western societies, children used to be taught to fear the God of the Bible but the teaching of the Bible now has been pushed out of schools and homes. Any fear of the Lord has been lost and replaced by the mantra: “if it feels good, do it"! We have lost any sense of the judgment of God coming against those who do not fear Him as societies head for destruction because each person has become “wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight” (Isaiah 5:21). It is easy to see the outcome of the rejection of the fear of God and His law as Western societies legislate and promote ideas that are against God’s law. Not surprisingly, there is family breakdown, a mental health crisis, gender identity dysfunction, loss of the idea of the sanctity of life, and increasing reliance upon and subservience to the state (“statism”) rather than God. As I wrote in last week’s newsletter - it is hard to stop a pig from being dirty and just as hard to stop ourselves from wallowing in the mire of sin when we lose any sense of the fear of the Lord.

The Beginning of Wisdom

So, as we begin this exploration of wisdom, the important foundations are:

1.     Wisdom comes from God and is found “hearing” His law. The Hebrew word for hearing is שָׁמַע (šâma‘) and is one of the most important ideas in Jewish thought. In Hebrew, hearing doesn’t just mean listening but listening with intelligence, diligence and obedience.

2.     We need to be taught about God and His law because our natural inclination is to be proud, independent and “wise in our own eyes”. We used to have this foundation through teaching the Bible but now this has disappeared from Western society.

3.     We need the Fear of God - “Fear” is the translation of the Hebrew word  יָרֵא (yârê’) which means to venerate, to honour, to esteem, to reverence, to stand in awe, to respect and to be afraid. To fear God is to place Him at the centre of life, to worship Him and to love the things that He loves.

It is impossible even to begin on the path to wisdom without the “fear of the Lord”. The fear of the Lord is the foundation because it indicates that we don’t put ourselves at the centre of understanding and decision making. Rather, we know that it is God Himself – His character, His law, His righteousness and His morality -  that is the foundation of wisdom. Without this foundation, we are likely to be blown in the direction of whatever the “progressive” wind of the day happens to be .

For example, the COVID-19 “pandemic” showed how easily people can be deceived by unrelenting propaganda and the use of various key influencers who were used by governments to promote the dangerous COVID-19 vaccines. Then there is the transformation of the West from the worship of God to the worship of Gaia – mother earth. This has been a planned assault since the 1970s and the publication of the influential Club of Rome book – Limits to Growth.  “Teachers, preachers and greens” have been strategically employed to change Western societies’ attitudes, values and beliefs and promote the deification of the environment. This was outlined in a recent article published in Technocracy News. The author, Tom Deweese, writes that in education:

“A psychology-driven curriculum instead focused on breaking down the structure of American society. Parents were virtually eliminated from the education process, kept from visiting classrooms, participating in homework assignments and banned from seeing copies of tests and evaluation exams. In time, Americans began to notice that their children changed after entering school. Children were not learning to read and write. Math skills declined.”

Similarly to education, 67,000 churches have been in the sights and were targeted from 1993 by a group called the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE). Deweese notes that:

“The programs of the Religious Partnership for the Environment seek to steer churches away from Christian teachings and, instead engage in spreading the worship of the earth – “Gaia” – in the name of the Christian religion. Worship of Gaia, in fact, calls for man to worship the creation rather than the creator – the exact opposite of Christian teachings. Today’s environmental movement promotes a social order for a global society organized around the notion that the earth itself is the giver of life. They advocate that man is not part of the ecology, but in fact, is the destroyer of it”.  

These are examples of modern societies gripped by foolishness instead of wisdom, when creation is worshiped rather than the Creator. The ideas, particularly those on the environment, are clearly compelling to many and have gained such substantial ground to be almost universal. This doesn’t make them right! Even if we assume that the promoters of the ideas, which have at their core the desire to eliminate most of mankind from the earth, had good intentions, the outcomes will be death and destruction. One only has to examine the history of communism with its apparent promotion of equality and the rights of mankind. If we then observe the results, we see the reality: enslavement, genocide, poverty and misery. These are the inevitable outcomes of the elimination of the “fear of the Lord”.

A View from the Hebrew Bible

Wisdom must start from a foundation of “the fear of the Lord” and this is noted by various Old Testament authors:

The Book of Job notes in Job 28:28 – “And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, And to depart from evil is understanding”;
King David writes in Psalm 111:10 – “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandment”;
King Solomon says in Proverbs 9:10 – “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” He further notes in Proverbs 15:33 – “The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom, And before honour is humility”.

The fundamental requirement for wisdom is the “fear of the Lord” – which results in departure from evil, obedience to God’s commandments and humility. It is not more education, higher degrees, 50 years experience, the right connections, family background or money but the “fear of the Lord” that is a precondition for wisdom. This means, of course, that we need to know the One whom is to be feared. Unfortunately, most of us do not know the Creator of heaven and earth and if we do believe in God, often it is a god whom we make in our own image. The Bible in its entirety provides a clear view of God, who is the “same yesterday, today and forever”. There is no substitute for reading and meditating on God’s Word – the Bible. Verily, this is the “beginning of wisdom”.

Next week I will examine the Biblical wisdom literature and the teaching of Solomon who was the wisest man of Old Testament times.

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SOME STORIES THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION THIS WEEK

The US Mid-Term Elections

November 8th is a very significant date for the US and important for the rest of the world as this is the date for the mid-term elections for the US Congress. Every 4 years, two years after the Presidential elections, one-third of the US Senate (each Senate term is 6 years and there are 2 Senators for each of the 50 states) and all 435 House of Representative seats (each term is only 2 years) are held. Many state and local elections also take place on November 8th and there are 36 state governors to be elected, as well as governors for three US territories – Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands.

It is anticipated that that there will be a significant swing to Republicans (“a red wave”) in many states, with opinion polls showing only 29% of voters indicating that they believe that the country is on “the right track”. The key issues identified by voters are: the cost of living, inflation, security of the southern border, rise in crime and violence, the energy crisis and petrol (gas) prices. In some of the states, school education is a major concern to voters as left-wing indoctrination of children and promotion of gender fluidity has become dominant in Democrat states.  Joe Biden is widely viewed as one of the worst US Presidents of all time, overseeing the debacle in Afghanistan, millions of illegal immigrants coming across the southern border, the destruction of US energy independence, and record inflation associated with profligate US government spending. Also even Democrats realize that Biden is in cognitive decline.

Most astute political commentators believe that the opinion polls have become increasingly unreliable, as voters are more and more reluctant to provide their views. It is also difficult to find the view of independent voters, a small but significant group that is likely to determine the election outcomes. The mid-terms also have a notoriously low turnout of voters and in 2018 (a year of high turnout), only around 50% of approximately 250 million electors voted. In the 2020 Presidential election, 62.8% of those of voting age actually voted and the turnout of 158.4 million was the highest of all time. This was of course due to the availability of postal votes, made possible with few checks and balances in many states, because of COVID-19. A factor that has become increasingly significant in US elections is the availability of early voting and as of a few days ago, 25 million people already have voted. Rules about postal voting have tightened up in a number of states but as demonstrated in the film 2000 Mules - it is hard to oversee the validity of postal votes and there is a widespread decline in trust by voters in the integrity of the US election system. Unlike most countries, the election process is decided upon by each state and varies widely. However, despite various inconsistencies, it is expected that the Republicans will take control of the House of Representatives and that the US Senate (which currently is 50:50) will also move to Republican control. The key states to watch in the Senate are: Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania. Georgia has some different rules for election of a senator as the successful candidate must obtain more than 50% of the vote (the 50%+1 rule) and so it is possible that the Georgia senate election may go to a run off.

If both the House and Senate move to Republican control, we can anticipate that Joe Biden’s minders will attempt to implement even more Presidential Executive orders as it will be impossible to get endorsement for the radical Biden policies through the Congress. Also there will be a plethora of Republican committee investigations and some commentators suggest that there will be the launch of impeachment proceedings against Biden. It is clear that US politics will become even more divisive in the period after the mid-terms and that there will be continuing attempts by the Biden administration to identify any opponents as “white supremacists” and peddlers of misinformation.

A fair election now is difficult in the US because all the media companies are in the hands of Democrat Party apparatchiks. Additionally, numerous left-wing foundations are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to promote Democrat Party candidates. Amazingly, it also turns out that government is “guiding” “Big Tech” about “misinformation”. Recent information has indicated that the Biden administration has been pressuring “Big Tech” companies to filter out any views that were not supportive of the government. This has been revealed in a lawsuit Missouri v Biden. The Missouri Attorney-General is reported by the NY Post to have said:

“We allege that top-ranking Biden administration officials colluded with those social media companies to suppress speech about the Hunter Biden laptop story, the origins of COVID-19, the efficacy of masks, and election integrity”.

Undoubtedly more will be revealed in this lawsuit but it is evident that there has been collusion between major companies and the Biden administration to suppress information that could be detrimental to the government. This is clearly against the First Amendment and one can only hope that the communication trail becomes public and that if there is a fair election, the new Congress can investigate the collusion between government and Big Media.

One hopes that the will of the American people can be expressed freely and fairly. Biden clearly has been a disaster for the US but his “minders” are undoubtedly implementing a plan to destroy US sovereignty and so from their viewpoint, what they have achieved is a success. It may be that things look so desperate that a higher proportion of voters comes out to express their disgust with the direction of US policy. I only hope that these votes are counted!

Ready for Rishi?

The UK economy appears to be on the brink of disaster but it is representative of nearly all Western economies. There has been a parade of Prime Minsters over the last 6 months with Rishi Sunak, a technocratic globalist with close links to Bill Gates, now in charge of the direction of the country. During the UK summer leadership campaign after Boris Johnson’s resignation, Rishi’s team put together a slogan “Ready for Rishi”. There was a slick video and lots of tweets about what Rishi was going to do. In the end, the Conservative Party members voted for Liz Truss who was installed as Prime Minister just 36 hours before the death of the Queen. After only 44 days, she resigned following chaos in the financial markets and also within the Parliamentary Conservative Party. This led to the second coming of Rishi who was installed as Prime Minister by King Charles III on 25th October with a vast majority of Conservative MPs endorsing him.

With a UK financial crisis on his hands, Rishi and his Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, have had their heads down trying to make the UK finances add up. It doesn’t look good with a likely £50 billion “black hole”. Solutions include dramatic cuts to government spending (seems unlikely) and substantial increases in taxes. There is no good solution with likely stagnation of the UK economy and recession looming. In the meantime, the bloated National Health Service (NHS) has a 7 million patient backlog and the latest figures indicating around 1,500 excess deaths per week. The UK is sending billions in aid to Ukraine while an “invasion” of illegal immigrants continues to cross the Channel. The Government has no solution to the immigrant influx, which is fostered by people smugglers being paid up to £5,000 per head to get mainly young Albanian men into the UK. Claims for asylum are taking more than 2 years to process and in the meantime the illegal immigrants are being housed in hotels at enormous cost to the UK. Despite the UK paying Rwanda £150 million to take UK illegal immigrants, legal manoeuvres have prevented any from reaching Rwanda. Not surprisingly, with this mess on his hands, Rishi announced that he would not attend the latest climate change gabfest (COP27) in Egypt. COP (who made this acronym up?) stands for -  Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

COP 26 was held in November 2021 in the midst of a garbage collection strike in Glasgow and had 40,000 attendees who agreed that the planet was doomed as they flew away in their private jets. It was pleasing to see that Rishi decided not to attend the COP27 junket in the up market resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh which has the amazing theme: “Delivering for People and the Planet”. Delivering what you may ask? Undoubtedly, stepping up the war on fossil fuels and cows at a minimum. Rishi could see that this wasn’t going to solve any problems for the UK but after deciding not to go, the twitterati attacked en masse and suddenly he has changed his mind. It is a terrible sign for the direction of the UK and indicates that Rishi has the backbone of a jellyfish. Where is Margaret Thatcher when the UK needs her? Those who are old enough can remember with all the pressure on Thatcher, her famous quote: “this lady’s not for turning”.

Will the Truth about the COVID-19 “Vaccines” Make Its Way into the Mainstream Media?

It seems extraordinary that such is the influence of Big Pharma that almost 2 years after the rushed launch of COVID-19 vaccines, where all the normal checks and balances were bypassed, information about the damaging impact of these injections, many of which target people’s genetic machinery, are still being suppressed by all of the mainstream media.

A fascinating scientific article came out this week published in Springer Link - by Israeli and Australian authors. The article is titled: “Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics”.
The authors write that:

“The emergence of COVID-19 has led to numerous controversies over COVID-related knowledge and policy. To counter the perceived threat from doctors and scientists who challenge the official position of governmental and intergovernmental health authorities, some supporters of this orthodoxy have moved to censor those who promote dissenting views.”

They indicate that their study was undertaken that to explore the “experiences and responses” of highly accomplished doctors and scientists who were targeted for censorship and suppression of their views because they were opposed to various government public health responses. To be against such orthodoxy was deemed “misinformation” and most of these eminent doctors and scientists were denied a platform by the mainstream media and Big Tech.
The authors if this paper conclude that:

“Our findings point to the central role played by media organizations, and especially by information technology companies, in attempting to stifle debate over COVID-19 policy and measures. In the effort to silence alternative voices, widespread use was made not only of censorship, but of tactics of suppression that damaged the reputations and careers of dissenting doctors and scientists, regardless of their academic or medical status and regardless of their stature prior to expressing a contrary position. In place of open and fair discussion, censorship and suppression of scientific dissent has deleterious and far-reaching implications for medicine, science, and public health.”

The paper is important because it highlights the rise of censorship and suppression of views that oppose government narratives and the findings apply not only to the area of health but also to the environment, where views in opposition to “climate change” are now deemed “misinformation”. Highly credible doctors and scientists are being sidelined and their careers destroyed because they dare to question the description of vaccines being “safe and effective”. This is not science, which has as its root the idea of debate and rigorous analysis of data to determine the truth.

It was interesting then to see an article by Dr Mike Yeadon, a former Pfizer senior executive, who has been highlighting the danger of mRNA vaccines for more than 2 years. He wrote this last week that if we adopt the position that:

“Our government is actively working to harm us, to dismantle modern society and enslave all people in a digitally controlled totalitarian world” then all the facts fit. Furthermore, he says that: “this all started with a scientific fraud relating to a virus, augmented it with a relentless campaign of fear, imposed measures known to be useless, which wrecked the economy and smashed civil society, then coerced most to accept useless, unnecessary, ineffective and deliberately dangerous injections”.

Yeadon’s views are being relentlessly suppressed as are those of many other eminent doctors and scientists. Dr Peter McCullough, the renowned US cardiologist who oversaw successful drug treatment trials related to COVID-19 has now been de-registered and removed from his university and journal positions because of the concerns he has expressed about the COVID-19 vaccines. McCullough was quoted recently as saying that:

“The vaccines have actually prolonged the pandemic, didn’t stop the virus transmission and didn’t reduce hospitalization and death. It was all a series of false claims for an unsafe set of products,”

McCullough noted that the regulatory agencies have not performed their oversight function and have not ensured that the COVID-19 biologicals were “safe and effective”.

It is evident from the data about excess deaths in various countries that the COVID-19 vaccines are having a dramatic impact on people’s health (especially in the younger age groups) but none of the regulatory agencies are investigating. It is easy to see why people like Dr Mike Yeadon then believe that the only explanation can be:
“Our government is actively working to harm us, to dismantle modern society and enslave all people in a digitally controlled totalitarian world”.

Benjamin Netanyahu Rises Again – The Greatest Comeback Since Lazarus

When you have the odds stacked against you, like former Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, most people would “chuck in the towel”. Every opposition political party hated him, he was unable to form government after the previous election and he faced corruption charges that had been going through the courts for years. Netanyahu though is the ultimate political survivor in the internecine world of Israeli politics. He backed himself to put together a coalition that could govern Israel following the 5th election in less than four years and he has been successful.

Due to the complexity of Israeli politics, it is impossible for one political party to achieve a majority (61 seats) in the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament). Netanyahu’s party Likud, has won between 30 and 32 seats in previous elections and is likely to win a similar number this time. However Likud has formed a political alliance with two parties that have increased their number of seats in the Knesset – Jewish Power and Religious Zionism . The final result of the elections will give the new government a “buffer” of 3 to 4 seats in the Knesset. The major issues in the election were the deteriorating security situation in areas of the West Bank, the economy and the outgoing Prime Minister’s commitment to a two-state solution in the ongoing challenge with the Palestinians.

The new government will likely be at odds with the US administration, which is still trying to put together a deal with Iran to acquire nuclear weapons capability. Netanyahu is extraordinarily experienced and has weathered a previous storm with the Obama administration, who helped fund and support political opponents in Israel. Nonetheless, difficult days face Israel and I have concerns about Netanyahu who signed a secret deal with Pfizer that resulted in nearly all Israelis forced to be “vaccinated” and given up to 5 injections of the compound that had no long-term studies. This draconian approach and secrecy indicates an autocratic mindset and it seems likely that the health impacts of the policy will continue to negatively affect Israelis in the years ahead. The new government will, however, be strong on security and defence.