The Power of Proverbs - Apostle John Eckhardt (October 2023)

Apostle John Eckhardt teaches on the importance of proverbs and wisdom for living a blessed life, with a focus on African and Biblical proverbs.

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Sometimes these sayings, even though they're not on the level with scripture, are very important - not for instance, things that our parents said, our grandparents said, like “what comes around goes around”, that's a proverb that's basically “whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap”.

People say “what comes around goes around” or “God doesn't like ugly”. Now that's not a scripture, but they would say “God doesn't like ugly”, which means when you mistreat people, you act bad, God doesn't like that.

“Don't look a gift horse in the mouth” - how many have heard of that? “Don't look a gift horse in the mouth”. Well it really means that when someone does a favor or gives you a gift, don't be critical of it. Receive the gift, thank them for it, but don't find fault and be critical of someone who gives you a gift. “Don't look a gift horse in the mouth”.

So there are a lot of different proverbs that we speak, and I'm gonna start posting some of the proverbs that I have studied. I put one on Facebook today, a Chinese proverb, and it says “Put out the fire when it is small”. I like that - “put the fire out when it's small”. In other words, don't let a fire grow big and then try to put it out.

That's wisdom - don't let things get out of hand, don't let the whole house catch on fire before you try to put it out. Put it out while it's a small fire. Small fires are easier to put out than large fires. That's the proverb - don't let strive, division, arguing, fighting get out of control. Stop it when it's small, as someone say “nip it in the bud”. Don't wait until the fire is raging, then it's a five alarm, three alarm fire, and you gotta bring in 100 fire trucks to try to put it out because fire spreads, it grows, it gets bigger and bigger. Fires don't decrease, they grow, they get bigger and bigger.

So it's a Chinese proverb - “put out the fire when it is small”. That's wisdom. Don't let problems get bigger and bigger and bigger, then try to solve it. Instead of solving the problem when it's small, don't let things get out of hand. That's the proverb - don't let the whole house catch on fire before you try to put it out. Put it out while it's a small fire. Small fires are easier to put out than large fires. That's the proverb.

I'm gonna share this last one - I like this proverb. This is a Ghanaian proverb from Ghana, and it says “Only a wise person can solve a difficult problem”. I like that. Only a wise person can solve a difficult problem. When they know sometimes problems are so difficult you need someone who's wise. When you're dealing with a difficult problem you need someone who's wise to help you solve that problem. The problem is too difficult for you to solve now.

You can ask God for wisdom and God can give you wisdom to solve difficult problems, or you may need to find someone with wisdom - a counselor - to solve a difficult problem. God is of course the wisest counselor. He can give us solutions to all kinds of problems.

Let me give an example - Israel and David have a problem. We're trying to capture the city of Jerusalem, or at that time it was controlled by the Jebusites. It had never been conquered, even up until the time of David. That means Joshua and the tribes that went in never conquered Jerusalem. It was a fortress and the Jebusites even mocked David saying “You can't come here, no one can conquer us”.

So the only way David conquered that city was by going up the water shaft which no one had thought was able to do. He sent men up the water shaft of the city, invaded the city and conquered it. It took a wise person to solve a problem that had not been solved since the days of Joshua. But David solved it with military wisdom by going up the water shaft and invading the city and conquering it.

It takes a wise person to solve a difficult problem. Only a wise person can solve a difficult problem. Let me see if I can find one more for you. I'll post some of these on my page and encourage you to study these particular proverbs. Just memorize them and learn from them, and again my emphasis is that if you're wise, wise people like Proverbs, love proverbs.

So make proverbs - you can even write your own proverbs by the way. You can develop your own things from your experience or wisdom that you've learned and write it down. It's a proverb, it's a way to express wisdom, a short saying, because of your experience or wisdom that you've learned. Read other proverbs - every culture has wise people, wise people that lived before us that wrote wise things down.