Salesmen, Lawyers and Politicians VS The Wisdom of God

 “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1Jo 2:15 AV)

 “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.” (1Co 1:17-29 AV)

AMEN! You know, I would think after the simple reading and receiving of the above listed scripture, I would not need to write one more word in this article; the text says everything I need to know, however, let’s go ahead and endeavor to get a better understanding of the Wisdom of God, VS the wisdom of man, and we get there by simply talking about three prominent men of the world, the salesman, the lawyer and the politician.

The Salesman

As a young boy, I used to knock on doors in our neighborhood trying to sell whatever, go to the fair and work in the peanut brittle booth with our church; as I grew older I tried several sales jobs, I always knew that I could talk to people; perhaps I thought in my own immature way, “what could be easier than to talk my way into wealth!”. I grew up with a hard working father, who wasn’t very smart, only got a sixth grade education; living in the south, suffering with discrimination due to his skin color, and ended up with seven children to support. After losing his low paying job as a machinist, working for Boeing, he started pouring cement patios and driveways in the community where we lived, this was my first introduction into “working for a living”. As I grew up into my teen’s, I became better and better at the skill of cement finishing, it was not unusual for me to pour a ten yard driveway by my self and finish it all in one day, it was back breaking work, I certainly didn’t need to exercise to keep in shape! As I approached adulthood, I determined that cement work was just not for me and I went back to the only thing I thought I was capable of, Salesman. Now, I can assure you, the point of this article is not about me; “Salesman” was an important training ground the Lord put me through for many years; I guess I am a slow learner, but it took a lot of stupid sales jobs to bring me to the point of hating this field of “worldly wisdom”; and by the way, the skills needed in this line of work is completely contrary and inconsistent with being a Christian and loving the “Wisdom of God”, which is foolishness to the world!

I remember one of the first sales jobs I tried was a phone solicitation center, they called them “smoke rooms, hot rooms, boiler rooms”, where we sat down and tried to get people to buy worthless advertising for their business, it was a numbers game, the more calls you made, the better chance you had, I was horrible as this, but I was sure, I told myself, “I am just as smart as any of these guys, if they can do it, I can learn to do it”. My boss was this old Italian man from Chicago, he wasn’t the kind of man you should mess with, he might just shoot you or call in “Vinny”, if you know what I mean! This man felt sorry for this honest heart felt young man, out on his own away from home, he made it his work of good deeds to show me the ropes and get me to the place of success he had found in this business. One day he took me downtown to the main office to meet the “big boys”, he wanted to show me first hand the greatest salesman that worked for them in action! I walked into the room, and to my surprise, there sat a 400 pound man, on the phone, he barely could fit in the chair he was sitting in; and I sat and listened as this man harassed people, lied to people, played games with the numbers, he was the most obnoxious person I had ever met! I was disappointed, but had to admit, I came to the point to realize that I did not have it in me to do this, I was a confused, but a professing Christian all the same, I couldn’t do this with a clean conscience! Yet my salesman game was not over, all I had to do is find a better product, and then people would find my pitch more believable and eventually I would get a reputation for telling the truth and selling good products and whala!, success! I had my try at selling room additions for twice the price that they were worth, failure! I went to sales seminars, heard from the best of the best, what could I be doing wrong?, why wouldn’t people understand that I was doing my best to look out for them?, I looked well, talked well, even though my products were overpriced, “why the company was a big company, you don’t want to go with the lowest price now do you?, you get what you pay for, those cheaper guys won’t be around to service you!” Yet there was always some guy or guys that made it look so easy, they were out on the golf course, while I was starving to death!

One day I decided to try another product, it wasn’t me, it was just the product that I had! I went into a spa store to answer a salesman add, and the lead salesman asked me a question that I will NEVER forget; “Are you a consumer at heart or are you a salesman at heart?”; I was shock by the question, I thought about it, and then hoping to get approval, I gleefully said “a consumer at heart, Sir!”; again to my shock he said, “then this job is not for you, have a good day!” I later got a sales job in the heating and air field, where I have worked, almost to this day with few exceptions, I learned the business, with my construction back ground, easily learned service, design and installation of heating and air conditioning. Today I am a licensed HVAC Contractor and I do absolutely NO advertizing, I work on referral alone, word of mouth, I don’t have to sale anything, all I have to do is tell the truth, provide an excellent service at a low price and I couldn’t be happier with the simplicity of my job and the freedom I have with my time. Sometimes I work like a mad man, sometimes I don’t work at all, the Lord is our provider! We are not rich, but I am so happy today that I am a consumer at heart, rather than a salesman! And by the way, this style of doing business, has turned many times into a witness for Jesus, a witness to my suppliers, my customers and my competitors! I don’t have to lie, manipulate or steal; but when I bid for a job and lose to a competitor, this is almost always because the competitor sent a salesman in, played on the emotions of a weak person, there are thousands of techniques that might work, but when all is said, the weak person who could not distinguish between the truth and their emotions, got a poor job with inferior products and service for the money!

BEING A SALESMAN RATHER THAN A CONSUMER AT HEART, IS A WISDOM OF THIS WORLD, “AS IN SALES OF ICE TO THE ESKIMOS”, AND IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE WISDOM THAT COMES FROM GOD ABOVE!

Those Lawyers and Politicians!

Lawyers and Politicians are really just “Educated Salesmen”, it is hard to distinguish between lawyers and politicians because most politicians are former lawyers! Lawyers and politicians work very hard to improve their image in our society, they show up when ever the opportunity arises for self grandeur, but when no one else is watching or cares, they are writing laws to further empower themselves. They write laws with language so difficult to understand, that only they and their kind can interpret, they make laws that make it more difficult for any would-be servant of the people to gain power, they make laws that make it impossible for the common man, not in their class of elites, to defend themselves in a court of law without their help and representation! God help the man that shows up to a court of law today and simply believes that if he just tells the truth that everything will be ok! You know the old saying “a person who has himself as a lawyer, has a fool for a lawyer”? Since when has justice, right and wrong, been a thing of legal practitioners, rather than a common man’s God given reasoning, that any upright, truth telling person can aspire to? Since when has wisdom come from man rather than from God? Where were the lawyers in King Solomon’s child custody hearing? What elite university did King Solomon go to that made him wise in judgement? Yet King Solomon wrote in Proverbs that wisdom begins with the fear of God.

The Bible unquestionably teaches that the wisdom of man is foolishness compared with the Wisdom of God; yet the educated elites have tricked the common man from believing this truth, instead when problems arise, it is the educated establishment that always must have the answer! They will say “you have to have a good education to get your facts straight” and try to impress you with all kinds of sophomoric rhetoric, that adds up to no more than trivial pursuit! Don’t you just love it when the media- lawyered up- politician elites, finds one trivial misstatement of facts, like who is the King of some remote region, and they will point at this and laugh as though the debate was just won; they think that a wonderful case as to why their opponent is not qualified to hold political office was made!; this is the wisdom of men at work which is foolishness! Yet these educated fools can’t actually do anything right, when they fail, it’s some dumb reason they give, and of course they always declare the uneducated simple folks unqualified to think, “we must go to the professionals” they say! It is the wisdom of man VS the Wisdom of God, which does indeed begin with the fear of God. Can’t raise your children without “the professionals”, can’t run your finances without “the professionals”, can’t have a happy marriage without “the professionals”, they always know what is best regardless of their track record, when they are wrong, they are never to blame! Today those people who call themselves Christians are no different than the world, they now have come to believe in “the professionals” to lead them to truth, they have been taught to lay down their child-like faith in Jesus who has the power to save and put their confidence in the professional, seminary trained Bible scholars! These Bible scholars are fools, they have labored from their youth in trivia and worldly wisdom, “how to influence people and win friends” they themselves have not become NOTHING so that they might gain Christ; every possible wisdom of man is employed in the service of these manipulative self promoters!

Today in our generation of fatherless children, people are easily manipulated, they have not learned to take the time, putting their feelings aside and dealing with the undisputable evidence at hand. Today we have a common phrase used, “it is not what you say, it is how you say it”; this is the wisdom of man and it is foolishness. The Lord your God says “Let everyman speak the truth to his neighbor” “if your neighbor sins, rebuke him”; this may not be the way to influence people and win friends, but it is the Wisdom of God VS the wisdom of man. God is a God of REASONS; any man who truly possesses the treasures that come from God, has Wisdom and reasons as well. God says this “come let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be whiter than snow” God says “Stand before me and give me your strong reasons!” Truth has reasons! If the listener will patiently try the words, being able to separate themselves from earthly wisdom and the feelings that they have been manipulated by in this age of man’s wisdom, then they will know the truth from error and judge rightly.

The Wisdom of God VS the wisdom of man disputed on equal ground

I have been called asinine, a clown, simply because I refuse to debate according to the wisdom of man. You have seen the debates that people of this world have, the techniques employed by man’s wisdom, haven’t you? Man’s wisdom can never debate on equal ground, it couldn’t stand the test, but it must be given an deafening advantage in order to prevail. Let me explain, when Jesus debated with the scribes and the pharisees, it was on equal ground because there were witnesses there that were unbiased to one side or the other, these were the common simple folks, not the educated elites. There were times that the religious leaders themselves were in danger of being taken and stoned by the people, so they had to be careful what they said and how they treated Jesus, people were watching! Now when man’s wisdom prepares for a debate, there is prudent study, trivia included, and the man that is more skilled, has a better memory or a few facts to his advantage if presented properly, wins the debate, regardless of who is right. In man’s wisdom there are many tricks to be played that have nothing to do with being right or wrong, simple parlor tricks to deceive! You could pack the audience with people that will sight, laugh, frown, boo, hiss, in favor of their bias, they aren’t interested in the truth, they want to win! You could even pick a venue where you know that the moderator has a bias, haven’t we seen this in politics, even in recent elections? The Wisdom of God is different, when Jesus answered the scribes and the pharisees he said “it is written” they couldn’t answer because his wisdom was from above, their wisdom was earthly, sensual and devilish. The scriptures says “I hide thy Word in my heart that I might not sin against God”, yet the wisdom of man will trivialize on the exact locations, haven’t you noticed that? One guy will get up and appear to grasp the subject by trivia, he will spue out a bunch of memorized locations, in order to sound in control, this is simply trivia and proves nothing! Jesus said “think not ahead what you will say, but the Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance what it is you are to say”; Ah, but man’s wisdom cannot play by these rules, they would lose! Jesus says “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”; with God’s Wisdom there is living truth in the heart, with man’s wisdom there is no such thing and furthermore they deny the power of God, when they refuse to play on a level playing field. I may indeed go into the Lion’s Den someday, that is up to God, but I can tell you this, God is my deliver and I will not fear what men shall do unto me! Willing to stand for Truth, even when everyone else claims I am wrong, without comment or answers! What’s up with that anyway? May the Lord be Glorified!

Robert Begnaud