Job 17:4

4 For thou hast hid [tsaphan] their heart [leb] from understanding [sekel]: therefore shalt thou not exalt [ruwm] them. KJV-Interlinear

4 'For Thou hast kept their heart from understanding; Therefore Thou wilt not exalt them. NASB

Wisdom is the ability to use information and apply it to ones life.

Understanding is the comprehension, mastery, and perception of information.

Knowledge is the awareness and ability to absorb or collect information.

God does not keep knowledge from anyone. Even Satan has the ability to read and memorize the content of the Bible.

However understanding or having the ability to master and possess for ones use, the truths of this life, is another matter. Understanding and therefore wisdom, which is merely the use of understanding, or the application of understanding to ones life, belongs exclusively with God.

Understanding is a gift. The gift comes from God by means of the spiritual apparatus of perception, which we often call pursuing ones spiritual life, or advancement toward spiritual maturity.

All understanding begins with salvation. The key ingredients of understanding are first, human life, for obvious reasons. You have to be alive in order to learn or do anything.

Second, a human spirit is required, and that becomes available to the individual only when he believes in Christ. Receiving your human spirit is a part of your re-birth. The human spirit serves as a truth filter, sifting out untruth from truth before truth goes into your human soul.

Third, a person has to be in fellowship in which case the Holy Spirit serves as the principle communicator of truth to your human spirit.

Fourth, once you hear truth, then you have to believe it. Once believed, then it becomes incorporated in your soul, building a fortress, a temple, a complex structure, which becomes the framework for your daily utilization and application to your life.

And fifth, your daily usage or application of truth to your life becomes your spiritual production, if done within the fellowship sphere.

There is a detailed chart of the believer and unbeliever's soul, on the web site under the 'Charts' link.

The entire process, from the source of truth, to its usage, is due to the grace of God. Those who pursue their spiritual lives, grow up in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Those who do not utilize this process, or those who otherwise ignore their spiritual lives, by means of indifference, apathy, defiance or for whatever reason, will not grow up in understanding or wisdom.

Knowledge is available to everyone, but knowledge outside of the spiritual environment is academic knowledge only and restricted to the functions of this world. The spiritual component is excluded.

Without the spiritual component of life, ones views are incomplete, and typically distorted or confused by incorrect interpretations of knowledge.

You are not promoted unless God promotes you. Wisdom is a prime ingredient required for promotion. Promotions within this world are temporary. Promotions in the spiritual life are permanent.

Job understood this principle well. Anyone who does not function properly within their spiritual life, will not receive understanding. Repeat, anyone who does not function properly within their spiritual life, will not receive understanding.

Anyone who does not possess understanding will not be exalted, will not receive promotion. Again repeat, anyone who does not possess understanding will not be exalted, will not receive promotion.

If you think that you can get through life without God, or by your own definition of God, or by some other means which you 'feel' is reasonable, then you are in effect setting aside Gods plan, and replacing it with your own. Of course that makes you smarter than God.

So, you can buy off on Gods plan, or your own. You get what you pay for, so to speak.

Now is the time to post a prayer.