How can we face an uncertain future with optimism?
Text: Proverbs 12:3
Hosts:
J. Kent Edwards
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2026 CrossTalk Global
Brian: One of America's dream locations is the Pacific Palisades. Nestled between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, it provides stunning ocean views, extensive hiking trails, a clean, uncrowded beach, highly regarded schools and luxury shopping along with high end dining options. Many celebrities living in this private enclave enjoy perfect weather and easy access to entertainment, tech and healthcare jobs in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and the west side. What's not to like? No wonder homes in this area are 137% more expensive than the Los Angeles average. And those with the nicest views costing over 15 million. But disaster struck in January 2025 when fire destroyed about 7,000 homes in the Palisades area. To make matters worse, many of the homes that initially survived the flames were destroyed after the fire was out. Why? The destroyed vegetation, along with the large amounts of water firefighters used to extinguish the flames and the heavy winter rainstorms that followed, soaked the soil so thoroughly that the ground beneath thunder thousands of homes was compromised. In fact, the soil became so unstable that many houses started cracking in half while others slid down hillsides. The destruction was enormous, and Today only about 13% of residents have begun rebuilding, with news reports describing large parts of Palisades as wastelands of empty lots. The truth is, a beautiful home in a great location is worthless if it doesn't have a strong foundation. Our lives, like our houses, need a solid base or they will crack and collapse when life's storms hit. The life we all hope to enjoy can vanish just as quickly as a home in the Palisades if it's not built on a solid foundation. The question is, what foundation do our lives require to withstand the storms of life? Join Nathan Norman, Kent Edwards and Vicki Hitzges as they learn from King Solomon about the foundation that will always keep us secure in Proverbs, chapter 12, verse 3. Welcome to CrossTalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life, into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today, Dr. Kent Edwards, Vicki Hitzges and Nathan Norman continue their discussion in the Book of Proverbs. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Proverbs, chapter 12, verse 3. As we joined their discussion,
Kent: Vicki Nathan, did you see the Palisades fires, floods and landslides on the news in your area?
Vicki: Oh, yeah, I live in Texas. And I mean, every time you turned on tv, it was national. That was the story. And it was. It was Amazing. It was just amazing because everybody thinks, oh, I'd love to live there. And that went to. Boy, I'm glad I don't live there. Oh, it was terrible.
Nathan: Yeah. I was amazed at the diversity of people that were there and the backgrounds that they had. You know, you had celebrities and you had tech giants and families, single people, just all devastated at this loss. It was horrible. It's horrible to watch.
Kent: Many of the homes that survived actually lost all water. The water pipes all broke, and they had no electricity because they had to shut down the power for danger. They had no gas into their homes. It was. It was devastating. But can you imagine the anguish people would feel when their dream home literally fell down into the ocean?
Vicki: To have a house that was worth millions and millions and millions and millions and looked out over glory to just, bam, go away. And to be homeless, to go from being one of the wealthiest people in the world to homeless. What would that be like?
Nathan: Yeah. And even if you have the money and the means and insurance pays off and everything, you can't replace what you had. There are some things that are unreplaceable. Right. And I remember just a few weeks ago, we had a water explosion in my home. And in the basement, I have a bunch of my. I don't know, geeky stuff that I've collected over the years. And some of those, you know, they're signatures from friends or people who I used to admit, admire, and then they became friends, and I have a bunch of that stuff down there. And at first when I looked down, it looked like the whole basement was flooded. And I was like, oh, no. I really, really thought I'd lost all of that stuff. Fortunately, I didn't. But in that moment, it was. This is irreplaceable. I mean, some of the. Some of the stuff I have down there is from friends and colleagues who are no longer walking this earth. You know, I just. You couldn't replace it. You couldn't replace it. And watching the Palisades fire, I'm thinking, oh, my goodness. They can't replace the memories. They can't replace the security. They can't replace the pictures and the mementos. It's hard.
Vicki: Yeah.
Kent: Life as they knew it suddenly changed irreversibly. What happened to them with their homes can happen to us with our lives. I think that's why King Solomon gives the warning that he gives. In Proverbs 12:3,
Vicki: he says, no one can be established through wickedness, but the righteous cannot be uprooted.
Kent: Huh.
Vicki: What do you think that Means.
Kent: Well, that's what I was wondering when I first looked at this. And I realized soon that the word established is critical to understanding this proverb. As I dug under the surface, into the language, I discovered that it means to be firmly established, stable. It means to be secure. It is talking in a moral sense, but it's talking about ultimate security, which means that if you're firmly established, your existence is certain. You will not be destroyed. You won't be washed away. Your life is. Well, maybe think of the Rock of Gibraltar or Mount Everest. They're not going anywhere. Or for those of you who like to go off road, if your 4x4 ends up in the ditch in Northern California, what you want is a giant sequoia nearby. Take the hook from your winch around that and, man, it'll pull you out. Because that tree, that tree is not moving. It is firmly established. And really, that's what everyone wants, right? Doesn't everyone really want security?
Vicki: Yes. However it comes to you, that's what you want. You want security.
Kent: You see that in the news. In Ukraine, when the drones start falling, people want the security of an underground bomb shelter on the high seas. When a sailor is caught in a storm, they want an anchor that's going to hold firm, that's not going to let go, even when the wind and the waves punish it. If your spouse suddenly falls ill, you want immediate access to the best hospitals, doctors, and medicine available so they can recover. Nobody, nobody wants their lives to be swept into destruction like the Palisade homes. In a world full of uncertainty, how can we enjoy the confidence that our future is firmly established? How do we know that our life story will not end in disaster? I think that's a question a lot of people have in life, don't you?
Nathan: Oh, yeah. Psychologically, if you are constantly having to be concerned about what next nightmare of the day will unfold, that puts you in this state of constant alert. It drains the body. It makes you more prone to sickness, it makes you stressed out. You can't enjoy life if you're living in that state. So we all want to have some semblance of security for the future, that things are going to be okay.
Kent: And Solomon tries to answer that need by saying, no one can be established through wickedness, but the righteous cannot be uprooted. It seems, according to Solomon, that we can know that our life story will not end a disaster if we make the right moral decisions in life. The answer lies in contrasting two wickedness and righteousness. Righteousness describes people whose ethics, whose Moral choices and actions mirror those of God and his Word. Righteous people echo Jesus. Command to love your neighbor as yourself. What does that mean? Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself. What does that mean?
Nathan: Well, treat people the way you want to be treated. Right.
Vicki: You know, sometimes I think about that, and I think if I really love people the way I love myself. Wow, that's a heck of a command to see anybody suffer, anybody homeless, anybody, and say, here, share everything I've got. That's a big command if you take that seriously. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Kent: Yeah. And so when the Bible talks about righteousness in the Old Testament, he's also saying, love others as God loves you.
Nathan: Well, that's a tall order because God loves us, like, sacrificially, Right. Puts aside his own wants, needs and desires, so to speak, for our betterment. It's costly. It costs something.
Kent: It always seeks the other person's best, right?
Nathan: Yeah.
Kent: In moral and ethical ways. When we do, we become like job in job 29, when he defends himself against false accusations. Vicki, do you remember how he does that?
Vicki: I said, whoever heard me spoke well of me, because I rescued the poor who cried for help and the fatherless who had none to assist them. The one who was dying blessed me, made the widow's heart sing. I put on righteousness as my clothing. Justice was my robe and my turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy. I took up the case of the stranger.
Kent: Wow, that's quite the resume, isn't it? The moral resume. But he really was. He was a man of moral integrity. He not only knew God and His Word, but he lived to the same moral code as God and as outlined in the Word.
Vicki: Yep.
Kent: And Solomon says that kind of righteousness cannot be uprooted. Our relationships with God and our community make us secure. So contrast that. Contrast righteousness with wickedness. You won't be surprised to know it's exactly the opposite. In the Hebrew, the word wickedness describes people who treat others in the opposite of God's character. It's described in Isaiah as violence and Micah as dishonesty in the workplace. And Ecclesiastes, injustice, bribery, and perversion of the law. That's what wickedness is. We get a hint of that also as we look at the life of David. And contrast that with Saul. In 1 Samuel 24, Saul was chasing David constantly, trying to murder him to keep him from occupying the throne God had promised him. But in 1 Samuel 24, David had him dead. To rights. In a cave. Nathan, you remember that story?
Nathan: David and his mighty men are hiding in a cave from Saul and his execution squad, for lack of a better term. And Saul has to go relieve himself. Where do you go relieve yourself? Well, the most comfortable place while you're on the road is to go into a cave. Happens to go into the cave there they're in. And now they're thinking, what good luck, David. Now you can kill him and this will all be over. So, but instead of doing that, David does not want to murder him. So he cuts off a corner of his robe while he's going to the bathroom. And then he feels bad about that, right? So he doesn't murder him, which is a good moral plus, but he feels bad that he cut off a corner of his robe. So he, it says, David was conscience stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe. He said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord's anointed. Or lay my hand on him, for he is the anointed of the Lord. And then David says to Saul, may the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me. But my hand will not touch you. As the old saying goes, from evildoers come evil deeds, so my hand will not touch you. May the Lord be our judge and decide between us. May he consider my cause and uphold it. May he vindicate me by delivering me from your hand.
Kent: Here we see a contrast between righteousness and wickedness, don't we? Saul was wicked, right? His actions were morally bankrupt. He was trying to kill David, who the Lord had said is going to take the place on the throne. David, on the other hand, he says, no. May the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done. I will not do that. May he be the judge and decide between us. God, who is ethical here? Who do you want to lead your people? Do you want Saul or me? Vindicate me by delivering me from your hand. Here Solomon is making the point that no one can be established through wickedness, but the righteous cannot be uprooted. The reason Solomon has to say this is that we don't believe it.
Vicki: We don't believe righteousness can be uprooted.
Kent: Yeah, we don't believe righteousness gives us security.
Vicki: Is that what you're saying?
Kent: And we don't believe that evil will lead to disaster. We don't believe that.
Vicki: Well, we don't because we see bad things happen to good people.
Kent: Right? That's true. Think about It. Satan has all kinds of temptations, but what is his greatest temptation, his most successful temptation? Satan's most successful temptation is that sin will make your life better. Every time we choose to sin, we willfully, we knowingly choose to sin is because in the back of our mind we think life will be better. If I choose to sin, we steal because I just need this and I got mouths to feed. We lie because this will be a better future than if I face the consequences. Satan loves to convince us that life will be better with sin. He did that with the fallen angels before creation. Right. I mean, Satan led one third of all the angelic beings before the world was created. He led them in rebellion against God.
Vicki: Isn't that amazing?
Kent: I couldn't persuade two people to follow me in rebellion against God. He got a third of all the angels, which means he had to promise them that life would be so much better than it could ever be under God, who happens to be perfect, that they joined him. Bad decision, right?
Vicki: I would think it's a terrible decision. But they went with it. They were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go.
Kent: And so did Adam and Eve. Right? Remember Genesis, chapter three?
Vicki: Yes. The Bible says he came as a serpent. He was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord had made. And he said to the woman, did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden? And she said, oh, yes, if we eat from it, we'll die. And he said, you will not certainly die. God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
Kent: Well, Satan was right. After they did that, they knew the difference between good and evil, didn't they?
Vicki: That was true in the most negative way possible. And I'd like to point, every lie has some truth in it.
Kent: Yeah.
Nathan: The most effective ones.
Vicki: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kent: Certainly every time we choose to sin, we believe the lie. Every time we choose to sin, we weaken the foundation of our life. That's what Solomon is telling us. It does that in two ways. First of all, it harms our relationship with people, right?
Vicki: Yes.
Nathan: Yeah, it sure does. Whether directly or indirectly.
Kent: So if I offended both of you, worse than that, if I find a way to embezzle money from you, good luck.
Nathan: Find money I don't know about.
Kent: If I made evil, untrue comments about you and damaged your reputation, if I treated you unjustly, if I treated you in a wicked way, what would that do to our relationship?
Vicki: It would hurt it and it would definitely harm Our relationship, because I consider you a close friend.
Kent: So when you're a business person and you cheat your clients and you do it over and over again, what happens to your business?
Vicki: It goes away.
Kent: When you begin to steal from people and you get caught, what happens?
Nathan: You go away.
Kent: You go away?
Vicki: Yeah, you go away. That's right.
Kent: So the more unethical, the more wicked you treat people, the less help they will provide for you in a time of need. It gives you an insecure future. It does the same thing with our relationship with God. God does not leave the guilty unpunished, does he?
Vicki: He says, vengeance is mine. I will repay.
Kent: Solomon is telling us that our sin destroys our relationship with people and the help they can provide us in times of difficulty. But it also weakens our relationship with God. It can destroy it. And when that happens, we will not have the safety and security that we need. Solomon is telling us a man cannot be established through wickedness, but the righteous cannot be uprooted. The people who take God's word seriously and live it out consistently, they can't be uprooted because they have people around them and a God beside them that will not allow them to be destroyed. Do you think Solomon is talking here about salvation by works? That if we live a good enough life, that God will save us, earning God's favor?
Vicki: I don't think he's talking about salvation, but I do think he's talking about consequences.
Kent: Good point. Because salvation was made possible and always made possible only by God's grace and through faith, right?
Vicki: Right.
Kent: And that's the only way it is. But if God's people choose to walk away from him, if they love sin more than their Savior, they choose to stray from the path of God's word, He will not stop them. He will let them go. That's why Solomon can say so clearly. No one can be established through wickedness. But the righteous, morally righteous, cannot be uprooted. Our success in life and the afterlife is linked to our morality. That's just a reality. Sin can destroy a relationship with both God and mad. That sounds harsh, but what happened to the Northern Kingdom?
Nathan: They were utterly destroyed. Because after centuries of ignoring or murdering or misabusing prophets, they would not stop their idolatry. And so God finally brought the judgment he threatened them with for generations. Yeah, in the Assyrian people,
Kent: they were no more. They are no more. They were God's people and they ethically and morally walked away. And God does not stop us. What happened to Judas? I mean, could you imagine spending three years with Jesus and walking away.
Vicki: But not just walking away. He betrayed him. And he did it for just nothing. 30 pieces of silver, it said he sold him.
Kent: He sold the Savior that was about to die for him.
Vicki: And then he realized what he did and he killed himself. And he went to hell.
Kent: Yeah, And Jesus didn't stop him. Jesus said, gave him an opportunity to repent at the Lord's Supper and then said, whatever you're going to do, do it quickly. The people of the Palisades had their houses washed away because too much water destroyed the foundation of their homes. The people of God need to be aware that every time. Well, every time we choose to sin, every time we make a wicked choice, we are slowly undermining our relationship with God and with other people. When we do that, we compromise our future. A man cannot be established through wickedness, but the righteous cannot be uprooted. Who can fearlessly face an unknown future? Those who live a life of righteousness
Brian: want to be confident your future will stay bright. Live a life of righteousness. If we live righteously, we can face an unknown future with optimism. I trust that today's discussion of God's Word has been helpful and served as an encouragement to not just be hearers of the Word, but doers. Together, let's bring God's Word to life, to our lives. This week, the crosstalk podcast is a production of crosstalk Global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. crosstalk is training leaders in Bucharest, Moldova, Southern California, Kenya, and Kansas over the next few weeks, help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support this show by rating it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find it. Be sure to listen next Friday as we continue to learn from God's wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. You won't want to miss it.
Kent: But in 1 Samuel 24, David had him dead to rights in a cave. Nathan, you remember that story?
Nathan: Yes. While Saul was pooping. No. Okay.
Kent: And think about it. Satan has all kinds of temptations. But what is his greatest temptation, his most successful temptation?
Nathan: To doubt God's goodness. To doubt his word.
Kent: Yeah, True. I'd go a little bit further to
Nathan: believe that sin will improve our lives.
Vicki: Yeah.
Kent: I almost didn't write that because I didn't want to give it away.
Nathan: But anyway, what the heck do you want me to say? Tell me what to say and I'll say it.
Kent: Wow. That's what I like. No, see, I give you the Westminster
Nathan: Catechism, I give you your answer, and none of that's good enough.