God's Grace in Revelation

Introduction

Last Sunday night, we saw that an appeal by a father for his son to listen to the biblical/divine instruction imparted to him by his parents.

One alternative was for the young man to choose to listen to appeals to join a gang and get rich quick through murder and theft.

This would lead to needless danger and potentially death.

We not only live in a fallen world, but we are vulnerable to the effects of another conflict.

Human beings aren’t the only created beings who have rebelled against the creator.

False ideas abound.

Our fallenness positions us as people who are not predisposed to seeking correction especially from God.

Setting the Visual Scene

Wisdom, personified, appears in physical space.

Street

Markets

City-gates: all of these are public places.

These are also noisy places that require:

Making a sound.

Shouts.

Wisdom’s appeal will be out in the public with everyone.

Knowing God and the Truth is Possible

Human beings are not without knowledge of God or genuine moral instruction.

God in his grace has made himself and His word known.

We have sufficient knowledge of God and the truth.

It is not a specialized knowledge that requires extractions from daily life in order to learn.

Wisdom’s Appeal

The appeal is targeted toward three categories of individuals:

Simple: wide, spacious. These are foolish because they are open to everything. They jump around from one idea to another.

Consider how this challenges the modern view that we should “keep an open mind.”

Whenever we are called upon to accept evil as good and reject good as evil, what is one of the “mantras”?

Scoffers: This is boastful derision. What has to be meant are those people who take a derisive view of the wisdom. They do not just deride anything (although such people exist).

Fools: here it is the person who has a propensity to make bad choices. He or she is not mentally deficient.

The call of wisdom asks about the end point at which:

The simple love their condition.

Scoffers take pleasure in scoffing.

Fools hate knowledge.

These three kinds of individuals are attracted two their own ignorance or derisiveness.

Wisdom’s Promise

Notice the strong alternative that wisdom offers to them…reproof.

Reproof denotes evidentiary correction.

Listening will bring about even more knowledge and understanding.

Wisdom is accessible to all.

It is not a specialized education reserved for a few elites.

More information can be learned.

By virtue of the appeal, it is now obvious that human beings are not bound to remain in such a state wherein they set themselves against listening to the word of God.

There is an alternative, but failure to listen has consequences.