Value of Wisdom

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a joy and privilege to share the Word of God with the saints of Durbin Memorial Baptist Church.

Have you ever been given good advice but you don’t take it because of where it came from? This happens a lot between parents and children. Interestingly enough, we have been looking at the book of Proverbs, predominantly written by Solomon, and much of book is written as the father, Solomon, talking to his son. Now Solomon was a wise man, quite literally the wisest man ever in existence aside from the God-man Christ Jesus. And even though it was pretty normal for a wise man like Solomon to record their insights into a book similar to that of the Proverbs, Solomon also likely had the intent of passing on this wisdom, not just to us today, not just to the general readers of his day that would have access to this magnificent collection of practical truths, but specifically, it is reasonable to say that Solomon intended this book to pass wisdom down to his very own son.

You see Solomon had a son named Rehoboam. Rehoboam was going to be king one day after Solomon passed away. While it may not be expressly written in the text, we can very likely assume that as a loving father, Solomon wanted to give Rehoboam wise counsel, to prepare him to lead the kingdom.

But here’s the thing about kids, in their desire to be their own person they often reject the guidance of their parents. I know this is true because I did it myself! And I see it in my own son even though he’s not even sixteen months old! I’ll say, “Aiden-Rey! Don’t reach in there!” He looks at me with an acknowledging look, then while still making eye contact begins to reach down. I say, “Aiden-Rey! Don’t you eat that cat food!” He jumps up and heads off in another direction. I go back to doing my business and wouldn’t you know it, but not 30 seconds later, I hear a crunch, look over and there is my boy with a handful and mouthful of MeowMix! He knew he wasn’t supposed to do it, but he rejected the guidance. Children are rebellious and suffer consequences accordingly.

Solomon’s son likewise rejected his father’s guidance. Even after Solomon died and Rehoboam became king he rejected his father. We’re not going to turn there now, but if you want to make a note to study later, Rehoboam’s rejection of his father’s guidance is told in 1 Kings 12. Solomon has just passed away. Rehoboam is king. A group of leaders in the country come to him and say, “Your father was a wise man and did a lot of great things in the country, but he just worked the people so hard that they’re about to break! If you lighten our load a little bit, the people will surely be behind you and the country will do really well!” So the king tells them to go away for a few days. While they’re away he brings in some older men who were counselors to his father and asks them what he should do. They suggest what Solomon likely would’ve suggested, they say, “if you do this for them, if you lighten their load, they will work with you forever.” Then Rehoboam sends them off and brings in some young guys. He asks them what he should do and they say, “tell them if you thought Solomon was hard, just wait. My pinky finger is thicker than my father’s thigh. You don’t want to be whipped? I’m going to use scorpions.” So Rehoboam goes with the advice from the young men. To make a long story short, things don’t go well. The entire kingdom divides and Rehoboam is remembered in history for his foolish behavior.

Thinking about this story and the major difficulties that came after this in Rehoboam’s life, I wonder if he ever sat there, looking at the dismal situation around him thinking, MAN I wish someone would’ve warned me about this! You might think that’d be crazy because he WAS warned. But when we look at it honestly, we realize we do the same thing! We dig ourselves into holes all the time and when we hit rock bottom we want to blame others for allowing us to get there when in reality we rejected good advice all the way down.

When we find ourselves in trouble, we should know that the problem most often is not that we didn’t get enough good advice, but rather we didn’t listen to good advice or we didn’t see its value.

I want to take this a step further before we get into our text from Proverbs today. Many people say they want to hear from God to know what to do or how to be in this life. Many people claim they want “Godly wisdom and direction”. You might even say that you are talking to God, you’re praying to Him, but you just aren’t hearing anything back. You say, “God is giving me the silent treatment.” Well, I agree with another pastor who said, “so long as we have the Bible, this is simply not true. In fact, because we have the Bible, it is an incredibly selfish and sinful thing to say. God’s Spirit has breathed out His very Word…It is enough to provide everything we need for eternal life. And we complain for more!”

When we have found that we hit rock bottom, we should not, must not, blame God for His silence when in reality we have been blocking Him out, avoiding, and silencing His very Word by neglecting His counsel! Please know, God SPEAKS through His Word. With the access we have to the Bible in our time and area, you NEVER have to be lacking to hear His voice, His instruction, His guidance, and His will for you life. “How arrogant we are to hold this Bible we could never fully master in a million years, the book that contains the Word of God that stands forever, and think, ‘Yeah, but what else you got?!’”

Please, open your Bibles to Proverbs 2.

This elongated introduction was crafted as such because I want to draw our attention the fact that far too often, we are like Rehoboam! We reject the advice given to us. He didn’t value the wisdom of his father’s counselors. We often don’t value the wisdom of our Heavenly Father given to us through His Word. As we dive into this chapter of Proverbs this morning, may we do so understanding the great worth this Word has for us. May we look to the Word with the understanding that what we are reading is “Thus sayeth the Lord!” In fact, the entirety of Chapter two is an explanation of the value of Wisdom. The first half of this chapter shows us the benefit of seeking Godly wisdom. The second half shows us the protection of applying Godly wisdom. Let’s begin in verse 1-4

Proverbs 2:1–4 ESV

My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,

In these first four verses we see what one commentary has called the “if” of Wisdom. IF you receive my words, IF you treasure my commands, IF you call out, IF you raise your voice, IF you seek it. We see in these statements that Wisdom is something to be desired! Growing in Wisdom is something to be sought after and desired like silver or hidden treasures.

If statements like these are found all throughout Scripture, particularly tied to the promises God makes with His people. Just to name a few: Exodus 19:5 God says IF you obey my voice you shall be my treasured possession. Nehemiah 1:9, IF you return to me and keep my commandments, then I will gather you to the place I have chosen and my name will dwell there. Ezekiel 18:21, IF a wicked person turns away then he shall live and not die, none of the wrong things he has done will be remembered against Him.

We see conditional language carried through in the New Testament as well. Mark 8:38 says WHOEVER is ashamed of Christ, Christ will then be ashamed of them. John 1:12, WHOEVER receives Christ, WHOEVER believes in Christ, Christ then gives them the right to become children of God. John 3:16, WHOEVER believes in the Lord will not perish but will then receive eternal life.

Hear me clearly here, I am not suggesting to you that we can earn God’s grace or find His Wisdom by our strength. Even the best of our abilities are worth as much as filthy rags before the Holy God. But what we ARE seeing here is the result receiving Grace and our personal responsibility and agency in following the Lord!

Let’s break that down a bit to understand what I mean. I first said it is the result of receiving Grace. That is because we are saved by grace through faith and in that heavenly transaction, believers are adopted into the family of God! Look at the first two words of this chapter: MY SON! As God’s beloved children, made so not by our own doing, but by the power and glory of Christ, we are accepted in Christ! We didn’t earn that place! It is grace that we see our sin and turn to the one who paid its cost! Grace is unmerited favor and it is ultimate grace that a sinner like me would be able to be called a child of God.

Then I said that in these IF’s we see our personal responsibility and agency in following the Lord. God’s grace and our personal responsibility to follow Him do not need to be opposed to one another. God gives wisdom as a gift. We’re called to listen up and act accordingly. It is GOOD to desire to follow the Lord, leaning on Him for His power to do so. We must listen to Him, keep His commands, and Do what what He instructs and we should desire to do so! Why should we desire such? Because it is a treasure and a grace that God would give it to us!

When I walked through the conditional statements between God and His people throughout Scripture a few moments ago you may have noticed that there were two sides to every statement. There was an IF and later a THEN. The “THEN” clause is what God offers to those who follow Him. In Proverbs 2 we are given two THENs in response to the IFs we just looked at. Let’s look at the first THEN statement:

Proverbs 2:5–8 ESV

then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.

When by God’s grace, we treasure His wisdom and desire His counsel, we will THEN understand fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. I’ve talked about Fear of the Lord throughout this series, but I always have to point out that when we talk about fear of the Lord is not the fear we get from a horror movie when we see sights so grotesque that we cringe in our seats. Rather, fear of the Lord is seeing something so glorious that our human condition can’t handle it! It’s being overwhelmed by the shear greatness of God. As we draw near to God and He draws near to us, we SHOULD grow in our fear, our reverence of His Greatness. Like leaving a dark movie theatre in the middle of the day only to find the sun shining brightly, we squint and turn our heads as we continue one foot in front of the other into the light. As we seek the Lord like silver (as it says in verse 4) we find He is glorious Gold.

We also see that we find the knowledge of the Lord. This is an interesting phrase that our culture often misses on. We think that knowing God as some sort of sentimental, inner fuzzy feeling, But Biblically, we see that knowing God is shown through practical living. In Judges, knowing God is directly tied to following Him in very tangible ways. When Joshua passes away, the next generation is said not to KNOW the Lord, then they do all sorts of evil, abandoning the God of their fathers. Then in the New Testament, Paul writes in Philippians 3 and 4 that KNOWING the power of Christ’s resurrection leads to imitating Christ in very practical ways.

To put this principle plainly, finding the knowledge of God is not digging deep within yourself to unlock some hidden spiritual third eye. Finding the knowledge of God is seeing His Will for you in His Word AND displaying His Will, instruction, and holiness in everyday life for all to see!

Verses 6-8 here are guiding us to see knowledge of God as God walking alongside us as we do His will. Look at the progression. He gives wisdom. He speaks it to us through His Word. He stores wisdom for us as we live upright lives, He protects us as we live with integrity. He guards our paths as we pursue justice and watches over the way of His saints. What is a saint? A saint is someone who has been called out, set apart, and dedicated to God. Saints are those called to live out our faith in God in this world so that others may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven! The same Father who walks with us, protects us, shows us the good works to do, and has prepared them for us before all time! Man, God is good!

If you seek wisdom then you will find glorious, reverent fear of the Lord and knowledge of living out His grace.

We are given a second outcome in the next set of verses:

Proverbs 2:9–11 ESV

Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you,

If you treasure God’s Word and His commands, you will then understand righteousness.

Deep down in everyone, whether they claim to know God or not, there is a desire for justice and righteousness. Most of the time the standard for righteousness is obscured and hypocritical, but the desire is there all along. With so much evil in the world, you may think that its silly of me to say that everyone has a desire for righteousness. But bear with me. Rarely do you talk to someone who doesn’t view themselves as the good guy in their personal story. Even when we see the violent acts of the deranged, those people believe they are doing something noble. You can look throughout history and see manifestos and contrived twisted justifications for many heinous acts. Now of course, their behavior is inexcusable, does no good, and leaves decent people in mourning, yet somehow in their twisted, sin-filled minds, they think they are doing something righteous. People want to be justified for the things that they do, but they find their justification from the wrong source and create more evil.

But when we seek the Lord and His Wisdom, then we will understand TRUE righteousness and equity, every good path. We find those things we desire in the Lord because He is the source and standard of righteousness, equity, and goodness. Our Holy God is the only thing that can satisfy our desire for justice. When you look through Scripture you see that He is the great judge who will rightly administer justice on all wrong doing. You see that Christ is the only truly righteous man and through faith in Him, He gives us His righteousness. You see that righteous living is peaceful living, loving God and loving your neighbor. You see that we are called to have the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. You see that we are to serve those who are our earthly masters with sincerity of heart, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, knowing that when we serve others we are serving the Lord. You see fear of the Lord as a good thing and trust in God that HE will pay back the wrongdoer for the wrong they have done and in God there is no partiality. He sees things clearly. He administers justice perfectly. And guides our lives peacefully.

The more we dive in God’s Word, the more we take rest and joy in knowing He is good and He’s got this whole world in His hands! Without God’s wisdom we are tossed to and fro around by the winds of culture. We fall into destructive paths. We mistakenly try to justify ourselves, our transgressions, and our mistakes. But when we see the goodness of God for what it is, GOOD, when we see God’s goodness and perfect righteousness, we will be filled with it and it will be pleasant in our souls!

Wisdom is seeing that you are not the good guy in your life’s story, but Christ is. Wisdom is knowing that you were created not to serve yourself, but to glory God and enjoy His creation. Wisdom is taking simple pleasure in walking day by day, step by step, submitting to the Lord, seeing the value of His Wisdom and direction.

(v 11) We learn that discretion is good. It’s good to weigh decisions. It’s good to ask before you do something if it is something that honor’s God. Understanding, knowing the will of God as proclaimed through His Word, guards us by not falling into the traps of sin. I’ve seen many people hit rock bottom from sinful living, I’ve never seen that happen from sincerely following the Lord.

Seeking the Lord, finding His Wisdom is essential in this life. It is so so valuable, so beneficial. God’s Wisdom also protects. In the second half of Proverbs 2, we find more explanation on the protection we find in God’s Wisdom:

Proverbs 2:12–15 ESV

delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.

By the grace of God, His Wisdom enables those who receive it to recognize those around who are up to no good so they can avoid falling into that mess. In many ways, this protection here is a continuation or a reiteration of what was explained in Proverbs 1:10-19 that we looked at a few messages ago. The point here is that there are people in the world who seek to do you harm! If we do not know what to look for, we will be dragged into schemes that end in destruction. Even the Apostle Paul would write to the church in Corinth, “Do not be deceived, Bad company ruins good morals. Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning! For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame!”

Who you hang around is who you become! This is one of those lessons that we are told when we’re young, but we think I’m going to be exception! I can hang out with them and not get into trouble. They’re fun! Or if you are a Christian maybe you think you should join in with this group because they obviously need to know about the Lord. You’re gonna be the missionary to bring it to them! I commend you in that effort and wholeheartedly affirm that the gospel is to go out to all people. But Wisdom tells you here, be careful! You must be diligent that you are influencing others for the sake of the gospel and are not being influenced into spiritual apathy. We are called to be friendly people engaged with society, but we are not called to become like society. Much the opposite.

Through God’s wisdom we can discern the intentions of others and craft those who we are closest to accordingly. Your closest confidants in this world ought to be those who share the same understanding and fear of the Lord. If you fall in with evil, destruction follows.

God’s wisdom protects those who have it by showing us His righteousness and opening our eyes to the fallenness of the world around us. May we not willfully shut our eyes to the world when the Lord has opened them for us.

We also see more protection in the next set of verses:

Proverbs 2:16–19 ESV

So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.

If we receive God’s wisdom we will be delivered from the forbidden woman. If you were here with us last time, you should draw a direct connection between this forbidden woman and the Lady Wisdom discussed in Proverbs 1:20-33. If you continue through the first 9 chapters of Proverbs you’ll find these two women set in contrast to one another.

Lady Wisdom preaches truth. The Forbidden woman entices for destruction. Throughout the Proverbs this forbidden woman is a metaphor for sinful desire. The direct picture here pictures a married woman uninterested and unconcerned with her marital vows and seeking to entice Solomon’s son to join her in her sinful desires.

Really think about this picture and how this can translate into practical life. This is a married woman. And yet she is offering her love to YOU, not her husband? She shows her husband means nothing to her, and yet she wants to be involved with YOU? In our sinful flesh, we look at the possibility of a moment of bliss as something to be desired, we might even fall to temptation. We should’ve seen that this offer is disingenuous. We should’ve known that if this person cares nothing about their husband, then they cannot care about us. But the enticement of a gratifying moment is too strong! Besides, its just one moment! What could it hurt!

That’s how it is with all sin. We think it’s not a big deal. We give into temptation. We believe the promise of satisfaction even though we should’ve known it was a false promise. Verses 18 and 19 show us that falling to temptation is has consequences beyond living in the moment of passion. There are consequences to sin.

But remember this section of Scripture shows us the PROTECTION of God’s wisdom! Through God’s wisdom we can sniff out the stench of temptation. Through God’s power we can resist temptation and flee from evil. For God’s glory we can be delivered from the forbidden woman. “If [God’s] wisdom has entered your heart, you will know what to do, right then and there, at the moment of temptation. Run!”

God’s Wisdom protects us by opening our eyes, sharpening our minds, and quickening our actions. We are attuned to His righteousness through the intake of His Word. But God’s Wisdom isn’t JUST avoiding sin. It also has positive benefit:

Proverbs 2:20–22 ESV

So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.

When you have the wisdom of God, not only can you avoid evil, but you GET to walk in the way of the good! You get to do good!

If you want to do good in this world, there is one way: Live for the glory of God by the power of God with the wisdom of God. It is the only way.

The father speaking to his son in this section of Proverbs assumes that the son listens to the advice contained in the chapter. He says, “so you will walk in the way of the good.” Then shows the reward, the upright inhabit the land, they remain there, they receive the promise. This is both pointing us to the eschatological promises of Scripture, the glory of being in the New Heaven and the New Earth, but it is also a matter of general practical application. The wise who avoid foolish, sinful living, generally live lives of peace and last.

But for the wicked it is not so! They will be cut off from the land, the treacherous. The wicked will not enjoy the land of glory where theres no need for a lamp because God Himself is the illumination. Often the acts of the wicked lead to quick end in this life as well.

Seeing God’s will, hearing His guidance, and consuming His Word is a great blessing. The author of our text today, writes in a way that assumes his son listened to the advice. I can’t make that assumption in this moment.

My question as we come to the end of this series is, will you walk in the way of good? Do you want to? Because if you do, if you have the God-given desire to reject your wickedness and walk in His righteousness, here’s what you need to know

THREE CIRCLES GRAPHIC.

You are broken.