Bless Me Father, For I Have Received Wisdom

Sermon preached on June 13, 2023 – Proverbs 2:1-22 – Bless Me Father, For I Have Received Wisdom

A few weeks ago I preached on Proverbs 1. If you recall, the first seven verses of Proverbs 1 identifies the purpose of the entire book of Proverbs. Solomon says that he wrote the book so his readers can...

know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, 3 to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; 4 to give prudence to the simple, [and] knowledge and discretion to the youth...

Verse 7, then, concludes these introductory statements in saying...

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; [but] fools despise wisdom and instruction.

This contrast between the fool and those who fear the Lord will be the central theme throughout the rest of Proverbs. And Solomon wasted no time in making this point. Immediately, in verses 8 and 9, he began to describe how important it is for children to obey their parents’ instruction. Then he warns in verses 10-19 that many forms of evil will appear enticing. Evil will entice us by appealing to our righteous and unrighteous desires, trying to draw us away into sin. Those who are not guided by wisdom—especially young people who have neglected the wise counsel of their parents—will be drawn away. They’ll give in to the temptation and be made to fall. The remainder of chapter 1 explains how the voice of Wisdom calls out in the streets, speaking instruction and correction to people’s lives. We're once again warned in these verses that anyone who reject the wisdom of God and continue doing what is right in their own eyes will experience God's wrath and judgment.

So to paint a picture of Chapter 1 with broad strokes, it begins with an appeal to gain wisdom, then it describes how enticements to sin will come into our lives, and then it tells how Wisdom calls all people to obedience and repentance. And that brings us to our sermon text, which is chapter 2. Chapter 2 is now going to expand upon chapter 1 by describing the value and benefits that are derived from heeding the call of Wisdom.

You might say the difference between chapter 1 and chapter 2 is that chapter 1 commands all people to receive God's wisdom, and chapter 2 describes the blessings provided to those who obediently do this. This can be seen in the way chapter 2 begins. Verse 1 and verse 5 need to be read together. In these two verses, Solomon writes,

1 My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you... 5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

This is a conditional if-then statement. It’s saying: if this, then that. If you do this, then that will happen. If you walk in God's wisdom, then you’ll walk in God's blessings. Solomon then spends the rest of the chapter 2 identifying what those blessings are.

Verse 2: Your ear will become attentive to wisdom. Your heart will be inclined towards understanding.

Verse 3: You will find discernment and understanding.

Verse 7: You will be shielded by God, guarded from evil as you walk in integrity.

Verse 9: You will understand righteousness. You will understand justice. You will understand equity.

I was counseled a young man who was trying to work through some challenges. From my perspective, the situation was pretty clear. There was the right thing for him to do, and then there were a host of wrong things that he could do. The right thing was obvious; the word of God spelled it out very clearly. But I quickly realized that this young man didn’t want to do the right thing, because the right thing was also the difficult thing. So he kept trying to justify some of the wrong responses to the situation, which he perceived would be much easier. My counsel to him was to do what the Bible says, which might be more difficult in the moment, but will prove to much less difficult in the long run because the Lord blesses obedience. I explained that if he wants to walk in the Lord’s blessings, then he must obey the Lord’s wisdom.

As we continued this conversation, the young man said to me, "I'm just so confused. I don't know what to do." The truth is, he wasn’t confused at all. He was conflicted. He was conflicted between doing what’s right, which was the difficult option, and doing what’s wrong, which was the easy option. He was conflicted because he didn’t believe the conditional promise here in Proverbs 2, that if you walk in God's wisdom, then you’ll walk in God's blessings.

What’s commendable about this young man is that he was willing to seek counsel. What’s not commendable is that he was apparently looking for a counselor who would tell him what he wanted to hear. He wanted somebody to say, “Go ahead, take the easy way out. You don’t have to do the right thing in this situation.”

Brothers and sisters, don’t mistake confusion with confliction. There will be times when you’ll legitimately be confused. There will be times when you’ll wonder what the right thing to do it. When these confusing situations develop, then seek God's wisdom. Seek His wisdom from the Bible. Seek His wisdom from your parents. Seek His wisdom from the people in your life who have proven to have attained a measure of His wisdom already. They will help you work through your situation. They will assist you by pointing you to God's wisdom; by helping you find the right response while avoiding the wrong response.

But understand that it takes faith in God to trust that He works through the agency of the godly people He has placed in your life. Solomon is reminding his son of this in verses 1 and 5 as he writes, "My son, if you receive my words... then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." In other words, Solomon is saying to his son, "You need to trust that God is using me, your father, to impart His righteous wisdom to you."

To not believe that God is using the godly people He placed in your life to impart His righteous wisdom to you, and to not believe that if you will walk in God’s wisdom then you will walk in His blessings, is to put yourself in a place of conflict. You’ll no longer be confused about what to do, you’ll be conflicted about what to do. You’ll know that the right thing to do is, but you’ll be tempted to do the easy thing. Like the young man I counseled, you’ll be tempted to lean on your own understanding and take the easy way out. Yet God’s promise in our sermon text is that when you walk in His wisdom, then you’ll walk in His blessings. Or in the words of verse 10, when His wisdom enters your heart, then knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

I think the pleasant experience of one’s soul might be one of the most unbelieved or underestimated of the Lord’s promises. God is telling you that if you walk in His wisdom, then your soul will experience the pleasant blessings of obedience. Yet I suspect many of us, whether today or at some earlier point in our Christian life, have silently and secretly feared that if we devote ourselves to following God and doing what He says to do, then we'll suffer a dreadful and boring life. I suspect many of us have silently and secretly feared that if we devote ourselves to following God and doing what He says , then we’ll live a difficult life of submission to a bunch of rules that say, “don't do this” and “don't do that.” But that's the lie of Satan, brothers and sisters! Our adversary would like nothing more than for you to believe that being a Christian means you have to give up all the fun stuff and so you can live a dull and boring life. What the Holy Spirit is telling us in verse 10 is that wisdom will not only inform you of what the good path is, but you will find the good path to be pleasant to your soul.

In being obedient to God's instruction, God showers you with blessings so that your heart rejoices in doing good. He'll make it so you find joy and satisfaction in righteousness. He’ll give you pleasure and fulfillment in seeing justice and equity at work in this world. When you walk in the wisdom and instruction of the Lord, you’ll be able to join your voice with King David, who wrote in Psalm 119:97...

Oh how I love Your law! It's my meditation all the day.

And again in verse 111...

Your testimonies... are the joy of my heart!

So far from dragging you down to a dreary, dull, and boring life, obedience to God will lift you to a life that’s characterized by love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And this is a pleasant life, brothers and sisters. It’s pleasant to your soul.

Take the prophet Jeremiah as an example. In Jeremiah 15, he described a situation that I'm sure all of you have already experienced at some point in your life... and I'm sure all of you will continue to experience over and over again until you die. It's the situation where you're in a group of people and you're the only one who wants to seek after righteousness. Jeremiah explains how he was in that situation and he made the decision to separate himself from those who weren't following the wisdom of God. He described the people he separated himself from as "reveling" in their sin; meaning, they were enjoying their sin. They were pursuing sin because of the pleasure it promised them. Jeremiah said that when he separated himself from these people, he had to sit alone because nobody else wanted to give up the pursuit of what they thought would bring them pleasure.

Yet the irony is that sin can never produce true and lasting pleasure. The best it can do is provide some temporary form of gratification. That is, gratification that's fleeting. And so the sin needs to be committed again and again in order to obtain that illusive gratification that our adversary uses to draw people into sin.

That's the tactic! The promised pleasure is never more than fleeting gratification, and that fleeting gratification has a diminishing return. In order to gain the same level of gratification that was initially experienced, the sinner needs to increase the intensity of his involvement with the sin. It's like a drug addiction. People use drugs in order to experience a high. But the high doesn’t last, so they need to take the drug over and over again in order to experience the high again. But because some drugs have a diminishing effect, the addict needs to take more and more to achieve the same gratification as smaller doses provided earlier.

This law of diminishing return is true for virtually every form of addiction. It’s true of alcohol. It’s true of gambling. It’s true of sexual immorality. It’s true of pornography. All these things have the capacity to produce a fleeting form of gratification, but then when the addict comes back a second time, and a third time, and a fourth time, that gratification diminishes. So the addict pursues the addiction with greater and greater ambition because he craves that same level of gratification that he experienced in the beginning. That’s how sin works. And that’s how the devil traps people in a vicious cycle of destructive sin.

What Jeremiah is saying is that he didn't go down that road. Instead, he separated himself from those who were seeking gratification from sin. This meant that Jeremiah had to sit alone, all by himself. You might think that he was feeling sorry for himself. You might think that he was lonely. You might think that he ended up living a dull and boring life. But the truth is just the opposite, because the Lord blessed Jeremiah for his obedience. God blessed Jeremiah with genuine and lasting joy that only comes from walking the Lord’s wisdom. Jeremiah wrote in 15:16...

Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.

This is what David was writing about in Psalm 119 when he expressed that God's testimonies are a joy to his heart. And this is what Solomon is writing about in our sermon text when he explains that God’s wisdom and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

This is one of the underestimated benefits that comes from being obedient to God's instruction. Serving the Lord in obedience to His wisdom will elicit true joy and genuine satisfaction in your soul. And the benefits Solomon is identifying for those who receive the words of wisdom are not fleeting; they don’t diminish over time. Rather, they persist. It’s what David was saying in Psalm 23 when he wrote that goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life. Literally, David is saying that goodness and mercy will pursue you all the days of your life. And Solomon is saying something similar in verses 11 and 12 of our sermon text...

...discretion will watch over you, [and] understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil...

The emphasis here is on the Christian being "guarded" and "watched over"; being delivered from evil. I think a pretty persuasive argument can be made that when Jesus was teaching His disciples to pray, He was indirectly teaching them to ask for wisdom. When Jesus said, "This is how you ought to pray," and then went on to petition the Father, "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," I think Jesus was praying the same thing that Solomon is telling us will happen when we walk in the wisdom and instruction of the Lord. You will be delivered from evil. The Lord’s wisdom will deliver you from evil.

There's something profound here that I don't want you to miss. Look at verses 11 and 12 of our sermon text and ask yourself the question, "Who or what delivers us from evil?" Some might say God delivers us from evil; that's why Jesus taught us to pray that our Father who art in heaven will deliver us from evil. Yet verses 11 and 12 say "discretion and understanding" is what delivers us from evil. This is not a contradiction, but rather, an explanation. Verses 11 and 12 explains how our Father who art in heaven delivers us from evil.

This is why I said a second ago that the petition in the Lord's prayer for deliverance from evil is indirectly a petition for wisdom. God’s wisdom produces discretion and understanding, and discretion and understanding are the means the Lord uses to deliver us from evil.

When I used to sell security systems, I ran into a lot of people who would offer explanations for why they didn’t think they didn't need one. The explanations varied, but there were some common ones: "I have a dog." "I have a gun." "I live in a gated community." "We have a neighborhood watch program." Sometimes people would say, "I don't care if they steal my stuff. My insurance company will replace it." And I was always intrigued by the person who said, "There's a police officer who lives four doors down the street." As if that police officer is walking up and down the street all day and night, carrying his gun, watching for burglars.

None of these explanations bothered me. I realized they were the person’s way of saying they didn’t see a value in owning a security system. That’s fine. I wasn’t going to argue with them. But there was one explanation I heard from time to time that did bother me. It was the Christian who said, "Oh, I don't need a security system for protection because I have faith that God will protect me." The reason this bothered me is because it's an overly-simplistic view of how God works in the lives of His people. Who's to say that the security system is not the means that God will use to protect His people?

Imagine Elijah sitting at the brook Cherith and chasing away the ravens, saying, “I have faith that God is going to feed me, so get out of here. I don’t need your bread and meat. God will provide.” So when I said a minute ago that there's something profound in this passage, it has to do with the Lord using ordinary means to accomplish His extraordinary providences.

When God preserved baby Moses’ life, His means was Pharaoh's daughter.

When God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, His means was Moses.

When God brought judgment upon the Israelites, His means was an earthquake... or a pestilence... or a foreign army.

When Jesus healed the blind man, His means was soil mixed with His own saliva.

And when God delivers His people from evil, His ordinary means is wisdom which produces discretion and understanding in the person God is delivering. So in the same way Elijah was trusting God when he received his provision of food from ravens, we need to trust that God delivers us from evil when we walk in His wisdom. This is just another way of saying that an essential component for you to be delivered from evil is that you walk in the Lord’s wisdom. Which means, if you’re not walking in the Lord’s wisdom, but you’re praying to Him, “Lord, deliver me from evil,” then don’t be surprised if you find yourself entangled with evil. Don’t be surprised if you’re struggling under the burden of habitual sin. Don’t be surprised if you just can’t seem to lay aside those sins that so easily ensnare you. By not walking in the Lord’s wisdom, you’ve withdrawn yourself from the means that God uses to deliver you from evil.

What I want you to notice are the examples Solomon gives at the end of our sermon text about how the Lord’s wisdom will deliver you from. He gives two examples. The first has to do with men, and the second has to do with women.

Concerning men, Solomon writes in verse 12 that walking in the Lord’s wisdom will deliver you from “men of perverted speech." Over the next three verses, Solomon expands his description of the men God’s wisdom will deliver you from. It’s men who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness. It’s men who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil. It’s men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.

There are many reasons we can give for why you would want to be delivered from such men, but I’m only going to focus on one. Let me assure the single ladies in our congregation that you don’t want to be in a relationship with a man like Solomon is describing, and you certainly don‘t want to be in a marriage with a man like Solomon is describing. Yet many Christian women end up married to men who are perverse in their speech, forsake the paths of uprightness, delight in evil, and who are devious in their ways. How does this happen? Why do Christian women get entangled with such wicked men? It’s by not walking in the wisdom of God. It’s by not heeding the good counsel of their parents and other godly people who have tried to impress the Lord’s wisdom upon them.

Remember what Solomon is saying in chapter 2, those who walk in the wisdom of God will walk in the blessings of God. One of those many blessings is to be delivered from evil. In the case of the single lady who’s pursuing a husband, walking in the wisdom of God will protect her from marrying a bad husband.

The second example Solomon gives has to do with women. In the same way that a single lady who’s walking in the Lord’s wisdom will be protected from getting involved in a relationship with an evil man, so a man who’s walking in the Lord’s wisdom will be protected from getting involved in a relationship with an immoral woman. Look at verses 16-19…

16 So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, 17 who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; 18 for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; 19 none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.

It's not a coincidence that both of these examples are of people who speak misleading words. Solomon says the evil men speak perverse words and the forbidden woman speaks smooth words. The specific form of evil that Solomon is identifying here is that which comes to you through the power of the spoken word. How many times have you fallen into sin because of the words somebody has spoken to you? There are all sorts of temptations in this world, but the temptations that come from spoken word can be very deceptive and powerful.

It's the power of suggestion. "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?"

It's the power of peer pressure. "For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. So they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

It's the power of the threat. "If you release this man then you are no friend of Caesar."

It's the power of the challenge. "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."

It's the power of the taunt: "He saved others but He cannot save Himself."

It's the power of invitation. "Come, let us delight ourselves with love. For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey."

It's the power of flattery. And the people were shouting, "The voice of a god, and not of a man!"

It's the power of the trick question. "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? Should we pay them, or should we not?"

It's the power of the lie. "Go and search diligently for the Child, and when you have found Him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship Him."

It's the power of accusation. "How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me where your great strength lies."

It's the power of revenge. "Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him."

It's the power of mob mentality. "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"

Wisdom is the means God uses to deliver His people from these verbal enticements to sin. When you walk in the wisdom of God, you grow in discernment. You grow in discretion. And now you understand how to respond righteously to the subtle and deceptive temptations the world speaks to you. This is how the Lord delivers you from evil.

When James wrote in his epistle, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God... and it will be given him," it shouldn't surprise us that the context of this statement is about our need to be "steadfast" through trials and temptations. The wisdom of God is what produces steadfastness in us. This is why Solomon and James are both so eager to encourage their readers to pursue God's wisdom; they want God’s people to be delivered from making the wrong choices. This is why our sermon text concludes with a description of what that life of deliverance from evil will look like. Far from being the dull and boring life some would think it to be, verses 20 and 21 explain the blessings enjoyed by those who heed the Lord’s wisdom...

So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. 21 For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it...

The land that Solomon is referring to is the promised land. We understand that to be a metaphor of eternal life. So when Solomon writes that you will walk in the good and righteous paths, we understand this as another iteration of the promise that God will deliver us from evil. And when Solomon writes that you will inhabit the land and remain in the land, we understand this as a promise that God has given us eternal life and no one is able to snatch us from our Father’s hand.

It's what Jude wrote about in the last verse of his epistle.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy...

It's what Paul wrote about in 1 Thessalonians 5:23...

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So walking in the wisdom of God is to walk in the blessings of God, the greatest of which is eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ. But there’s a warning in our sermon text, as well. The last verse of the chapter, verse 22, says that the wicked will be "cut off from the land." This means God will bring the judgment of condemnation upon those who refuse to walk in His wisdom. In the same way that the promise in verse 21 that the upright will inhabit the land and remain in the land points to eternal life in Jesus Christ, so the promise in verse 22 that the wicked will be cut off from the land points to eternal damnation for everyone who refuse the wisdom of God. The evidence of their refusal is their unwillingness to surrender their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

But there’s hope for those who have been rejecting the Lord’s wisdom. The reason God is declaring these things with such precision and with such clarity is because He’s entreating people to change. God is forecasting the future for us; He’s telling us in no uncertain terms that if a person continues to walk contrary to the Lord’s wisdom, then that person will perish in his sins. That person will experience the everlasting wrath of God. But it doesn’t need to be that way. Such a person can repent of His sins and come to the Lord through the Person and word of Jesus Christ. And while it’s true that you cannot make your heart delights in the wisdom of God, and you cannot, in your own effort, make yourself walk in His righteous paths, you can call out to Him for His mercy. You can call out to Him, just like Bartimaeus called out to Jesus, saying, “Lord, have mercy on me!” And God has promised that He will respond favorably to everyone who call upon Him in faith. He will forgive their sins. He will put a new heart within them; a heart that delights in His wisdom. And He will give them His Spirit to guide and equip them to walk in His wisdom and enjoying His blessings.