Word on the Street
Notes
Transcript
ME: Intro - Street Preacher/Joshua Bell subway violinist
ME: Intro - Street Preacher/Joshua Bell subway violinist
Back in 2007,
It was a normal day in the subway in Washington DC.
Commuters were passing through,
Hurrying to jobs and other places.
While all this was happening,
A man took out his violin and began playing for the people as they hurried about with their lives.
If you have ever been to public transit stations,
You have likely seen similar musicians do this.
This man played his violin in the subway station for about 45 minutes.
Within that time,
Thousands of people passed by.
Some threw money into his violin case that laid open next to him.
A handful of people paused for a brief moment,
But not one single person stayed for any length of time.
This violinist played beautifully,
He was incredibly skilled.
Yet he received no applause for his performance,
None of the passerby’s seemed to appreciate his playing.
This violinist is named Joshua Bell.
He is considered one of the greatest modern violinists.
He won the Avery Fisher Prize for Outstanding classical music.
At the time of his subway performance,
He was selling out about 200 international concerts.
In the subway,
He played 6 of the most intricate and technical violin pieces,
Composed by Bach.
The violin he used in the subway was a 1713 Stradivarius,
A $3.5 million violin.
Two days before his subway performance,
He performed for a sold out crows in Boston where seats sold for $100 each.
By the end of his subway performance,
He collected $32.17 from 27 out of over a thousand people.
Now, to be fair to all those passerby’s,
They were really not expected to stop and appreciate his music.
They had places to go.
And if I am being honest,
I likely would not have stopped for very long,
If at all.
So, I share this story not to shame you.
This subway performance was setup as a test of beauty and skill in an unexpected setting.
But I first heard this story as an illustration in a sermon.
And as I was preparing for this sermon,
It came to mind as an appropriate illustration.
This morning,
Our text is Proverbs 1:20-33,
Where wisdom calls us with a Word on the Street.
Joshua Bell’s subway performance was not just about a talented violinist who nobody appreciated.
His performance serves as almost a living parable of greater importance.
Like Bell, Wisdom stands on our crowded streets.
All around the world,
Holding out the invitation to wisdom,
Calling us simple people as we hurry along in our lives.
Wisdom stands there,
Inviting us to give up our foolish ways,
And to follow the path of wisdom.
Wisdom’s cry is the Word on the Street.
Our outline for our passage this morning is:
Wisdom Calls (vs. 20-23)
Fools Ignore (vs. 24-32)
Listeners Live (vs. 33)
“We listen and live, or we don’t and die.”
As we go through Proverbs,
We will continue to return to this theme,
That wisdom is a Person,
Our text is an allegory where wisdom is personified as a woman admonishing her hearers.
She is calling out with public warnings.
Her appeal that she gives is an impassioned one.
She warns that disaster will come to all who reject her guidance.
While those who listen will live!
This is the first of many passages in Proverbs where wisdom is personified.
The next couple chapters,
And chapters 8-9 use this allegory as well.
Lord willing, we will get to look at those passages throughout the remainder of this year.
In the NT,
We learn that Wisdom is embodied in the Person, Jesus Christ.
As Jesus was on the streets in the Gospels,
He would hold out His hands to the simple and welcome them to Himself.
In John 7:37-38,
Jesus stood up in the large crowd gathered for the last day of the feast,
And He cried out,
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
In Matthew 11:28-29
You can almost picture Jesus holding His hands out to you,
As He says, “come to Me,”
“Take My yoke upon you.”
When we hear Wisdom’s call,
We listen and live,
Or we don’t and die.
In everything wisdom cries out in the book of Proverbs,
We must always be able to see behind the Word on the Street,
To hear the call of Jesus Himself.
Our greatest need is a relationship with Christ by grace through faith.
The Bible says if we trust in Him in our heart,
And confess Him as Lord with our mouth,
Then we will be given His Holy Spirit,
Which leads us in wisdom.
But the warning in our text this morning tells us that if we reject wisdom,
That is, we reject Jesus,
Then it will destroy our lives by condemning us to death for all eternity.
It is the relationship with Jesus that discerns if we will walk in wisdom,
Or walk in the way that seems right in our own eyes.
WE: Wisdom Calls (vs. 20-23)
WE: Wisdom Calls (vs. 20-23)
So, our text begins in vs. 20-23 by showing that wisdom calls.
The call of wisdom in our text is a bit shocking.
It comes across as one of those hellfire and brimstone messages,
Where the threat of hell intimidates people into choosing God.
But that is not the case.
Wisdom passionately loves people,
And does not want people to perish.
So, wisdom urgently pleads with those who are on the path of destruction,
To repent and listen to wisdom.
She tells the simple to turn away from the foolish path and toward the wise path.
We must understand that we are headed for disaster because of our foolishness,
So, wisdom warns us,
She pleads with us to repent.
The book of Proverbs is so much more than a book of advice.
Solomon is not just giving us wise tips on how to live our best life now,
Because we are broken.
So, even when we know the right thing,
We do the wrong thing.
We speak before we think,
We reject advice from others,
We lie,
We are disrespectful,
We brag,
We waste time,
We are stingy,
And Proverbs tells us that all these things are foolish.
Yet, we still do them.
That is why Proverbs is so much more than a book of advice.
Wisdom is a person,
A person you can have a relationship with,
The person, Jesus Christ.
And when we have a relationship with God through Christ,
It empowers us to have right relationships with others and this world through Christ.
So, Proverbs teaches that wisdom is personal,
We do not just know the information of wisdom,
We know the Person Who is Wisdom,
Who walks us down the wise path in our relationships, in our work, and in our world.
Starting in vs. 20, Solomon says,
Wisdom cries aloud,
She raises her voice,
She cries out,
She speaks.
Wisdom is portrayed as this open air preacher,
Calling out on the streets,
In public places.
Crying over the noisy commotion in the streets, the markets,
And at the entrance of the city gates.
The city gate was basically the place of public forum,
Where counsel and judgment was sought from kings and rulers.
So, it would make sense for wisdom to be calling out to people here.
Calling out in a public forum for people to heed Wisdom’s counsel.
Calling out above the noise,
Making it clear that the offer of wisdom is the word on the street.
It is for everyone,
It is not hidden just for the intellectual elite.
And as we have talked about already,
Solomon personifies wisdom as a woman,
We can refer to her as Lady Wisdom.
Now this may raise an objection in your mind.
How can Jesus be wisdom, yet Solomon says wisdom is a woman?
Why is Solomon presenting wisdom as a woman?
First, we must remember that personification is a literary device,
Often used in poetry to get the hearers attention.
Second, Hebrew, like many other languages,
Has masculine and feminine forms for nouns.
Here in Proverbs,
The noun is a feminine noun,
So, it would make sense for the personification to take on the gender identity of the noun.
Third, earlier in chapter one,
We see that Solomon is addressing his son.
Later in Proverbs,
He warns of the temptations of an adulteress woman to represent folly.
So, here he presents wisdom as a beautiful woman.
Lady Wisdom represents wife material,
The foolish woman represents prostitute material.
Solomon is teaching his son about wisdom in an exciting, enjoyable, and satisfying way.
As if learning wisdom is like marrying a beautiful, smart, and funny woman.
So, yes, Solomon reveals God’s wisdom as a woman in Proverbs.
In time, God has revealed what Solomon could not fully know.
That Jesus is God’s Wisdom in the flesh!
Christ is the embodiment of wisdom,
He is the ultimate fulfillment of the wisdom in Proverbs.
This means,
The only way to become wise,
Is to accept Christ’s invitation into a personal relationship with Him, by faith!
The invitation from Lady Wisdom here comes across like a “hellfire and brimstone” street preacher here.
She basically telling us to turn or burn.
She gives an urgent call to repentance.
Telling us to listen to seek after her,
To have a relationship with her,
To seek wisdom,
And live!
There is only a limited amount of time for us to heed her call,
And if we refuse, then we will die.
So, we can either listen and live or don’t and die.
Solomon pictures this invitation being given in the most crowded of places.
Vs. 22 shows who wisdom is addressing in her call.
First, she addresses the simple ones.
This shows a development of thought throughout the first chapter of Proverbs.
We have quickly learned that the call to wisdom is not merely gaining insight or information.
The call to wisdom is presenting a deliberate choice between two paths.
Wisdom is the path of life and righteousness.
Folly is the path of death and wickedness.
These two paths are diametrically opposed to one another.
We cannot walk both paths.
We continuously find ourselves at the crossroad of these two paths.
The simple are the ones at the crossroad of these two paths,
They are impressionable, inexperienced, or gullible.
They lack the wisdom needed to choose the path of the wise,
And they can easily wander down the path of folly.
As wisdom states, they love being simple,
They believe that ignorance is bliss,
When in reality, it leads to death.
The second addressee are scoffers.
Unlike the simple,
The scoffer deliberately rejects wisdom, instruction, correction, and discipline.
They mock and despise wisdom.
They are obnoxious and stubborn in their folly,
They are unwilling to be wise.
They ridicule righteousness.
They know they have chosen the path of folly and the enjoy it.
Scoffers are proud and hard-hearted.
They are not open to correction,
Unable to learn,
And bound for condemnation.
This type of person is a negative example.
The third addressee is similar,
They are fools,
And they hate knowledge.
They are more thick-headed.
They believe they already know-it-all so they do not need to be taught,
They do not need to be corrected,
In fact, they are unteachable.
They hate the path of wisdom.
They are stubbornly immoral,
They have this smug arrogance about them,
One commentary describes their ways as pigheadedness.
But a fool does not lack intelligence.
Being a fool is a moral and spiritual problem more than a knowledge and informational problem.
As 1:7 says, they despise wisdom and instruction,
They do not fear the Lord.
They delight in evil,
And because of this, they are a danger to be around.
Jonathan Edwards wrote about religious affections,
And he said that religion boils down to what you love and what you hate.
Fools love wickedness and hate righteousness,
The wise love righteousness and hate wickedness.
In vs. 23, Wisdom calls each of these types of people to repent.
Just like Jesus calls us to repentance.
Repentance is the key response to Christ’s message.
It means we recognize that we are on the wrong path because we are foolish,
And it is choosing to follow Jesus down the wise path.
This is what the Gospels show Jesus doing.
Calling people to follow Him.
We all have a choice between the wise path or the foolish path.
To choose the foolish path is to choose Satan,
To choose the wise path is to choose Christ.
Turn away from Satan!
Run toward Jesus!
Follow Him!
That is wisdom!
That is salvation!
For all who repent,
Wisdom offers two things.
First is the gift of the spirit.
This is the confounding reality of wisdom,
It is both a gift from God,
And it entails human responsibility.
Wisdom offers the spirit IF we turn at her reproof.
This is the only command in this entire text.
The response of repentance is required.
As vs. 7 says,
Our fear of the Lord is the starting point,
Fearing the Lord grows this gift of wisdom.
It comes from the grace of God,
It renews our mind and our soul.
It renews our entire being.
As Romans 12:1-2 says:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
There is human responsibility in this,
To present our bodies as living sacrifices.
Yet it is also a gift from God,
We must BE transformed by the renewal of our minds.
The result is wisdom,
The ability to discern the will of God,
To know and understand what is His good and acceptable and perfect will.
If you repent,
God gives you the Holy Spirit to transform you,
And to empower you to walk in wisdom.
The only way we can experience the gift of the Spirit is through Christ.
The second gift vs. 23 promises is that we would know Wisdom’s words.
But this is not limited only to Proverbs,
This is speaking of God’s Word in its entirety.
Wisdom illuminates Scripture so that we can understand it and walk in it.
Scripture and the Word always work together!
The Spirit inspired the human authors who wrote Scripture,
Making it infallible.
And the Spirit in us empowers us to read and understand Scripture.
Jon Akin summarizes this so well;
“The Spirit who inspired the Word to be written will illuminate you to understand it through Jesus. So respond to the invitations of Jesus—the Wisdom of God—by repenting!”
GOD: Fools Ignore (vs. 24-32)
GOD: Fools Ignore (vs. 24-32)
Not everyone who is given an invitation listens to it,
Vs. 24-32 shows us that Fools Ignore it.
Wisdom recounts how the foolish have been called but they refused to listen.
Not only has wisdom called them with her voice,
But it says she has extended her hand,
Inviting them to be given wisdom,
And fools wanted nothing to do with her.
Remember the historical context here,
This is being written by the King of Israel to his son,
It is taught to the people of Israel,
Many of whom have rejected God’s grace.
The foolish Israelites have rejected God’s wisdom,
They have refused to listen.
But they are not alone.
All of us have failed to live up to the standard of Wisdom.
All of us have been fools.
As vs. 25 continues by saying,
Fools have ignored wisdom’s counsel.
They would have none of wisdom’s reproof.
This is a big deal because Wisdom’s counsel is God’s counsel.
It is not a suggestion,
It is not just good advice,
It is not open to be discussed, debated, or taken into consideration.
It is the fully authoritative counsel of God,
And fools ignore it.
As a result,
Wisdom will laugh at our calamity and terror and distress when it comes like a storm.
A calamity is a sudden and unexpected destruction.
Terror is intense fear,
It is the picture of a person trembling uncontrollably.
And Wisdom says, she will rejoice at these things.
She will laugh and mock.
Why?
It is not an expression of heartlessness,
Rather it is a response to the absurdity of choosing folly,
It is the vindication of wisdom,
It is setting the world right by destroying fools.
When the wicked are punished and the righteous are rewarded,
Wisdom celebrates.
Wisdom will smile when distress and anguish squeezes evil out of this world.
It is the out pour of God’s judgment.
The Lord ridicules and laughs at the wicked,
His judgment is like a storm.
This is the result of rejecting wisdom,
Ruinous consequences.
Your life will be wrecked.
Your worst nightmares will become a reality when wisdom is ignored.
If it has not already,
Give it time.
Your refusal of wisdom will catch up to you.
It may or may not in the short run,
But it will in the end.
You may think you are okay because you are able to hide your folly,
You think you are doing alright because you have a handle on your sin.
Lady Wisdom is warning you that it will catch up to you.
The Bible teaches about a final judgment,
Where everything is exposed,
Laid bare before God.
And we will reap what we have sown in this world.
So, even if you feel like you are prospering by walking in foolish ways,
Eventually, it will ruin you.
A final judgment is certain.
And vs. 28 warns,
When fools hate wisdom,
Ignore her warnings,
Reject the offer of redemption,
And continue down the path of folly,
Eventually they reach the destination of this path.
That destination is death,
Separation from God, from wisdom.
When that day comes,
Like the rich man from the rich man and Lazarus in the gospel,
Fools will then try to call upon God and His wisdom,
But it will be too late.
They will be separated from God so He will not answer.
Their cries from the other side of judgment will be ignored.
They ignored Wisdom,
Now Wisdom will ignore them.
A time is coming when it will be too late for people to repent.
A time when no second chance remains.
If the grace and forgiveness of Christ continues to be rejected,
Eventually it will ruin your life,
And it will be too late.
Fools will no longer be able to hear wisdom,
No matter how hard they look or cry out,
It will be too late,
Wisdom will not answer.
But God is patient,
Giving ample time and opportunity for wisdom to be found,
Crying out from the streets for people to come and have wisdom.
Wisdom is an aspect of God’s saving grace.
For those who reject God’s grace,
There does come a point of no return,
A point where they chose the path they wanted.
This point of no return is the greatest tragedy a person could ever experience.
This truth reveals the urgency of wisdom’s cries!
God is offering the gift of wisdom,
The gift of salvation.
Friends, today is the day of salvation!
That is the purpose of Wisdom’s cries!
Wisdom wants to move her hearers into action!
Wisdom does not want you to wait until you wreck your life!
Jesus wants you to repent, now!
He knows the path we are headed down,
He knows where it ends,
And He wants to save us from destruction.
The consequence in vs. 28 is explained in vs. 29-30.
Fools despised knowledge,
They did not choose to fear the Lord.
They had an opportunity to listen but they refused.
They would not listen to God’s counsel,
They despised the correction and instruction of wisdom.
They rejected the wisdom of God’s Word,
And the result was their judgment.
Proverbs makes it clear that rejecting wisdom is the same as rejecting the Lord.
All the practical wisdom in Proverbs,
And all the warnings against foolishness,
Are ultimately about whether or not you fear the Lord.
The reason you are caught in sin, poorly using your time, blowing up on people, and getting in trouble,
Is not just because you are a loser or not trying hard enough,
It reveals that you do not trust in Jesus.
Therefore, you are not in a right relationship with God,
Which means you are experiencing the consequences of not living rightly in God’s world.
And if this goes on without repentance,
It will ultimately end in judgment.
Your failures are not a product of a lack of effort or want.
Your failures are a product of missing Jesus.
But the hope of the Gospel teaches that Jesus,
The embodiment of wisdom,
Is your mediator.
Because He never failed,
Was always perfectly wise,
He offers to bring you into a right relationship with God,
And with the world around you.
Do not be fooled as the people Lady Wisdom speaks of in our text.
These fools despised all of Lady Wisdom’s reproof.
Three times wisdom uses the word, reproof in our text.
Here in vs. 30, and back in vs. 23 and 25.
Wisdom’s references to reproof asks how you respond to being reproofed.
The answer discerns between wisdom and folly.
An example of this comes from one of the most famous Proverbs,
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
The reproof here is to stop leaning on your own understanding.
Reproofs like this are hard to take!
We think we have some experience, or we know some things,
So, we lean on our own understanding,
And we do not respond well to reproofs.
This means wisdom requires humility.
As James 3:17 says:
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
Wisdom is God’s redemptive gift revealed to you.
Friends, choose this humble faith in the Lord over what seems right to you.
The way that seems right to you, leads to death.
The Word on the Street makes it clear that this is not the case for fools.
C.S. Lewis once said that there are two types of people in this world:
Those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’
And those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’
Ultimately, God will give us what our heart desires most.
The repeated acknowledgment of wisdom being rejected,
Highlights the issue of the individual’s choice.
The scoffer and the fool are not fated to be scoffers and fools,
It is their fault they are scoffers and fools,
They have rejected God’s gracious gift of salvation and wisdom.
If you reject Wisdom,
Reject Jesus,
You will eat the fruit of your own way.
God has built the world in such a way that certain actions produce certain consequences.
There is a natural cause and effect relationship in our world.
Wise actions will produce good consequences,
And vise versa.
Laziness leads to poverty,
Adultery leads to losing your spouse,
A sharp tongue drives away friends.
This is the way the world works.
If you ignore this, it wrecks your life.
Destruction is the fruit of folly.
It is not a pleasurable outcome,
This fruit is a disgusting, bitter, and nauseating fruit.
It is deadly.
God made the world to work according to His wisdom.
And He reveals His wisdom to us out of love for us,
He wants what is best for us.
The wisdom laid out for us in Proverbs does not make God a party pooper who enjoys raining on our parade.
No, it reveals that He is our loving Father,
Teaching His children how life works best.
Our passage shows that we hurt ourselves when we choose what seems right to us apart from God.
You see, it is more than just saying sin is wrong,
Sin is bad!
Sin is wrong and bad because sin is destructive!
So, if we refuse the listen to the wisdom of this book,
We are ultimately refusing Jesus Himself.
And doing so will wreck our lives.
Vs. 32 makes it clear that the wages of our foolishness is death.
It says, the simple, the naive, the impressionable,
Will die by turning away from wisdom.
It does not matter if it is indifference toward wisdom,
Or willful neglect,
Both are forms of turning away,
And both result in death.
This is what apostasy is,
Turning away from the Lord,
Being unfaithful to God,
Rebelling against God,
Abandoning the Lord.
The prophet Hosea uses this word to say that we have cheated on the Lord.
Apostasy is described as the unforgivable sin,
Not because God’s grace cannot cover it,
But because turning away from the Lord never seeks forgiveness,
For this reason, apostasy, turning away from the Lord,
Is described as the unforgivable sin.
Scripture uses the marriage relationship to represent our relationship with God.
Apostasy is having an adulterous affair on God.
In the context of Proverbs,
This is described as foolishness.
Meaning foolishness is not just about minor mental lapses,
Or something silly.
No, foolishness is rebellion,
And the consequence is death.
Complacency is just like it.
Complacency is so ignorant.
It is living in self-satisfying ways regardless of everyone else in the world.
It is again the idea of being unteachable.
These fools believe that they do not need to be taught or trained or corrected,
They are complacent,
They are good with living for themselves.
They have a false sense of security,
Trusting in themselves or the world,
But not trusting in God.
The Word on the Street is that this complacency will destroy them.
This foreshadows the eternal destruction of hell.
It is tragic that we can be lulled into thinking that everything is fine.
Believing the lie that our folly is no bid deal.
That it is not something you need to worry about now,
You have plenty of time to deal with your foolishness.
Or you think that your foolish behavior is just a minor character flaw,
Rather than a defiant rebellion that will ultimately destroy you.
YOU: Listeners Live (vs. 33)
YOU: Listeners Live (vs. 33)
While fools ignore wisdom and die,
Vs. 33 makes it clear that Listeners Live.
The foolish will eventually get knocked off their feet.
Those who listen to wisdom will live securely,
We will not fear danger.
Because this is a promise to living with God forever in the new creation.
When we experience the sting of our sin and our folly in this world,
It is for our good.
Because the sting from our sins leads us to seek for the blessings of wisdom.
This means we must accept the reproof.
We must acknowledge we are simply.
We must confess that we do not know how to be wise.
We must listen to wisdom,
As vs. 33 says.
“We listen and live, or we don’t and die.”
We can experience a sense of this security in the world here and now,
Because we know that sin, Satan, and death, cannot destroy us if we are secure in Christ!
This knowledge grants us security to live in this world without dread of disaster.
WE: Conc.
WE: Conc.
Wisdom offers life and security.
Folly offers destruction and death.
Word on the Street is that rejecting wisdom is ultimately rejecting life.
Because it is ultimately rejecting Christ.
In Christ, is wisdom and life and security.
And wisdom is readily available.
Lord willing, next week,
We will be in ch. 2 of Proverbs which seems to contradict the availability of wisdom,
It suggests that wisdom is like a hidden treasure we must find.
At first glance this may seem like an apparent contradiction,
I assure you, it is not.
And when we look at ch. 2 in greater detail,
We will seek to reconcile this contradiction.
For now,
Instead of closing with a song of reflection,
We are going to close with a time of quiet reflection.
Then we have another missionary update as we prepare for our upcoming missions conference October 17-20.
As we prepare for our time of quiet reflection,
I want to encourage you to begin with an acknowledgment of your own foolishness,
We all have been foolish.
We all have failed to walk in wisdom.
But as you reflect,
Remember that wisdom is not some abstract concept,
Wisdom is a Person,
And you can trust this Person.
He offers forgiveness for your foolishness,
And He empowers you to walk in wisdom.
This Person is Jesus Christ.
He warns you not to be complacent,
He invites you to wisdom,
To salvation.
You have two options:
Listen and live,
Or don’t and die.
Pray.