WWUTT 1299 The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Knowledge (Proverbs 1:1-7)

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Proverbs 1 .7 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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Learning begins with knowing that God is the originator of all truth. When we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, studying God's Word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program. Here once again is

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of Proverbs.

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And today we'll begin by looking at the first seven verses. This is Proverbs 1 .1

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-7. The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.

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To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity.

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To give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth. Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance.

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To understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.

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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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Last week we did our introduction to the book of Proverbs, and I mentioned to you that even though David did not write all of the

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Psalms, the book of Psalms is largely attributed to David. And so the same is true of Solomon with Proverbs.

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He did not write all of what we're going to read here in the book of Proverbs, but for the most part, Proverbs is attributed to Solomon.

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Now what we read here at the very beginning is certainly from Solomon, as it says the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.

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Now what is a proverb? Well in English, the word means a short pithy saying in general use, stating a general truth or piece of advice.

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Of course, as we have it here in the Bible, Proverbs was translated from Hebrew. So what's the word in Hebrew?

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Well, the word is mashal, and it can mean either a proverb or a parable. What would be the difference between a proverb or a parable?

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A parable is going to be longer. It'll be a short story of some kind that would be an analogy or some sort of a metaphor that's communicating truth.

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Whereas a proverb might be whittled down to a single sentence, something witty or even pithy that would give some sort of sage advice or counsel.

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That's what we have in these Proverbs. And most of the Proverbs as we go through this are going to be limited to single sentences.

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This first chapter, not so much, but you'll get, especially after chapter 10, each verse is its own proverb.

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There's still going to be a context there that we should be looking for, but each one of those verses you could also take by themselves and write on a card somewhere, post it in your home, and be reminded of these proverbial statements of wisdom so that we may gain instruction and insight into the truth that God communicates to us all throughout his word.

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The things that we read in Proverbs are not just limited to Proverbs. You'll see these things from Genesis to Revelation, but Proverbs is a great collection of these short sayings of wisdom that we may know the mind of God.

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All of this is God's truth. All of this in Proverbs, it comes from the Lord. God had granted wisdom to Solomon and Solomon wrote down the wisdom of God.

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Well, he spoke the wisdom of God and then he had many scribes that would write down the many Proverbs that he said.

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That's what we have compiled here. Most of them compiled here, though not every single one. Verse two, to know wisdom and instruction.

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So what's the purpose of the Proverbs? That we may know wisdom and instruction.

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And notice that this short section that we've started with here, verses one through seven begins and ends with wisdom and instruction.

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The Proverbs are to know wisdom and instruction. And look what it says at the end of verse seven, fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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This is going to be a common contrast you're going to see throughout Proverbs. The wise man loves this, but the fool doesn't.

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Okay. So to avoid becoming foolish or stupid or unknowledgeable without insight, without understanding of God's will, then don't read

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Proverbs. If you want to be a fool, don't read the Bible. But if you want to gain wisdom and insight, then we read scripture and we meditate on it, including these

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Proverbs, that we may know wisdom and instruction. Now as I have shared with my kids, the difference between knowledge or even instruction here and wisdom is that knowledge is information.

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It is the facts, the stats, what you can observe, any of these kinds of forms of information that you can gather and store up, that would be knowledge.

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You now know, you might have a list of information, you might have a stack of facts, but what do you do with that?

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Now that you know something, what do you do with it? And the application of that knowledge would therefore be wisdom.

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How do we take the knowledge and know how to apply it and do so in a right way? Like wisdom is not just simply taking knowledge and using it somehow, it would be applying it in a proper way.

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In this case, it would be as God wants us to apply this knowledge, to use it, to live our lives according to it.

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So we gain the instruction, we follow the instruction and do so rightly to understand words of insight.

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We don't just hear the words, but we know what the words mean and we attempt to apply them to our lives.

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Otherwise, if we're just hearing the words and it's not changing our life in any way, it's not dictating the way that we live, then we are like the one that James describes in James chapter one is somebody who hears the word like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and then walks away and forgets what he looks like.

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This is the person who hears the word but does not do what it says. He has deceived himself. So we must hear these words and know how we might apply them and live according to them.

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It takes more than just hearing the word of Jesus and nodding your head or saying that I agree with that.

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If you truly believe what it is that Jesus has said, then you're going to do what he has said.

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And as I just shared with somebody today online, as a matter of fact, everything in the

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Bible from Genesis to Revelation is the word of Christ. Not only the words that you see in red, but even the words in black and white.

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This is all communicated to us by the Holy Spirit of God sent out from Christ himself that we may gain wisdom and insight into the truth of God's word.

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Verse three to receive instruction in wise dealing, comma, in righteousness, comma, justice, comma, and equity.

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Now justice is a word that is used a lot lately, especially in the Western world English speaking context.

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We're hearing this word justice a lot over the last few years. We've had this rise in what's been referred to as the social justice movement.

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And there is consistently a cry for justice. But when you listen to the culture crying for justice and you actually try to break down what it is they're asking for, they don't really want justice.

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They want you to respond to a certain situation the way that they want you to. And that's what they're calling justice.

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But true justice is going to be, well, it's synonymous really with righteousness and equity.

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That's why these three words appear on the same line in righteousness, justice, and equity.

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In fact, there are many times in which the words righteousness and justice in the Bible are interchangeable.

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Take for example, in Matthew chapter six, where Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God and his what?

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Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, correct? And all the rest of these things will be added to you as well.

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Some translations will translate that as seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.

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And all these other things that you need will be added to you. In that particular instance, the word that's in Greek could be translated either righteousness or justice.

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It is knowing what is right according to God's standard. And justice is exactly that way.

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So it's knowing what God has said is just. Righteousness is knowing what God has said is right and living according to these things.

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So be careful about the way that the world is using the term justice, especially these rioters right now who are causing massive disruption and even destruction and death because they're not getting quote unquote justice.

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They will say that they're doing justice, but they're not. They're actually living unjustly because they don't like the way that justice in their minds is supposed to be is supposed to be conducted.

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So they're going to cause wanton destruction, which in no way that's that's not the just response to the way that we are to handle due process matters of the law, even when it comes to issuing punishment or a verdict, a sentence of guilt or any of these things.

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The Bible has a specific set of standards that are supposed to be followed when it comes to trying a person who's being accused of a crime that would be doing justice.

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If you don't let that process do what it's supposed to do in order to reach the conclusion that is right, then that would be unjust.

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If you're against the process, that's unjust. But if you follow what God has set forth as a standard, that's what justice is.

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So we are to desire righteousness. What God has said is right.

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What is pleasing unto the Lord? We should want justice. What God has established as just and right and true and equity.

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And notice that the word here is equity, not equality. What our culture is demanding and what they will put as synonymous with justice is equality.

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But equality is not always going to be the right or the just response.

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Let me give you kind of a parable to illustrate this. Let's say you have a man who is an employer for a hospital and he's looking to hire a new doctor.

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He's got two resumes in front of him. One is from a man who doesn't have a lot of experience.

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That's the resume on his left. On his right is a resume from a man who has a lot of experience.

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The man who doesn't have experience has worked a few convenience stores, and he thinks that because he sold a box of Band -Aids a few times, that he is capable of working as a doctor in a hospital.

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He loves the pay. He thinks the pay is tremendous. That's what it is that he's after. And he thinks, hey,

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I can do this job. Let me be a doctor. Fills out a resume, wants to be hired. The employer looks at the other resume, the one on his right, and he's got this guy who's graduated top of his class in medical school.

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He's worked his internships, and now he's ready to step up and be a doctor in a hospital.

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Which one do you think that he's going to hire of those two? He would not be treating those two resumes equally.

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In fact, it would be unwise of him to look at those resumes as being equal applicants.

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But he does look at them with equity. What is equity? What's the difference between equality and equity?

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Well, equality is the state of being equal, equal status, equal rights, equal opportunities.

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And there is at a certain base point in which we are going to guarantee that, or we should want to guarantee that for all people.

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Like for example, here in the United States, we have the Declaration of Independence. All men are created equal and are endowed to certain inalienable rights.

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And among those are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, according to the Declaration of Independence.

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So at a very base level, we should desire that everybody be considered equal.

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Nobody is more human or less human than another. That would be equality.

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But what about equity? What does equity mean? This means that we should be fair and impartial.

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So we're not treating anybody with partiality. We're not treating anybody more favorably than another person.

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And being fair means we're going to deal with each person in a justifiable manner.

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If this employer were to treat these two resumes equally, and the culture were to demand that he treat these two applicants equally, that could be really, really dangerous for a lot of people.

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He hires the guy who doesn't have a lot of experience and puts him in the hospital, or maybe he has to hire them both.

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Well, I got to hire somebody, and I'm equality after all. So I'm going to hire both the guy that has no experience and the guy that has lots of experience.

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I'm going to pay them the same because that's equality. And then you're putting a lot of people at risk because the guy who has no idea what he's doing is going to be a liability for that hospital.

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So in a lot of instances, we don't really want the equality. We want the equity. We don't want the equality.

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So these proverbs are helping us with understanding equity, how we deal with one another in fair and impartial ways.

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Where do we apply this wisdom? Where do we apply this knowledge and do so in such a way that is pleasing unto

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God as he has instructed us to do? And praise be to God, he has not just given us a lot of information in the

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Bible. He has also taught us how we are to apply it. And Proverbs helps us with that in a great way.

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So here we have the Proverbs. The intention of the Proverbs is to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, knowing what

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God has said is right, in justice, knowing what God has said is just and in equity, knowing how we are to deal with one another in fair and impartial ways.

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So we go on into verse four. These Proverbs are to give prudence to the simple.

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Now what is prudence? Well, it's simply giving a thought to a matter. So you're not acting rashly on something and you're not responding according to emotion.

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You are looking at the scenario, the situation and dealing accordingly. Now, sometimes there are going to be situations that we enter into where we might have to respond or react really, really quickly.

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Going back to the illustration of a hospital again, somebody who works in a hospital might need to respond with snap judgments really fast.

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But doing this in the right and best way for the person who is being treated means that this person is well -versed and practiced and knowledgeable in their respective field and knowing how to apply that knowledge in a way that helps people and saves lives.

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That would be a prudent person. Even in situations of having to respond very quickly, they're able to do so with wisdom.

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And then there are other situations that don't require a fast response and you know that.

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You look at the situation, you say, I don't have to respond to this right now. I might need to gather a little bit more information before I render a verdict or even make an emotional response to what it is that's going on.

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And gaining wisdom and knowledge will help to even govern your emotions so you don't become subject to your emotions, responding to your emotions.

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This is how Proverbs is going to help us do that. So it gives prudence to the simple.

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A simple minded person would be somebody who responds according to their emotions, somebody who's going to be governed and dictated by their own biases or even the direction of the culture, like a mob mentality.

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A simple person is not going to evaluate the situation and look at this in a just or right manner.

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They're going to go with the crowd. However, the people are reacting, well, that must be the way that I'm supposed to react because I certainly don't want to come against the mob.

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Then that would be fear of man and not fear of God. So we want to process things.

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We want to respond according to God's wisdom and not applying our own snap judgments or reactionary behavior toward different situations and scenarios.

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So that would be gaining prudence to give prudence to the simple knowledge and discretion to the youth.

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Now, we've talked about knowledge, that that is information or gaining facts or an understanding.

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What would discretion be? Discretion is speaking in such a way to avoid causing offense toward somebody or even revealing something that is not meant to be revealed.

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Like so, for example, as a pastor, there's sometimes when somebody comes to me and asks me about somebody else like, have you talked to so and so lately?

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There seems to be something going on with them. Discretion for me would mean knowing how to respond to this person in such a way without revealing too much, because I probably have talked to this other individual.

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I know what's going on in their life and I can't reveal too much to other people because it's not my place to reveal certain things that we've talked about in private.

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So discretion would be knowing how to respond in such a way that gives some care and knowledge to the person that I'm speaking to, but also respectful and loving of the person that I'm talking about.

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That would be an example of discretion, knowing how to speak into certain matters that with in just the right way.

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You're not a gossip fest. You're not an information water balloon. You know, somebody pokes you and it just all comes gushing out.

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But you have a right way of knowing how to respond to situations and being able to give the words that are needed for the answer in that particular time, knowledge and discretion to the youth.

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Now, it's interesting that youth specifically is the word that is used here. This would imply that you've got somebody older, more seasoned, more experienced who is teaching someone not as experienced.

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And certainly when we get to verse eight, you have here, my son, your father's instruction and forsake not your mother's teaching.

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So those who are wiser than you, those who are older and more experienced, listen to them.

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And that instruction even comes down to the church in Titus chapter two. You have the older mentoring, the younger older women mentoring younger women.

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That is kind of a model of mentorship that's given to the church. Consider also what Paul said to Timothy.

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This is second Timothy two, 22, flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the

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Lord from a pure heart. So Paul implies here that being reactionary, responding according to your emotions, even being even having a disposition where you tend to get angry and fight.

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That's what Paul really is indicating there by youthful passions. These are behaviors that is that are indicative to immature people.

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So listen to those who are more mature. Maybe it's not even a person who's older and seasoned and more experienced, though in a lot of cases, that's the way it's going to be.

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But but listen to those who have more spiritual maturity that you may learn from them and be guided by them.

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Verse five, let the wise hear and increase in learning. This is a wise thing to listen and not just not not be the one who is speaking, but the one who is listening, as it says in James, be quick to hear and slow to speak, be wise in hearing and increase in learning.

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A friend of mine just recently, I heard him say in a video on YouTube, I heard him say that the best teachers are also going to be learners.

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So you must desire to learn. The one who understands will obtain guidance.

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So there's an there's an understanding, like a presupposition of wisdom and understanding when it comes to gaining learning and guidance.

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The wise person knows that he needs more wisdom, and so he is going to learn.

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The understanding one is the one who recognizes that he needs more guidance. And so he receives that guidance for greater understanding, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.

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So some of these things take a little bit of deciphering, but we find truth in every statement that is given in the book of Proverbs.

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And then finally, we conclude here with verse seven. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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Fools despise wisdom and instruction. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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Fearing God, having a reverent fear of God, knowing that he is creator of all and judge of all.

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And he is the one who has created all truth. So when you know that all facts, information, knowledge, wisdom, insight, all these things we've talked about here at the beginning of Proverbs, when you know they originate with God, this is the beginning of gaining that knowledge that God has given to have a reverence of God, knowing that he is the source.

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This is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise that truth and any other truth that originates with God.

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There are certainly foolish people out there who may know the right answers, but if it does not lead to God, then those answers are in vain.

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It is just for themselves to puff themselves up with knowledge, but not giving glory to the one who gave that knowledge.

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So in all that we say and do, may it be unto the glory and praise of Christ, our

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King. And that's what we desire as we will gain wisdom and insight in this study of the book of Proverbs.

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Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for every word that is given to us in your book, all 66 books, all 750 ,000 plus words.

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It is all the wisdom of God given to us that we may know the mind of God.

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And grow in godliness and Christ likeness in the way that we live as we embark on this study.

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Teach us how we may apply it when we see the world reacting in ways contrary to the wisdom that's given to us here.

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Help us to have a patience and a prudence and a discretion that we may know how to respond to each person and guide them toward the truth that has saved us.

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The truth in Christ Jesus, our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen. You can find a complete list of videos, books, devotionals, and other resources online at www .tt