Proverbs 8 Wisdom of God

Okay, so title, we're looking at Proverbs, and obviously whenever you're looking at Proverbs, you're looking at proverbial wisdom.

Why? Because the whole purpose of the book is to make one wise, wisdom is the ability to handle life with skill, and Proverbs addresses all areas of life in a very practical manner.

And so this morning we're going to be looking at a specific aspect of wisdom and the title is

Wisdom, No Thanks. The title of the study is taken basically from the world's general attitude towards God's wisdom.

If you ever go to, if you're ever in a situation and you try to explain to somebody the biblical way of doing things, how often do you go, well, thanks, but no thanks, you know.

They may not use those words, but that's the attitude. So, and it's interesting, too, because while pursuing, while our society is obsessed with advanced degrees, okay, and I think you can all see that, you know, how many, when

I was a kid growing up, how many people had a PhD, and now every time Dick and Harry's got a

PhD, you know. So while pursuing advanced degrees and trying to understand the society we live in, the world in general rejects true wisdom.

So one of the desires of society, just one, is to have people behave better toward one another.

And we see this coming out now with, you know, the proliferation of school shootings and church shootings and things like that.

What's the attitude of society? They, well, we have to enact more laws, okay.

So they enact a plethora of laws in attempt to make people better, as though enacting a law is all of a sudden going to be, oh,

I didn't know that was against the law. I didn't know I shouldn't shoot people, you know. So, but now, because there's a law against it,

I'm going to stop. I mean, how ludicrous is that? So they make these plethora of laws, yet lawlessness is constantly increasing.

And the question is always basically the same. How can we make society less violent and more civil?

And what answer does society give? Well, we just need to educate people a little bit better.

Give them more education. Let's establish more after -school programs. And they spend billions of dollars on social and educational programs.

And yet, what do we see? Lawlessness still not only runs rampant, but increases.

And what is the real answer? Proverbs 9, 10, the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

The answer to this, what's really ludicrous is when you see what is happening, they want to enact more laws.

And people, I mean, generally want shootings to stop. I mean, liberals aren't that stupid.

They understand that people should not be shooting each other. All right. But what do they do is they take away the very solution to the problem.

What have they done in the schools? They've taken away the moral ethic. You can't talk about anything that would be

Christian. You can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a school. And when you stop teaching ethics, it seems to me that it's only logical that people are going to start acting more unethically.

All right. So, the fear of the Scripture says that's only the beginning of wisdom.

All right. If the society moves wisdom, the wisdom of God from its daily life, it will end up with foolishness, which is exactly what we're seeing.

I mean, who would have thought, you know, we've just, Joe and I have just been reminiscing because he came from Brooklyn and that's where my family came from.

And, you know, we were reminiscing a little bit about the old days and how things have changed.

But I mean, in our day, I'm definitely a child of the 50s.

I was born in 1945, but I grew up in the 50s.

If you would have told me then that, you know what, you can choose your gender. I mean, come on.

Yeah, that's exactly what my response would have been, you know. And all of these things that, you know, you could have two men marry, that would have been the farthest thing.

I mean, you would have been, if you came in and tried to foster that, you'd be laughed out of the classroom.

You'd be laughed out of any polite society. All right. But yet, that's exactly what we're seeing today.

We're seeing foolishness as the norm and increasing.

All right. So, Proverbs 8, which is what we're up to today, gets very specific as it deals with wisdom for society.

And that's one of the things about the Book of Proverbs. It not only deals with individual wisdom, you know, how do we should live as individuals, but it also addresses all of society.

And you'll see later on what we'll be looking at is what

Proverbs 8 basically is teaching, is that we need to develop a biblical worldview.

There's a worldview that we as Christians need to try to educate our society on to show them how

God has designed humans and how we should be living. So, Proverbs 8 .1,

we're going to go through 21 verses rather quickly because a lot of it is repetition.

All right. Does not wisdom call? Notice the title of this is wisdom's call is universal.

In other words, wisdom is not just for a select few people. It's not just for ministers. It's not just for deacons, but it's a universal.

It says, does not wisdom call and understanding lift up her voice. First point

I want to make is notice wisdom's call is active, not passive. Wisdom doesn't sit down and say, okay,

I'm waiting for everybody to come and seek me. All right. Wisdom actually makes the call. Understanding lifts up her voice.

We have to be careful when we, especially in Proverbs, which is in poetic form.

Okay. And we've gone through that in the beginning of Proverbs. Remember, what's the form?

What's the form that most of Proverbs is in? Hebrew poetry.

Well, parallelism in general. There's four or five different types of parallelism depending on how you look at it.

But, yeah. And so, it's in poetic form. So, the words and verb tenses and everything are still very important.

So, it says, does not wisdom call? Wisdom is calling. So, it's active, not passive.

And basically, when we look at the book of Proverbs in a general sense, we find that wisdom,

God's wisdom, is found in the entire creation. Remember, I think it was the last month we talked that, you know, we're told to go to the ant.

Even ants can teach us. All right. So, the entire creation testifies to God's wisdom.

This entire creation is screaming about not just the existence of God, but who he is and his attributes.

That's why the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Why does it say that?

Because when you walk out the doors of this building and you look around and you say, wow, this is amazing. It's all happened by random chance.

I mean, how ludicrous is that? That's like looking at a Rolex and say, wow, that's the result of an explosion in a watch factory.

I mean, it's that ludicrous. In other words, God's wisdom is all around this world.

And you have to intentionally deny the reality around you to deny the wisdom of God. And that's, in fact, one of the things that we're going to be doing starting this coming

Wednesday is we're going to be looking at apologetics. We finished with hermeneutics.

We're going to look at apologetics. And one of the things that we're going to highlight is our apologetic is presuppositional.

In other words, everybody knows there is a God. Even the atheist who denies it is trying to fool himself because he knows there is a

God. Besides the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand.

Notice, on the top of the heights besides the way. This is talking about wisdom now, calling to mankind.

Where the paths meet, besides the gate, at the opening to the city, at the entrance to the doors.

Notice, I looked at those two verses and the similarity, what are they saying?

The call of wisdom is not in secret. You know, it's interesting how cults and nefarious organizations always do things in secret.

They have their secret. We have secret knowledge. People are enticed by that. Hey, come here.

I want to tell you a secret. We've got the secret to life, but don't tell anybody.

I mean, that's the hallmark of evil organizations. God's wisdom is not secretive.

From the heights besides the way, where the paths meet, the crossroads. What is the crossroads? Well, that's where towns are built.

Towns are built around crossroads, okay? At the entrance to the doors, all right?

She calls in public places, crossroads, the city centers. She calls in the marketplace and the seat of governments.

Remember, besides the gates at the opening in the city. Remember, in the Hebrew culture, that's where the city fathers, the city elders would sit.

They would be sitting at the gates and that's where they would dispense their justice, before there were like town halls and things like that.

Notice, not just in religious services. One of the problems with our society today is, and I'll get into this a little bit more as we go, is trying to separate religion from every other part of life.

Oh yeah, if you want to hold your religious service, if you don't tell anybody else about it, you'll have no problem.

If we just keep our practice within the boundaries of 26

Westfield Road, we wouldn't have a problem with anybody, all right? In fact, we would be considered, oh, they're good neighbors, all right?

But as soon as you try to tell them, well, no, this wisdom impacts you, you have to change.

Oh, now you're a bad neighbor. Verses four and five, to you, old men,

I call and my voice is to the sons of men. Verse four repeats the call to all men.

It's not just to the men, but even to their sons. That's why it's good that we have young people, you know, young men sitting in here today, because the call of wisdom is not just for the old, but it's for the young as well.

So I hope you young guys are paying attention here. Instead of playing with phones, to you, old men,

I call and my voice is to the sons of men. And then notice verse five is aimed at a specific class of people, the naive and the fools, all right?

In other words, the call goes to those who would not seek it. Now, I see something that's very specific here.

Notice wisdom is active and doing the calling. God's wisdom takes the initiative.

I see a parallel here. We can see God's grace at work in the same way. John 6, 37, all that the

Father gives me shall come to me. All that the

Father gives me, this is one of our doctrines of soteriology. It's the same way. God's wisdom is the same.

It's not just sitting there passively. Just as God doesn't sit passively and says, boy, I hope he comes to me.

I hope he chooses me. No, all that the Father gives me shall come to me.

John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

We love because he first loved us. Notice God is active in his creation.

He's not just sitting there. And unfortunately, too often in modern evangelicalism, God is painted as this old man sitting on his throne, just desire,

I hope somebody listens to me. That's not the sovereign God of the universe. For the

Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. We see that's the common theme.

I just had to show the parallel between that. The Bible, this is the second point

I want to make, is in scripturated wisdom. The Bible is God's wisdom in written form. We don't have to guess what the wisdom of God is.

It's given to us in written form. Second Timothy, this is such an important portion of scripture.

And too often we just start at verses 16 and 17. It says, you, however, this is

Paul talking to young Timothy. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them.

And that from childhood you have known the sacred writings, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Jesus Christ.

Notice it's through the sacred writings. And what did they do? They imparted the wisdom that leads to salvation.

And that's what we see in the New Testament evangelism call is that what is it that is going to save people?

It is the Word of God. There's no salvation in this new covenant era apart from a preaching of the

Word of God, whether it's individual or in mass. And then here's the, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training, and righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I hate that word adequate there. It's, you can translate it that way, but that's not the intent of it.

It's not, we look at adequate as so -so, you know, but the word that's used in the

Greek is, no, it's perfectly equipped. That's why whenever I read that verse, I change that, because it is still a good, it's a good translation.

So, I'm not messing with the Word of God. I just want everybody, it's not Ritchie's version, you know.

And Peter affirms the same truth, and notice what he says, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.

Notice he's talking about what is, what is his divine power? Through the true knowledge of him who called us, notice too, he called us by his own glory and excellence, for by these he has granted to us.

What are these? It's the scriptures. His precious promises, precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

I want you to keep your eye on those two words, the last two words underlined, precious and magnificent.

That's describing the promises. That'll come back in later in Proverbs chapter 8.

So, now back to Proverbs, continuing. Listen, for I shall speak noble things, and the opening of my lips will produce right things.

Notice the constant theme, noble things, right things. For my mouth will utter truth.

All right, here we have truth. These are all describing the wisdom of God, just in slightly different ways.

And wickedness is an abomination to my lips. There's that antithetical parallelism.

What is good said against what is not good. All the utterances of my mouth are in righteousness.

There is nothing crooked or perverted in them. Again, there's that parallelism. Does everybody see the antithetic parallelism?

All right, setting what is good versus what is not good. They are all straightforward to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge.

Straightforward, right. Notice just all different ways. This is what I love about Proverbs.

It doesn't say the same word over and over again. It says everything that has a slight nuance, but you get a full picture of what

God's wisdom is. God's wisdom, in other words, is perfect. It contains no errors.

God's wisdom is truth. It contains no lies. And Jesus affirms this in his high priestly prayer.

He says, sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth. And this is the consistent claim of the entire word of God, which leads to the next logical conclusion.

Proverbs 8, this is verses 10 and 11. Take my instruction and not silver and knowledge rather than the choicest gold.

For wisdom is better than jewels and all desirable things cannot compare.

Remember going back, we talked about the precious and magnificent promises. The promises of God, the wisdom of God is far greater in value than silver or gold or precious jewels.

It's just one of the common themes that runs through. What are we supposed to choose? How many people spend their whole life just seeking after money, riches, and such things?

Nothing wrong with having those things, but it's a question of what should you be seeking, and we're going to get into that a little bit further.

Because God's wisdom is perfect, that means it's absolutely true. It contains no error or falsehood, and therefore it should have a place of preeminence in our lives.

That's the whole key is what you do with it. By the way, so often that verse is misquoted.

Money is the root of all evil. That's not what it says. It says the love of money is the root of all evil.

If you love money more than you love God, then it becomes the root of all evil. But money in and of itself is not evil.

Verses 10 and 11 are just profound. Wisdom should be chosen above the most precious metals and jewels on earth.

Everything that is desirable cannot compare with God's wisdom. So if you're forced to make a choice, you always have to take

God's wisdom. Now, here's the thing. Most Christians would agree with those statements, even those who hold to a different theology from us.

They would all agree with that, but they often relegate the truthfulness of the

Bible to, quote, sacred matters, unquote. Why do you think

I put quotations around sacred matters? Well, let me give you the next line, and maybe you can.

It's often said that the Bible doesn't have to be true or accurate in secular matters, quote, unquote.

All right, go ahead, Anthony, add your hand up. Yes. Yeah, this is a false dichotomy, and you see this in most

Christian churches today. Well, we have sacred matters. That's what the Bible, the Bible regulates our sacred lives, but there's secular matters.

You know, what I do in my business and in politics and all, that's outside the realm of the

Bible, all right? It's a false dichotomy, and the

Bible screams against that actual teaching. Those statements are ludicrous on their face.

It was interesting when I was typing this up. I spelt ludicrous, L -U -D -A -C -R -I -S.

It just shows how much, how influenced we are with our modern culture. I looked at it and said, no, that's not right.

Everybody know who ludicrous is? Yeah, okay. It was ludicrous.

All right. If the Bible is not trustworthy on routine matters of history and science, how can we trust it in eternal matters of the soul?

I mean, that's just common logic. You know, if the mundane affairs of life, you can't trust the

Bible to regulate those, why in the world would you trust your soul, your eternal soul?

It makes no sense. And Jesus affirms this point as he's speaking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3.

Notice what he says, if I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

Jesus just affirms it. He says, it doesn't make any sense. You know, if I'm going to tell you the heavenly things, certainly

I have to be right in the earthly things. All right. Notice how he says earthly things versus heavenly things.

This false dichotomy leads to fuzzy thinking and a non -biblical worldview. I want you to keep that last phrase in mind, a non -biblical worldview, because that's really what we're talking about.

The entire book of Proverbs is designed to get us into what's called a biblical worldview.

And piggybacking off of this will be our study in apologetics as we get into the book that we're going to be studying next,

Always Ready. Okay. I'm not always ready, but because our apologetic also has to demonstrate a certain worldview.

Proverbs 3, 6, well, Proverbs 3, 5 is, trust the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding.

But verse 6, in all your ways acknowledge him. Notice that's a universal affirmative, for those of you who take logic.

The universal affirmative that, how many ways? 90 %?

No, all your ways acknowledge him. Then we're looking at the ground of knowledge.

The wisdom of God covers all areas of life. It governs ethics and philosophy.

Verse 12, I wisdom dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the

Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance, and the evil way, and the perverted mouth I hate. Notice, fear of the

Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance, and evil way, perverted mouth

I hate. Counsel is mine and sound wisdom I am understanding. Power is mine. Counsel is mine.

Keep that in mind and understanding. God's wisdom is the source of all truth.

God's wisdom is the source of all knowledge. So, here's a couple of conclusions.

Not that I'm finished yet, sorry. To attempt to discuss morality, ethics, and the concept of evil apart from the wisdom of God is an effort in futility, all right?

You got grasp in that? To attempt to even discuss morality, ethics, and especially the concept of evil, if you do that apart from the wisdom of God, the word of God, it's an effort in futility.

There's nothing more pathetic than to hear a supposed atheist, why do you think I said supposed atheist?

Exactly, there is no such thing as an atheist. All right, God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they do not exist.

All right, there is nothing more pathetic than to hear a supposed atheist try to explain why the actions of some men are evil.

Just think about it. If you have rejected any standard of right and wrong, what becomes the standard?

There is no standard, so therefore there is no such thing as evil. Yet, supposed atheists will decry school shootings as evil, as they should, but they have no basis in logic.

According to their worldview, they have no basis to call it evil. Apart from God's wisdom, the concept of evil is meaningless.

If you want to follow through on that, in J. Adams' book, The Grand Demonstration, the subtitle to that book is called

The So -Called Problem of Evil in the World, where he does a full exposition on this concept.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Two things set in opposition.

If you don't have the fear of the Lord, how do you hate evil? You can't. Look again at verse 14.

Counsel is mine and sound wisdom. I am understanding. Power is mine. You cannot counsel somebody with any authority apart from the

Word of God. Counsel belongs to God. Do you realize that in psychological counseling, there are at least 400 separate schools of psychology?

I'm not talking about institutions, I'm talking about theories. There are 400 different theories of psychology, and half of them contradict the other half.

So, which one do you choose? And they are all opposed to what the scripture teaches.

But God says, counsel is mine. So, there's no wonder why you have people. Do you realize that according to, especially

Freudian psychology, every therapist, every Freudian therapist needs to be in therapy himself?

I agree with that. But they need biblical counsel because the

Bible alone is truth. In fact, what is Freud's answer? If something is causing you to be depressed, get rid of it.

If you're oppressed by laws that prohibit certain behavior, get rid of the laws.

That's Freud's answer. And I'm not making this up. I've taken too many psychology courses in my career.

Fortunately, I didn't succumb to that thinking. God's wisdom governs politics.

Verse 15, by me kings reign and rulers decree justice. Notice, how do kings reign?

By me. Rulers declare justice. By me, princes rule, nobles.

And then he sums it up, all who judge rightly. And Paul reaffirms this in the book of Romans.

Every person is to be subject to the governing authorities. But there is no authority except from God. And those which exist are established by God.

What does that mean? If God has established all authorities, it is by his rule, his word and his wisdom that they should be governed.

And isn't that exactly what we see? We see a constant eroding of public trust in government.

I don't know if this is absolutely true. I heard it.

It wasn't on the internet. But in somebody's poll, politicians ranked less less trustworthy than used car salesmen.

Now, not that there's anything wrong with selling used cars. All right. But we all know that there's a proliferation of unethical car salesmen.

All right. Politicians ranked below them, at least on this one poll.

All right. And why? Because they have denied the ethic of God's word.

God's word is full of advice on how kings, princes and governors should rule.

So to attempt to rule apart from the wisdom of God is not only folly, but the height of arrogance.

Proverbs 2, one of my favorite Psalms. All right. Now, therefore, O kings, show discernment.

Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.

Do homage to the sun, lest to become angry and you perish in the way. For his wrath may soon be kindled.

How blessed are all those who take refuge in him. That's a direct warning to rulers that they are subject directly to God for their actions and how they govern their people.

And again, unfortunately, a good percentage of the church has just pushed these things aside and said, no, we shouldn't even be involved in politics.

In fact, one of the reasons we're in the mess we are politically is because in the beginning of the 20th century, the church took a back seat and said, oh, we shouldn't be involved in politics.

And that was like nationwide. God's wisdom governs finances.

If you love those, I love those who love me and those who diligently seek me will find me.

Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, even pure gold, and my yield and choice is silver.

I walk in the way of righteousness in the midst of the path of justice. Who's speaking here? It's wisdom.

So notice, talking again about riches and honor are with him, etc.,

but the fruit of righteousness is better than even the riches. That's a constant theme.

Again, it's not decrying riches, just saying if your choice, it has to be chosen in the right order.

And to endow those, because here, look, to endow those who love me with wealth that I may fill their treasures.

All right? So again, there you have both concepts. But does God's wisdom tell you, does God's word tell you how to handle your finances?

The book of Proverbs is riddled with it. That's why God grants riches and honor according to his wisdom.

We're going to pick up the theme more fully in subsequent studies because there are whole chapters devoted to how to handle finances.

Just remember this thought, in the oversight of God's wisdom, riches and wealth can be a great blessing.

Outside of God's wisdom, they can be an awful curse. So just as the

Bible now is the wisdom of God inscripturated, Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God incarnate.

That's who's ultimately speaking in this whole chapter. It's wisdom, but it's since Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God incarnate, it is he who is speaking.

How do we know this? Paul writes, but by his doing you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

Colossians 2, 2 and 3, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery that is Christ himself in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Proverbs 8 is a foreshadow to the prologue in John 1, in the beginning was the word.

And we're going to get into this much deeper in Wednesday night in our studies on apologetics, because we hold to what's called presuppositional apologetics.

The overriding purpose of Proverbs 8 is to encourage the Christian to develop a biblical worldview.

What does that mean? That means that God's word addresses how we should handle every area of life, not just how to behave in church on Sunday.

Any attempt to engage any area of life apart from the scripture is to embark on a fool's errant, and that is the consistent message of scripture.

And I've thrown up a few verses to close in on here. We've already cited

Proverbs 3, 5 and 6. Notice, trust in the Lord with all your heart. In other words, every area that your heart covers.

In all your ways acknowledge him, every way, everything that you have to do in this world is governed by the word of God.

First Corinthians 10, 31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

What does that mean? The mundane affairs of life, that's what eating and drinking, eating and drinking symbolizes.

Even the unthinking areas of life, all right, do all to the glory.

They all come under the lordship of Christ. James 1, 17, every good thing bestowed, every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting.

Here's the priority, but seek first his kingdom. Matthew says in verse 33, and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.

This shows the priority. Seeking first the kingdom of God, then don't worry about it, he'll take care of making sure that you have all the necessities of life.

Second Corinthians 10, 5, we're destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. We're taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

But like the holy one who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior. This does not mean you should withdraw from society, which this is not an advocate to go to a monastery or to go to a convent.

All right, I'm going to close with a comment from the late Greg Bonson. He said the idea isn't to stop being involved in the affairs of life and go to church, it's to take what you've learned in church into the affairs of life.