The Call of Wisdom I: How Long

The Purpose of Wisdom in Proverbs

Welcome to the WHOLE Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and with me again is Teddy James. And we're looking at a new theme for a short series on our podcast. And the theme is, how do we listen to the voice of wisdom?

And we'll explain that and hopefully it'll become quite clear by the end. But we want to take some time to consider this question. How do we listen to wisdom, to divine wisdom? And there are some areas in these episodes that will overlap with an earlier series that we did, when we talked a lot about the Word of God under the umbrella kind of question of, to whom can God trust His Word?

Who can God trust with His message to speak to the culture on His behalf? Well, because we're dealing with wisdom and the Word of God, there will be some overlap. But I think that the passage we're going to be looking at, it is very simple.

And the word pictures there are so clear. It's very portable. And I found it particularly helpful for myself. So I hope that you find it helpful for you guys as well.

Yeah. So what we're going to be looking at is Proverbs 1, chapter 1, verse 20. And we're going to go down to chapter 2 and verse 12. But before we really get into it, Jon, there's a couple of things that we need to understand about what a proverb is growing up.

I heard people comment about the Proverbs and they'd say, well, you know, if you raise up your child in the fear of the Lord, then when they are old, they will not depart from it. And they read that as a promise.

And they were questioning God because they read it as a promise. And it's not. Proverbs are not promises. They're a different type of genre.

Proverbs as General Observations, Not Promises

Yeah, they are. They are a literary tool or a verbal tool to convey some very important spiritual truths in ways that anybody could grasp. I tend to think of Proverbs as kind of the close cousin to parables.

A parable is an everyday event that's told. You know, imagine a sower goes out to sow the seed in the field. Well, immediately, you don't have to go to church to imagine that, especially if you're, you know, in the ancient world.

And so you imagine, well, I see a farmer do that all the time. And from that common everyday event, a spiritual lesson is brought to the people in a way that's easy to grasp. So a proverb is unique. And there are just a few things we want to kind of be clear on before we go any further so we don't misunderstand them.

As you mentioned, thinking of them as promises often brings disappointment or disillusionment with our Bible. But the problem is not the Bible, but our misunderstanding of that genre. So we could say three things about a proverb.

A proverb does not primarily focus on the commands of God or the doctrines of the Bible or even, you know, on explaining the attributes of God, but a proverb is rooted in all of that. So because of who God is and because of the ethics that will flow from that God when we walk with him, there are certain things that the proverbs, they want to bring this to your life.

A proverb is not a promise. Like we mentioned, it's kind of like a parable. It teaches us a complex truth in a simple way using simile. So comparing a common earthly thing with a spiritual truth. I'll give an example that is hard to forget.

Proverbs 11 verse 22. Here's the proverb, as a ring of gold in a swine's snout. So is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion. Now that's quite a shocking picture. Who would spend the money to put a very expensive golden ring in a pig's nose?

But if you did that, that golden ring would lose all its beauty whenever anybody looked at that snotty, muddy pig's snout. And that's the way a beautiful, a physically beautiful person is. If their life has no discretion, if they lack basic wisdom and they make so many bad choices, then this natural beauty is kind of showcased in a life that's a train wreck.

And you think that could have been or that once was a very beautiful person, but their choices have led down a path that it's no longer so. You don't have to be religious to understand a proverb, just like you don't have to be religious to understand a parable.

Anybody can get the point of Proverbs 11 verse 22 and the gold ring and the pig's nose. You don't have to understand redemption. You don't even have to understand that there is a God. Third thing about a proverb, a proverb is a general observation on life.

And that's where it really is very different from promise. It is like an older believer walking alongside of us and saying that these are the ways that I have learned through my life, I have seen and observed, and I have seen that these are the normal way that things happen.

And this is the wisest path. And, you know, when a parent raises their child in the fear and the admonition of the Lord, if you're looking at like just all of humanity and you're comparing those families with families that ignore God's word, even if you go to church, but you don't really raise your children in the realities of God and His word, you know, then there's two very different general outcomes.

It's not a promise that it will happen every time. It is an observation on life, particularly showing the very different outcomes of foolish choices and wise choices. So that brings us to the issue of wisdom.

Wisdom as Applied Knowledge

What is wisdom?

Yeah, so wisdom, and there is a difference between wisdom and knowledge. And when we're talking about proverbs, this is wisdom literature. And so, John, when you and I were talking about this, I think you had a great definition of wisdom, and it is that wisdom is applied knowledge.

As I've mentioned before, I am a gadget guy. I love working on machines and things like that. So it would be as though knowledge is understanding how, you know, how power is created in a car engine by the explosion of fuel and air and a spark plug.

Wisdom is being able to go in and do a tune up on a car where you could, you know, get the most out of that power. I mean, there's so many guys who, if you look at F1, which I'm a big F1 fan, and so the guys who have the wisdom to tune those cars and make those cars and make them go so fast, it's just unbelievable.

So that is, it is an applied science of taking the realities of God and applying them to the areas of life. It is, in essence, skillful living by biblical truth.

Yeah, and I don't know if we've mentioned this before in our podcast, but a funny example of me trying to explain the difference between wisdom and knowledge in a sermon, and we didn't bring it, but I'm going to bring it.

I think it's at home.

Next week, I want it.

I have a Tumblr, a coffee, travel coffee mug, and I was trying to give this simple illustration. Here's how it was supposed to go. The difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable, which, you know, I didn't know.

But wisdom is not putting a tomato into your fruit salad. Okay, so I just kept getting tongue-tied and saying, knowledge is, wisdom is a tomato. No, wait, knowledge is, and so one of the gentlemen in our church, a good friend, he brings me a Christmas gift.

Zach Anderson, he's been on the podcast before.

Oh, yeah, Zach. Yeah, so we need to blackball him. So Zach brought me a Christmas gift, which I was a little shocked, and he gave it to me. I said, thanks, you know, and I didn't want to open it in front of him.

That makes me feel uncomfortable. He said, no, I want you to open it now, and I thought, well, okay. So I opened it, and there it was, this big, you know, metal Tumblr, and on the outside was laser printed, wisdom is dot, dot, dot, a tomato.

Yeah, and so anytime I think I'm getting clever, you know, I just read my wisdom up. All right, so that's what a proverb is. It's giving general observations on life from a biblical perspective, and it is showing us how living on the truths that God gives us, what kind of life comes from that, and what kind of life comes from rejecting the truth.

Wisdom Cries Out in the Streets

Yeah, so let's dig into it. Proverbs, we're going to start with just the first section here. Proverbs 1, starting in verse 20, going to 25, and I'm reading from the ESV. Wisdom cries aloud in the street.

In the markets, she raises her voice. At the head of the noisy streets, she cries out. At the entrance of the city gates, she speaks. How long, oh simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you. I will make my words known to you. Because I have called and you have refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof.

All right, so wisdom personified is speaking. Now, there are a number of things that right off the bat we want to notice, but I think we can lump them all under this description. This is a passage that is crammed full of the shocking quality of God's grace, the amazingness of God's grace.

So there is an amazing offer of friendship from the offended king through his wisdom to a people who don't deserve that. Let's see how it points this out. Maybe we missed it. First of all, who is it that's speaking?

Well, it is wisdom, divine wisdom personified. Now, many of the older commentators will say, this is a pre-incarnation picture of the second person of the Trinity. He is the word of God or the message of God.

He is the expression of the Father. And I tend to agree with them. But whether you agree that this particular passage is referring to Christ, and later in chapter 8, it talks about wisdom was with God from the beginning, you know, in his creating, wisdom was with him.

Whether you see this as a picture of Jesus before incarnation, the second person of the Trinity, or it's just a picture of divine wisdom personified. I think the point is this. This wisdom is not just some kind of abstract set of principles that you're going to live by and have a good life.

It is a very personal thing. It is your creator. It is his wisdom that is coming to you. And to embrace it is to embrace him. And to reject it is to reject him.

And it's also, it is something that is embraced or rejected. And I think that's important for us to distinguish, because you cannot look at this and say, well, I'm not smart enough to embrace this wisdom.

That's not what it's about.

The Warning of Calamity and the New Testament Connection

Yeah, yeah. And we'll look at how the two very different responses result in two very different consequences. So it's a gracious thing that God's wisdom personified is speaking here. Second, see how wisdom communicates.

Wisdom doesn't hide in this passage in some mountain cave at the top of some almost inaccessible mountain peak like a guru. And if you could just climb, and if you meant it enough, if you sacrificed enough, if you didn't stop short, you would finally make it where most people don't.

And in the cave is wisdom, and wisdom gives you the answers. It's not even hiding in the Holy of Holies and saying, if you come to the temple and worship once a year, the high priest will come and he will hear from me, and he'll come back out and he'll tell you the answers.

It's not even in a synagogue where any of the Jews could have gone. It's not, we would say, in a church building. It is in a church building. It's not limiting itself to a church building. What is wisdom doing?

She goes out and cries out everywhere at the top of the busy streets, at the heart of the market, you know, the city square, the town square, at the gates of the city, you know, every major city in the ancient world, they would have walls around the city and the gates to get into the, through the walls for protection.

So it's at the entrance of the city. It's at the busy corners of the city streets, and it's in the marketplaces where they're doing business. Wisdom is calling out everywhere. Look at how she pleads. Does she whisper?

No.

She cries out. She loudly raises her voice, and she's not just saying it loudly and clearly, but kind of, you know, aloof. Whether they listen or not, it's up to them. She stretches out her hands pleadingly toward humanity, and she doesn't just do this once, but the verses you read make it clear.

How long, she says, how long will I plead with you? How long will I stretch my hands out to you? How long will you hear my voice and reject me? So the unresponsiveness of wicked humanity does not deter divine wisdom, and that is a very gracious thing.

Absolutely. I mean, when you think about the great need that we have of this wisdom, I mean, what we'll get into, it is in the big and the small things of life, but it's also it echoes in eternity. I mean, the acceptance rejection of this wisdom of what God is calling us to will have ramifications forever, and it's not wisdom being hidden up on a mountaintop where you have to strive and work to get to.

She is in the midst screaming out at us, and we so often ignore.

Yeah, and then another picture of the graciousness of it, another metric to measure it, another ruler, is to whom does she cry? She goes everywhere. She pleads. She lifts her voice. Who is she crying out to?

Well, people who, for the most part, are rejecting her.

Right.

Well, and also, she's not screaming to the elites, and she's not screaming to the poor. She is screaming to every human being.

Yeah, and so every human being is being called to listen to divine wisdom. Now, there are two very different responses and two very different outcomes. So in verse 26 through 31, we find the first bitter picture.

It is the picture of the life that refuses wisdom. As you were reading in verse in the latter part of your last passage. So, Teddy, read that passage for us.

Yeah, so 26 through 31, we said?

Yep.

I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you. When terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call upon me, but I will not answer.

They will seek me diligently, but will not find me, because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. Would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof. Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices.

So how would you describe this person in, you know, simple language?

Well, in the simplest way, I would say it'd be the same type of person who, you know that the final exam is coming up on Friday, and you refuse to study and rather live for the things that you enjoy. So whether that's video games or playing baseball, as was my case, doing anything rather than studying.

And then when Friday morning comes, you have about 10 minutes before class starts and the test is passed out. And then you open up your book and say, God, help me study. And what's going to happen? The natural result of that is fail.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's not this. We don't want to limit the application of this to the ultimate destination of a soul, heaven or hell. But this is observing people in everyday life, people that we're surrounded with, people, you know, that we see in the mirror when we get up in the morning.

Choices that are made, rejecting and belittling the word of God and the counsel of God, the wisdom of God, the voice of his wisdom. Lives that are characterized by that kind of self-rule, willful ignorance, they become a train wreck.

And, you know, you see people that even if in some areas they get what they want, they have a certain amount of success. But in other areas, you know, they've sacrificed everything. So he describes them here.

He says your calamity will come on you. Dread or terror comes on you like a storm, like a whirlwind, like a tornado. It's there and suddenly it's there. And when you realize it's there, when you hear, you know, the tornado, it's too late to make ready for it.

And so, you know, it's just a picture of the self-destruction that comes when men and women, when young people live for themselves and completely ignore what God says.

And John, I know that there are a lot of people out there who say, well, okay, but this is, you know, they draw a distinction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. And they say, you know, God of the Old Testament was the God who judged the Philistines and made people do war, and the God of the New Testament is kind.

So is this a thing that carries on in the New Testament, or is this simply an Old Testament reality?

It's a good question. We know that there aren't two gods, but sometimes I think we do slip into thinking, as Mr. Roberts used to say, you know, that God grew up during those 400 years between the two testaments, like God matured.

And he quit having temper tantrums, squashing nations, you know, wiping out people. Now in the New Testament, the more mature and settled God, the God that has his emotions under control is represented by Jesus Christ, you know.

So let's think about it. In this passage, divine wisdom says, I will mock at your calamity. When it comes, I'll laugh at you. And is that the God of the Old Testament? Is it the God of the New Testament?

Well, let's see what does it mean in this situation. And I think your example of the test and waiting to the last minute and going, okay, God, help me get this in my head, you know, so I get a good grade and I get to go to the college I want to go to or whatever.

If we ignore everything that God says in life, but when a tragedy is about to happen in this life, so a marriage is about to fall apart, you know, you're about to lose your job because you've cheated.

You've been a jerk, you know, whatever it is, the cumulative outcome of all those selfish choices is about to land on you and you hear the storm and you realize, oh, I'm in trouble.

Okay.

So you just throw open a Bible and say, you put your finger somewhere and say, okay, God, tell me what I'm supposed to do. Okay, no. Well, what about this verse? Like, well, let me try another page. If we treat God's word and his gracious call to listen and find life, if we treat that as a thing that's worthless, a thing that's unwanted, you know, can you go away for a while so that I can do what I want to do and you belittle that extraordinary gift from God, then do not be surprised that when the life becomes a train wreck, if you throw open your Bible and say, okay, God, fix it.

Take this mess of a marriage, fix it, and then give it back to me and my wife so that we can continue to be in charge of our marriage, but it'll be a nice marriage now. Take our kids, our family, fix us.

After years of ignoring your word and things are getting really bad, you fix us, but then kind of hand us back so we can be in charge. Take my life, fix it, clean it up, and then hand it back so I can have a better me to live for.

And if that's the attitude, you know, that kind of insincere, shooting up a prayer, okay, God save me, then what we should expect is that our belittling attitude toward God and our ignoring him will result in terrible consequences and he will not jump off his throne and come fix it, so to speak.

It's not saying that we can't be forgiven or that it's too late, but the attitude that we can treat God as a small matter and disobedience is it's a small thing because at the end of life, I'll snap my fingers and God will come and I'll pray a sinner's prayer and he'll fix it all or he'll fix my family.

And that is a dangerous path to walk down.

I mean, when you consider, like, if you have spent, if there is a lifetime that is marked by the rejection of wisdom and by the embracing of myself on the throne and I am the definition of wisdom and I will live my life by my own rules and by my own wisdom, the natural result of that is going to be destruction of some kind.

And it may not be in what we would say is necessarily a train wreck. I mean, the person could be incredibly financially successful, you know, could run multiple businesses, but their life, their internal life is an absolute wreck.

And if you knew them rather than just reading about them or seeing on the television, you would see that and know that. But because when they were, if they were to come to God and say, okay, God, I want you to take my life and take everything and fix it.

The problem is not the life. The life is the fruit of the problem and the problem is that internal. It is the rejection of Christ, the rejection of wisdom.

Yeah. And, you know, the response of wisdom there, we see it in Psalm 2 where God says the nations are rising up against him. They're all coming together. You know, that touching unity of purpose and heart that we never see anywhere else internationally, except in mankind's determination to be its own ruler.

So we'll, we'll throw off God's restrictive fetters, his handcuffs he's putting on us. And God says, you know, when humanity basically says to itself, if we all, if we all combine our efforts, we can be gods.

And God laughs at that. Or Isaiah where God warns them, you know, generation after generation of the emptiness of idolatry. And when God finally says, okay, now I will show you what I've been telling you for so long about the ruin that comes from idolatry and ignoring me.

And he's going to send them to Babylon for 70 years as a loving, gracious discipline of those people. He doesn't wipe them out. In Isaiah, he points this out and he says, when calamity comes and you cry out and say, oh, the Babylonians are here.

You know, they've surrounded us. God, okay, well, we're your people. So God jump up and fix it. God says, why don't you go to your idols? Ask them to save you. You've been living for them for generations.

So ask them. And of course, what you find out is they're completely helpless. And the picture is that the people just throw the idols away. You know, what use were they? But it's a bitter realization because they're headed to Babylon as they're throwing out their idols.

Is it a new Testament? Reality, you asked, well, think of Galatians 6, where Paul warns the Galatians. Now he says, you know, Galatians is the book of freedom in Christ. Don't think that legalism will fix you.

You are in Christ. You are free in Christ. Don't let anybody make you a slave again. But he's not saying don't obey God, but don't let people make you a slave to their traditions and their ideas, particularly the Jews of that day.

But he warns them, a man reaps what he sows. So that's great news or that's bad news, depending on what you're sowing. But the cross of Jesus Christ did not alter that fundamental spiritual reality. You know, it's like a proverb.

What a person sows is what grows. You know, if you sow selfishness, you reap the fruit of selfishness. And if you sow a life of, you know, happy devotion to Christ, then you reap a very different life.

And we're going to see the fruit of that. Hebrews 10, in the new covenant, Hebrews says in chapter 10, verse 31, after warning them not to treat the grace of God as a small thing, he says, it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Again, in chapter 12, when he gives them another warning, he says, therefore, in verse 28, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable sacrifice with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

So while we have the mediatorial work of Christ and we don't cower in front of God like a slave about to be beaten, we are not to take God as a light matter.

Mercy, Warning, and the Call to Turn

No, and just imagine. So, you know, if somebody's going down the road or they're, you know, folding clothes or cleaning dishes, whatever, listening to this podcast, consider just how gracious a thing it is that God gives us these warnings.

Yeah, we were talking about it before the podcast. Ian Hamilton has written a book and filmed for a mini study with us, and we're working on that right now. And I was rereading the first couple chapters and as we're in the editing process, and one of the lines that he wrote there that jumped out at me was the simple two word sentence, love warns.

That's what love does. It is not a hopeless passage. You know, no one has a right to read Proverbs 1 and think, well, I'm that person, so there's no hope. I'm a train wreck. Well, you can still read the passage.

You can still read that wisdom is commanding you, come to me and I will receive you. Listen to me, I'll teach you, wisdom says, to people that have been ignoring her for a long time. So if you can still read the passage, then it's time to come.

Think of Psalm 2. The king is coming. All nations have joined against him. God has laughed at the futility of their effort to toss Christ off the throne and take the throne themselves. But Psalm 2 does not end with utter despair, but rather with the command, come and kiss the sun or bow before the sun, pay homage to the sun, recognize him as the true king before it's too late, before he rises in his limitless anger.

There is still an opportunity of mercy. If God did not intend to be merciful to every person that will come to him and meet him at the cross, open their Bible and say, I am listening for the first time.

If there weren't mercy available, why warn us? If all God wanted to do was to destroy those who have lived to destroy themselves, why bother taking the time to warn them? All he would have to do is just leave us to ourselves and we would self-destruct.

And then he would at the end say, I told you and you didn't listen. So this is what you get.

And for the person who says, yeah, but I have not listened to that warning multiple times, or I've rejected it multiple times. If God only wanted to say, well, I gave you a warning, he could have done it one time and been done.

But God continually gives us the warning. And as we read in Proverbs 1, wisdom calls out, keeps calling out. So if you're listening to the podcast...

And the question, how long?

Yeah.

So if you're listening to the podcast, if you're going to church, listening to the sermons, if you're reading the scriptures, it is not too late to turn.

Yeah.

I think that wisdom's question is a question we could all ask, whether we're believers who perhaps have neglected the scripture, particularly the application of it, you know, in our marriage, in our home, in our church, on the ball field, at Walmart, at work, on Monday morning.

Driving down the road.

Yeah. The question for the Christian who is not applying these realities as we ought to be, or maybe as we once did, how long will you let yourself be dull of hearing? But for the unbeliever who has stiff-armed the truth of God, whether in church or never in a church, doesn't matter.

The question that God gives is, how long? So the question is not, is there still any hope for me? The question is, how long? How long do you intend to stick your fingers in your ears? And if you can answer that question with God, if you will help me, not another day, then there is infinite hope in Christ.

Well, what we're going to look at next week is Proverbs 2, and we'll see in verse 5 through 12, we'll see the description of a very different life, not a train wreck, but a happy life. And the way to get there, or the life that that flows out of, is found in verse 1 through verse 4 of the second chapter, and that's where we'll be spending the next weeks.

We hope that you'll be able to join us for that.