WWUTT 1309 Why Wisdom is a Woman (Proverbs 1:20-33)

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Proverbs 1 20 says, Wisdom cries aloud in the street. In the markets, she raises her voice.

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Why is wisdom personified as a woman in the book of Proverbs? The answer is actually rather simple, when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word, that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

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For questions and comments send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. Well, being Thursday, we're in our Old Testament study, and we come back to the book of Proverbs.

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You know, I'm enjoying our study through the book of Romans, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but I look forward to Thursday and being able to get back into Proverbs.

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I hope you do as well. We're still in Chapter 1, and today I'm going to begin by reading verses 20 through 33.

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Wisdom cries aloud in the street. In the markets, she raises her voice.

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At the head of the noisy streets, she cries out. At the entrance of the city gates, she speaks.

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How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing, and fools hate knowledge?

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If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you.

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I will make my words known to you. Because I have called, and you refuse to listen, have stretched out my hand, and no one has heeded.

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Because you have ignored all my counsel, and would have none of my reproof,

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I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you.

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When terror strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.

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Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me.

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Because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel, and despised all my reproof.

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Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them.

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But whoever listens to me will dwell secure, and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.

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Now surely you recognized here that wisdom is personified as a woman.

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As elsewhere in Proverbs, most notably chapter 9, but before we even get there, we have wisdom referred to as a woman here in chapter 1, verse 20.

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Wisdom cries aloud in the street. In the markets, she raises her voice.

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And I'm often asked why. Why is wisdom referred to as a woman? Because wisdom is an intangible thing.

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It's not an object. You can't grasp it with your hands. It's neither male nor female. Solomon is the one speaking here, and he is advising his son.

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So why isn't Solomon portraying his own wisdom as a man instead of as a woman?

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There are many false teachers out there who will take this out of context. They'll twist it to their own ends. Egalitarians, in particular, who believe that pastors can be women as well as men.

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And one of the proof texts that they will use to try to justify that, contrary to the instructions we have in 1

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Timothy 2, in 1 Corinthians 14, and really the theme throughout scripture, that God has set a man as the head of his household.

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And then from the household outward, men are supposed to be filling those leadership roles. That's what

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God has appointed. That's the way that he's structured things to operate. And when a society even has women in those ruling positions,

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God mourns over the fact that women would be ruling over men. We see this in Isaiah 3, 12, and in other places throughout scripture.

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So you have egalitarians who will take this passage, and they'll use it to justify their reasoning.

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Well, see, wisdom is a woman in Proverbs. So therefore, a woman can be a pastor.

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That's a big leap, especially since what we have in 1 Timothy 2 is a direct instruction.

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I do not permit a woman to have authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. Men are supposed to be filling those pastoral roles, which we have the qualifications of then next in chapter 3, verses 1 through 7, and then roles for deacons in the verses that follow after that.

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So the point here is not women can do this job as well as men. This is a poetic reading that we have here.

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It's not an instruction or a rule as something that is laid down in the church, and very poetically demonstrating wisdom as something feminine rather than something masculine.

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But why? There's two reasons for this, and I don't think it's an either or. I really think it's a both and.

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The first reason is actually quite simple. The Hebrew word for wisdom is feminine.

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And so since Solomon is personifying wisdom, since he's taking some literary liberties here, and he is making wisdom like a person who is going to give us instructions on her own, wisdom is going to instruct us.

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So instead of referring to wisdom as an it, because it's do not give instructions, a wisdom is going to be a person here.

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And since the word is feminine shock moth, I believe is how you pronounce it. Then Solomon is not going to use masculine pronouns to accompany this feminine word.

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That could be kind of confusing. The word is already feminine. So he is going to present wisdom as a woman and use feminine pronouns.

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Now, this concept is difficult for us to grasp. We who are English speakers and English is our only language, because in English, we really don't have masculine and feminine and gender neutral words.

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Whereas in other languages, you do like for, for example, Spanish in French.

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I've taken just enough Spanish to be familiar with this concept. So the word in Spanish for a guitar is feminine.

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But but the word for a car is grammatically masculine. There are also some languages where the women use certain words and the men use certain words, and the men don't use the words that the women use.

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For example, the Lakota Indian tribe. And I'm familiar with this because of a story that goes with the film

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Dances with Wolves. This is not an endorsement of that movie. I'm not telling you to watch it. But anyway, Kevin Costner, who directed the film and played the lead character, had the the main tribe in that movie is the

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Lakota Indian tribe. So they speak the Lakota language, but all of the words that they use are feminine.

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And when they brought in actual Lakota Native Americans to sit in on the film and watch it, the men laughed all the way through because they were listening to men speak like women, and they thought it was hilarious.

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But for for us who speak English, we're just not familiar with language working that way, since that's not the way the

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English language works. But in Hebrew, you have certain words that are masculine and certain words that are feminine and then certain words that are gender neutral.

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In this case, wisdom is a feminine word. And so Solomon refers to wisdom as a woman.

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So that's the first reason why the personification of wisdom is a woman in the book of Proverbs.

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The second reason becomes a little more apparent when you get to chapters eight and nine and you read the blessings of wisdom.

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Wisdom there is being contrasted with the foolish woman in Proverbs chapter seven, who is portrayed as a prostitute.

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Let me read in Proverbs seven, starting in verse four, say to wisdom, you are my sister and call insight your intimate friend to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.

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For at the window of my house, I have looked out through my lattice and I have seen among the simple

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I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house in the twilight in the evening at the time of night and darkness.

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And behold, the woman meets him dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart.

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She is loud and wayward. Her feet do not stay at home. Now in the street, now in the market and at every corner she lies in wait.

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So this is the way that foolishness, folly, stupidness is portrayed here in Proverbs seven as a prostitute.

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And then you have wisdom as that pure woman. Just consider the way that a pure spotless virgin is considered in the scriptures.

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Even the bride of Christ at the end of the book of Revelation, when we are presented to Christ at the wedding feast of the lamb, we are we as the church are referred to as a spotless bride without blemish, meaning that we are as a virgin presented to the bridegroom.

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But we have been made innocent because we've been washed in the blood of the lamb. Our purity is not because we've kept ourselves pure, but because God has made us pure.

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He has kept us for himself. So all throughout the scriptures, we have a high value that's placed on the pure virgin and the adulterous woman shall be put to death.

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Even according to the law, the adulterous woman is the one who leads men astray and he goes after her to his own destruction.

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But wisdom rather is the one that we are to pursue. Don't go down the streets toward the prostitutes house, but rather go to the place where wisdom calls in the streets, in in the light, not around seedy corners, but right out there in the broad daylight so that others may see and others rejoice in the goodness and the blessing that wisdom brings.

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We get to that again when we see the contrast between foolishness and wisdom in Proverbs seven through nine.

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So that's the second reason why wisdom is portrayed as a woman. Stay away from the adulterous.

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Solomon is telling his son and instead go after wisdom. And the passions of our flesh are most often demonstrated in in sexual immorality.

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When a person is worldly in their thinking, when what is in their heart is in the world, it comes out manifested a lot of times as pursuing those desires, those passions of the flesh in sexual immorality.

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And so the foolishness of a person that is after worldly things and does not have the fear of the

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Lord, which is the beginning of knowledge. Remember that again, Proverbs one, seven, then they're going to be one that prostitutes themselves out with the world instead of going after wisdom.

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So there you have the contrast between the foolish woman and the wise woman. But this is starting to be set up in chapter one.

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That is, as Solomon is instructing his son, let the wisdom that you go after be as the pursuit of a of a man after a woman, a good wife.

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Someone that he will spend his life with and have a family with and raise children with.

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He will live and invest himself for the rest of his life with this woman to whom he is wed.

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Therefore, wisdom is to be that way. Pursue wisdom, spend your life with her, grow and flourish with her.

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It's not just a sort of a thing where you find wisdom and boom, you have it. You keep it locked in a box. No, it grows and it flourishes and you mature with it and you find yourself according to this wisdom that God has given.

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So therefore, the pursuit of wisdom is as after a woman. Maybe I gave a third reason there.

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I don't know. So the first reason why wisdom is personified as a woman is because the word wisdom itself is feminine.

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The second reason is because you have wisdom contrasted with the foolish woman who is likened to a prostitute.

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And then the third reason, if I gave one, there is because Solomon is talking to his son and he's looking for a friend, a companion that he will have for the rest of his life.

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Let that companion be wisdom. As a man would pursue a woman, pursue wisdom. This is not to take these passages out of context and twist them and use them to say, well, see, a woman can be a pastor or the way that William Young or William Paul Young did this in his book.

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The shack is he made the Holy Spirit into a woman. He made God the father into a woman as well.

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Such an incredibly blasphemous book. But then you also have wisdom in the shack personified as a woman and given the name

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Sophia, which was actually the name of a pagan goddess. It's just so much blasphemy in that book.

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Anyway, that's not the liberty that we're supposed to be taking here. This is poetic license that Solomon is using and giving wisdom and instruction according to wisdom herself, as though wisdom were given a voice and a body and a mind so as to instruct.

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And remember, this is all part of a father's instruction to his son. Women can certainly benefit from reading

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Proverbs one as well. But a home, a community and a society all benefit when the men are pursuing wisdom.

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If women are after wisdom, but the men get stupid, a society languishes.

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But the real flourishing you will see in a society is when men are stepping into those leadership roles as God has appointed men to lead and to do so with wisdom.

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That's what's most beneficial for women. When men are wise and are leading, everybody benefits.

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And where is it that wisdom is crying out from here in verse 20? Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets.

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She raises her voice in the public places at the head of the noisy streets.

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She cries out even amidst the hustle and the bustle and the noise and craze of this world.

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Wisdom is still greater than all of that. And the voice of wisdom, when you find it and you listen to it, will rise above the calamity and the foolishness.

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Praise God for that. So we hear the voice of God that rises over the cacophony of sounds that are that are rising up from this foolish and dark and wicked, depraved world.

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Wisdom says, how long? Oh, simple ones. Well, I'm sorry. At the at the entrance of the city gate, she speaks in case

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I didn't say that now. Now, remember, the entrance of the city gates is where judgments were made.

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So when somebody had a dispute with somebody, they went to the elders at the city gate so that even visitors, when they came into the city, might handle their disputes with the elders there at the city gate.

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The instructions in the law, if somebody was guilty of a capital crime and they were supposed to be put to death, they were put to death at the city gate or taken outside of the city and stone.

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So those judgments were still made there in the gate. This is where wisdom sits in the city gates where judgments are made and wisdom cries out.

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How long? Oh, simple ones. Will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

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So they're going after their own minds. They're going after their own lusts of the flesh, and they remain simple in these things rather than looking for the deep truths of what

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God has declared, according to his word, through his prophets and his apostles. We know we who now have the

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New Testament, who has spoken the word of Christ and the apostle Paul says in Colossians two that in Christ are bound up all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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So we we should not remain simple in our understanding of God, but we are diving into deeper truths of who he is as we grow and mature in the scriptures, which is his instruction, wisdom and knowledge that he has given to us.

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We're going on to verse 23 here. If you turn at my reproof, this is wisdom speaking.

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If I rebuke you in your foolishness and you turn away from your foolishness, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you.

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I will make my words known to you. If you turn from foolishness and you turn to wisdom, wisdom will be known to you.

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But then verse 24, because I have called and you 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.

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And again, this is Solomon warning his son here and speaking in the voice of wisdom. Verse 26.

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I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you.

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Now, there are many who will take these verses and they will apply them to God as though this is God speaking. I don't think that's necessarily wrong.

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I believe I've done the same thing. But we have to understand the literary device that's being used here.

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This is this is wisdom itself being personified. And so wisdom, even though people act foolishly and they ignore wisdom, that doesn't change wisdom.

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Wisdom remains the truth, the facts, those things that are established by God remain no matter how ridiculous people get.

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You may turn away from it. You may go your own way. You may try to establish your own truth. But that doesn't change what

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God has said as truth. What he has said is good and right and knowledgeable and wise.

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If you ignore the counsel of God, according to his wisdom, when terror strikes you, wisdom remains.

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And it's as though wisdom mocks at the person who rejected it. Verse 27.

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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.

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But I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me. So notice like once calamity strikes the foolish person, because that's the direction that they've gone.

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They've rejected wisdom. They've tried to go their own way, and it's ending in disaster. When they hit those moments, then they're going to seek after wisdom.

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This is not a prayer. This is not saying that the foolish are now praying and crying out to God, asking for deliverance.

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Some may do that, but that's not what's necessarily being demonstrated here. It's that the foolish have fallen into their own foolishness, and now they're trying to seek the wise way out of this situation.

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Well, here I've gotten myself into this. How do I get myself out? But when they get to that place, because they did not seek wisdom before they got to that, they won't be able to find it when they're trying to get out of that.

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They will call upon me, but I won't answer. They weren't seeking wisdom when they had the chance, so they don't even have wisdom now that they're in the results of their foolishness.

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They will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the

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Lord. Remember, that's the way we began Proverbs. That's the beginning of wisdom and knowledge.

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

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And the one who has despised wisdom, who did not choose the fear of the Lord, verse 30, who would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices.

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Remember these words from Galatians 6, starting in verse 6. Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.

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Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

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For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.

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And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.

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So then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

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But notice there that God has set up what is right and wrong. The person who chases after the wrong, whatever he sows, that will he also reap.

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Not wrong according to his own standards, wrong according to God's standards. What God has said is wrong.

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The person goes after the wrong, though they may proclaim it to be right, they will reap what they sow.

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The one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. The one who sows to the spirit, who chases after the righteous things that God has declared is right and wise and good.

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He will from the spirit reap eternal life. Verses 32 and 33 now as we finish up Proverbs 1.

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For the simple are killed by their turning away and the complacency of fools destroys them.

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Notice that it's not even pursuing the bad. It's just you're not even going after the good. You're complacency of fools.

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You're like, I'm good where I'm at. I don't need wisdom. I'm fine just right here. No, if you just sit there and you are lazy, that is just as foolish as the person who goes after the evil and does the evil thing.

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You must pursue good. The Christian faith is a pursuit of Christ.

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It is not just sitting around waiting for the day of the Lord to come, as it says in Hebrews 10 24.

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Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

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There's a maturity that we should be after as Christians as believers. We should not just sit there in our conversion as complacent fools, thinking that we've got everything that we need in order to survive the day of judgment.

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There is a sanctification that must continue for you. If you are truly justified, those who are justified will be sanctified.

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If you're not being sanctified, test your faith, my friend, because you may not have even been justified.

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The complacency of fools destroys them. Verse 33. But whoever listens to me, whoever listens to the wisdom of God will dwell secure and will be at ease without dread of disaster.

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Amen. Heavenly Father, protect us from the ways of this world and let us not fall into despair when we see the way the world goes.

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We don't dread the disaster that the world is bringing upon itself because the world by and large is chasing after foolishness.

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Help us be after the things of God, the ways of Christ, and whoever listens to Jesus dwells secure.

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We are at ease, safe in his everlasting arms, safe and secure from all alarms, as it says as we sing in the old hymn.

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May we walk in your ways, what you have declared to be righteous and good, and so be pleasing in our acts of worship before you.

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Thank you for your goodness and your grace in your Son, Jesus, in whose name we pray.