Proverbs 2 Intro

The Introduction to Proverbs and the Book’s Purpose

We've gone two sessions already, which was basically an introduction, the first seven verses, but in reality you could actually call the whole first chapter of Proverbs as an introduction because it really sets forth the tone of the rest of the book.

So one of the things that we've looked at, let's see, we looked at first, the first session was what is wisdom? Then we looked at an overview of Proverbs just to give a general idea. Then we looked at what kind of a book Proverbs is and how it is different from most of the other books, not all, but most of the other books.

We looked at specifically the purpose for Proverbs, which is given again in the introduction. Then we looked at how to use Proverbs. And if you remember in that section, we took some advice from our good friend, the late Greg Bonson, and remember he said that Proverbs should be taken more like a throat lozenge.

You take one small section and you ruminate on it, you meditate on it, rather than reading large sections because there's so many different themes in large sections that you're not going to get the full benefit unless you break it down and ruminate on the individual verses.

The Fear of the Lord as the Beginning of Wisdom

So this morning we begin the next section, beginning of wisdom, all right, and the wisest man who ever lived, Solomon, outside of course of our Lord and Savior, says that if you want to know anything, start at the beginning, okay, verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Now this is true in virtually all fields, the foundation is important to any structure and wisdom and knowledge are no exception. I mean just think about it, if you're going to build a house, you have to build it on a solid foundation, okay.

So if anything, you know, to know anything, if you want to be wise, you have to build on the proper foundation, okay. And if Solomon said that, it's not surprising then that Jesus used virtually, almost exactly the same words when he was teaching in Matthew chapter 7, remember, therefore those who hear my words of mine and act upon them may be compared to a wise man who built his house upon the rock.

The rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew, burst against that house and yet it did not fall for it had been founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act upon them will be like a foolish man who builds his house upon the sand.

And the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew, burst against that house and it fell and great was its fall. The result was that when Jesus had finished these words, the multitudes were amazed at his teaching for he was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes.

Every time we have a hurricane or a nor 'easter here on Long Island, I am always amazed because what, where do the news crews run? They run down to Dune Road, Fire Island and all these poor people who have built their house upon the sand and these poor people are in such distress and a heart should go out to them, wake up.

Jesus talked about building your house on the sand, you know, and yet year after year after year, it's the same thing, you know. And now, of course, I mean, after the last big hurricane down on the South Shore, even in Lindenhurst, it's mandatory to have to raise the houses and sink the piles down.

I mean, duh. So, but that's the teaching of Jesus and that's what Solomon is basically saying here is that if even for wisdom and knowledge, you need to have the proper foundation, okay? And that's one of the purposes of Proverbs is to teach us these important principles.

So what is the foundation for all of wisdom and knowledge? The fear of the Lord. There's the beginning of it. That's what Proverbs says, all right? What is the fear of the Lord? Because that's a term that we don't use.

How often do you hear this in modern preaching or postmodern preaching, I should say? It used to be, you know what, if you go back and, well, let me ask this. Anybody here a fan of Turner Classic movies?

I'm not a fan of Ted Turner, but I love TCM, all right, because you get, they broadcast some of the old classic movies where you still had morality and whatnot. If you go back to any of the old Westerns and they want to describe somebody who was a good man, you know how he's described?

He's a God-fearing man. And that was a standard line you heard, especially in old Westerns, you hear it all the time. He was a good God-fearing man. When was the last time you heard a man described as being a God-fearer?

You just don't hear that terminology anymore, all right? So we should start with what is the fear of the Lord? Charles Bridges, in his commentary on Proverbs, which, by the way, is one of the best commentaries on Proverbs that I came across when we did our study in Proverbs, he gives us a great working definition for what Proverbs is.

I mean, for what God, what fear of the Lord is. It is that affectionate reverence by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to his father's law. I think that's an excellent definition, okay?

It is that affectionate reverence by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to his father's law. In other words, it's not terrifying fear for the child of God. It's a loving fear. It's a reverence and an awe.

And we see this even in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 28, 29. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God acceptable service with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire.

The believer comes before God with reverence and awe, and using that definition as fear because we do not fear the punishment, but we respect the holiness, the righteousness, the justice of God. And so this definition, I think, is a good one, okay?

In the heart of the true believer, there is an overwhelming desire to please God. That can be included. Yet he is constantly aware of his own weaknesses. This is one of the struggles that we all have.

I don't think this can almost go without saying. We desire, if you're a true Christian, your desire has to be to please God. If somebody says, I'm a Christian, and yet they have no desire to please God, that profession of faith is suspect.

It's not a question, and it's not a question that we can do that perfectly, but we know our own weaknesses, and that factors into the fear that we have. We come knowing our weaknesses, and that's why we put our complete and utter dependence upon God, all the time knowing that the only way that we can properly fear him is by submitting to him and following his words, and we'll get into that a little bit more later.

It is a holy watchfulness that, quoting from David, I might not sin against thee. The true believer understands the wrath of a holy God is tempered by the love of a heavenly father to his children. I struggled over what word to use, tempered, mitigated, you know, but you get the idea.

We understand the wrath of God, but we also understand that as his children, his wrath has been diverted to Jesus Christ, but it's nonetheless, we still understand who God is. He is that consuming fire, he is awesome, he is someone to be feared.

If you are not a child of his, he is someone to be feared. That's why it's so foolish when we see men who are sinning with impunity and basically shaking their fist in the face of God, you know. My old pastor had a great expression, he used to say, when somebody was sinning with impunity, he said, they're putting their finger right in the eye of God and thinking that they can.

Get away with that.

I like the expression, your arms are too short for my fingers.

There you go, all right. The fear of the Lord is demonstrated by obedience to his commandments and his laws, all right. Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments, and one of the things that Proverbs is going to show, now Proverbs, again, remember what we saw in our opening introduction.

Proverbs is not particularly a set of commandments and laws, all right. Proverbs is describing behavior, but it's always encouraging us to obey the commandments and the laws that we find in the scriptures, in other books and throughout the rest of the scripture.

But you find very few absolute imperatives as far as law keeping in the book of Proverbs. What Proverbs does is it comes and it tells you, all right, if you keep the law of God, these are the benefits, this is the result.

If you fail to keep the law, these are the consequences. See, and that's the real advantage of the book of Proverbs, and remember we went through a little bit of a lengthy session talking about the fact that if you misconstrue Proverbs and you start taking some of the admonitions as laws, you're going to wind up in some sort of legalism, okay.

Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding in the Rest of Scripture

Job 28, 28, and to man he said, behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. So in other words, if you want to be wise, what is the first thing begins? The fear of the Lord.

Notice Proverbs is not the only place that we hear this teaching about being, having, you know, this godly fear, right, to depart from evil is understanding. Wisdom, knowledge, understanding, all related, somewhat different, but it's all related.

And it all begins with the fear of the Lord. Psalm 111, 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, a good understanding have all those who do his commandments, his praise endures forever. Notice how many times we find this.

Ecclesiastes 12, 13 to 14, the conclusion, when all has been heard is fear God, keep his commandments, because this applies to every person, except me, right? Isn't this what we want? Isn't that the way we want to read the verse?

Everybody wants an exemption, all right, for God will bring every act of judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. Nothing is hidden, all right, and this is the beginning of wisdom.

Deuteronomy 4, 6 to 7, so keep and do them, obviously this is talking about the law of God, so keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people, for what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God whenever we call on him?

That's one of my favorite verses, I think, in all of scripture, because it runs so contrary to our culture today. Our culture today is we want to throw off all the restraints, we want to throw off the feathers, I mean, you could just quote Psalm 2 and see what our society today wants.

We want freedom from everything, no punishment, nothing, all right, just don't have to pay for anything, everything's free, okay, and yet here all the way back in Deuteronomy, God is instructing Israel, keep and do the commandments, why?

Wisdom, understanding, and you're actually going to provoke the Gentiles to jealousy. They're going to look at you and say, wow, look at this nation, how great they are, look at the law God gave them, it's amazing.

And that's why it's so frustrating that in the modern, postmodern church movement tries to do away with the law of God, even some of the reformed churches, all knowledge must have its beginning in God.

Only knowledge that lines up with God's truth is true knowledge and will make you wise, okay? Remember, we're talking firstly about what is true wisdom, begins with the fear of the Lord, all right, fear of the Lord, any knowledge must line up then with God's truth.

All right, all right, any knowledge that doesn't is to be discarded because it will render you foolish. This is one of the reasons that we have developed, well, not developed, but we have adopted in this church, we are very pointedly presuppositional in our apologetics.

We don't discard the truth. We never lay the truth of God aside. We always begin with the truth of God. Here's just a couple of examples. Science says it's impossible to feed 5 ,000 people with five loaves and two fish.

Where is true knowledge found in the Bible or in science? And you notice I did put science in quotations because I don't believe that true science is in opposition to the scripture. What our society calls a science is most definitely in opposition to the scripture.

Okay, all right, one more. Science says that it's impossible for a dead man to be raised from the dead after three days in the tomb, right? If you talk to modern scientists, talk to Bill Nye, what is his position on this?

All right, where is true knowledge found? Now, here's the point that I want to make, and the only reason I'm giving two of these definitions, this is not merely an academic debate. There are serious ramifications if you deny the truthfulness of scripture.

And I want to confess, all right, what happens if you accept the, the, the modern scientific principles, dead men cannot be raised from the dead. What, what, what are the ramifications of that?

Well, then you'd have to say the scriptures are not true.

The scriptures are not true. We're still in our sins.

Exactly.

The, remember, what's that? Our faith is in vain. Here, you can go on and on and see all the serious ramifications. So, and that's something that we always need to keep in mind. These, these issues are not merely academic debates.

They have real life consequences in the life of, of, of people. If somebody accepts the principle that dead men can't raise, it's impossible. Well, for example, uh, remember, I think it was Bertrand Russell.

All right.

The, the English atheist, uh, remember he said he, he, he defined miracles out of existence, he didn't disprove them. He claimed that he disproved miracles.

All right.

He basically just defined them. He said, we live in a closed system and a closed system. Miracles can happen. Therefore miracles don't happen. It's faulty logic.

All right.

But that's what he did. And, but people accepted that. So now people come along and they say, well, there's no such thing as miracles. Well, then I don't believe the Bible. So what do they do? They're left in their sin.

That's why it's important for us to be able to engage people with the wisdom of scripture, but never putting scripture aside. And I know I'm, I'm harping on this a little bit because it's, it's so, so important that we never, ever concede even for a moment that the scriptures are anything, but the truthfulness through the word of God.

Yes.

Even for the naturalists, even if they did see, let's, let's say they did see a miracle right in front of them, don't see it given their presupposition to naturalize even that and say, well, we've got to do some other explanation.

Exactly.

Exactly.

You're, you're, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. They will, they will, they will admit that there are things that we don't understand, but they won't admit that miracles is one of them.

Yes.

I think it's also the root of the problem is it's not, people are basing it on logic, it's not a logic problem, it's a spiritual problem. You know, the eyes of their understanding of God can, you know, go hard.

Sure.

Sure.

Remember you can have, you can have valid argumentation that gives you a completely wrong or untruthful result, conclusion, if one of your premises is wrong, all right, remember logic is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, has to be both truthful and valid argumentation point.

All right.

For it to be true. And so, and that's exactly what happens with the, the atheist or the agnostic is that they, they basically just negate one of the, the factual statements, one of the premises.

Yeah.

Bill.

Let's say if science says anything is impossible, that it's wrong, science doesn't work on saying if things are observing things.

Yes.

The science shouldn't, because the science can't say if the laws are going to change tomorrow, for example. The science shouldn't say anything is impossible, science is just observing what's true and repeatable and things like that.

Yeah, that's absolutely true.

Sometimes science that says anything is impossible, they're working outside of their scope.

Yeah.

But that's what they do. They redefine, they redefine their terms.

Okay.

For example, how many times have you heard, oh, religion is faith, facts is science.

All right.

And that's, that's a, that's a, uh, an invalid analogy.

Okay.

Because if you accept the presuppositions of scripture, the Bible is the most logical book in the world, given the presuppositions that we hold to.

Okay.

All right.

Proverbs, Apologetics, and the Fear of God in Practice

Proverbs speaks directly to this issue in chapter 22, incline your ear and hear the words of the wise and apply your mind to my knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, that they may be ready on your lips.

Always sound familiar to what Peter said, right? Always being ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within you.

All right.

So that your trust may be in the Lord. I have taught you today, even you, I love the personality, even you. Notice the antithetical parallelism. I point this out because remember we went through the parallelisms.

Uh, we've actually had several courses in this church where we've, uh, examined the Hebrew form of parallelism, Lawrence, you did it in the survey, right? I had done it originally in Proverbs and then we did it again, the beginning of this Proverbs, all right.

But notice the, and I want to point these out because it's important that we keep in mind the structure of Proverbs or you will misinterpret it. Verse seven, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

There's your major premise. And then there's the antithesis of it. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Fear the Lord, knowledge, wisdom, fools despise wisdom. There's that antithetical parallelism, right?

No fear of God, you're a fool. You find somebody who says, I don't, I'm not afraid of God. There's the biggest fool in the world. Because he certainly has a lot to be afraid of. This is a common theme throughout all of scripture.

Psalm 36, transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart. There is no fear of God before his eyes. For it platters him in his own eyes concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it.

The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit. He has ceased to be wise and to do good. He plans wickedness upon his bed. He sets himself on a path that is not good. He does not despise evil. That's a pretty graphic psalm.

All right.

Notice what it says. Clear distinction between fearing God and not fearing God between knowledge and wisdom and foolishness.

Okay.

And again, I've only highlighted a couple of these verses, but these, these are common throughout all of scripture. Jeremiah, how can you say we are wise and the law of the Lord is with us? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.

The wise men are put to shame. They are dismayed and caught. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord. And what kind of wisdom do they have? Scripture doesn't mess around. I mean, you don't have to say, I wonder what that means.

No, this is pretty clear. The end of the fool is destruction. The wise of heart will receive commands, but a babbling fool will be ruined. I love it when you get, see on TV and they give sound bites to some of these guys like Bill Nye and others who profess to be wise and have the end, all the answers, all right, and yet you look them up there and all I can think of is that babbling brook, you know, just running down.

And going to go, eventually it's going to go over the waterfall. Remember in scripture, especially in Proverbs, foolishness is a moral judgment. This is not what I mean by that specifically is that we're not talking about intellect.

You can have a fool who has multiple PhDs, right? The level of intelligence is not determining whether or not you're wise or you're foolish. On the other hand, you can have someone who is severely limited mentally.

All right.

But who loves the Lord and that person is wise. Remember foolishness is the opposite of wisdom. That's how you have to look at it. It's the opposite of wisdom. And remember, wisdom is not again, intellect.

Wisdom is the ability to, to handle life with skill, all to the glory of God. Remember that's what, that's what true wisdom is. Wisdom is conforming your life to the law of God, to the image of Jesus Christ.

So to be a fool as described in scripture always brings judgment. The end of the fool is ruined. You will always, and you, that again, that's another consistent theme of scripture. So let us conclude by how we began this morning.

Proverbs 1, 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction. That kind of sums up that one verse. If we were going to take a one verse out of the whole book, that verse would kind of be like our summary of the book of Proverbs, and that's what the whole book is all about.

If the whole purpose of the book is to help us to gain this biblical wisdom and to avoid the foolish, the foolish behavior. Next month, we're going to move in and the title of, of next month is going to be the well-dressed child.

Because if you look at the next couple of verses, it has to do with the instructions for heeding parents and all. And in fact, it's good that we have a couple of the young fellas here this morning, I, in fact, I would encourage you, especially for next week, if you have sons, or, yeah, well, if you have sons, it's men's breakfast, you have sons, bring them out because it's going to be for parents and fathers and sons.

Okay.

Final thoughts. And again, this, this is almost still like in the introduction.

Yes.

I had a question last, one of the texts in Proverbs says, don't abuse the scoffer or hate you. And then another text says, he who rebukes the wicked will see it a blessing upon him. Just wondering how those two fit, you know.

Sure, sure. It, and that harkens back even to 20, Proverbs 26, I believe it is, verses seven and eight, I'm not positive. That might not be the right verses, but it's right around there. One of the, remember, what is the purpose for the book of Proverbs is to, for us as believers to gain wisdom.

One of the things that we've seen, and in fact, I think I even mentioned this Tuesday night, was how we do something is just as important as the fact that we do it, okay, how we rebuke somebody is just as important as the fact that we must rebuke somebody when they're in sin, all right, what Proverbs teaches is you have to learn when to rebuke somebody and, and how to rebuke somebody, because sometimes, even as Jesus said, there comes a point where you stop because you're casting your pearls before swine.

All right.

In Proverbs 26, answer a fool according to his folly, lest to be wise in his own eyes, don't answer a fool according to his folly, lest you become just like him. Those are two verses that are adjacent to each other.

And the whole idea there is you have to learn when it's time to rebuke somebody and when it's time not to. Because sometimes when you rebuke, you have to rebuke them because they're spreading their, their garbage and people are listening to it.

On the other hand, you don't want to engage into it. And so that you look just as foolish as he does. That takes wisdom. There's no stock answer to that. And that's why Proverbs gives you both sides. And, and again, those two verses are adjacent to each other.

One follows the other. So, you know, it's not a misprint, you know, it's not like, Oh, no, no. So you have to be careful. And, uh, you know, this is, this is something that, uh, a manager of, of men has to learn as well.

There are times where somebody might say something to, uh, to a group of people that you're, you know, that you're in charge of, and it is so wrong that you have to rebuke them publicly.

All right.

And because you don't want people thinking that that's right. You can't just let it go. You have to stand up and say, no, that's wrong. You're going to get hurt if you do that.

All right.

You know, like juggling chainsaws.

Okay.

No, don't do that. You know, the guy says, no, it's fine. You can juggle changes. And if you do it this way, we'll get, no, you got to stand up and say, no, you can't, you can't do that. Don't ever do that.

Okay.

Other times, if it's a minor offense, it might be better off to take the person aside and just rebuke them privately.

All right.

If it's not nothing major, you follow. So again, it's wisdom and it's gaining wisdom is not easy. It's, it's hard. That's why it begins with the fear of the Lord and you need the Holy spirit to really discern.

Does that answer the question? Any other final thoughts? All right, John, would you close this in a word of prayer?