Proverbs 1:8-10 (The Life and Death Need For Wisdom)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherd's Church Podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the

Word of God, that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is. May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word, and may the Lord be with you.

As we turn to Proverbs 1, verses 8 through 19, that's our second sermon in this series.

You'll remember last week we talked about what wisdom is. Wisdom is a

God -given moral reasoning that aids us in pleasing God in every area of our life.

A .T. Robertson, who is the towering genius of Greek grammar, of course everyone knows of him, he said that wisdom is the practical use of knowledge.

It's more than just demonstrating facts, it's more than memorizing data. Wisdom is knowing what to do and how to do it in such a way that pleases

God. So last week we talked about what wisdom is. This week

I want us to talk about why wisdom is so critical, even on the level of life and death, which is where Solomon takes it in this second passage.

Today, we're not going to be looking at wisdom in the way that the modern world looks at it through life hacks.

I don't know if you've ever seen those TikTok videos where it shows you how to remove a permanent marker by taking a non -permanent marker and it magically erases it.

Or those TikToks where you put a fork on a nail and then you magically slide your picture down and you're like, oh wow, a life hack, it's wisdom.

Most of those life hacks are added effort that actually don't save time, by the way. They're just interesting.

That's the world's view of wisdom. It's something that's handy, something that's clever, something that expedites your time, something that saves you effort maybe.

But a biblical understanding of wisdom is different. It is deeper and far more consequential.

It's not about shortcuts or hacks. It's about aligning our life to the will and the plan and the design of God.

Chokmah, the Hebrew word that we talked about last week, has four critical aspects to it. It's number one, that your life would be in alignment with who

God made you to be. So if you're a man, that you would be masculine and strong. If you're a woman, that you would be feminine and beautiful.

A life that's aligned with God's plan and his creation.

A life, number two, that's in submission to the will of God, which means that we have to know the will of God.

And the will of God's been revealed in 66 books called the Bible. Number three, a life in the fear of God.

And we're not talking about terror. We're talking about awe -filled worship.

So number one, a life aligned with God's purpose for your life. A life that is in submission to God's purpose for your life.

A life that is fearing the Lord in a healthy and reverent and worshipful way. And a life, number four, that is seeking to understand the knowledge of God.

John Calvin once famously said that the knowledge of God is the greatest of all knowledges.

And as we learn who God is, we actually end up learning who we are as well.

Let me say it a different way. The grander that we understand God, the more we will understand our finitude.

Wisdom according to Solomon is a matter of life and death. Wisdom leads the elect to life.

And as we'll see today, wisdom leads the damned to death. Today we're going to look at three things.

We're going to look at how the Father gives wisdom to his family, the church.

Number two, we're going to look at how the world gives wisdom that leads to chaos, madness, and death.

And third, we're going to look at the wisdom of Christ. How in the gospel, those who deserve death have been brought into life.

So if you will join me as we turn to Proverbs 1, 8 through 19, and we will read our passage this morning.

Proverbs 1, verse 8 begins this way. Hear, my son, your father's instructions, and do not forsake your mother's teaching.

Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head and ornaments about your neck.

My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, come with us, let us lie and wait for blood.

Let us ambush the innocent without cause. Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, even whole as those who go down to the pit.

We will find all kinds of precious wealth. We will fill our houses with spoil.

Throw in your lot with us, and we shall all have one purse. My son, do not walk in the way with them.

Keep your feet from their path. For their feet run to evil, and they hasten to shed blood.

Indeed, it is useless to spread the baited net in the sight of any bird, but they lie and wait for their own blood.

They ambush their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence.

It takes away the life of its possessors. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this book of wisdom.

Lord, I pray that as we endeavor to read this book and sit under this book, that Lord, you would make us wise.

That we would have a God -given wisdom, a practical knowledge of what to do in order to please you.

Lord, I pray that we would be a faithful church. Lord, I pray that we would be an obedient church.

And Lord, I pray that we would be a church that shines as a lamp on a lampstand in a culture filled with death and darkness.

Lord, I pray that those who are perishing, who you've called according to your purposes, will see this church and see that we are pointing to Christ.

And that, Lord, that they would come here and hear the good news of the gospel and come into your kingdom of light. Lord, I pray for anyone here today who's struggling, struggling with pain or struggling with temptations.

Lord, I pray that your light would shine on them and help them and encourage them today. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

The passage actually begins inside of a home, which is a fascinating feature. Listen to the words.

Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Indeed, there are graceful wreaths to your head and ornaments around your neck.

These are things that happen in the home, which means that this passage not only begins with a father, a mother, a son, and a living room of sorts, it tells us where wisdom itself is gained.

Wisdom is not gained out in the world. Wisdom is not gained even in a book.

And wisdom certainly is not gained in fancy Ivy League educations that really now aren't very good education at all.

Wisdom is gained in family. That's what Solomon is teaching us. Wisdom is gained from a father and a mother and with a son and daughter who are learning the things that the parents are teaching them.

Wisdom is familial, Solomon would tell us. Now, if you remember, Solomon is the same guy who prayed,

Lord, I have no idea how to lead your people. He was overwhelmed. You ever been in a situation, like for instance, recently

I walked into my garage. My wife asked me on my day off if I would help the family by sorting it all out.

I walked in there and I gave up. I gave up. The moment

I saw it, it was overwhelming. I don't know where this goes. I don't know where that goes.

And I felt small in that moment. Imagine Solomon never having ruled over anything, now ruling this great people,

Israel, the combined nation state of Israel and Judah. He's overwhelmed. And he prays to the

Lord and he says, Lord, help me, give me wisdom in order to know how to lead these people.

And the Lord was honored by that prayer. The Lord gave him wisdom and Solomon became a great king in the early part of his life.

Now we've got a little bit further down the path and we see in this passage that Solomon, some time has passed.

Solomon has a family. Solomon has a wife at this point in his life.

If you know the end of the story, Solomon abandoned wisdom in many ways. But at this point,

Solomon has a family, his wife and he has a son. And he's telling us why he wrote the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs was not to show off his intelligence.

The book of Proverbs was not his PhD doctoral thesis in the philosophy of wisdom. It wasn't to pad his bank account.

It wasn't to get a new writing project for Crossway of the ancient world. He wrote it for his son.

He wrote the book for his son. He wrote it so that his son would be trained up in righteousness.

He wrote it as a king who is training up a king. So in that sense, the book of Proverbs is a manual for how to develop kings and queens.

And he tells us that the home is the best place for wisdom to be inculcated. Where you have a father's wisdom being shared, you have a mother's who is full of life and nurture pouring into a child.

And it's the parent's job to indoctrinate their children. Did you know that?

That word indoctrinate today has gotten some bad press. Let me put it to you this way.

If you don't bring doctrine into your children, someone else will. While they mock you for indoctrinating your children, they are planning to indoctrinate them through entertainment and through education and through everything else.

It's not a question of if they will be indoctrinated, it is a question of by what and by whom.

Solomon says that it's the father's job first and foremost to bring doctrine into the mind of his children.

And it's the wife's role to help support him, create a culture of life for him to do that work.

And as they together, husband and wife, do that work together, they're supporting each other and bringing life into the home.

And it's the children's job, anyone who's listening, to take that wisdom and to grow.

You will know that you've been successful as a parent if your child grows up to be just like you.

To think like you, to talk like you. Now, that's not saying whether you've been a success in God's eyes, because they will take from you and they will imitate you.

And they will grow up to be like you. The question is, will it be a picture of Christ or will it be a picture of you?

How are you cultivating your children? Solomon wrote an entire book on this fact, which is a great aid and a great help to us as we think about how do we as parents how do we as a church raise up the next generation?

Because guess what, spoiler alert, we're not gonna be here forever. I'm 40, almost 41.

The expiration date is closer now to when it was when

I was young. We're not gonna be here forever. We have to pour into the next generation.

There has to be children in this room right now who are gonna be the elders and pastors of this church in the future or of other churches.

We have to take seriously this idea that Solomon is putting forward, this 3 ,000 -year -old vision that he's given that wisdom is inculcated in the home.

The wisest man that ever lived, again, especially in the first part of his life, did not send his son off to a government -sponsored school.

He did not ask strangers to be the ones who disciple his son. He took part in their education.

He took an active role in his son's education, and in this society, there's plenty of room for repentance on that point.

Now, that's the home background that we have here in this passage. We also have a hermeneutical background in this passage.

What do I mean? There's a human author involved in this who is teaching us the things that we need to know humanly speaking, but there's not just one human author in Scripture.

There is two authors of every single passage in the Bible. There's the original author who wrote to the original audience, and then there's

God. God inspired every passage in the Bible, and the ones that remained, the ones that you have in your hand in this word, are from God, which means that we can't just dismiss the book of Proverbs as ancient

Hebrew wisdom that is outdated and hasn't stood the test of time, because God kept this in the word for us.

It is wisdom for us, and it is wisdom from our father to us, his children.

It says right there in the very beginning of this, hear my son, your father's instructions, and do not forsake your mother's teaching.

Yes, this applies to Solomon. He's the father, and his son, probably Rehoboam, is the son.

And yet, there's a deeper reality going on underneath this to where this passage is to you as well, and your father is

God, where God plays the role of protector and teacher.

I think even there's a subtle allusion here to the Holy Spirit who's playing the role of mother, of nurturer and life giver, and there's a subtle allusion here to the church, the children of God who are in his house, which is exactly who we are today.

A people who've come to the house of God, a people who've come to receive from God our father, people who've come to the ministry of the

Holy Spirit who takes the father's wisdom and brings it to life inside this house, this home, for it is inside the home where wisdom is inculcated.

And today, in the house of God, is where he is teaching his people.

He's teaching his people through the word read, he's teaching his people through the word prayed, he's teaching his people through the word sang, he's teaching his people through the word preached, and he's teaching his people through the word feasted at the table.

God takes on a fatherly role in this passage, and he teaches us that wisdom is taught in the home.

Now, we are cast in the role of son. That doesn't mean we're all male, just like we're all cast in the metaphor of bride to Christ.

Doesn't mean we're all female. But by casting us in the role of son, God is definitely and deliberately telling us that our job, our responsibility, is to listen to the commands of God.

And I use that word very intentionally. We'll talk about that word in a minute. We're not just commanded to hear the commands of God.

We're not just commanded to have audio waves going through our brain. We are called to listen joyfully to these commands, to grow, and to imitate him and his word.

Listen, when you have sons, especially men, when you have sons and they are young, they want to do everything that you do for good or for ill.

They wanna mimic you. They wanna imitate you. There's a season of time, and praise God for it, where you're the coolest person on earth.

They wanna do everything that you do. Now, there is a time where you're not, and that is a sad time.

But don't waste the early years when you have them and they're sponges and they want to learn.

That is who God is comparing us to be. We're that little child who, like a sponge, is wanting to devour everything that our father is teaching us so that we can learn and so that we can grow.

Proverbs 3, 11 through 12 says, "'My son, do not reject the discipline of the

Lord "'or loathe his reproof. "'For whom the Lord loves, he reproves, "'even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.'"

You see where right there Solomon talked about God being father? The whole book is about the fatherhood of God, who loves us and who cares for us and who is bringing us up in wisdom.

And the result of that wisdom is life and blessings. If you obey the father, you will have life.

If you obey God, if you obey his commands, if you surrender your life to his purposes, you will have life and you will have blessings.

It doesn't mean you will have worldly happiness or material gain. It means that you will have blessings and life.

Solomon says in verse nine, "'Indeed, they," that's the teachings and instructions, "'are a graceful wreath to your head "'and ornaments about your neck.'"

They're a blessing. To the people of God, to obey the commands of God. You think about a family.

When you see a family who has a father, who is righteous and who's not abdicated his leadership and who's not passive like his father

Adam, but who is trying his best to lead his family. And then you see a wife who's responding to that man's leadership and she's thriving and she's becoming a blessing.

And then you see children who rise up and call their mother blessed and who obey their father. When you see families like that, you see families that are blessed.

And if you've seen a family like that, you know what I'm talking about. When you see multiple families like that, your families, your two families are a family that model this so well.

Generations of faithfulness coming together and with tears in both of their daddy's eyes, they describe the blessing of what it was to have a legacy of faithfulness.

You know it when you see it and it's beautiful when you see it. But if you don't have that, if you have a father who's abdicated his leadership, a mother who is a terror to her husband and her children and children who rise up and despise their parents, you have a family that's filled with calamity, a family that's filled with disaster, and a family that is certainly not going to have a legacy, but who's destined for familial death.

Proverbs 14, 34, talks about this on the national level. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

If families collectively become communities and then counties and then commonwealths and then countries who are doing this, that family will be blessed.

That nation will be blessed. So reverse engineer that statement. When you look at a nation around you today that is living under the curse, that is living under calamity and death, you ask the question why?

Because fathers are not leading, because mothers are not supporting, because children are not obeying.

And that, just that, the breakdown of the home is the reason that America is in the mess that it's in right now.

The home has been subverted. There's stability in a father.

That's why God writes the entire book of Proverbs as though he's father, because there's stability in his leadership.

There's security in his leadership. When we disobey in our bedrooms, we invite the judgment of God.

When we disobey God in our boardrooms, we invite the judgment of God. And when we disobey in the back rooms of Washington, we invite the judgment of God.

But when we obey him and we turn our face to him, we invite his blessings.

That's in the bedroom, that's in the boardroom, and that's in the back rooms of power. Now how do we do this?

How do we prioritize this? How do we obey God? It's not a very difficult question. You do it.

There's a great skit, I can't remember. I can't remember exactly all of it, but there's a lady who comes in for counseling, and she's talking about her fears, and Bob Newhart looks at her and says, stop it.

And she says, I don't like this kind of counseling. Of course not, we don't like that kind of counseling, but just do it.

How do we get the Father's blessings? We listen to the Father, instead of just reading or hearing.

The book of Proverbs does not tell us to read the book of Proverbs, even though that's a good thing. The book of Proverbs also doesn't tell us just to hear the book of Proverbs.

Again, that would be a good thing. The book of Proverbs tells us to listen to the book of Proverbs.

Listening is different than just hearing. Listening is hearing plus doing. I know that you have had an example, if you're a parent, of telling a child to do something.

You tell them, you say, hey, I need you to go upstairs and grab this. 15 minutes later, you see them, they don't have this.

And then you look at them, and they have this deer in the headlights look like, oh yeah. Yeah. They heard you.

They might have even said, yes sir. They might have even said, yes ma 'am. They might have scurried away with the vigilance of 10 generals.

But in the end, they didn't listen. They heard you, but they did not listen. Hearing requires sound waves.

Listening requires brain waves. It's different to just hear the truth than it is to listen.

We must listen to the words of God. And as children, we must obey them. Again, God's the one who wrote this book.

He wrote it for us. He wrote it for our blessing so that we would listen and obey. And when we do that, we will have a life of blessings.

But the world is not so. Because their wisdom is not rooted in life.

It is rooted in death. Worldly wisdom followed consistently will not lead to a culture of life.

It will lead to a culture of death. Because the world is not like the family of God.

Do you notice that in this passage, the world is spoken about in fatherless ways? It's the one who is wise who has the father.

It's the one who has life who has the father and the mother. The world is not described that way.

They're described as orphans. Orphans who go about with unbridled emotions, who plunge our world into moral chaos and who produce this culture of death.

And I know you've seen it around you. As we as a society have abandoned

God who is the author of life, our nation has been plunged into deeper and deeper degrees of death.

Where people feed their children to the ancient God, Molech. And we're not only commanded to accept this, we're commanded now to celebrate it.

Where teenage girls sacrifice their infants privately because a school has given them permission to not tell their parents for an abortion.

Where the mentally ill, and I say this very specifically, where the mentally ill are brought into the

Rainbow Brigade as a way of fixing the things that are broken inside of them and it does not fix them.

The LGBTQ movement prays on the broken and on the sick and on the mentally abused.

They pray on them and they abuse them further because they can't bring life because they don't follow

God. Anything that doesn't follow God will tend toward death.

It's inevitable. You and I are watching the downfall of one of the greatest societies that have ever existed.

And we're watching it for one simple reason, because we have abandoned the God of life.

And we have pursued inevitably a culture of death. The wisdom of the world is not wisdom at all.

It leads to chaos. It leads to confusion. It leads to division. It leads to brokenness.

Why do you think we see fatherlessness so rampant today? Why do we see homes where mothers are either not supported or mothers who abandon their children?

Why do we see this awful example of death in our culture? Because we've abandoned the God of life.

The world's gospel is baked in the stench of hell. And all that can do is deceive, destroy, and devour everything that it touches.

Why? Because underneath all of it is the fingerprints of Satan. Paul says in 1

Timothy 4 .1, but the spirit explicitly says that in the latter times, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.

They lure the unsuspecting into death like spiders ready to suck them dry.

All Satan can offer is death. Remember in the Garden of Eden, he said, it won't kill you.

What a lie. Because in that day, they surely died. And over the course of a lifetime, they died a million times.

John 8 .44 tells us who the real author of the culture of death is. It's the father of lies.

He says, he was a murderer. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language for he is a liar and he is the father of lies.

I find it interesting that this passage does not say that he is the father of the world.

He influences the world. He lies to the world. He lures the world in, but he's not their father.

He hates them so much that he's willing to abuse them and destroy them, but not claim them.

This is obviously in contrast to the wisdom from God, which is pure and peaceable and gentle and full of mercy and good fruit.

The answer is so simple, and yet we continue to spiral.

Proverbs 1 .11 -14 vividly captures this culture of death that we're seeing happen in our country right now.

Listen to what it says. Come with us. Let us lie in wait for blood. Let us ambush the innocent without cause.

Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, even whole as those who go down to the pit. We all, or we will find all kinds of precious wealth.

We will fill our houses with spoil. Throw in your lot with us and we shall all have one purse.

It says that they wait for blood. They ambush the innocent. They swallow up those who are guiltless.

They steal their wealth and they fill their house full of spoil. This is a great description of modern

America, where they lie in wait to hack up people's children. They lie in wait for blood.

We're in Minnesota. Our supposed, maybe possibly future vice president supports a plan where children on the table who survived a botched abortion can be murdered by serial killers in medical garb.

The same world ambushes the innocent back then is the same world that does it today. You remember our brother Ken told us about the people who were praying outside of Planned Parenthood who were gonna be arrested, who were gonna be sentenced.

They lie in ambush for the innocent. They fight for gay marriage with a kind of death -like energy which is the dead fighting for the dead.

They fight to chemically roast our babies. The world stinks of death.

The world is addicted to death. The only thing that they can ever have with their beliefs and their policies is death.

And what I find so interesting, you know the world, the left, is all about inclusion, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Do you know why that they're so interested in inclusion? It's because when you are guilty, you want people to be guilty beside of you.

It's called the kamikaze syndrome. When you have a noose hanging over your neck, the last thing that you want is to be alone.

So they seek out other people to share in their guilt and their misery. Romans says that they know

God and they're without excuse. Romans says that their conscience testify to their own evil, they know.

And what they know more than anything is that they don't wanna be alone when punishment and judgment comes.

So they have an unstoppable and unquenchable energy to evangelize the world according to their destruction.

Much, much, much greater than the church has an energy and a passion to evangelize the lost. We look at the energy, the passion that they have to convert people to their darkness, and it far exceeds the energy and the passion that's coming out of the

Christian church to tell the gospel to those who are perishing. It's because they know that judgment is coming and they refuse to go into judgment alone.

Look at their inclusiveness. This is what inclusiveness is when it comes to the world. Come with us, verse 11a.

Let us lie in wait, verse 11b. Let us ambush, let us swallow. We will find, we will fill.

Throw in with us, we will all have one purse. Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a lie from the pit of hell.

It is a trap to get you to fall into the same kind of destruction that they already face because they're bent on death.

And I need to just, I think I've said this before, but we're in a country that unless something radical happens is going to fall.

We're in a country that if it were to revive, it would be the first time in history a country has gone as far as we've gone and revived.

There was, in the 80s, I think Ruth Graham Bell said that if God doesn't destroy

America, then he'll need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, God apologizes to no one, but I get the sentiment.

I get the sentiment. We're doing the same things. Brothers and sisters, in this dark day, the house of God is a great refuge and a great blessing to you.

As the world crumbles into further degrees of death, the house of God, the people of God is a great safety for you and I.

Because in the Father's house is life. In the Father's house is wisdom. In the Father's house is the people of God who, as we talked about in our law homily, support each other, care for one another, and strengthen one another.

That's the home where life comes in that Solomon is talking about. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when this country falls.

And when it does, will you be by yourself?

Or will you be with the people of God where life is? Look around. If the downfall of America happens in our generation, we're the ones who are gonna rebuild it.

It's this group of people that is the family that God has given you to strengthen you in these dark days. Because all who oppose

God will get the death that they crave. But for all who fear God and who listen to God and who joyfully obey

God, they will get the life that they do not deserve. Because think about it this way.

Everyone in this room has acted and behaved in ways that are just like the culture of death.

Everyone in this room has done things, said things, watched things, thought things that should lead to our demise.

Where we should get the death that we deserve. And yet, by the grace of our

Lord Jesus Christ, for us, he took the death that we deserved.

For the joy set before him, he marched up the hill called Calvary. And though he was innocent, he took our sin.

This passage, like we said last week, is ultimately not even about us. It's about him.

He's the true son in this passage who joyfully obeys the Father, not you and I. He's the one who they lie in wait for his blood.

He's the one who they try to swallow up in death and bring down to the pit. And that's exactly what happened to Christ.

And even though you and I were on the side of wickedness, who threw our lot in with them, and who made our purse one with them,

Christ, by his unimaginable grace, has rescued you out and brought you in so that today you are in the living room of God.

And your Father loves you, and your Father cares for you, and your Father teaches you.

And your purpose in life, brothers and sisters, is not to come into this room and to hear the words of God and then to scurry away and forget what has just been said.

Your purpose is like a faithful child, to listen to what God has told you and to leave joyful to obey him.

Let us pray. Lord, wisdom is a matter of life and death, literally.

In the house of God, there's life and there's pleasure. But in the thoughts and the ways of the world, there is death.

Lord, I pray that each of us would see the stark categories with sobriety and also with hope.

Lord, I pray that our gaze would be lifted up to Christ. The only one who is faithful.

And that, Lord, through worship and through gratitude and through praise to Jesus, we would recognize that we are no longer in a place where we deserve to be.

We are no longer in a place where we have earned, but we are in the place of blessing because he took our curse.

Lord, let our gratitude be sweet, let our worship be strong, and let our praise be deliberate and let our lives be filled with joy like joyful children ready to take these truths and to obey them.

Lord, we know that we could not obey you in order to be saved, but now that you have rescued us, ransomed us, saved us, and you've brought us into the home of your father and by the power of the spirit that you would invigorate us to obedience now.

Now that you've taken away our punishment, taken away our stain, taken away every aspect of the curse from us,

Lord, would you now invigorate us to live for you. Lord, let us not be the kind of people who are saved and yet nothing changes.

The book of Proverbs has a word for that and it is the fool. Lord, let us be the son who because of your son now can joyfully obey.