Well, we come this morning to Proverbs chapter 8, and Proverbs up to this point, with the exception of just a few verses in chapter 1, has been a series of speeches from a parent to a child. But chapter 8 shifts from the parent to wisdom itself. Wisdom is doing the talking here in chapter 8. So let's hear this morning what wisdom has to say. Proverbs 8, and we'll read the entire chapter beginning in chapter 8.
Beginning at verse 1. Here, for I will speak noble things and from my lips will come what is right. For my mouth will utter truth. Wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteous.
There is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They're all straight to Him who understands and right to those who find knowledge. my instruction instead of silver and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.
Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. I have counsel and sound wisdom. I have insight. I have strength. By me kings reign and rulers decree what is just. By me princes rule and nobles all who govern justly. I love those who love me and those who seek me diligently find me. Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness.
My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver. I walk in the way of righteousness in the paths of justice, granting an inheritance to those who love me and filling their treasuries. The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old. Ages ago I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the earth, when there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water, before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills I was brought forth, before He had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When He established the heavens I was there.
When He drew a circle on the face of the deep, when He made firm the skies above, when He established the fountains of the deep, when He assigned to the sea its limit so that the waters might not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside Him, like a master workman, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and delighting in the children of man. And now, O sons, listen to me. Blessed are those who keep my ways.
Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors, for whoever finds me finds life, and obtains favor from the Lord. But he who fails to find me injures himself.
All who hate me love death. Let's pray. Father, your world is full of so many wonders and treasures. You have infused your world with beauty and majesty and complexity and simplicity.
Yours is a diverse and often unexpected world of mystery and strangeness that is so often beyond our comprehension. Lord, as part of that creation, we don't always even understand ourselves and the role we play in your grand theater of time and space, but you've not left us to fend for ourselves. You have invited us to ask and receive from you all that we need. You have commanded us to seek and find truth and goodness and beauty.
You have told us to knock, and you've promised that the door would be open for us. So, Lord, this morning we're knocking, we're asking that you would give us wisdom, that we might know you and that we might know ourselves. We ask for wisdom that we might do and be what you have created us to do and be. Lord, you are a God who delights in revealing yourself, so please reveal yourself to us today as we interact with your Word. May this living and powerful Word accomplish in us everything that you intend it to accomplish. I pray these things for our good and for your glory.
Amen. Well, this is wisdom's second speech now. The first speech was back in chapter 1, verses 20 through 33, and in that first speech, back in chapter 1, wisdom was critical of simpletons for their simple-mindedness.
Now, in chapter 8, she's seeking to win the simpletons over with the sheer awe of what can be theirs if they will only listen. Now, you'll remember that simpletons are those who have not quite made up their mind yet. They're not full-blown fools who have embraced a lifestyle of wisdom-rejecting foolishness, and so it's not too late for them to come around and get their life back on track. But neither are these simpletons wise folk. They have, to some extent, neglected wisdom. So if they do nothing, they will eventually ruin their souls, ruin their lives, but the proverbial jury is still out.
There's still hope for the simpletons to change. And so in this second speech, Lady Wisdom takes a much more positive and pleading tone. Instead of saying, how long will you lack sense, like she did back in chapter 1, Lady Wisdom says, oh simple ones, learn prudence, learn sense. The tactic she takes here is intended to make wisdom as appealing and desirable as possible. Lady Wisdom is trying to motivate the hearer not just to know about wisdom or to view wisdom as just one choice among many. No, she's trying to make wisdom the most desirable path. She's trying to motivate her hearers to love wisdom, to choose wisdom, and to reject anything and everything that opposes wisdom. In fact, we could divide Lady Wisdom's speech here in chapter 8 into five reasons why a person should listen to wisdom. Why should I listen to wisdom? The first reason is because wisdom stands ready and willing to help me. She stands ready and willing to help me.
What we notice in the first five verses is how accessible wisdom is. She's not hidden away in some back alley where nobody will ever find her. She's not tucked away in some ivory tower where only the intellectually elite can take advantage of her words. She's not holed up in some boardroom where only wealthy movers and shakers have access to her.
No, she is very visible and approachable. Verse 2, on the heights she is, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand. Verse 3, beside the gates in front of the town she cries. Wisdom is in a very prominent open place making herself accessible to all without discrimination. This is very different from the stealthy adulteress that we met last Sunday in chapter 7.
The adulteress woman slithers around at night in the back shadows speaking deceitful things to trick the unsuspecting into following her down a path of miserable destruction that leads to death. But lady wisdom could not be more different. Lady wisdom is out in the open in the most public of places speaking not lies but truth, noble things it says in verse 6. And where the adulteress woman's words lead to death, lady wisdom's words lead to kingship and wealth and life. Where the adulteress words lead to sheol, lady wisdom's words soar to heaven and back and endure from before creation to the end of time.
Clearly lady wisdom's words are superior because among other things they are easily accessible to anyone willing to listen. You know what this means for us? This means that our foolishness, our poor decisions, our moral missteps, the lies we believe cannot be blamed on the lack of instruction. If we are fools, we are not fools because God has withheld wisdom. Quite the contrary is true, wisdom is available for the taking and accessible to anyone and everyone who would have it. In fact wisdom is loudly crying, begging for an audience. Are we listening?
That's the question. But next wisdom gives another reason why we ought to listen to her. We ought to listen to wisdom because wisdom imparts nothing but virtue. She imparts nothing but virtue. In verses 6-14 lady wisdom begins describing the character of her speech and it is nothing but goodness and virtue. Look at the words she uses to describe the quality of what she imparts. Verse 6 she speaks noble things. She speaks what is right. Verse 7 she utters truth.
Negatively she avoids wickedness like an abomination. Verse 8 her words are righteous, there's nothing crooked or perverse in them. Verse 9 her words are straight, a word that means honest and transparent, straightforward.
The description keeps going. In verse 10 wisdom's speech is more valuable than silver and gold. In verse 11 it's better than jewels. Verse 12 adds prudence to the list, prudence to the list of wisdom's qualities along with knowledge and discretion. It says that wisdom hates evil and pride and arrogance and perversion in verse 13. And then this incredible description of wisdom's character concludes in verse 14 with soundness and insight and strength.
This is what wisdom brings to the table and it's all good. Every bit of it is good. There's nothing questionable or suspect or dangerous. Certainly nothing harmful or evil. Lady wisdom imparts nothing but truth and moral goodness. If you could have a counselor with you at all times who could only ever give you the right answer to any question, any dilemma, any unknown in your life, wouldn't you want to have that counselor at all times?
Of course you would. Of course that's what wisdom is. She's a counselor that only gives perfect counsel in every situation. Are we listening to that counsel? Are we trusting that counsel? Are we heeding that counsel? Before we move to the next section of Lady Wisdom's speech I want to just pause for a moment and point out something that is a very important aspect of how we tap into wisdom's benefits. In this second section of wisdom's speech, verses 6 through 14, there are only two commands.
They occur in verse 6, the command to hear, and verse 10, the command to take. You see it is not enough to merely hear what wisdom has to say. We must also take what it says to heart. We must believe that what wisdom says is truly wise and true and noble and all the other virtuous attributes it claims to possess. Becoming a wise person is not a matter of merely knowing certain things. Wisdom is not primarily an intellectual endeavor. It most certainly involves the intellect, but wisdom is essentially a moral quality, not an intellectual one. And if my disposition is resistant to virtue, if I'm opposed to moral goodness, it doesn't matter how much I listen to what wisdom has to say, I'm not going to agree with it or live by it if I reject the premise that wisdom is wise.
Let me try to illustrate it like this. March Madness just ended and during March Madness there's a lot of talk about why team X is better than team Y or why team A is worse and less deserving than team B. And when you have conversations with people about their favorite team or their least favorite team, the reasons given for why we like certain teams and disdain other teams most often has very little to do with the actual skill of the various teams. If a team is in the final four or the elite eight or the sweet 16, they're a good team.
They're a really good team to have gotten there. Our disdain then of certain teams usually has nothing to do with the sport itself or the giftedness of the athletes and has everything to do with past disappointments or upsets or with the fan base of the other team or with what we perceive to be the personal character flaws of the coach or the star player or the referees. Our preferences when it comes to sports is not grounded in sheer unadulterated knowledge, just the sort of facts and stats. No, it's grounded in something much more subjective and personal.
We choose to like the teams we like because our dad liked that team or because that obnoxious person I don't really care for is a fan of the other team. When it comes to moral categories like wisdom, truth, goodness, nobility, righteousness, we are not morally neutral creatures who simply look at the objective facts and stats and make a determination that X is a virtue and Y is a vice or that A is true and B is false. No, we are morally biased people who have preexisting allegiances in our hearts that incline us to take Lady Wisdom's word for it or Lady Adultress' word for it. We don't end up becoming wise people because we read the book and our brains figure out what is true and rejects what is false. The virtuous life doesn't begin with knowing something, it begins with surrendering something. The virtuous life doesn't begin with knowing something, it begins with surrendering something. It begins with shifting our allegiance, our spiritual commitment from ourselves to wisdom.
Surrender must occur before understanding can occur. In fact, look with me at Proverbs 2 verses 4 and 5. Proverbs 2 verses 4 and 5 says, if you seek wisdom like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Seeking, which is a term of the affections, the heart, precedes knowing.
John 8, 31 and 32 says a very similar thing. Jesus said, if you abide in my words, in other words if your affections and will have embraced the authority of Christ's word, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Surrender precedes understanding.
The inclinations of the heart influence and enable the mind to understand. Faith precedes knowledge. Trust precedes obedience. My love for something enables me to fully and accurately understand and accept and trust that thing.
The opposite is also true. If I don't love something or don't surrender to it or incline my heart to its value, I will inevitably reject its goodness and beauty and truth. Until I accept the other team, I will forever be rejecting the other team, even if it requires me to deny the facts and the statistics. So wisdom says, it's not enough to merely hear me. You need, verse 10, to take me, to choose me, to accept me, to embrace what I have as a good and right thing.
Once that question of allegiance is settled, then and only then will you be in a position to understand and know the true value of what you have. When Harvard University began back in the 1600s, its motto was Veritas Christo et Ekklesia, truth for Christ and the church. Today its motto is simply Veritas, truth. The university dropped Christ and the church, but it did not drop truth from its motto. Now what I'm trying to say is that one's ability to rightly understand truth is inseparably attached to one's frame of reference for truth. And everyone, whether they acknowledge it or not, has a frame of reference for truth. By deleting Christ and the church from its motto, Harvard has not moved closer to truth. It has only traded Christ and the church for some other now unspoken frame of reference for truth.
Why? Because what we come to accept and obey as truth is influenced by what we already love and are loyal to. If Harvard University or you or I want to find truth, want to find Veritas, Lady Wisdom offers nothing but virtue and truth. But we will only know that truth as truth if we take Lady Wisdom's word for it and in taking her word for it, reject all other competing allegiances.
And there are plenty of those. Perhaps the simplest way to put it is this. Wisdom is knowledge mediated by godliness. Wisdom is knowledge mediated by godliness. Without godliness, without God as our frame of reference, we will forever be confused not only about what is true, but also what is good and what is beautiful. So verse 10, take Wisdom's instruction.
It will always be better than the competition. This brings us then to a third reason for listening to Wisdom and it's this. We ought to listen to Wisdom because Wisdom guarantees success. The benefit of Wisdom is not limited to some ethereal internal virtue or character.
Its benefit includes actual visible blessings in time and space, in history. Look at verse 15, by me kings reign, rulers decree what is just, princes rule, nobles govern justly and the temporal blessings continue. Verse 18, riches in honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. Do you want to be wealthy in a lasting, enduring sort of way? Of course you do. Well, Wisdom makes wealth. Do you want to be respected and honored by others?
Of course you do. Wisdom brings honor and respect. And there's a very pragmatic explanation for all this. If God made the world to work a certain way, things go well in a very literal, practical sense for those who follow that way. A sports car, for example, is made to go fast.
If it's never driven fast, it starts to break down and not function well. Whether we're talking about economics or politics or gardening or engineering or teaching or ethics, things function best when they function according to their design. Life in God's world goes the smoothest when it is lived in God's way. And going back to our previous point about how loving the truth is a prerequisite to truly knowing the truth, we could say the same thing with regard to the practical benefits of wisdom. Those benefits of wisdom are really only beneficial to the extent that one loves wisdom. Lady Wisdom makes the point. Look at verse 17, for example.
I love those who love me. Or verse 21, Wisdom grants an inheritance to those who love her. So while Wisdom is accessible to all without discrimination, as she stands in high places and city gates shouting to any who will listen, only those who take her at her word and love what she has to say will experience the benefits of those words. The fourth reason why I should listen to Wisdom, and this reason really is in a category all of its own, it's really the ultimate reason for listening to Wisdom, is that Wisdom is the prime authority on how life and the world work.
We might say Wisdom is the operating system in the computer that makes the world and history and humanity work the way they do. We see this in verses 22 through 31. We learn some interesting things about Wisdom in these verses. We are in fact learning about Wisdom's credentials in verses 22 through 31. If you're interviewing for a job and you want the potential employer to see your value, you tell them about your experience and skill set.
You make sure they understand where you've been and what you've done. Well when it comes to Wisdom's credentials, she has seen it all, literally. Verse 22, the Lord possessed me at the beginning of His work. Verse 23, ages ago I was set up at the first before the beginning of the earth. When Genesis 1 says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, Wisdom was right there watching it all happen.
Before there were oceans or mountains or dry land or skies, Wisdom had been brought forth. Some of the language here, you may have noticed, parallels the questions asked of Job at the end of his trial. Where were you, Job, when I made the earth? Where were you when I set the limits of the sea? Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Job, when confronted with these questions, had to put his hand over his mouth and in ignorance and humiliation acknowledged no, I was not there. Wisdom on the other hand says yep, I was right there. There are some smart people in the world. There are some folks who know a whole lot, but Wisdom knows everything. She knows it all because she has seen it all. She's been in the world since the very beginning. How could Lady Wisdom have been around since before the beginning? Well, Lady Wisdom has been around since the beginning because Lady Wisdom is actually a personified attribute of God Himself. God is the all-wise God. God has always been the all-wise God because God doesn't change. And if God has always been wise, then Wisdom, God's Wisdom, has never not existed.
Wisdom was present at the very beginning of creation because God was there and God is wise. Now there's an age-old question that theologians have batted around for centuries about Proverbs 8. The question is does Wisdom in these verses refer to just an attribute of God or is more going on?
Does it mean more than that? Is this Wisdom actually referring to Jesus Christ? Maybe as we read the chapter earlier you started thinking that sounds a lot like Jesus. There are so many similarities that it's hard not to imagine that Wisdom as it is presented in Proverbs 8 and Jesus aren't one and the same. For example, both Wisdom and Jesus existed with God before all things. Both played a role in creation. Both descended from heaven to dwell with humanity. Both are largely rejected by humanity. Both teach heavenly wisdom. Both refer to those who listen as their children. Both lead their hearers to life and immortality.
Both offer blessings in the symbols of food and drink. In the fourth century a group of heretics sprang up who denied that Jesus Christ was eternal God. They claimed that Jesus had been created by God the Father at a specific point in history and that prior to that point he did not exist. And so this doctrine which came to be known as Arianism denied the deity of Christ and it's been a recurring heresy throughout church history. What's interesting is that the primary proof text for the Arian heresy, their favorite chapter and verse in the Bible to support the idea that Jesus Christ is a mere creature is Proverbs 8.22.
The Lord possessed me or begot me or created me at the beginning of his work. So the Arians believing that the wisdom of Proverbs 8 is referring directly to Christ make this verse the basis of the claim that Jesus is not God but a mere man. We want to be very careful with how we read and interpret scripture especially when poetry is involved as it is here in Proverbs.
I don't think the Arians make very good poets. And I must just point out that although there are a number of striking similarities between wisdom and Christ there are also some striking differences. For example, wisdom is possessed by God but Christ is God.
Wisdom witnessed creation but Christ created creation. Wisdom is a personification not a person but Christ is a real person. And so while we can and should acknowledge that there are similarities between wisdom as it is presented in Proverbs 8 and Christ we need to also acknowledge where those similarities end and not fall into the habit of reading more into scripture than is actually there. I think what we find here in Proverbs 8 is a description of wisdom that is presented to us almost as a type or an allegory of Christ much like say the sacrificial lambs in the temple foreshadowed the Messiah or the prophets, priests and kings of the Old Testament pictured who Messiah would be one day.
These types and pictures were not the Messiah but they gave Old Testament believers an accurate and meaningful understanding of who the Messiah would be. Lady Wisdom is not Christ but she is a picture of Christ and shows us how we are to relate to Christ as counselor and guide and friend. When we sit and talk with Lady Wisdom when we stop and listen to her voice and receive her instruction it is like sitting and talking with Jesus. It is like stopping to listen and learn from Christ.
Why? Because wisdom is God's attribute and when we fellowship with wisdom we fellowship with the one in whom wisdom originates. Wisdom as an attribute is infused into every facet of the created order because God is a wise God who does everything that he does with wisdom.
If you want your life to go according to God's plan, according to how the designer intended it to go, you must live your life in accordance with wisdom. If wisdom says trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding you'd be a fool to start leaning on your own understanding. Why? Because wisdom's credentials are a whole lot more trustworthy than your credentials. If wisdom says children listen to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching you'd be a fool not to listen to your parents.
Why? Because wisdom has been around since before the first parents and she knows what she's talking about. If wisdom says that true knowledge begins with fearing the Lord then you are a fool to settle for anything less than a robust reverent fear of God.
Why? Because wisdom makes the world go around and wisdom says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Well the last reason given as to why we ought to listen to wisdom is because wisdom is really a matter of life and death. Life and death in the book of Proverbs as we have already discovered is about the quality of one's living.
Ultimately the fool will physically die and experience the torment of eternal death but prior to that life in this temporal world can be characterized as a living hell so to speak if we neglect wisdom's guidance and instruction. Conversely if we heed lady wisdom, if we, verse 34, watch daily at her gates and wait beside her doors listening eagerly to the instruction she gives we will experience not just life but abundant life. Life overflowing and full of joy. Full, verse 35 says, of the favor of the Lord. Wisdom gives us all the right things and she protects us from all the wrong things.
If we love her we will understand her and heed what she says and receive the countless blessings that come from having such a perfect counselor. This chapter is really all about motivating us to love wisdom. How do you know if you love something?
It's obvious isn't it? You spend time doing what you love. You talk about what you love. You think about what you love.
You remove impediments that get in the way of your enjoyment of what you love. Do you love wisdom? If so you have an incredibly rich and fulfilling life ahead of you. Stay the course and enjoy the rich blessings of God.
If not you need to alter your course. You need to recognize that part of loving God is loving the wisdom of God. Lady wisdom is calling loud and clear so incline your heart to her voice.
Let's pray. Lord thank you for the call of wisdom. Now give us ears to hear and hearts to love her voice above the countless other voices that would distract us and tempt us and destroy us. Thank you that the redemption you offer us through your son Jesus Christ covers even our foolishness and redeems us from the path that leads to death and destruction even when we're on that path by our own choosing. So Lord incline our hearts to love what you love. Order our steps to walk in your ways. Keep us on this path until the wonderful day when we will see you face to face. And now Father, Son and Holy Spirit we entrust ourselves to you in Jesus name. Amen.
