Well, there's a certain kind of person that I've found myself more and more over the last several years
just very compelled to be around.
This type of person seems to navigate his or her life just extremely well.
This person is not free of trials and tribulations.
In fact, maybe they have more than your average person,
and yet they seem to just have this fluid ease about the way that they deal and interact with life.
It's just really compelling for me.
You know, there's been many people recently on this pulpit, and we have leadership in this church,
people that just, I want to be around because they do life in a certain way.
And what's interesting about this is it doesn't require being a certain age.
Young and old can qualify for this.
Rich and poor, really scholarly academic types,
and the simple-minded people who just kind of, you know,
maybe they're not a brilliant scholar,
but yet they can still possess this type of life that's so compelling.
All shapes and sizes of people possess this kind of life.
And we could probably describe it in any number of ways.
There's a lot of ways, resourcefulness, certain giftedness of living,
maybe according to the world more of a street smartness,
full of common sense, full of life experience.
We're compelled to be near them, aren't we?
We want to know what they have.
We want to know what their secret is to living life in a way that just seems to make things go easier, smoothly.
They roll with the punches, you could say.
We want to know what is that secret?
How can they make this crazy, chaotic thing called life seem so easy?
How can the trials and tribulations they have encountered not render them unstable,
ineffective, bitter, fearful, anxious?
Well, friends, I think the common denominator in all of these people is wisdom.
But not just any kind of wisdom, right?
There's plenty of people in the world who are great businessmen and make tons of money
because they're wise in a certain business sense of that word.
There's salesmen that can push a product with such ease and grace
that you're lining up to buy that vacuum.
You can even be a wise thief, right?
If you have enough knowledge to not get caught and to get the things that you want and steal them,
you can be wise in one sense.
But that's not the wisdom I'm talking about this morning.
I'm talking about biblical wisdom.
This wisdom we see always has to do with righteous living.
It's a from-above wisdom, as James calls it, that is first pure and peaceable, gentle, open to reason,
full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
It's a wisdom whose source is the Lord, and it's one-directional from Him to His people.
It's a wisdom that is to be received by grace.
I believe that it's this wisdom that the Bible teaches that allows God's people to navigate life well,
to live rightly before the Lord.
Now, this wisdom is the major concern of the book of Proverbs.
I invite you to open there this morning.
Let me read just the first introductory verses of chapter 1 to get us kind of a grounding for where we're headed,
and then we'll spend our time in the second chapter of Proverbs.
But this is how Solomon opens this book of wisdom.
The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.
To know wisdom and instruction.
To understand words of insight.
To receive instruction and wise dealing in righteousness, justice, and equity.
To give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth.
Let the wise hear and increase in learning.
And the one who understands obtain guidance.
To understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
So we can now flip over to chapter 2,
and let me just say that we find in the first several chapters up through chapter 9 of Proverbs,
a lot of lectures from a father to his son,
teaching wisdom, instructing his son the way to go.
So parents, I think immediately you can relate to this urgency, I imagine.
In knowing that your children are going to go out into a world that's full of disorder and disarray and sin and wickedness and brokenness.
And you feel the urgency.
You want your children to know wisdom.
You want them to know the way to go.
So that they will be upright.
So that they will live their lives well.
You can feel the desire present in this passage from this father,
concerned with his own son's well-being.
You want to see your children walking rightly with the Lord, making good decisions.
That's the emotion I think we see as we come to this text.
But it's not just for fathers to sons or mothers to daughters or parents to children.
It's not just to show us how a parent should instruct a child.
It's not simply for the young in the room.
No, this passage is here for all of God's people.
This is the emotional and urgent appeal of a heavenly father to his spiritual children.
As God's children, this is the appeal I think that God makes for us today as we come to this passage.
It's this.
Since wisdom is so valuable, you should make it your priority to acquire it in abundance.
Stockpile it for a rainy day.
There's no expiration date of wisdom.
Invest your spiritual disciplines to cultivate it in your lives.
Gift it generously to other people so that they would be blessed too by wisdom.
Again, since wisdom is so valuable,
you should make it your priority to acquire it in abundance.
So let me read this text for us and pray and then we will dive in to see what it says.
This is Proverbs chapter 2.
My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding,
yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it 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.
For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.
He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity,
every good path.
For wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
Discretion will watch over you.
Understanding will guard you,
delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
who forsake the paths of uprightness,
to walk in the ways of darkness,
who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil.
Men whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman,
from the adulteress with her smooth words,
who forsakes the companion of her youth
and forgets the covenant of her God.
For her house sinks down to death
and her paths to the departed.
None who go to her come back,
nor do they regain the paths of life.
So you will walk in the way of the good
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
For the upright will inhabit the land
and those with integrity will remain in it.
But the wicked will be cut off from the land
and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for this morning.
We're so grateful that Your Word instructs us.
Father, I pray that we would all leave here
desiring wisdom more
after what Your Word instructs us to do this morning.
God, would You feed Your people.
Graciously be with us.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
So to go through this passage,
we're really just going to follow the Father's logic
in instructing His Son.
Along the way, we're going to see
the conditions of this appeal He's making,
and then we're going to see some benefits of that,
and then we're going to see the Father's conclusion
based on what He knows to be true.
So conditions, benefits, conclusion.
The conditions we see right up front,
verses 1 to 4.
Notice all the ifs.
If you receive my words.
Verse 3, if you call out for insight.
Verse 4, if you seek it like silver.
The Father's saying,
there's effort involved in what I'm trying to tell you.
My son, you've got to put forth some work here.
I think the progression kind of goes like this.
First, there needs to just be a desire.
We should ask ourselves right up front,
do I desire wisdom?
Is it in my heart of hearts to yearn for this good thing,
this biblical wisdom that instructs me
how to live rightly before God?
The Father makes the appeal in verse 2 saying,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding.
See that?
It's listen to these instructions.
Listen to my words.
And He calls them commandments,
not because He's a mean kind of dictator father,
but He's received them from the living God.
They're God's commandments.
Through the Father to the Son.
Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
inclining your heart to understanding.
Stretch out your heart.
Desire wisdom.
And we see in verse 3 that there's a progression.
Now it's, yes, if you call out for wisdom.
Hear wisdom.
Where are you, wisdom?
Wisdom, I need you.
Raise your voice for understanding.
Oh, give me understanding.
Then it goes on even further in verse 4.
Seek it.
Right?
If you seek it like silver,
search for it as for hidden treasures.
See, wisdom is valuable.
It's like silver.
And at this point,
he's probably not saying the second best metal,
like, so then there's silver,
but then there's gold.
No, he's probably saying,
here's the most precious thing I can think of.
Seek it like that.
Seek it like silver.
It makes me think of Indiana Jones.
I've been thinking about these movies a lot this week.
You've got this,
Harrison Ford plays this archaeologist.
He's this professor at this university
where the students don't seem to be the brightest bulbs in the drawer.
And it seems like he does that
so that he can kind of sustain this side hobby of his
of seeking these artifacts.
Right?
And he's being chased by Nazis and tanks
and, you know,
all these crazy animals,
lions and these other guys with guns
and everybody wants him dead.
And he's trying to get these artifacts.
Right?
And he's even willing to face his most deepest fear.
Snakes.
There's a point where he gets lowered down
into the pit of these vipers.
He hates snakes.
He says it over and over throughout these movies.
It's kind of corny.
But he says,
I hate snakes.
But he's willing to go into a den of snakes
in order to find these religious artifacts.
That's the picture I think this proverb gives us
when we want to kind of capture
what it means to seek wisdom.
Seek it like that.
Seek to obtain it like that.
With ears.
With a heart inclined towards it.
With a mouth that cries out for it.
With arms and legs and eyes that search for it.
That's the conditions
of acquiring wisdom.
Of obtaining it.
You've got to put forth the effort.
You can't be the couch potato looking for it.
I feel it right, young people in the room,
to mention this.
That you're in a really good time of your life
to determine
to seek this out.
I think there's many of us
who would be able to say
with a hint of sorrow
that I wish I would have found wisdom sooner.
I wish I wouldn't have waited so long
to get right with this.
Don't let it slip by.
You've got it right before you.
You're in a great church.
You've got good parents.
You've got a lot of people that love you.
This is instruction for you.
So now let me keep moving us down here.
We come to verse 5
and we see the first of three major benefits
of seeking wisdom.
If you seek it,
if you incline it,
you're not understanding.
If you call out,
verse 5,
then
you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
Well,
I thought we were just talking about wisdom.
Where's this knowledge of God stuff coming from?
Where's this fear of the Lord coming from?
What I find interesting here is
that if you're not seeking wisdom
in the right place,
you're never going to find it.
That's what this says.
You can't go to the world.
You can't turn on the news.
You're not going to search Wikipedia
and find the wisdom
that the Bible wants people to have.
You have to go to the source.
See that in verse 6?
For the Lord gives wisdom.
Benefit number one,
theological benefit.
God gives wisdom
to people who seek after it.
Real wisdom.
Lifelong wisdom.
Righteousness.
And justice and equity.
Good wisdom.
So you see that obtaining wisdom
is a spiritual endeavor.
You cannot find it apart from God
no matter how much you want,
no matter how much science
may tell you otherwise.
You cannot find true wisdom
apart from God.
I find it so amazing.
We see what this tells us here about God.
Here's the benefit.
If you seek wisdom,
you'll learn the fear of the Lord
and then look who God is in this.
It's glorious.
Verses 6 through 8.
For the Lord gives wisdom.
From His mouth come knowledge
and understanding.
He stores up sound wisdom
for the upright.
He is a shield
for those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice,
watching over the way
of His saints.
This is a really good God.
He really loves His people.
To do all of that
for those that incline their ear
to wisdom,
who search it out.
Friends, this is a God
worth worshiping,
devoting our lives to.
He's glorious.
He's really, really good.
I find it helpful
to imagine just for the briefest moment
the alternative
if God did not impart wisdom.
Where would we turn?
There's no wisdom trees
in our backyard.
We can't buy it
at the local 7-Eleven.
The old dead philosopher
isn't going to tell you
how to get it.
God must give wisdom.
The biblical wisdom
that leads to right living,
God alone provides.
I want to help us
with a commentator
who has defined
this fear of the Lord.
I think it's just so helpful.
This is what we're talking about
in verse 5
when it says,
understand the fear of the Lord.
He writes this,
the fear of the Lord
is the reverent confession
and reverential acknowledgement.
Here's the content of that.
That Yahweh
is the creator
and sustainer
of all life
and the true giver
of wisdom.
It's a confession
and acknowledgement
that God has wisdom
and he gives it.
He's the only one.
He goes on,
this fundamental confession
anchors the possibility
of coming to understand
all other elements of wisdom
that accrue
and to enjoy the blessings
that accrue from its possession.
So if you don't fear the Lord,
if you don't confess him
as the majestic creator
of all things,
forget about it.
You're not going to find wisdom.
Only the sustainer of life
knows all things
and can give it.
knowledge of God
is kind of similar to that.
It's not simply
an intellectual knowledge
that is being talked about
in verse 6 here.
Again,
it's this personal intimacy,
this relational knowledge
that leads again
to right living,
excuse me,
right living,
carrying out God's desires
for our lives.
There's one final benefit
that we see here
in 12 to 19.
Kind of got dual figures in it,
but it's all under this heading
from verse 12,
delivering you from
the way of evil.
Oh, excuse me,
I skipped over something.
Back up.
Forget everything I just said there.
Second benefit.
See in verse 9,
it's a practical benefit
for obtaining wisdom.
If you're seeking wisdom,
verse 9,
then you will understand
righteousness
and justice
and equity
every good path.
I don't know about you,
but life's hard.
Life's confusing.
Life's messy.
I need something
that's going to get me
to understand
every good path,
how to navigate
the complexities
of this life.
I need it.
I desperately need it.
If we're honest,
we all do.
That's what it says
if you seek wisdom,
if you prioritize
obtaining it in abundance,
you will understand
righteousness
and justice
and equity
every good path.
Why is that?
Why will pursuing wisdom
lead to understanding
every morally good path?
Again,
just like in the theological benefit,
we have our answer
in what follows
verses 10 and 11,
because wisdom
will come into your heart.
Knowledge will be pleasant
to your soul.
Discretion will watch over you.
Understanding will guard you.
That's why you'll understand
every good path,
because you'll have wisdom.
It'll be in your heart.
And knowledge,
that'll be pleasant too.
This seems to me
to be conversion language.
Language that's speaking
of a spiritual awakening
wrought by God.
I don't know how wisdom
will enter my heart
unless God,
the source of wisdom,
puts it there.
And I don't know
how knowledge of Him
and His good purposes
and His righteousness
will ever happen
unless He changes my heart
to desire those things to.
And I love what it says
after that.
I love it.
Discretion will watch over you.
Understanding will guard you.
Did you see that there's a connection
with verse 8?
We see God as a shield
and He's guarding
the paths of justice.
He's watching over the way
of His saints.
And then verse 11,
discretion will watch over you.
Understanding will guard you.
See, the writer here
makes no qualms
about saying,
God will guard you
and wisdom will guard you.
Because ultimately,
they're coming from
the same origin.
It's the same source.
God gives wisdom.
God guards.
He's making a very close connection.
You can't have
this practical benefit
of wisdom
without the foundational
and supreme theological benefit.
If you don't have God,
again,
you can't have morality.
You're not going to know justice
unless God instructs you in justice.
These benefits are closely linked.
You can't divorce them
from each other
and expect that you're
on the path of living
and on the way of wisdom.
So now,
now benefit 3
in verses 12 to 19.
It's the benefit of deliverance.
It's actually,
it really butts up against
verse 9
and this every good path
because not only is that
in a positive light
but then this,
this other benefit,
this delivering you
in verse 12
and you see that
same thing again
in verse 16.
So you'll be delivered.
The benefit of wisdom
is that
you'll be saved
from really bad,
destructive people
in the way of evil.
I remember
a men's meeting
at Crossway
a few years back
where the speaker
said these words
and they've stuck with me
because I think
they're sobering reality
of something
that's really,
really true.
He said this
almost at the outset.
You're only
one bad decision
away from
ruining your life.
It's hard to
wrap my mind
around that
and I don't want
to accept that
maybe sometimes
but
but these verses
here
they seem to
they caution
us
against something
that we need
to really
take heed of.
The benefit
of deliverance.
You see again
this dual purpose
there's evil men
in verses 12 to 15
and then you've got
this strange woman
in 16 through 19.
These evil men
notice that the first thing
said about them
is they're talking too
but their speech
is perverted.
It's not the speech
of good words
and insight
it's perversion.
These men go from
speaking a certain way
to acting a certain way.
They reject
paths of righteousness
to walk in ways
of darkness.
That's bizarre to me.
If you give me
the choice
between a lighted path
that has
no trip hazards
that has a
cleanly swept
ground
or you
give me a path
that's full of
darkness
and trip hazards
and
boogeymen
who go
thumping the night
I'm taking
the lighted path.
These guys
reject it.
They reject it.
They're morally
reprehensible
in their speaking.
They forsake wisdom.
They choose folly.
And by choosing
the paths of folly
they become folly.
See that
in verse 15?
Their paths
are crooked
and they themselves
then are devious.
They're bent
themselves
because they choose
bent paths.
It's all rooted
in a bad heart.
They've chosen
folly
and they rejoice
and shout joyfully
to do evil.
New Testament
I think would
call them
the people
the enemies
of the cross of Christ
in Philippians 3
where Paul says
that their God
is their bellies
they glory in their shame
and they have hearts
and minds
set on earthly things.
Same category
of people.
So I think it's
for this reason
that
wisdom has to
come into our hearts
to deliver us
from men like this.
There's many paths
of evil
but there's one way
of evil.
It's a way
that we cannot
turn to.
I think it's obvious
that we can
not take too much
time to reflect
and come up
with any number
of people
and philosophies
in this world
of ours
that endorse
this type of living
rejecting paths
of uprightness
for darkness.
The Father's appeal
is
Son,
stay away
from those.
And we see
similarly now
this strange woman
who appears
in 16 to 19
ESV says
forbidden
and adulterous.
You can see
probably there's
some footnotes
strange foreign woman.
Why is she strange?
What's foreign
about this woman?
Is it because
she's
Syrian
and not
an Israelite?
I don't think
that that's
what it's
speaking about
but morally
foreign.
She's
ethically
strange.
She in the same
way has
a speech
but her words
are not
perverted.
They're smooth.
They're flattering.
They're slick.
They make ears
feel nice.
This word
smooth
I find interesting.
It's taken
from the same
word that's
used to describe
the five stones
that David
picked out
of the brook
to sling
at Goliath.
Really good
that stones
are aerodynamic
and slick
and smooth.
Really bad
when people
have words
that are smooth.
They're deceitful.
They're ruinous.
Notice in verse 17
that this woman
is forsaking
the companion
of her youth.
Her spouse.
she's forgetting
the covenant
of her God.
She made vows
to her husband
in front of
God
and she's
forsaking them
in order to
welcome
this
adulterous
relationship.
But notice
her end
and notice
the end
of those
who go
with her.
For her house
sinks down
to death
and her paths
to the departed.
None who go
to her
come back
nor do they
regain the paths
of life.
It's a scary
situation
friends.
It's a way
of evil
that has
men and women
on it
who are
interested
in
choosing ways
that reject
God's goodness
His righteousness.
People who
at times
may be a lot
more compelling
to associate
with than we
may admit.
Avoid it.
wisdom
delivers you
from these
people.
Wisdom
delivers you
from the
way of
evil.
I think
it's helpful
in talking
about this
adulterous
briefly to
remind us
all
of Jesus'
words
in the
Gospel of
Matthew.
He says
that if you
even look
with lust
in your
heart,
you set
your eyes
on a
woman with
lust
in your
heart,
you've
already
committed
adultery.
First and
foremost,
it's a
hard issue.
Wisdom
delivers
from the
flattery
and the
seduction
of adultery.
So basically
in these
benefits,
we've seen
the progress,
the essence
of this
is get
wisdom
so you'll
know every
good path
so that
you'll be
saved from
evil.
Finally,
we look
at the
summary of
the Father's
instruction,
verses 20
to 22.
Let me
just read
these for
us.
So you
will walk
in the
way of
the good
and keep
to the
paths
of the
righteous.
For the
upright will
inhabit the
land and
those with
integrity
will remain
in it,
but the
wicked will
be cut
off from
the land
and the
treacherous
will be
rooted
out of
it.
There's
two ways
displayed here.
Only two.
The way
of moral
uprightness,
integrity,
wisdom,
the way
of wickedness
and treachery
and folly.
Proverbs
is not
ultimately
concerned about
who's going
to live
and who's
going to
be thrown
out.
I don't
believe.
It's much
more concerned
about who
will live
and who
will die.
I think
that's what
we see here
in verses
21 and
22.
The
righteous,
the
upright,
they'll
live.
The
wicked,
treacherous,
they'll be
cut off and
they'll be
rooted out.
They will
die.
That's why
wisdom
ultimately is
so important
because it's
a life and
death
situation
that we
face.
So why
seek wisdom
and devote
the effort
to it?
Our lives
are at stake.
Our lives
are at stake.
So we've
looked at
this father's
appeal to
his son for
wisdom.
It's not
son get
wisdom.
It's not
club him over
the head and
dumb kid get
wisdom already.
It's an
appeal, it's a
persuasive
argument.
He says,
you've got to
put forth
effort, you've
got to go get
wisdom my
son.
You hear the
emotion, the
urgency in my
voice.
You see the
benefits of
wisdom.
You see what
comes your way
when you seek
it and you find
the fear of the
Lord and you
know every good
path and you're
delivered from
this evil
and wickedness.
Friends,
wisdom is
priceless.
We cannot
esteem it too
highly.
We cannot
gather too
much of it.
It's not
going to weigh
us down.
It's going to
lighten us.
It's going to
free us to
live life well.
So let me
encourage you,
prioritize it
well.
Prioritize your
life so that you
might acquire
wisdom in
abundance.
It's that
valuable.
It deserves
that much of
our thinking
and our
lives.
I just have
three brief
points of
application to
close here.
First, I
realize that
there may be
some in this
room who do
not have a
relationship with
this God who
gives wisdom.
And maybe
you've been
hearing this talk
on wisdom and
you are compelled
to say, well,
wisdom sounds
pretty good.
My life doesn't
seem to work
out very often
and I don't
know how to
navigate things
and I seem
to be walking
this path with
evil men or
with this strange
woman.
Let me encourage
you then, my
friend.
Go to the
source of
wisdom.
Humble yourself
to fear the
Lord.
He will give
you a new
life, a new
heart.
New hope and
an ability to
live your life
with wisdom.
That's what
Jesus did when
He hung on the
cross.
He secured
wisdom for
His people.
He's good.
He's so good.
You can trust
Him with
everything and
you can bank
on the fact
that if you
come to Him
and you bow
your knee to
Him, He will
give you
wisdom.
You will know
how to navigate
this life and
you will be
welcomed into
the next.
with open
arms.
For those of
us brothers and
sisters in this
room, let me
just ask you
this question.
Will you
today prioritize
or reprioritize
the obtaining of
wisdom and
abundance?
this?
It's for the
sake of your
families,
marriages,
friends,
your coworkers,
your neighbors,
those people that
you haven't even
met yet.
For the sake of
the Lord,
tells you how to
live rightly
before Him
and before man.
Will you
prioritize it
today?
That's what this
text persuades us
to do.
Just one final
practical way that
I think we can do
that this morning.
I've been looking
forward to for a
while now the
resuming of our
sermon series on
the Sermon on the
Mount.
We have in this
scripture from
Matthew 5 through
7 the very
words of wisdom
incarnate.
Jesus tells us
how to live
rightly as
kingdom citizens.
And when we get
back there,
friends,
let's together
purpose to
listen to His
words,
to hang on
them,
to find life
in them.
He tells us
that the one who
obeys Him,
who listens to
His commands,
is the one who
builds his house
on a rock.
The one who
forsakes it
is build his
house on sand.
There's wisdom,
there's folly.
Jesus has the
words of wisdom.
Embrace them
because they have
life.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father,
we thank You
for so kind
of a text
that would
call us
to love
and adore
and pursue
wisdom
with all of
our lives.
And we thank
You that You
didn't just
command us,
but You laid
out these
benefits for
us and You
told us what
ultimately is at
stake.
God, for each
of us,
would You grow
our desire for
wisdom more
and more
for a lifetime.
Particularly,
Lord, those
young people
who have an
opportunity to
live most of
their lives
from here on
out with
wisdom.
God, would You
just make it
possible to
acquire wisdom
from Your
mouth.
Give us
understanding,
we pray.
In Jesus'
name, amen.
Amen.