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ESPONDING TO WISDOM (1)The Consequences of Not Heeding the Voice of Wisdom
In this section of Proverbs, wisdom is personified as a woman crying out to be heard. It’s interesting that the author, Solomon, doesn’t just present wisdom as a precept or a principle to be followed, but as a person to be obeyed. Who is this person? This person finds fulfillment in Christ. Christ is the wisdom of God, as Proverbs 8 makes clear. Jesus himself claimed to be wisdom or truth incarnate (Jn. 14:6). When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus could have responded, “You’re lookin’ at it, buddy.” I’m emphasizing this aspect of wisdom, so we understand that to ignore or reject the voice of wisdom is to ignore or reject God himself—this is personal.
Wisdom is eager to be heard. “Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks” (Pro. 1:20-21). Markets are noisy places, due to all the commerce and commotion of the crowds. Therefore, if you wanted to be heard you had no choice but to raise your voice. So wisdom does, because she wants to be heard by everyone. To get into a walled city like Jerusalem you had to enter through the city gates. This is where wisdom positions herself so that she can be heard by all the people as they pass through the gates.
As the crowds pass through the gates wisdom cries aloud, “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?” (vs. 22). The repeated “How long…How long?” indicates that wisdom is grow-ing impatient. And do you know what the answer to the “How long?” question is? It is until they are ready to repent. Until that time they will continue to love being simple, to delight in scoffing, to hate know-ledge—which is to say they will continue to mock God. But God is not mocked, a man reaps what he sows (Gal. 6:7).
You might be wondering, “Why would anybody hate know-ledge?” The short answer is because they’re a fool, but the problem is not one of intelligence, it’s one of morality. Fallen men have a pro-found distaste for knowledge about God and his truth, since it rebukes them, and admonishes them to leave behind their self-indulgent life of sin. “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (Jn. 3:19-20).
Excuses, like claiming not to know whether or not God really exists, will not suffice on the day of judgment. Creation itself is an adequate testimony to God’s eternal power and divine nature. “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). The apostle Paul goes on to tell how people respond to God, who they really do know is out there (atheists are just those “who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth”—Rom. 1:18): “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…” (vv. 21-23). Observe carefully how willful rejection of the truth about God affects one’s heart and mind. This is the natural consequence (or supernatural consequence) of discarding the truth of God.
As if becoming a fool wasn’t bad enough, God also gave them up “to do what ought not to be done” (vs. 28). “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their flesh to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (vv. 24-25). Exchanging the truth about God for a lie leads to sinful and wicked behavior. In case you missed the point, Paul basically repeats himself, using homosexuality as an example: “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with other men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (vv. 26-27). I hear Christians say, “God is going to judge homosexuals for their behavior.” This is true, but it misses the point of Romans chapter one, which is even more fundamental: Homosexuality, and other sins (see vv. 29-31), is itself the judgment of God (We’ll deal with this a little further under the subheading: Under the Lord’s Wrath, in relation to Pro. 22:14).
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ESPONDING TO WISDOM (2)Wisdom Can Bring Revival or Judgment, Life or Death
Wisdom says—if I can paraphrase—“How long will you fool continue to wallow in the muck and mire of your sin?” If the answer is just a little longer, be fully cognizant that judgment, which you are already under, could get even worse. You could go from darkness to even greater darkness. In 2 Thessalonians 2:10 Paul tells the believers about “those who are perishing, because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.” He then continues, “Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (vv. 11-12).
Would God actually send a delusion to people for refusing to love the truth? He has in the past. The prophet Micaiah tells about his vision of heaven that would result in King Ahab’s death. “I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And the LORD said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so’” (1 Kgs. 22:19-22). Sure enough, Ahab listens to the false prophets and was killed in battle. Responding to wisdom is not a game; God says in essence, “You don’t want the truth. Fine, then I’ll send you lies and delusions that will result in your own destruction.”
Now let’s look at the flip side. Wisdom promises, “If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you” (Pro. 1:23). This is nothing less than a promise for personal revival. If you respond to reproof with repentance, God will pour out his Spirit and make his words known to you. I believe “spirit” should be spelled with a capital S, because it seems to refer to the Holy Spirit. How is God’s word made known to us? Obviously it’s through his Spirit. As I said, this is a reference to revival, which is seen in God promising not just to give us a little trickle of his Spirit, but to pour out his Spirit. This should remind us of the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 where Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled and God poured out his Spirit. This is what is being promised in Proverbs. And corresponding to this is the promise of God to make his word known to us. God’s Spirit and God’s word work in tandem. Following the out-pouring of the Spirit at Pentecost was an incredible response to the word. “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41).
Our hearts should leap when we hear wisdom say, “I will make my words known to you.” I fear that too many of God’s people aren’t excited by this statement, because they fail to see how crucial the word of God is to their lives. It’s simple, when God wants to bless a people, he reveals his word to them. Conversely, when he wants to curse a people, or judge them, there is a famine of hearing the words of God (Amos 8:11-12). Wisdom and truth are essential to the Christian life. If we want to live freely, that comes by the truth. Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Jn. 8:31-32). Do you want to grow in sanctification and Christ-likeness? Jesus prayed for us, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (Jn. 17:17). Martin Luther said, “The soul can do without all things except the Word of God,” because he was in no doubt about the blessings that it brings.
However, always remember that the promise of wisdom cuts both ways. “Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you” (Pro. 24-26). This is not a jovial laugh; this is the laugh of vindication (similar to Ps. 2:4).
Imagine that the calamity has come. And it can come in a thou-sand different ways—a hurricane, a disease, a fire, a lost job. “Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me dili-gently but not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, would have none of my counsel and de-spised my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way” (Pro. 1:28-31). Now, at last, these scoffers are ready to seek wisdom, but it’s too late. Responding to wisdom is an urgent requirement. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 4:6).
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ESPONDING TO WISDOM (3)Under the Lord’s Wrath
In my devotional reading years ago, I was perplexed by this proverb: “The mouth of an adulteress is a deep pit; he who is under the LORD’S wrath will fall into it” (Prov. 22:14, NIV). This perplexing proverb shows that responding to wisdom when facing a temptation is a little more complex than we may have thought at first.
The first half of this proverb is pretty straightforward. The mouth of the adulteress, most likely, refers to her kisses and seductive words (Prov. 7:5-27). By describing her mouth as a deep pit (see also Prov. 23:27) we are warned of the danger associated with her kisses and words. There are consequences, which are extremely difficult to recover from for those enticed. It will not be easy to escape this pit – it is deep. This understanding is fairly obvious.
However, the way the second half of the proverb was linked to the first half made me stop and think. I expected the author to say something like: “He who falls into it will be under the LORD’S wrath.” The message, then, would be clear: “Beware of the adulteress, with her persuasive words, and stay as far away from her as you possibly can, because if she seduces you God will punish you.” And this is pre-cisely the message we find in many proverbs. “Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house…For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths” (Prov. 5:8, 21). “Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread…So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; none who touches her will go unpunished” (Prov. 6:25-26, 29). This, however, is not the specific lesson of Proverbs 22:14.
When it comes to thinking about the wrath of God, this proverb causes us to take one or two steps back from our usual way of thinking about the wrath of God. For example, we all know that the Bible speaks of “the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). This wrath which was future for the Thessalonians (I believe it came in A.D. 70) encouraged godly living. Likewise, we should live in light of the final judgment (Rev. 20:11-15), but this is not the wrath described in our proverb.
There is also a wrath that takes place in this life. We come under the judgment of the Lord when we sin. Some of the Corinthians faced this judgment, when they partook of the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner. “That is why,” Paul told them, “many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor. 11:30). Paul went on to say, “But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world” (vs. 32). This is the wrath I expected to find in Proverbs 22:14, but didn’t.
To understand the wrath of Proverbs 22:14, we must take one more step back, because it is a wrath that comes before the final wrath, and even before the wrath that is the result of sin in this life. It is the wrath that takes place prior to the sin, and, in fact, leads to the sin itself. It is a biblical and powerful truth that sin not only leads to the wrath of God, but also is the result of already being under the wrath of God. To paraphrase Matthew Henry, it is the wrath of God leaving people to themselves to enter into temptation after he has removed the bridle of his restraining grace.
We see this wrath in Romans 1:18, which “is (present tense) revealed” against those who reject the truth about God with the result being that “God gave them up” (this phrase is found three times, Rom. 1:24, 26, 28) “in the lust of their hearts…to dishonorable passions…to a debased mind.” Similarly, the second half of Proverbs 22:14 reads, “he who is (presently) under the LORD’S wrath will (when the temptation comes) fall into it.” Sexual sin, itself, is evidence that a person was already under the LORD’S wrath.
This same sequence is found in Ecclesiastes 7:26: “I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare” (NIV). If you escape, you prove that you were already pleasing God. If you are ensnared, you prove that you were already a sinner. To some extent, our responses to wisdom in the midst of temptation are determined before the temptation comes.
The implications here are staggering and soul-searching. Many who are presently living in sin need to realize that God’s wrath is not only further down the road, but is also already upon them. The wrath of God described in our proverb is often overlooked, but it shouldn’t be. It reminds us that we are in desperate need of the bridle of God’s restraining grace every moment of every day.
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