The Lord of Wisdom | Proverbs 9
Brian Hedges | August 18, 2024
It’s good to be back with you after a couple of weeks of sickness. I actually feel a lot better than I sound, but I had an upper respiratory infection that knocked me out for two weeks, and this morning we’re going to try to get through the message with just half a voice. I sound a little more like a braying donkey than I do a preacher, but the Lord has spoken through a donkey before, so the Lord can speak to us this morning through his word.
Let’s turn in our Bibles to Proverbs 9. Today is going to be the final message in this summer series “How to Make Life Work: Wisdom from Proverbs.” I should say how grateful I am for Brad and Phil, who both did some pinch-hitting at the last minute to step in and preach the last several messages in this series. Today’s the final one, and we’re going to be in Proverbs 9, and then of course bring in some other passages as well. But I want to begin by reading this full chapter, eighteen verses. Proverbs 9, beginning in verse 1.
“Wisdom has built her house;
she has set up its seven pillars.
She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.
She has sent out her servants, and she calls
from the highest point of the city,
‘Let all who are simple come to my house!’
To those who have no sense she says,
‘Come, eat my food
and drink the wine I have mixed.
Leave your simple ways and you will live;
walk in the way of insight.’
“Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults;
whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse.
Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you;
rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still;
teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.”
Notice especially verse 10:
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
For through wisdom your days will be many,
and years will be added to your life.
If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you;
if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer.
“Folly is an unruly woman;
she is simple and knows nothing.
She sits at the door of her house,
on a seat at the highest point of the city,
calling out to those who pass by,
who go straight on their way,
‘Let all who are simple come to my house!’
To those who have no sense she says,
‘Stolen water is sweet;
food eaten in secret is delicious!’
But little do they know that the dead are there,
that her guests are deep in the realm of the dead.”
This is God’s word.
This morning it’s a simple message. I want us to see three things:
1. The Invitation of Wisdom
2. The Lord of Wisdom
3. The Life of Wisdom
I really want to focus on that second point, the Lord of wisdom, and see how Proverbs 9:10 opens a window into the doctrine of God himself as it is revealed in this book of Proverbs, and then how that leads us to a certain kind of life, a life of wisdom.
1. The Invitation of Wisdom
Let’s begin with this invitation. You see this in the first six verses. You’ll notice here that wisdom is personified as a woman. We’ve called her Lady Wisdom or Woman Wisdom. “Wisdom has built her house; she has set up its seven pillars. She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table.”
Wisdom here is personified as this woman, Lady Wisdom, who is preparing a banquet and is inviting the sinful or the naive to this banquet with a promise. It’s a promise of life and of insight for those who come.
We’ve seen this in this series already. We saw it in Proverbs 8 a couple of weeks ago, where wisdom, again, is personified as a woman and is seen to be right there at the side of God in creation as the very order and fabric of creation is laid, and wisdom is God’s companion.
Here again we have personified Wisdom speaking, speaking to the young, speaking to the simple, speaking to the naive with an invitation: “Come to this feast that I have prepared.” The feast, of course, is a metaphor. It’s a word picture that is inviting the simple and young to come and learn from Wisdom, learn Wisdom’s teaching. The promise is this promise of life and of insight.
There’s a contrast here with another woman. This woman is Folly, in Proverbs 9:13. Folly is an unruly woman. She is simple and knows nothing, and she’s also setting a banquet. She’s also inviting people to a feast. She says, “Let all those who are simple come to my house,” and to those who have no sense she says, “Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious.” But this is a deceptive meal, and notice that the end is described in verse 18: “Little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are deep in the realm of the dead.”
This is the contrast that we see throughout Proverbs, the contrast between wisdom and folly, these two voices that are calling out to us, beckoning us to come and eat of their feasts. But one leads to life, the other leads to death. It’s the familiar “two ways” theology that we’ve seen again and again in this series.
At the center of this call of wisdom is this reminder in Proverbs 9:10 that it is the fear of the Lord that’s beginning of wisdom, “and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
I think it’s important for us to understand here that a key part of Hebrew wisdom literature, which Proverbs is, is that it’s seeking to teach the young how the world works. It’s filled with this proverbial, practical advice that’s based on observations about everyday life while inviting its readers to embrace its worldview; that is, wisdom which is rooted in God’s revelation of himself and his moral will to Israel.
I’m just trying to remind us here of what this literature is. It’s wisdom literature that’s practical in its orientation, but it’s a kind of practicality that is rooted in a robust theology of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
Throughout this series we’ve tried to focus on the practical elements. After all, this series has been called “How to Make Life Work.” If you’ve been here through the series you’ve heard the messages; we’ve talked about things like parenting and marriage, we’ve talked about friendship, we’ve talked about our words, our work, our emotions, our use of money. We’ve talked about guidance, making decisions.
Some of you have loved this. You’ve loved the practical focus: “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to live.” And a few of you, perhaps, have wondered, “Where’s the theology?” The answer to that question is this sermon.
In this sermon, I want you to see that there is a theology undergirding all of this practical, proverbial advice. In the words of Tremper Longman, an Old Testament scholar who’s done great work on Proverbs,
“The entire book is drenched in theology, and proverbial observation becomes a thermometer of one’s relationship with Woman Wisdom; that is, the wisdom of Yahweh personified as a woman. It’s a command or admonition that is implicitly from the woman herself, and therefore ultimately from God himself.”
But this whole book is drenched in theology. There is a doctrine of God, there is a worldview here that is presenting to us a certain kind of God, and it’s in fearing this God and in knowing this God that we find wisdom and that we find understanding.
I think it would be a huge mistake to spend three months in Proverbs and not walk away with a clear sense of what Proverbs teaches us about God himself. I want you to hear this this morning. The invitation to wisdom is not only a practical invitation to make better choices in life—it includes that—but it is rooted in something much deeper, the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of the Holy One. Without that there is no wisdom. So the invitation of wisdom this morning is the invitation to know God. It’s the invitation to fear the Lord. It’s the invitation to enter into the ways of life that come only by knowing the true and the living God.
2. The Lord of Wisdom
Who is that God? That’s the question. Who is the God, the Lord of wisdom as he is revealed in Proverbs?
Again, Proverbs 9:10. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
This is what I did this week: I went through Proverbs reading and in some ways skimming through this book, trying to note every single mention of the Lord. What does this book teach us about the Lord? Who is the Lord in Proverbs?
I think we can summarize the many things that are said about the Lord in these four aspects of his character.
The first thing to note is that the Lord is Yahweh. Of the about one hundred times that the Lord is mentioned in Proverbs, probably 90 percent of those use the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh. So this revelation of God in Hebrew wisdom literature is rooted in this covenant name of God. This is Yahweh, the Lord of Israel. There are four things that are revealed about this character.
(1) First of all, he is the creator. The Lord is the creator. You see it in Proverbs 3:19-20.
“By wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations,
by understanding he set the heavens in place;
by his knowledge the watery depths were divided,
and the clouds let drop the dew.”
It’s a reminder, just as we have in Proverbs 8, that the Lord is the creator, he is the maker of all things, and he made the world with wisdom. This literature is oriented to the word as God created it.
In fact, one of the things wisdom literature is trying to do is show us the implicit order in the world that God has made. He’s reminding us that there is a God who made everything and who reigns over all things.
There are many of these reminders. Here’s just one more, Proverbs 22:2. “Rich and poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all.”
So the Lord is seen here as the creator. “We believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” Proverbs reveals this God, the creator God, to us. He is the Lord of wisdom who created the world in wisdom. He’s the maker of all things. That’s foundational.
(2) Secondly, the Lord of wisdom is the ruler; that is, the king. He is the sovereign God who not only made all things but who also reigns over all things. God is not like the god of the deists, who built a clock, wound it up, and then left it to run by itself. He is a God who is intimately involved in his creation. Let me show you this in a number of different texts.
There are texts about the Lord’s purposes. Proverbs 19:21: “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” God is seen to be a God with purpose, with will, with a plan, and he’s working out that plan.
We also see this in the Lord’s observation of all things. He is the omniscient God, the God who knows all things, who observes our ways. Proverbs 15:3: “The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.” There’s the omniscience of God.
This is the motivation for fleeing from adultery in Proverbs 5:21: “For your ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all your paths.”
We also see the Lord reign in his sovereignty, and his sovereignty extends from the smallest details of life to the largest, most significant details. For example, the smallest. Proverbs 16:33: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” This is sort of like the rolling of a die. What this proverbs is saying is that things that seem to be left up to random chance to us are actually governed by the will of God. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” The Lord governs these things. There’s no chance in God’s universe. Nothing is random in God’s universe. God reigns.
He also reigns over the large things—kings and kingdoms. Proverbs 21:1: “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.”
Then we see in Proverbs 21:30-31 that no plan can succeed against the Lord.
“There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan
that can succeed against the Lord.
“The horse is made ready for the day of battle,
but victory rests with the Lord.”
The Lord is the one who reigns, and human beings may make their plans and form their schemes and try as they will to run their lives, and while our decisions do have consequences, there’s nothing we can do that can supersede the sovereign will of God. That’s the teaching of this book.
Let me read you a couple of paragraphs from the wonderful exposition of Proverbs by David Adkinson. This is in a series called The Bible Speaks Today. This may be my favorite series of commentaries, suitable I think for any person to read. David Adkinson summarizes the teaching of this middle section of Proverbs, Proverbs 16-21. Notice how he pulls so many things together. He says,
“The opening section of chapter 16 focuses on the Lord, with its summary in verse nine: ‘In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.’ These verses are almost all Yahweh proverbs. They stress God’s sovereignty over human affairs (16:1). He understands human motives (16:2) and rewards those who commit to him whatever they do (16:3). The whole of creation, even the wicked, are governed by God’s purposes (16:4). He will punish the proud (16:5) but turns away his punishment from those who are loving and faithful (16:6). He gives them peace (16:7). How much better, then, to live righteously (16:8) under the providential eye of God (16:9)! There is blessing for the one who trusts in the Lord (16:20), in whose hands are the ultimate decisions of life (16:33). Such trust offers a place of safety in an uncertain world.”
Some of you need to hear that right now. The world feels uncertain to you. Maybe it’s large circumstances, maybe it’s small circumstances in your life, maybe it’s turmoil in the nation, or maybe it’s the geopolitical turmoil in the whole world, or maybe it’s just that your life is falling apart right now. What you need to know is that there’s a place of safety in the God who reigns.
“The name of Yahweh is a strong tower which provides safety for those who seek its protection (18:19). It is the Lord’s purposes which prevail (19:21), for all human faculties are the gift and creation of God (20:12) and all human steps are ordered by his providence (20:24). His light searches out the human heart (20:27) and weighs it (21:2). Not even the king is exempt (21:1). No wonder that the highest value is to do what is right and just (21:3). There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord (21:30). Even in battle, although we can get the horse ready, victory rests with the Lord (21:31). [Notice this last sentence.] Every aspect of life is thus brought into touch with the faith that the Lord is Yahweh.”
That’s what Proverbs is trying to teach us. It’s not just trying to teach us how to have a better marriage or how to use our money more wisely or how to be more successful at work, although all those things are important. But Proverbs is teaching us that all of life is meant to come in touch with the faith of those who believe that Yahweh is the Lord. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” This Lord is the creator and he is the sovereign ruler.
(3) Number three: he is also the judge. This Lord is the judge of all men and of all things. One of the emphases of Proverbs—this was astounding to me as I was reading through it this week—is on the Lord’s justice and his disposition towards righteousness and wickedness. I’ll show you this in several texts.
Proverbs 24:11-12 says,
“Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?”
Okay, right there you have this principle of retribution, that the Lord repays everyone according to their deeds. This is something taught in both the Old Testament and New Testament. Of course, it creates something of a crisis for us, doesn’t it, when we recognize that we ourselves are guilty of wicked deeds. We’ll see the solution to that in just a moment. But the Lord the repays everyone according to what they have done. He is a God of justice, and he weighs the heart.
Look at Proverbs 29:26. “Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the Lord that one gets justice.” Justice comes from the Lord, who is the judge. He is the just one. He created the world, he rules the world, and he rules the world according to his own righteous character and moral law that is the order in the very fabric of creation. God created this world with right and wrong, and he rules according to that standard.
This is what astounded me, is how many times Proverbs emphasizes what the Lord hates. Have you ever heard a sermon on the hatred of God? Proverbs 6:16-19 says,
“There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”
Proverbs says the Lord hates those things.
Or take Proverbs 15:8-9.
“The Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked,
but the prayer of the upright pleases him.
“The Lord detests the way of the wicked,
but he loves those who pursue righteousness.”
If you keep reading Proverbs—these are not all on the screen, but Proverbs says about twelve times that the Lord detests certain things. He detests the perverse (3:32), he detests dishonest scales, weights, and measures (11:1, 20:10, 23:3). He detests lying lips (12:22). He detests the thoughts of the wicked (15:26), the proud in heart (16:5), the sacrifice of the wicked (21:27), and he detests those who acquit the guilty and condemn the innocent (17:15).
This Lord, this God who is the judge, who is just in all of his ways, who detests evil, is also the Lord who tests our hearts. Proverbs 17:3: “The crucible is for silver and the furnace is for gold, but the Lord tests the heart.”
This is one reason, I think, why Proverbs lays so much emphasis on the consequences of our actions, the consequences of our choices. Scholars of Proverbs—Old Testament scholars—talk about this in a couple of different ways. They talk about the deed-destiny sequence: certain deeds lead to a certain destiny. Or the character-consequence pattern: a certain kind of character leads to a certain consequence. You and I are most familiar with this as the familiar law of sowing and reaping, again, stated in both Old Testament and New Testament. We reap what we sow. Proverbs 22:8 says, “Whoever sows injustice reaps calamity, and the rod they wield in fury will be broken.”
Again, this is part of the moral fabric by which God has woven together his world. He rules the world with justice, and as the judge, he has made it so that wrong choices, evil choices, sinful choices will lead to certain consequences.
I think it’s appropriate for us to pause for a minute and to recognize that this is one reason why our choices in our individual, everyday lives matter so much, because the choices you’re making today are forming the character you’ll have tomorrow, that will lead you to a certain destiny.
C.S. Lewis put it like this in Mere Christianity. He said,
“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which a few months later you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.”
Our little choices matter.
Lewis illustrates this wonderfully in his fictional book The Great Divorce. I’ve quoted this many times; some of you have read it. It’s the story of this busload of spirits who get an excursion out of hell into heaven, with a chance to stay if they will. One by one, all but one of them choose to go back, because they won’t let go of their sin. Lewis is not trying to teach anything about post mortem salvation; he’s really illustrating for us how our choices in life have consequences in the afterlife.
There’s one scene in particular that has always struck me. There’s a conversation between the narrator and his guide in heaven concerning this woman, a woman whose life was characterized by grumbling. Just grumbling; that was the sin. She grumbled a lot. She was a complainer.
Lewis says something about this that is very interesting. He says,
“It begins with a grumbling mood and yourself still distinct from it, perhaps criticizing it, and yourself in a dark hour may will that mood, may embrace. You can repent and come out of it again, but there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood, not even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever, like a machine.”
You will the sin, and your whole character begins to conform to the pattern of that sin that leads inevitably to a certain destiny. That’s what Lewis is saying. That’s what Proverbs is teaching.
Brothers and sisters, this is how spiritual ruin and judgment work. If you choose to serve your avarice or your lust or your pride or your jealousy or your hate or your envy—if you build your life on that instead of resisting it, instead of pushing back against it, instead of trying to kill it, instead of repenting from it, instead of mourning it, grieving it, fighting it—if you will it and embrace it, those sins will eventually consume you. That’s the banquet that leads to death! It’s when you choose the way of folly instead of the way of wisdom and righteousness.
This is so because you and I live in God’s world, and it is a world where God rules with justice and with righteousness. So let’s attend to the shaping of our character. Let’s push back and fight our sins, even our little sins.
(4) So God is revealed here as the creator, as the ruler, and as the judge. You might think, “Well, that doesn’t sound very encouraging, Pastor Brian. That sounds kind of scary to me. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this view of God.” Let me encourage you that there’s another portrait of God in Proverbs. He’s not only the creator, the ruler, and the judge, he’s also the refuge. This is language that you find especially in the Psalms, but it pops up in Proverbs a few times.
Proverbs 14:26: “Whoever fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for their children it will be a refuge.” What is a refuge? A refuge is a shelter from danger. It’s a shelter from the storm. A refuge is a place you flee into to find safety. Of course, if you know your New Testament you’ll know that the New Testament speaks of fleeing to Christ for refuge from the wrath to come.
Proverbs 18:10: “The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” Once again, here’s a picture of those who find refuge in God because they cherish the name of the Lord. The name of the Lord stands for his whole character, all that is revealed about God. The righteous find in the character of God refuge from danger, refuge from sin, refuge (I think we can say) from judgment itself.
As Brad mentioned in his prayer, the gospel reveals to us that God is just, but he’s also the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus. How is he able to do that? He’s able to do that because of the cross, because on the cross God did something amazing. God condemned the innocent so that he could justify the guilty. God imputed or reckoned or counted the sins of all of us as being Jesus’ so that he could count the righteous record of Jesus as being ours.
You see, Jesus sowed righteousness and he reaped death so that you and I, who have sown iniquity, can reap life! That’s how the tension is resolved. It’s resolved in Christ, Christ who is our refuge.
Proverbs 14:32: “When calamity comes, the wicked are brought down, but even in death the righteous seek refuge in God.”
One more, Proverbs 30:5: “Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”
I think there’s gospel here in Proverbs, gospel that reminds us that though God is our creator and even our judge, God is also our refuge if we will flee to him and take shelter in his grace and in his mercy. This is the Lord of wisdom, and it invites us to a certain kind of life, the life of wisdom.
3. The Life of Wisdom
Final point. Really quickly, three key aspects to living wisely. In some ways I think this summarizes everything Proverbs teaches us about how to live.
(1) Number one, fear the Lord. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” It all starts here, fear of the Lord. Proverbs 15:33: “Wisdom’s instruction is to fear the Lord, and humility comes before honor.” Proverbs 8:13: “To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance and evil behavior and perverse speech.”
The fear of the Lord is this awe and reverence before a holy God that trembles to sin against him, but it is not a dread of God that causes us to flee from him. This fear is also a delight in his awesome, majestic, holy character. I think that’s why Proverbs 19:23 says, “The fear of the Lord leads to life; then one rests content, untouched by trouble.”
So, fear the Lord. Take God seriously in all that is revealed about his character, and recognize that you as a creature live in the world that is created by Yahweh, the true and the living God. You’re accountable to him. He knows you, he tests you, he is your judge, he is your king. This God also loves you. He loves you with an everlasting love. He loves you so much that he sent his own Son to take the penalty for your sin, so that you can be forgiven and can live in the fear of the Lord.
Psalm 130 says, “Lord, if you should count iniquities, who can stand? But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared.” You can fear the Lord because he is a gracious and forgiving God. That’s first. The life of wisdom involves fearing the Lord.
(2) Number two, observe the order of the world. It’s God’s world, so it’s God’s order in the world. Calvin called the world a “theater of God’s glory.”
The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” And one of the things Proverbs is doing—and really all Hebrew literature is doing—is observing the world in order to gain insight into the character and the ways of God.
A couple of texts on this would be Proverbs 24:32-34 and Proverbs 22:3. I won’t read those, but if you read Proverbs you’ll just see that there’s this emphasis on observation, on noticing, on looking, observing the ants, observing the sluggard, observing the way the world works—paying attention to the world as God has made it. Proverbs calls us to develop wisdom through observation, observation of this fundamental, moral structure and order of the universe, and observation of God’s word.
(3) Then number three, the life of wisdom means choosing the way of life. This is what faith is. Faith is the choice of God’s way, the way of life over the way of death.
Proverbs 6:23: “For this command is a lamp, this teaching is a light, and correction and instruction are the way to life.”
Proverbs 8:34-36—again, this is Wisdom speaking, wisdom personified, who says,
“Blessed are those who listen to me,
watching daily at my doors,
waiting at my doorway.
For those who find me find life
and receive favor from the Lord.
But those who fail to find me harm themselves;
all who hate me love death.”
Fear the Lord, observe the order of the world, and choose the way of life. That’s the message of Proverbs.
The final question now is a wrapup to the whole series. I’ve already answered the question in part, but how does Proverbs testify to Christ? We’re a gospel-centered church, right? A Christ-centered church. We believe that Christ speaks to us through all of Scripture. Jesus himself said that all the Scriptures testify to him. I think what we see is this, that the Lord of wisdom (there’s the divine) and the life of wisdom (that’s the human) are perfectly integrated in the person and the work of Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom of God incarnate.
If you want to know the Lord of wisdom, you look to Jesus! Jesus was there at the creation of the world. He was the very agent through whom God created all things (Colossians 1, Hebrews 1). Jesus is the Lord who rules and who reigns; all authority in heaven and on earth is given to him. Jesus is the judge, the one who will judge the living and the dead, and Jesus is the refuge. He is the Lord of wisdom. All that is revealed of God in Proverbs is fulfilled in Jesus.
But Jesus is also the one who perfectly lived a life of wisdom. Jesus was marked by the fear of the Lord. Jesus observed and lived according to the order of this world; he showed us what perfect humanity looks like. And Jesus shows us the way to life.
I’ve learned a lot from a man named Grahame Goldsworthy, who wrote this wonderful little book called Gospel and Wisdom. Let me end with a quotation from him, and then Isaiah 11:1-5, a prophetic word about Jesus, the Messiah, characterized by wisdom.
Goldsworthy says,
“Christ expresses for us both the wisdom of God mediated to us as a gift and the wisdom of man in its perfect expression of a life totally in harmony with its creator. In bringing wisdom so totally within the ambit of salvation history in Christ, the New Testament does not lose sight of the Old Testament’s emphasis on wisdom, which turns more to creation than salvation. God reveals to us with all wisdom and understanding the mystery of his will, which is his plan to unite all things in Christ. The gospel, God’s wisdom, is the means by which God restores the order of all things.”
Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah who would do just that. Isaiah 11:1-5:
“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
[Now listen to this especially.] The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might [that’s all Proverbs language!],
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord.”
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” And it’s all ultimately fulfilled, personified, incarnated in Jesus Christ!
Verse 3:
“...and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
“He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.”
This is the Lord of wisdom, in Jesus Christ himself, the wisdom of God. So brothers and sisters, as we move on from Proverbs, let’s not move on from wisdom. Let’s grow in the fear of the Lord and choose the way of life as we walk with our God, the Lord Jesus, the Lord of wisdom. Let’s pray.
Gracious God, we thank you this morning for your grace, your mercy. We thank you that you are a just God and that you rule the world with truth and grace, with justice and with righteousness. While left to ourselves that would condemn us, we thank you that in the revelation of the gospel that you are both just and justifier of those who believe, and that we who are guilty can be acquitted of our sins by your mercy, that we who are wicked can be counted as righteous, we who were foolish can be made wise, that we who left to ourselves would make ourselves a banquet at the very gates of death are now invited to feast at a table of life.
Lord, as we come to the Lord’s table this morning, we come to that table of life, a table set for us by Jesus himself, a table that reminds us week after week of the high cost of our redemption and of the precious value you placed on your people, that Jesus would give his life for us. So Lord, this morning we pray that you would set our eyes on you, that you would be our vision, that you would be our wisdom, that you would be our righteousness, that you would help us to choose you, to treasure you above all other things. We ask you, Lord, to work in our hearts now that which is needful: repentance where repentance is needed, a fresh attentiveness to your voice speaking through your word, and a renewed fear of the Lord or reverence before your holy majesty. Lord, fill our hearts with gratitude and with love today. May we take refuge in Christ and in the promise that there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. We ask you, Lord, to draw near to us now in worship as we come to the table, and we pray that you would do this in Jesus’ name and for Jesus’ sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
